J.B. Hunt to Convert Fleet to Conventional Cabs

September 1, 1999 12:00 PM, EDT

J.B. Hunt Transport Services will spend more than $1 billion over five years to convert its fleet of 9,000 cabover truck tractors to conventional tractors, company officials said Aug. 26.

TT file photo
J.B. Hunt cabover tractor.

About three years after its celebrated 33% driver pay raise, the truckload company, based in Lowell, Ark., will take delivery in September of 800 Freightliner Century Class conventionals. The company has 3,000 more on order in an effort to attract drivers.

With the decisions by Wal-Mart Stores and Schneider National earlier this year to abandon the cabover and adopt conventional tractors, Hunt was the last major bastion of the cabover in the United States.

Since switching to conventionals, Schneider, the nation’s largest truckload company and a chief competitor of Hunt, has been touting the long-noses in its recruiting advertisements and, say industry analysts, using them as a way to distinguish the company from Hunt.

Cabovers have been on the wane in the United States since the mid-80s, when the federal designated highway system came into being. On those roads, which included the Interstates and many state routes, only the commercial vehicle’s trailer length is regulated, so one of the cabover’s advantages — being roughly 5 feet shorter than the conventional cab and, thus, allowing greater trailer length — was eliminated on those roads.

The cabover is also not a favorite of drivers, many of whom claim it is more dangerous because the driver sits so close to the point of collision in a crash.

For the full story, see the August 30 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.