Intense peak season on tap, three top transportation executives say

Two driver-related regulations confronting truckers are the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s revised hours-of-service (HOS) rules that, barring a successful legal challenge, will go into effect September 29, and the agency’s proposal mandating the testing of hair follicle samples to determine possible substance abuse by drivers. 

Leathers said he supports the revised HOS rules because they will give drivers more flexibility in their workday without unfairly penalizing them or compromising highway safety. The panelists endorsed the hair follicle testing proposal as a strong safety measure because hair testing detects marijuana use further back in time than a urine sample. However, one of the proposal’s unintended consequences is that it might disqualify driver applicants who otherwise may have passed a urinalysis because of the relatively short amount of time that illegal substances remain in a human’s system before it gets passed as urine.

The three executives spoke highly of leading-edge technologies such as autonomous vehicles but emphasized that automation will never be a substitute for the skills of a qualified commercial driver.

None of the executives expect a return to normalcy until a COVID vaccine is developed, approved and widely distributed. Fuller said that certain parts of the trucker’s business will never return to the pre-COVID-19 days. For example, U.S. Xpress is exploring how many employees currently working from home have jobs that will allow them to stay at home permanently. Before the pandemic, no one at the Chattanooga, Tennessee-based carrier regularly worked from home, he said.

Ritter of XPO said the company’s customer relationships have been strengthened because the pandemic has fostered more collaboration and understanding of the shared sacrifices that everyone has made. XPO’s customer alliances are “deeper” than they were six months ago, he said.