FREE DOT Compliance Training Seminar

Highway Bill Would Force Executive At New Trucking Firms to Take Exam

Anyone starting up a new trucking company would be required to take a written proficiency exam on safety regulation under the transportation reauthorization bill recently passed by the Senate.

The measure calls for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to create a test within 18 months of the legislation’s approval.

“The written proficiency exam shall test a person’s knowledge of applicable safety regulations, standards and orders of the federal government and state government,” the legislation stated.

Passed by the Senate on March 14, the two-year, $109 billion reauthorization bill awaits action by the House.

American Trucking Associations has been advocating for federal testing of new entrants for years, said Rob Abbott, ATA’s vice president for safety operations.

“The intent is to ensure that before operating, new entrants understand their compliance responsibilities and are otherwise safe carriers,” said Abbott.

The person required to take the test would be the “chief executive who signs the application for DOT operating authority,” Abbott said.

“We know the new entrants have higher crash rates than folks who have been in business for five, 10 years,” he said.

If the reauthorization bill becomes law, an owner-operator would have to take two tests: one to obtain a commercial drivers license and the proposed test to obtain a DOT number, Abbott said.

Norita Taylor, spokeswoman for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said the group has not actively promoted the testing provision.

“However, we do support greater scrutiny of those entering the business to make sure they know how to operate a truck safely,” Taylor said.

The Senate bill also would require that FMCSA do the safety review required for new trucking firms within 12 months of the time the carrier begins operating.

As it is, the law requires that the safety review be conducted within 18 months of the carrier’s beginning operations.

ATA has advocated that FMCSA conduct the reviews — or safety audits, as they are known — sooner than currently required. ATA wants the audits done within six months, Abbott said.

At present, on average, FMCSA gets the audits done within nine months, he said — meaning that a 12-month provision would not result in much change, he added.

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Highway Fatalities to Reach Record Low

There were an estimated 32,310 motor vehicle traffic
fatalities in 2011 versus 32,885 fatalities that occurred
in 2010, which is a decline of about 1.7%.

The number of highway deaths in the U.S. is on track to be at its lowest on record, according to The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s early estimate of 2011 traffic fatalities.

A statistical projection of traffic fatalities in 2011 shows that an estimated 32,310 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes. This is a decline of about 1.7% compared to the 32,885 fatalities that occurred in 2010. If these projections are realized, fatalities will be lowest on record (since 1949).

Also, in 2011, fatalities declined marginally in the first (down 0.1%) and fourth (down 0.7%) quarters and declined in the second (down 3.2%) and third quarters (down 2.5%), as compared to the respective quarters in 2010. Traffic fatalities have been steadily declining during the past 5
years since reaching a near-term peak in 2005, decreasing by about 26% from 2005 to 2011.

Preliminary data reported by the Federal Highway Administration shows that vehicle miles traveled in 2011 decreased by about 35.7 billion miles, or about a 1.2% decrease. On a quarterly
basis, the 2011 VMT dropped in all four quarters, decreasing by 0.1% during the first quarter, by 1.8% in the second quarter, by 2% in the third quarter and by 0.7% in the fourth quarter.

The fatality rate for 2011 is projected to decline to the lowest on record, to 1.09 fatalities per 100 million VMT, down from 1.11 fatalities per 100 million VMT in 2010.

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The 4th Annual HTAA Healthy Trucking Summit will be the Trucking Industry’s Premier Health and Wellness Event of 2012

ATLANTA, GA – The Healthy Trucking Association of America (HTAA) is proud to announce the details of the 2012 HTAA Healthy Trucking Summit in Atlanta, Georgia. The HTAA Healthy Trucking Summit is the trucking industry’s most important annual health and wellness event and the number one source of education and resources aimed at improving the health of our nation’s professional driver population. Each year the HTAA invites trucking industry leaders, including Safety Directors, Human Resources Directors, Recruitment & Retention Managers, other trucking fleet and organization executives, and all stakeholders with an interest in improved driver health to attend the Summit to network and receive information and resources to help drivers get healthy and live longer lives.

The 2012 HTAA Healthy Trucking Summit will be held April 24th – 26th at the world famous Omni Hotel at CNN Center, located at Centennial Olympic Park, in Atlanta, Georgia. The 2012 event will support the theme “Raising Awareness to TAKING ACTION,” and will feature an all-star cast of speakers providing presentations on Obesity & Weight Loss, Sleep Disorders, Hypertension & Heart Health, Respiratory Health, and Diabetes to name a few. The HTAA will also be kicking off the official industry-wide promotion of the DRIVE4COPD – the HTAA has teamed with the COPD Foundation to spearhead this landmark health initiative designed to help people take action and determine if they may be suffering from or at risk for the third leading cause of death in the United States.

