You have to do a lot of things right everyday to make money in the tight margin business of trucking. You only have to do one thing wrong to get sacked in the backfield and carried out on a stretcher. As the leader of a company that provides for your family as well as many others and their families, you need look above the day to day blocking and tackling and take the view of the defensive coordinator. Peer out at things that could break the game wide open for the other side.... Read More

Safety has always been a huge factor when it comes to determining how an insurance carrier will rate a trucking company. With the new CSA criteria, not only will motor carrier rates be based on additional safety criteria, but now individual driver's ratings and scores will also be considered. As companies and drivers alike prepare to adopt the guidelines, our industry is also preparing for a driver shortage. What can you expect the combined impact of the CSA mandate and a driver shortage to have on your business? What, if anything, should you do to prepare your business for the inevitable during 2011?... Read More

Company A had a load to be moved, but no power unit available, so it offered the load to Company B and a deal was struck. Company B's power unit hooked up to company A's trailer and headed off to the consignee. The unit was then involved in a serious accident, due to the negligence of Company B's driver, resulting in $1.7 million dollars in damages.... Read More

This post was written by Bill Kistner for Duff Swain and Trincon Group.

Extensive research by Michigan State University has shown that traditional hiring methods only provide a 14% likelihood of a successful hire. This means that more than eight out of ten times you will not get the right person for the job. That gives you, if you are lucky, two good drivers out of the ten you hired.... Read More

Preserving evidence in the event of an accident is crucial to minimizing one's liability exposure. This is Part 9 in a nine part series of related discussions. The full list of the parts to this series appears following this installment.

Part 9 - The Impact of Failure to Preserve Evidence... Read More

Preserving evidence in the event of an accident is crucial to minimizing one's liability exposure. This is Part 8 in a nine part series of related discussions. The full list of the parts to this series appears following this installment.

“Litigation Hold” is a commonly used term of art referring to the duty to preserve evidence when one has knowledge, actual or constructive, that such evidence is likely to be relevant to resulting litigation. The primary question is when such a duty is triggered. Once it is triggered, the issue then becomes the scope and timing of what action one should take, and what evidence one should preserve.... Read More

Preserving evidence in the event of an accident is crucial to minimizing one's liability exposure. This is Part 7 in a nine part series of related discussions. The full list of the parts to this series appears following this installment.

The development of technology has dramatically changed the world in which we live. Not that long ago, email and other electronic forms of communication, and information storage, were a novelty. Now, they are commonplace. In fact, it has been estimated that 95% of all information is now digital, and that more than 3.2 trillion emails are sent annually.... Read More

“You're just like cross-town traffic
So hard to get through to you
Cross-town traffic
I don't need to run over you
Cross-town traffic
All you do is slow me down
And I'm tryin' to get on the other side of town”

Jimi Hendrix... Read More

There are many different driving styles. There's the careful, defensive driver who looks ahead, analyzes the situation and plans a course designed to take them through heavy traffic unscathed. On the other extreme, there's the driver whose only thought is reaching his or her destination as fast as possible. Traffic is viewed as a hindrance, congestion as a challenge and speed limits become mere advisaries.... Read More