Trucking prices set for new surge as US keeps tabs on drivers everyday
A US trucking shortage that has pushed up freight costs for everything from cereal to toothbrushes is about to get worse.
On Sunday, police countrywide began enforcing rules requiring most big rigs to use electronic logging devices to record driver hours.
While truckers have long been barred from driving more than 11 hours a day, the new ELDs prevent them from fudging their times on paper logs.
That means more trucks are likely to be parked when drivers hit their limits.
“You’re going to be at least tightening the screws a little bit on an already tight market place,” said Jason Seidl, an analyst at Cowen & Co. “If you’re a shipper, it’s not something that’s going to be perceived as friendly.”
The ELD rules add another choke point for freight prices, which are already pinching earnings at companies from Cheerios maker General Mills to retailer Ross Stores. A driver shortage, surging demand and rough weather already have pushed spot rates up 28 per cent this year through Mar 23 compared with a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Even longer-term contract rates, which are more stable than short-term spot prices, are expected to rise 12 per cent this year, according to consulting group FTR Transportation Intelligence. That would be the highest increase in more than a decade. Contract prices rose just 3.9 per cent last year.
The ELD rules divided big trucking companies and independent owner- operators. Most large trucking companies adopted ELDs years ago to ensure that they complied with limits on hours and to eliminate the hassle of driver paperwork.
But smaller and independent drivers resisted the change.
The American Trucking Associations supported the regulations, saying they made highways safer, while the OwnerOperator Independent Drivers Association railed against the requirement as another regulatory burden.
The ELD rules went into effect in December, two years after the final rules were published, though enforcement didn’t begin until Apr 1 for most trucks. The devices log driver hours, which have to be turned over to regulators and can be checked by authorities during routine inspections or traffic stops.
After 11 hours on the road, a driver must rest for 10 hours.
A no-frills gadget costs less than US$ 100 ( RM380), while ones that communicate wirelessly with a dispatcher incur airtime charges of about US$ 50 a month.
Roughly 70 per cent of truckers who have begun using ELDs said they earned less money and 65 per cent said they were forced to drive fewer miles, according to a February survey mostly of owner- operators by DAT, which matches truckers with customers.
Analysts have estimated that the regulations will reduce trucking capacity between two per cent and five per cent by making it harder for drivers to cheat and squeeze in extra miles to reach a destination.
The disruption even has spread to railroads, especially in drayage, the service of hauling seaborne shipping containers from ports to rail yards.
“Drivers making longer drays are now sometimes unable to complete those moves, and drivers making shorter drays are now sometimes unable to make as many trips per day as they could before ELD implementation,” said Amy Casas, a spokeswoman for the BNSF Railway unit of Berkshire Hathaway.
Independent owner- operator Paul Sansoucy, 75, said he had planned to drive for another three years but sold his refrigerated truck in September. The ELD requirement is less about safety than large companies trying to squash competition, argued Sansoucy, who said he was accident-free in five decades behind the wheel.
“I don’t need anybody from Washington telling me when I need to rest, when I need to pick up, when I need to drive, when I need to stop,” he said. “That just doesn’t work for this cowboy.” — WP-Bloomberg