Proposed Truck Regs Would Come at a Cost

(DC Velocity – Mitch MacDonald)

The recession may be receding into the rear view mirror, but that doesn’t mean the freight community’s worries are behind it. In fact, for at least one segment of the business, the worst may be yet to come. Just as the freight recovery gets under way, the nation’s truckers find themselves facing a host of new challenges that could put a serious crimp in their operations. And that’s a concern not just for the folks who run trucking companies, but for the folks who use their services as well.

The source of their worries? A legislative climate that carriers say is downright hostile to truckers. “There is a certain amount of anti-truck rhetoric in Washington today,” YRC Worldwide COO Michael Smid said at the NASSTRAC conference in April. The result has been a flurry of regulations and proposals aimed at making trucking operations safer, greener, and more labor friendly. Trouble is, the regulations would do more than just make truckers greener, safer, etc.; they would also drive up their costs – and by extension, the rates shippers pay. “There are at least five issues at play,” Mike Regan, president and CEO of the consultancy TranzAct Technologies, warned at the NASSTRAC conference. “If they swing the wrong way, your rates will go up.”

And these rate increases could be substantial. According to some of the conference speakers, any one of these initiatives alone could result in a rate hike of 2% to 4%. If they were all to hit at once in a so-called “perfect storm” scenario, freight rates could shoot up as much as 15 to 20%. Read more Read more here.