Trucking Industry leaders and stakeholders interested in attending the 2012 Healthy Trucking Summit can visit the HTAA website at www.HealthyTruck.org and then click on the 2012 HTAA Healthy Trucking Summit button for more information or contact Nikki Pinson at nikkip@healthytruck.org or (800) 800-1198. Companies interested in exhibiting at 2012 HTAA Healthy Trucking Summit can download an Exhibitor Prospectus at www.HealthyTruckingSummit2012.com

About the Healthy Trucking Association of America (HTAA):
The Healthy Trucking Association of America is the health and wellness authority of the trucking industry. The HTAA was the first nationwide organization ever formed for the purpose of addressing the lack of good health among the nation’s professional driver population and no other organization or group has done more on a nationwide scale to help drivers get healthy and live longer lives. HTAA offers programs to raise awareness and help improve the health of professional drivers and is the originator and ongoing host of the trucking industry’s first and single most important annual health and wellness conference, the HTAA Healthy Trucking Summit. www.healthytruck.org

About DRIVE4COPD
DRIVE4COPD is the nation’s single largest awareness campaign for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Launched in February 2010, this landmark public health initiative is working to help people recognize the signs and symptoms of COPD and take action to see if they may be at risk. www.drive4copd.com

The FMSCA Audit

The FMSCA Audit, Correctly known as the “Compliance Review”

A Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) compliance review involves the examination of “factors” to determine your compliance with the regulations. The key is documentation. You may do all the required steps to comply with the regulations, but if it is not documented, it will appear that you are not. The six factors are:

• Factor 1 — General
• Factor 2 —  Driver
• Factor 3 — Operational
• Factor 4 — Vehicle
• Factor 5 — Hazardous materials
• Factor 6 — Accidents

If the auditor discovers violations during the compliance review, he/she will decide (based on regulatory guidance) if the violations are acute, critical, or “other.”

• Acute violations are violations severe enough that the presence of a single violation requires immediate corrective action by the auditor and the carrier.
• Critical violations are proof of a pattern of poor safety management controls. Critical violations will not affect the compliance review rating until they reach a level of ten percent non-compliance.
• Other violations are violations that are found that are neither acute nor critical. They will have no affect on the compliance review rating. However, you can be fined for all violations found during the compliance review.

Factor 1

Factor 1 will review your compliance with the financial responsibility, accident register, and false documents and statements regulations. The auditor will first need to see your proof of insurance in the form of either a MCS-90 (endorsement for motor carrier policies of insurance for public liability), MCS-82 (motor carrier surety bond for public liability), or proof of a self-insurance decision from the FMCSA.

The auditor will then ask to see your accident register. The accident register must contain information on all accidents involving death, injury, or vehicles being towed from the scene due to disabling damage. Your register must contain all FMCSA accidents you (or any of your trucks) were involved in during the previous three years. Fault or preventability has no bearing on the accident register. It must contain all accidents meeting the FMCSA definition of an accident.

The auditor will have a copy of your “profile,” which will contain (among other things) all FMCSA defined accidents you have been involved in during the previous 30 months.

During the entire compliance review the auditor will be verifying all statements and documents you provide. This is due to the regulatory requirement that you be truthful with all statements and documents.

The acute violations in Factor 1 are not meeting the minimum insurance levels and providing false documents or statements to the auditor. The critical violations in Factor 1 are failure to have proof of insurance available at the primary place of business and failing to maintain copies of all accident reports as required.

Factor 2

Factor 2 reviews your compliance with the driver regulations. Owner operators are required to fulfill the requirements of both owner, and driver, when those terms are used anywhere in the regulations.

The auditor will review your drug and alcohol program. This portion of the review will include checking for a written policy (even if you are the only employee), a pre-hire drug testing program, not allowing a driver to drive until the carrier has verified negative results for pre-hire tests, post accident drug and alcohol testing, a reasonable suspicion drug and alcohol testing program, a supervisory training program, and a random drug and alcohol testing program. In the case of owner operators with only one truck and driver, the driver will need to be placed into a “consortium.” A consortium is a “random pool” made up of drivers from companies who are members of the consortium.

The auditor will also want to see that the carrier (you) immediately removed from safety sensitive functions any driver that failed a test, refused a test, or participated in prohibited activity.

As part of the review of Factor 2 material the auditor will also review your driver qualifications. Remember, the auditor will be verifying that the “carrier” and the “drivers” are compliant with the regulations, even if the carrier and the driver are the same person.

The auditor will be checking to see that each driver has completed the entry-level driver training (if required), taken a road test (or has the equivalent on file), one driver’s license issued by their home state with the correct classes and endorsements, had their driving record checked when hired and a minimum of once a year thereafter, and reported all traffic convictions, suspensions, revocations, or disqualifications.

The auditor will also check that the carrier did not use drivers with suspended licenses, did not use drivers that have not passed (or cannot pass) a FMCSA physical, is using an employment application that “asks the right questions,” is doing background and safety performance history investigations on new drivers, and is maintaining a qualification file that documents all the activities listed above.

