October 27, 2014: MCM Weekly Newsletter
 

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CALENDAR OF EVENTS
Nov 12    Billings Chapter Safety Meeting
                 11:30am-1:00pm
                 Location:  Billings Hotel
                 Speaker:  Bruce Holmes, FMCSA District Administrator         
                 Lunch provided
                 Hosted & Sponsored by Stieg & Associates Insurance, Inc.

November 18  Missoula Chapter Safety Meeting 
                           12:00p-1:00p 
                           Joker's Wild 
                           Topic & Speaker:  TBA

Nov 27 & 28 MCM Office Closed Thanksgiving Holiday 
 
Billings Transportation After Hours Big Success

The thirty five attendees and the four legislative candidates that attended the recent Transportation After Hours in Billings had a great time networking and building relationships with industry members.

 

Also MCM was able to raise an additional $245 for the Scholarship fund thanks to those who bought chances and Kevin Gustainis of Montana Peterbilt for donating back his winning portion.

 

If you are interested in hosting or sponsoring one of these events please feel free to contact the MCM office.

Congestion Costs Escalating for Nation, New Infrastructure Report Says

Reprinted with Permission Transport Topics

 

Congestion on the nation's highways will cost Americans $276 billion annually by 2020, according to a new report from the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor and environmental groups.

 

"Congestion affects commuters as well as companies transporting goods across the country," said the Oct. 24 report, a call to the nation to invest in its infrastructure from roads to schools to water systems.

 

The Alliance cited the American Society of Civil Engineers 2013 report card that said 42% of American's major urban highways are congested.

 

"Congestion in 2011 in urban regions caused Americans to spend 5.5 billion extra hours in traffic - costing $121 billion, wasting 2.8 billion gallons of fuel and pumping 25 [metric million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent] into the atmosphere during congestion" the alliance said.

 

The American Transportation Research Institute, which tracks trends in the trucking industry, has made similar findings.

 

Traffic congestion in 2013 alone cost the trucking industry more than $9.2 billion in operational expenses, ATRI said in its April congestion report.

 

"Delay totaled over 141 million hours of lost productivity, which equated to over 51,000 truck drivers sitting idle for a working year," ATRI said.

 

The BlueGreen Alliance consists of the United Steelworkers, the Sierra Club and 13 other labor and environmental groups.

 

The alliance report said repairing the nation's infrastructure could create 2.7 million jobs and increase the national Gross Domestic Product by $377 billion.

 

While the need to repair and replace infrastructure has been mounting in recent years, public investment has fallen "precipitously," to its lowest level since the late 1970s, the report said.

 

"America has more than 4 million miles of public roads facilitating the movement of people and goods," the report said.

 

"Maintenance, as well as capital investment for improved conditions and performance is needed to sustain this crucial network."

 

Montana Makes ATRI List of Top Ten States That Demonstrate Superior Safety and Enforcement Performance
The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), the trucking industry's not-for-profit research organization, today released a follow-up technical report to its previously released
Enforcement Disparities study.  In the new technical report,
Commercial Motor Vehicle Enforcement - Top 10 High-Performance States, ATRI researchers identified the top 10 states that demonstrate superior safety and enforcement performance.

 

 

In this comparative analysis, ATRI researchers developed a weighted formula for identifying the "Top 10" high-performance states across 11 metrics highlighted in the Enforcement Disparities study.  This analysis highlights the Best Practices of leading safety innovators in the enforcement community - providing direct benefits to both industry and enforcement partners.

 

ATRI's analysis identified and rank-ordered the following states as the "Top 10" High-Performers: 

1.  Maryland

6.  Connecticut

2.  Washington

7.  New Mexico

3.  Nevada

8.  California

4.  Rhode Island

9.  South Dakota

5.  Montana

10.  Iowa

 

 

In addition, several of the "Top 10" states were also recognized as Top Tier states in ATRI's 2005 and 2011
Crash Predictor studies.  In the
Crash Predictor studies, states were evaluated and ranked based on effective enforcement countermeasures relative to crash rate outcomes.  The overlap of six states across the three lists not only validates the findings, but provides further evidence that certain states exemplify superior safety and enforcement performance. 

