Article by DK Knight
Co-Publisher / Executive Editor
Transportation has apparently replaced logging capacity as the thorniest challenge in the wood fiber supply chain. It’s the most inefficient and underpaid component in the supply system, a pothole that seems to grow deeper and wider with each passing season.
Add it up: mounting regulations, thin margins, mechanical issues, a shortage of qualified, dependable drivers, long haul distances, rising insurance rates and fewer carriers, liability exposure, a litigious society, posted roads and bridges, road access permits, performance bonds, high operating costs, slow turn times at delivery points, and more.
Transportation was challenging enough before the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration came out with its Compliance-Safety-Accountability program in 2010. CSA was designed to boost accountability all around and make trucking safer, and it probably has done so. That’s the good part, and nobody can justifiably knock it. But regulations are forcing some older drivers to roadside at a time when there is an acute driver shortage. If a 66-year-old male can’t do the required knee bends and has an oversized neck, does this make him unfit to drive a truck?
Another rub is that state authorities who enforce federal rules at times are overzealous and/or misinformed or just don’t give a damn. Drivers of brand new trucks and trailers are cited for mechanical deficiencies while delivering their first load with such “new paint.” Minor infractions cause rigs to be put out of service for hours. In some cases, when an officer finds nothing amiss, he/she refuses to fill out and present a “clean sheet” to the driver. This is a disservice to the driver, and his employer, in that a positive inspection can offset a negative one as far as points go. If it is so quick to take, shouldn’t Government Almighty also be willing to give a little?
A driver’s record, moving violations and otherwise, of course influences insurance rates. I understand that in some states rates are on the rise and, more importantly, the number of carriers willing to insure log trucks is declining. One source intimate with the situation recently indicated that if something doesn’t change, he fears log truck insurance availability will be limited. That could mean drastically higher rates.
Regulations, low pay, high operating costs and driver scarcity have already led to a decrease in log hauling subcontractors, causing some logging businesses to take up the slack by again investing in trucks and trailers of their own.
This might not have been to their liking—a new tractor costs about $135,000—but it is helping the public image of log transport. Many small subcontracters, particularly in the South, tend to buy used over-the-road trucks not that well suited to the job. Many of these are heavy sleeper models that are camel-ugly, especially when coupled with a rusted, beat-up trailer, age 30 or more, often identified with a spray-paint number applied in freehand style. Some of these combinations are downright frightful. Let’s face it. Such rigs, many of which are inherently inefficient, are perceived to be haphazard and dangerous, even if they are not. They don’t enhance the industry’s image, and to an enforcement officer, they stand out like rat droppings in a sugar bowl.
Central to the trucking problem are rates that don’t adequately cover all costs, let alone provide for a decent profit. How many times have I heard loggers moan that they subsidize trucking with income from the harvesting side? Some log consumers might argue that lower fuel costs of the last several months should be enough to quiet complainers. Sure, lower fuel costs have helped, but they are not enough. (See paragraph two.)
In case wood consumers missed it, the trucking component has also been dealing with mechanical issues stemming from the low emissions Tier 4f engine mandated by EPA. Some manufacturers had lots of trouble with these engines. One frustrated owner recently told me that his business suffered downtime and considerable repair costs before losing at least a quarter million more dollars in selling a half dozen newer tractors and buying older units that he retrofitted with pre Tier 4f engines.
It’s true that legal truck weights allowed in the U.S. overall lag those of other forest-rich nations, but is more weight the answer? Perhaps it would help, but the industry is divided on how to go about it. And even if more weight were allowed, local governments could counteract with measures of their own.
While there are no easy solutions, astute business owners are taking steps to streamline transportation and plug cost drains. These steps include lower tare weight, installation of GPS systems and dash cameras, driver performance bonuses, use of longer life oil filters, and use of scales, among others. Increasingly, larger outfits are converting to dispatch systems and/or decoupling the trucking component from logging itself.
One of the most pragmatic steps the average logger can take to improve trucking, and to protect himself, is to install scales. Yet many continue to resist. When you drive by that highway billboard with the picture of a grinning “accident law” attorney, think about that country music song: “It’s Not What I Did, But What I Didn’t Do.”