Critical violations in Factor 2 include using a driver before receiving negative pre-employment drug test results, failure to conduct post accident drug and alcohol testing or to meet the required percentages, using a driver who has engaged in prohibited drug and alcohol activities, not adhering to follow-up testing schedule for a driver in a return-to-work program, allowing a driver to operate a commercial vehicle without the correct license, using a driver not medically examined and certified, failure to maintain a driver qualification file on drivers, and failure to maintain proof of qualification in driver qualification file.

Acute violations in Factor 2 are most drug and alcohol violations, using a driver who does not have a valid or proper CDL due to a suspension, revocation, or disqualification, using a driver that has multiple CDLs, and using a driver who is physically or otherwise disqualified.

Factor 3

During the review of Factor 3, the auditor will examine your compliance with the rules of safe operation and the hours-of-service regulations. The auditor will be looking for incidents of operating unsafe equipment, driving when ill, fatigued, or under the influence, operating illegally to comply with scheduling, driving when cargo is not secured and properly distributed, and drivers not submitting required logs, operating over the hour-of-service limitations, or submitting false logs.

During this portion of the review you will need to provide the auditor with “supporting documents” to compare to the drivers’ logs to locate false logs. Supporting documents are any documents kept in the course of business that can prove or disprove the accuracy of drivers’ logs. When this factor is scored, violations involving hours of service will “count double.” Acute violations in Factor 3 are allowing a driver to operate while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The critical violations are violations of any of the other regulations covered in this factor.

Factor 4

Factor 4 reviews the maintenance of vehicle or vehicles. You must have a program that “systematically” inspects, maintains, and repairs all commercial vehicles under your control. Repairing out-of-service vehicles before operation, operating only vehicles that have had their periodic (annual) inspection, completion of driver vehicle inspection reports, and repairs of driver-reported defects are all audit points in Factor 4. A maintenance file for each vehicle is what the auditor will want to see to prove compliance with these regulations.

Also taken into consideration in Factor 4 is the total number of roadside inspections and inspections that recorded a vehicle out-of-service violation. If the vehicles were placed out of service in 34 percent or more of the inspections, the score in Factor 4 will be affected. Acute violations in Factor 4 are allowing out-of-service or unsafe vehicles to be operated. Recordkeeping violations and failure to comply with the annual inspection requirements make up the critical violations in Factor 4.

Factor 5

Factor 5 only applies to hazardous material carriers. Because of its complexity, this factor will only be covered briefly. If you handle or transport hazardous materials you will want to investigate this area further. The auditor will check that you have a security plan, you are following it, and employees have been trained on it, you do not violate the explosive or radioactive transportation rules, any incident involving hazardous materials is reported immediately, written reports are filed in a timely fashion for any incident, all hazardous materials employees are trained, and retrained every three years, you do not haul improperly marked or placarded shipments of hazardous materials, you do not accept damaged or leaking containers of hazardous materials, and cargo tank inspections and recordkeeping are current.

Factor 6

The review of Factor 6 simply checks your accident performance. The auditor will take the number of FMCSA defined accidents you were involved in during the previous 12 months and determine your accident rate per million miles. This is only done if the carrier has had two or more accidents in the previous 12 months.

Scoring the factors

To score Factors 1 to 5, every time the auditor finds an acute violation, he/she will score one point in that factor. If the auditor finds a critical violation with over 10 percent noncompliance, he/she will score one point in that factor. If the score is zero points in a factor your score for that factor is “satisfactory.” One point is “conditional,” and two or more points in a factor is considered “unsatisfactory.” Factor 6 (accidents) is simply scored as “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory” based on the accidents per million miles. If the accident rate is below 1.5 accidents per million miles, the factor is scored as “satisfactory.”

Scoring the review

One unsatisfactory factor, combined with two or more conditional factors, results in a review score of unsatisfactory. Two unsatisfactory factors will also result in an unsatisfactory score for the review. If the carrier is rated as “unsatisfactory” by the auditor, the carrier has 60 days to put forth a “good faith effort to comply” and get FMCSA approval to continuing operating.

New entrants are different

If the review is being done as a “new entrant safety audit,” the auditing and the scoring are slightly different. The audit will include the same six factors, but will not be as in depth as a compliance review. Each acute violation is assigned a value of 1.5, and each violation of a critical regulation will lead to the assignment of one point. Any factor that has 3 or more points assigned to it, the carrier will be viewed as “not having adequate safety controls” in that factor. If three factors are found to be over three points, the carrier will need to provide corrective action immediately or risk the revocation of their registration.

*Copyright and used by permission of J. J. Keller.

Maintenance Software Helps Win Better Contracts

Burlington, N.J. — By John Davis, Fleet Management Consultant Arsenault Associates.

A fleet operator should closely track maintenance costs whether the trucks are owned or leased, even if maintenance is covered by a full service lease. It can help in negotiating a better deal.