 

 

"These 10 states epitomize what we would like to see in all 50 states in terms of commercial motor vehicle enforcement - a balanced approach that recognizes the importance of traffic enforcement and a focus on driver behaviors that have a relationship to truck crashes," commented Annette Sandberg, former FMCSA Administrator and former Chief of the Washington State Patrol.  Ms. Sandberg currently serves as a member of the ATRI Board of Directors. 

 

"The industry applauds these state enforcement agencies who, in partnership with their respective state trucking associations and members, have made highway safety and reduced truck crashes their top priority," remarked Bill Graves, President and CEO of the American Trucking Associations. 

A copy of the technical brief is available from ATRI's website at www.atri-online.org.

 

ATRI is the trucking industry's 501(c)(3) not-for-profit research organization.  It is engaged in critical research relating to freight transportation's essential role in maintaining a safe, secure and efficient transportation system. 

Wanted Carrier to Move Historic Firetruck from Libby

My name is Tom Wood, I am chief of Libby Volunteer Fire Department in Libby, MT.  We have a 1917 American LaFrance fire truck that made its way to Montana back in the 50's.  We have done some research and found that the original home of this truck was Border Town, New Jersey.  We have been in contact with the fire department there and they would love to have this unit for their museum.  The original fire department had three units.  They have found two of them and have them restored and in the museum.  Now that they have found the third unit they would love to make the three of them a display for all to see.  We are willing to give the truck to them but it needs to get hauled there.  We are both very small town volunteer fire departments and don't have any funds to make this happen.  I am writing to ask you if you have any ideas that might help us get the truck back to its home.  Someone mentioned that sometimes truckers have deadhead backhauls or something like that and they may be able to work out a way to haul this back for little or no money.  If that is true, how would we find out anything about this?  If we can make this happen, I am sure we can get some very good news stories out on this and get some good PR for the trucking company and or your association.  Please let me know if you have any ideas or contacts that you can give me.  I am attaching a photo of the old gal for you to look at.  It is my understanding that there was only ten of these units built and they had found nine of them and now this makes the full ten with whereabouts known.  Thanks for any help you may be able to provide.  Tom Wood, Chief   LVFD

 

Contact Tom Wood at :

lvfd1@hotmail.com 

406-293-1606

P.O. Box 1546
Libby, MT  59923

 

   

Governor's Safety Achievement Award Nominations Needed    


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The WorkSafeMT Governor's Safety Achievement Award recognizes Montana employers that are committed to safety in the workplace.  Through their commitment to safety, these employers are not only creating a safet place to work; they are reducing their workers' comp rate making them leader's in their industry.

Instructions for Nominations:
The WorksafeMT Governor's Safety Achievement Awards recognize and celebrate Montana employers for safety excellence and leadership. These employers model workplace safety practices and procedures that help keep employees safe from workplace injuries, illnesses, and deaths. They are role models for other Montana employers.

We encourage you to nominate a Montana employer for this award.

Basic eligibility requirements include:

  • Better than (industry) average e-mod and/or evidence of total recordable incident rate below industry average for the last 3 years if employer does not have an e-mod.
  • Demonstration of excellence in implementing the Montana Safety Culture Act (MSCA). http/erd.dli.mt.gov/safety-health/montana-safety-culture-act/montana-safety-culture-act
  • Electronic submission of a completed WorkSafeMT Governor's Safety Achievement Award Nomination form; and narratives describing implementation of Montana Safety Culture Act and other application documentation/materials in PDF format.

Deadline for submitting nominations for the next round of awards is October 31, 2014.

   

 

Download Nomination Instructions

Multiple winners may be selected so nominators are encouraged to submit applications to meet the published deadlines for the SafetyFestMT event closest to the employer's workplace.

submit completed applications to exdir@worksafemt.com 

Download Nomination Form

 


Email application documents in PDF format to: 
   

 

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You have received this email because you have previously attended SafetyFestMT events or have expressed interest in receiving information concerning WorkSafeMT.    

 

Our mailing address is:

 

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