Speaking to a meeting of trucking industry leaders in Arizona early this week, the acting FMCSA Administrator said her agency and trucking are in sync on top industry issues, including the need for more truck parking.
“There is so much we are working on together,” Robin Hutcheson said, citing the need for more truck parking, as well as steps the White House is taking to ease the industry’s shortage of drivers. She said the parking issue cannot be solved by one entity alone, but that FMCSA is working with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to identify every available funding source that states might utilize to expand truck parking at the state level.
Hutcheson also noted how the pandemic raised awareness among Americans of the importance of trucking to the nation.
“During the pandemic, a lot of people had the choice to Zoom their way through,” she said, “but truckers and the trucking industry did not have that option — they had to go into work.”
Hutcheson has been the acting administrator of FMCSA since Jan. 19 and her nomination to officially head the agency is now before the Senate Commerce Committee.
Every year, TAT (formerly called Truckers Against Trafficking) honors a member of the trucking, bus or energy industry, whose direct actions help save or improve the lives of those exploited or prevent human trafficking from taking place, with the Harriet Tubman Award
Bob Costello has indicated that the freight market has improved – but very slowly – since January. It must be said that ATA’s indices are dominated by contract freight as opposed to spot rates.
Now, however, with Republican control of both houses of Congress and the White House (and, some say, the Supreme Court) I am optimistic that trucking will get a fairer shake than it has during Biden’s term in office.