Fleet owners say, “here are my costs”. Fleet lessors say, “here is my rate”.

That observation from the leasing business may not be true in every instance. But it’s true often enough, and leasing professionals know exactly what it means. Costs and rates are two very different things. If you don’t know the first, you’ll probably pay too much for the second.

That’s why smart lessees track vehicle costs closely, even when a full-service lease covers maintenance. Using maintenance software, they can see fleet trends, costs and areas of exposure. They know which trucks and components perform better than others. They can spot problem drivers who abuse equipment and drive up costs.

If the fleets perform maintenance themselves, the first-hand knowledge they gain enables them to reduce breakdowns and shift costs from emergency repairs to far more efficient preventive maintenance. In a full-service lease, the same information enables the fleet operator to curb the costs of leasing company charge-backs — bills for work over and above regular maintenance as spelled out in the lease agreement.

Leased fleet operators who use maintenance software have a better understanding of their equipment’s utilization, frequency of repairs, fuel efficiencies, and areas of exposed risk and expense. For example, they can easily see how driver complaints and issues turned in on daily vehicle condition reports are handled and compare them with work actually done.

Documentation helps the leased fleet operator hold the lessor’s feet to the fire if it is discovered that excessive lost or late loads are being caused by equipment downtime due to substandard maintenance or a lack of substitute equipment as may be called for in the lease agreement.

Of course, where liability and DOT compliance is at issue the lessee is ultimately responsible for the safe operation and condition of the fleet. Fleet maintenance software helps pre-empt possible accident losses due to substandard maintenance.

And when a lease contract expires, the fleet has the detailed knowledge needed to negotiate a new and better lease agreement more to their advantage. They’re able to analyze competing full service lease proposals and compare them with the cost of doing the work in-house. Knowing real fleet costs in granular fashion puts them in the driver’s seat, so to speak. It’s much more difficult to make good decisions when you only have big round numbers commonly used in leasing negotiations.

Nevertheless, I am surprised at how many private fleet managers simply do not know their costs or equipment’s operating data.

For example, I served on a fleet maintenance discussion panel at the IFDA conference in October. One question after another from the floor dealt with costs. Participants peppered leasing representatives on the panel with questions like how far will a clutch go, how much can we get out of a transmission?

The leasing panelists said that the answers depended on the driver and other operating circumstances. It wasn’t something a panelist could reasonably say – or would want to guess — in the abstract. Those responses were true enough, but they were unsatisfying at best.

Of course, if fleet operators were tracking their costs, they would already have the answers, and those answers would be specific, revealing, and often intelligent indicators of action that should be taken

Why don’t more leased fleet operators use maintenance software?

Often, they simply don’t understand the need. In some cases, the leasing company doesn’t want to provide the necessary information – detailed maintenance and repair bills, for example. In others, the leasing company doesn’t have the information to provide. In either instance, the fleet might want to consider leasing from someone else.

But for most leased fleets the necessary data arrives regularly. It’s in the leasing company bills that outline work performed and on which units. Those bills specify parts replaced, labor charges, and more. Many fleet operators simply sign the invoices and forward them for payment. They should be entering the information they contain into a maintenance program.

Depending on the leasing company, those invoices can be submitted in digital form. In that case the data can be imported electronically to eliminate data entry, depending on the maintenance program being used. If that isn’t possible, because the information is important to the lessee, the information should be keyed in manually.

In every case, the information should be retained and analyzed by the fleet lessee. In the short term it will provide insight into ongoing equipment and driver performance. Long term it will be available for comparing the costs and terms of one lease with another or with other maintenance options.

A fleet is much more likely to get competitive leasing rates if it knows its real costs.

John Davis is a Fleet Management Consultant with Arsenault Associates makers of Dossier fleet maintenance solutions.

About Arsenault Associates
Arsenault supports green, fuel-efficient fleets and equipment. Its Dossier software serves a growing customer base of more than 4,000 fleets that operate over 600,000 pieces of equipment. Customers include large Fortune 100 corporate fleets, as well as mid and small size fleets in a wide variety of industries like trucking, concrete, construction, food, beverage, education, marine, government agencies, and more. Dossier manages a variety of vehicles including tractors, trailers, trucks, buses, and autos, plus construction and material handling equipment. Arsenault has provided maintenance management expertise to fleets of all sizes since 1979.
For more information, visit www.arsenault.com.

Charles J. Arsenault, CEO and Founder, Arsenault Associates the producers of Dossier Fleet Maintenance Management Software
Mr. Arsenault founded Arsenault Associates in 1979. With 48 years of fleet operations experience, he is an acknowledged pioneer and authority in the field of fleet maintenance management software technology, and is regularly referenced and quoted in national industry trade journals and magazines.  His innovations are used by over 4,000 commercial vehicle fleets in the private and public sectors throughout North America that operate over 600,000 pieces of equipment, including small fleet dependent companies to Fortune 100 firms.

DOT Compliance Review Seminar

NORTHEAST FLORIDA SAFETY COUNCIL INVITES YOU TO ATTEND
A DOT COMPLIANCE REVIEW SEMINAR

WHAT: 6-hour DOT Compliance Review Seminar

WHEN: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

WHERE: Northeast Florida Safety Council, Inc.
1725 Art Museum Drive, Jacksonville, Florida, 32207.

FACILITATOR: Mr. Larry Schenck, Owner

TRANS S.C.A.T. Services
Valdosta, Georgia

REGISTRATION FEES:

   • $85.00 for current members of the Northeast Florida Safety Council, Florida Trucking
     Association, & Florida Association of Safety Councils. (Proof of current membership
     is requested)

   • $100.00 for non-members.

TO REGISTER: Complete the attached Registration Form and submit with check payable to NEFSC in the appropriate amount of payment and mail to:  Northeast Florida Safety Council, 1725 Art Museum Drive, Jacksonville, FL 32207, ATTN: OSH DEPT.  To pay by credit card, please fax completed registration form to 904-399-8001 ATTN: OSH DEPT or email to osh-registration@nefsc.org; or call 904-399-3119 (toll free 888-399-1233), ext. 124.

OVERVIEW: The “Compliance Review” is an on-site review by a DOT federal safety investigator to determine a motor carrier’s safety fitness. The compliance review is composed of five or six “factors”, depending on whether the company hauls hazardous materials. (NOTE: Hazardous materials will not be addressed in this seminar).

U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s CSA (Compliance, Safety, Accountability) 2010 changed the system to include “Off” site focused and “On” site focused reviews, so that an investigator did not have to review all five or six factors, but only those that have an “alert” from elevated “over the road” scores (BASIC).

The purpose of this seminar will be to train trucking and bus company personnel regarding:

• Preparation for compliance review;
• Areas that will be audited;
• Questions that are often asked by auditors;
• Paperwork that will be reviewed;
• DOT’s “safety fitness” procedures and rating system;
• Safe Stat computer-tracking program;
• Audit procedures and penalties;
• Post compliance review deficiency resolution; and
• How to improve the company’s current DOT safety rating.

The seminar will go through the Compliance Review safety rating process, pertinent regulations, the “critical” and “acute” violations in each factor, plus best practices to keep a company in compliance. The seminar will be didactic and interactive, following a factor-by-factor power point presentation.

Consequences (reduced safety ratings, fines, loss of operating authority, potential loss of federal government contracts, loss of freight, higher insurance costs as well as increased liability) will also be addressed, as well as a review of how to get a “satisfactory” rating back.

PRESENTATION TOPICS:

Driver Qualification
   • File requirements
   • Employment verification
   • Drug & alcohol verification

Driver Duty Status
   • Management controls
   • Form and manner
   • Maximum driving time
   • Falsification

Vehicle Maintenance
   • Management controls
   • Inspector qualifications
   • Annual inspections
   • Preventive maintenance & documentation
   • Drive Vehicle Inspection Report
   • Equipment Files

Accidents
   • Register
   • Required documentation
   • Recordable accidents/miles driven

Controlled substances/alcohol use and testing
   • Requirements
       i. Types of tests
       ii. Random testing percentages
       iii. Handling of results, record retention, and confidentiality
       iv. Reasonable Suspicion Supervisor Training
       v. D & A Program – receipt
       vi. Consequences for drivers engaging in substance use/alcohol misuse conduct

Safety Rating Process
   • Factor Ratings
   • List of “acute” & “critical” regulations
   • Penalties

Review of CSA 2010
   • Impact on companies and drivers
   • How the BASIC scores could lead to “interventions” (including a compliance review)

Safe Stat
   • Website
   • MCS 150
   • Data Qs

Post compliance review process

How to improve current DOT safety rating

Benton and Parker Insurance Services will provide each participant with a copy of the Supervisor’s version of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.  Each participant will also receive a copy of the power point presentation as a handout.

CONTACT US: Need additional information about this or other programs offered by the Northeast Florida Safety Council?  Please contact us at 904-399-3119 (toll free at 888-399-1233) or email to nefsc@nefsc.org.  Visit our website at www.nefsc.org or follow us on Facebook.

Why Sitting for Long Hours may be Killing You

It can be as simple as standing more,” Katzmarzyk says. For instance, a “standing” worker—say, a sales clerk at a Banana Republic store—burns about 1,500 calories while on the job; a person behind a desk might expend roughly 1,000 calories. That goes a long way in explaining why people gain 16 pounds, on average, within 8 months of starting sedentary office work, according to a study from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Work your entire body in 15 minutes with these three moves for fast muscle. Why sitting too much is never a good thing

But calories aren’t the only problem. In 2009, Katzmarzyk studied the lifestyle habits of more than 17,000 men and women and found that the people who sat for almost the entire day were 54 percent more likely to end up clutching their chests than those who sat for almost none of the time. That’s no surprise, of course, except that it didn’t matter how much the sitters weighed or how often they exercised. “The evidence that sitting is associated with heart disease is very strong,” says Katzmarzyk. “We see it in people who smoke and people who don’t. We see it in people who are regular exercisers and those who aren’t. Sitting is an independent risk factor.”

This isn’t actually a new discovery. In a British study published in 1953, scientists examined two groups of workers: bus drivers and trolley conductors. At first glance, the two occupations appeared to be pretty similar. But while the bus drivers were more likely to sit down for their entire day, the trolley conductors were running up and down the stairs and aisles of the double-decker trolleys. As it turned out, the bus drivers were nearly twice as likely to die of heart disease as the conductors were.

A more recent interpretation of that study, published in 2004, found that none of the participants ever exercised. But the two groups did sit for different amounts of time. The analysis revealed that even after the scientists accounted for differences in waist size—an indicator of belly fat—the bus drivers were still more likely to die before the conductors did. So the bus drivers were at higher risk not simply because their sedentary jobs made them resemble Ralph Kramden, but also because all that sitting truly was making them unhealthy.

Hamilton came to call this area of science “inactivity physiology” while he was conducting studies to determine how exercise affects an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase (LPL). Found in humans as well as mice, LPL’s main responsibility is to break down fat in the bloodstream to use as energy. If a mouse (or a man) doesn’t have this enzyme, or if the enzyme doesn’t work in their leg muscles, the fat is stored instead of burned as fuel.

Hamilton discovered that when the rodents were forced to lie down for most of their waking hours, LPL activity in their leg muscles plummeted. But when they simply stood around most of the time, the gene was 10 times more active. That’s when he added an exercise session to the lab-rat routine and found that exercise had no effect on LPL. He believes the finding also applies to people.

“Humans sit too much, so you have to treat the problem specifically,” says Hamilton. “The cure for too much sitting isn’t more exercise. Exercise is good, of course, but the average person could never do enough to counteract the effect of hours and hours of chair time.”

If you’re chair-bound, perform these seven easy office stretches every 20 minutes. “We know there’s a gene in the body that causes heart disease, but it doesn’t respond to exercise no matter how often or how hard you work out,” he says. “And yet the activity of the gene becomes worse from sitting—or rather, the complete and utter lack of contractile activity in your muscles. So the more nonexercise activity you do, the more total time you spend on your feet and out of your chair. That’s the real cure.” “Your body adapts to what you do most often,” says Bill Hartman, P.T., C.S.C.S., a Men’s Health advisor and physical therapist in Indianapolis, Indiana. “So if you sit in a chair all day, you’ll essentially become better adapted to sitting in a chair.” The trouble is, that makes you less adept at standing, walking, running, and jumping, all of which a truly healthy human should be able to do with proficiency. “Older folks have a harder time moving around than younger people do,” says Hartman. “That’s not simply because of age; it’s because what you do consistently from day to day manifests itself over time, for both good and bad.”

Do you sit all day at a desk? You’re courting muscle stiffness, poor balance and mobility, and lower-back, neck, and hip pain. But to understand why, you’ll need a quick primer on fascia, a tough connective tissue that covers all your muscles. While fascia is pliable, it tends to “set” in the position your muscles are in most often. So if you sit most of the time, your fascia adapts to that specific position.

Now think about where your hips and thighs are in relation to your torso while you’re sitting. They’re bent, which causes the muscles on the front of your thighs, known as hip flexors, to contract slightly, or shorten. The more you sit, the more the fascia will keep your hip flexors shortened. “If you’ve ever seen a guy walk with a forward lean, it’s often because of shortened hip flexors,” says Hartman. “The muscles don’t stretch as they naturally should. As a result, he’s not walking tall and straight because his fascia has adapted more to sitting than standing.”

This same effect can be seen in other areas of your body. For instance, if you spend a lot of time with your shoulders and upper back slumped over a keyboard, this eventually becomes your normal posture. “That’s not just an issue in terms of how you look; it frequently leads to chronic neck and shoulder pain,” says Hartman. Also, people who frequently cross their legs a certain way can experience hip imbalances. “This makes your entire lower body less stable, which decreases your agility and athletic performance and increases your risk for injuries,” Hartman says. Add all this up, and a person who sits a lot is less efficient not only at exercising, but also at simply moving from, say, the couch to the refrigerator.

There’s yet another problem with all that sitting. “If you spend too much time in a chair, your glute muscles will actually ‘forget’ how to fire,” says Hartman. This phenomenon is aptly nicknamed “gluteal amnesia.” A basic-anatomy reminder:
Your glutes, or butt muscles, are your body’s largest muscle group. So if they aren’t functioning properly, you won’t be able to squat or dead lift as much weight, and you won’t burn as much fat. After all, muscles burn calories. And that makes your glutes a powerful furnace for fat—a furnace that’s probably been switched off if you spend most of the day on your duff.

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America’s Crumbling Infrastructure

Projects like the interstate highway system helped make the United States a global power, allowing freight and people to move about the country. Our airports are equally important domestically as well as our link to the world. Not to mention the whole specter of safety highlighted by falling bridges and urban sinkholes. The American Society of Civil Engineers says that repairing the nation’s bridges, alone, would cost at least $9.4 billion per year for the next 20 years. Another estimate by the ASCE puts the cost of bringing the entire US infrastructure up to an “adequate” level at $1.6 trillion. With billions spent on the Iraqi war, trillions more needed to bail out social security—and billions and billions more proposed for education and national healthcare, you get the picture. Former Commerce Secretary Norm Mineta, Bill Marcuson, president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, MN State Rep Phyllis Kahn, and other experts highlight some of the issues and proposed solutions: higher gasoline taxes, more toll roads, and public-private partnerships. Have a read, have a think. Good ideas desperately needed—this rig is running in reverse.

American commerce relies on roads, says someone who should know – Norman Mineta, former secretary of the commerce and transportation departments. So why he is worried?

Says Mineta, transportation is a policy issue that citizens take for granted until it’s denied to them. “Everything you need – what you eat, what you wear – got there through some form of transportation, but few people care unless they’re affected by it.”

However, even when they are affected by it – by broken levees in New Orleans or exploding steam pipes in New York – Mineta says most Americans would rather avoid the issue.

Referring to a poll about Americans’ opinions of an increase in the gasoline tax, taken in the wake of Minnesota’s Interstate 35 bridge collapse, Mineta says he was startled to learn that a majority of Americans opposed a five-cent increase in the federal tax that help fund road projects. “You would think that the tragedy would jar people into a realization that we need to be doing something about it, but it’s one of those issues that you need a constant beating of the drum,” he says.

Time to sound the alarm.
Mineta says he tried drawing attention to America’s crumbling roads while in office, but few people, including President George W. Bush, grasped the issue. “In my five and half years as secretary of transportation, I wanted to get one word in the State of the Union and it never happened,” says a disappointed Mineta.

To fund the Highway Trust Fund, which is expected to have a nearly $5 billion deficit in fiscal year 2009, Mineta says he suggested a 6-cent increase to the gasoline tax over five years to a transportation reauthorization bill, but Bush rejected it. “He pulled out his black Sharpie and said, ‘No, I don’t want a tax increase,’” Mineta recalls. “When I went back, I had no tax increase, but I had a [consumer price index] inflator for the fifth year of the bill and he said, ‘No, Norm, that’s a tax increase.’”

Says Mineta, “Later on, I remember when gasoline hit $3.50 a gallon and the President said, ‘Norm, aren’t you happy about not putting that tax increase in place?” Years later, Mineta is definitely not happy.

“China is sucking up all of the world’s cement and steel and there’s so much going on in the other BRIC [Brazil, Russia, India, China] countries while we, in this country, have an 18.4-cent gasoline tax that hasn’t changed since 1993,” says Mineta, who resigned from the Bush Administration in July 2006 and now works for Hill & Knowlton, a global public relations firm. “The current gas tax isn’t going to sustain the highway trust fund and, as we move to hybrid and more fuel-efficient cars, there’s got to be another basis for funding infrastructure in the future.”

The problem, says Mineta, isn’t just roads and bridges – it’s sewage treatment plants, airport, and other costly projects. “When the steam pipe explosion occurred in New York City, it was aging infrastructure, but there are parts of New York that still use wooden flumes to carry water. It’s amazing. We still have wooden flumes from the 1890’s carrying our water!”

Still safe but needs work
Administration officials agree with projections for the highway fund’s shortfall, but seem far less anxious than Mineta.

“The cost of concrete and steel is going up and China and other countries are driving up demand,” says Doug Hecox, a spokesman for the Federal Highway Administration. “As a result, the price per mile [to maintain roads] has gone up as a result.”

Hecox says he’s looking forward to the report of a group created by President Bush to examine transportation issues. “The president’s commission is coming out with recommendations later this year and, from a policy perspective, this is one of the most exciting times for infrastructure issues because we don’t know what comes next. It’s very exciting and very nerve-wracking for the States,” he says.

Regarding any increases in the gasoline tax, Hecox says that such a move could have little effect on increasing revenue. As the price of fuel rises, he says, some drivers may drive less, thereby nullifying a tax increase. In fact, he says, an increase could even lead to less tax revenue.

Hecox’s optimistic views were recently echoed on Capitol Hill, where Mineta’s successor, Mary Peters told one Senate committee that, “The answer is not to spend more, it is to spend more wisely.”

Testifying before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Peters said, “While we can and must do more to improve the quality of our nation’s infrastructure, it would be both irresponsible and inaccurate to say that the nation’s transportation system is anything but safe.”

Not surprisingly, Peters opposes a proposal by Democratic Rep. Jim Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, to raise the federal gasoline tax by 5 cents per gallon to pay for a bridge trust fund.

Despite the Administration’s outlook, the American Society of Civil Engineers says that repairing the nation’s bridges, alone, would cost at least $9.4 billion per year for the next 20 years.

The state of the country’s infrastructure has gotten to the point where the nation’s civil engineers need to stand up and say something about it, says the group’s president, Bill Marcuson.

“Engineers need to play a more prominent role in public policy development when it comes to infrastructure,” Marcuson says. “A crumbling infrastructure can’t support a thriving economy and we either must invest now or we’re going to pay more later.”

To fix the problem, Marcuson says national leadership is needed, but he’s disappointed with the lack of infrastructure’s place on an already cramped agenda for the 2008 presidential campaign.

“A lot of people are throwing their hats in the ring running for president and no one is addressing infrastructure issues,” Marcuson says. “In the last couple of years, we’ve had a ceiling failure in one of the tunnels in the Big Dig and we had a catastrophic failure with the I-35 bridge in Minnesota. All of these things have a pretty short window and the country has to take advantage of that window. We have to get the politicians’ attention.”

That might be difficult, says C. William Ibbs of the University of California at Berkeley, where he teaches engineering and planning. “Politicians want things that will bring them instant votes than things that take them 12 years to build. It’s a disconnect between the attention span of the politicians and the required time to build major projects,” Ibbs says.

More public-private partnerships
Says Phyllis Kahn, member of the Minnesota House of Representatives, increasing taxes is a tough sell, even in a state where the I-35 bridge collapse occurred. During a special session of the state legislature called by the governor in September, Minnesota politicians were limited to discussing bills aimed at helping victims of flooding in the southeastern portion of the state.

“The bridge collapse was terrible, but you didn’t have the people being hurt like you saw in the flood – people’s homes being wiped out and businesses being wiped out,” says Kahn. “With the threat of nothing being done for the flood victims, there was an enormous amount of pressure on us.”

Taxpayers, however, will still pay for saving the state’s infrastructure, she says. “The ripple effect is going to be higher property taxes so cash-strapped localities can make up for the lack of funding and, on the other end, a reduction in essential services.”

According to Ibbs, rather than taxes, states need to move toward asset-based pricing schemes. “If you offer people a free service like a highway, they’ll take advantage of it and there will be maintenance problems. If you charge for it, it will control for the amount of wear and tear. Also, there would be a revenue source generated for it,” says the Berkeley professor.

Traditional funding sources, he says, can lead to unforeseen problems. The Big Dig, he says, diverted money from areas far from Boston. “A large portion of the project came from federal money. The rest came from the state in matching funds. Because the state of Massachusetts had some free money, it diverted every spare highway dollar it had and devoted it to the Big Dig. The consequence was that highways in the western part of the state fell in disarray.”

Ibbs is not alone in calling for a new way to fund infrastructure projects. Venture capital and lobbying groups have been very active on the state and federal level, especially in the wake of the Minnesota tragedy.

The system for funding infrastructure still works pretty well in terms of how federal dollars flow, says Carolina Mederos, who co-chair’s the Transportation, Infrastructure, and Federal Funding Practice for lobbying law firm Patton/Boggs. However, she says, the system is self-correcting, perhaps explaining the increase in the number of public-private partnerships being developed around the country.

As a success, Mederos points to the 157-mile long Indiana East-West Toll Road, which is owned by the Indiana Finance Authority and operated by joint-venture between two foreign firms – one from Spain and one from Australia. “It provides quite a bit of money to address infrastructure projects downstate that have been on the books for years,” she says.

“We’re evolving into a different paradigm that will include a combination of a federal tax – be it the gas tax, indexed or increased – or a mileage-based fee, increased use of tolls, innovative financing, and public-private partnerships,” Mederos says.

How a Changing World is Effecting the Trucking Industry

Diesel prices are at their highest level since 2008, and that has truck operators singing the blues again.

“I’m not getting paid more. I’m making the same per mile that I was three years ago,” Andy Kean, an independent trucker from Indianapolis, said Tuesday night as he sat in his parked truck at the Petro truck stop. “Some brokers add a (fuel) surcharge, but cut the freight rate down,” Kean said. He estimated that sixty-five percent of his revenues will probably go toward fuel costs this year. Crude oil prices hit $102 per gallon Wednesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange for the first time since 2008. Diesel prices Wednesday averaged $3.58 per gallon nationwide — up 73 cents per gallon from a year ago — according to the American Automobile Association, or AAA, Fuel Gauge Report. In Atlanta, diesel prices averaged $3.59 per gallon, up 78 cents per gallon from a year ago, the AAA reported.   Diesel Prices found on the Benton & Parker website – truck stop 2/28/11.