Height Sticks and GPS

You’ve seen the videos and pictures on the web. You know it happens – just not to you. And this is exactly how it starts. 

Every day we see a video of a truck carrying a large load hitting a bridge, underpass or some other object of civil engineering. In fact, over 60 percent of states say that over-height accidents are considered a significant problem. The problem is so bad in the empire state that New York is installing “Over-Height Vehicle Detection Systems” to alleviate it. (You have to wait for troopers to guide you to another route if you’re over height, and that can’t be an enjoyable process.)

So, how do these strikes happen so frequently when we all know to measure twice and plan the route accordingly? It’s all about safety culture and technology. Just like larger companies, small operations need to instill their safety processes and procedures – especially if they’re currently not in place. 

It’s all about knowing everything about the load you’re carrying. Just as you know when you’re overweight, you also need to know when you’re over height. The only way to know that is to measure for it. If you don’t have a height stick; get one. Today.

Now that you know the height of the load, it’s time to plan the route to the destination. In doing so, there’s one piece of equipment you want to avoid; a noncommercial GPS system. If you’re relying on a GPS system, make sure it’s one used for the trucking industry. Consumer GPS doesn’t show low bridges or hazmat routing. They don’t need to. You, however, need to know. 

Most commercial systems available will adjust your route according to the measurements, axle weights and whether you’re carrying haz-mat. Even the government wants to make sure truckers are aware of the benefits of commercial GPS. FMCSA recently published a visor insert to make sure everyone knows about it when purchasing a truck.

These are just a couple of ways to improve the safety of your organization. There are many more coming your way.

    

Supreme Court Decision Now Protects Your Phone Information

Supreme Court Decision Now Protects Your Phone Information

We are a mobile society, and always have been. Moving about seems to be tied to our curiosity as a species. Moreover, when you travel as much as some of our readers, you're probably going to want to take as much of your information with you as possible. It's not only convenient, it now seems absolutely necessary. Previous to the Supreme Court's decision, this might have posed a problem - if you're a privacy advocate. With technology making huge amounts of information available, both the world's and yours, privacy has become a sticking point for numerous organizations. Warrantless searches of phones had been quite common. The contents could be downloaded by a device in an officer's car in a matter of moments - including calls, stored information and texts to everyone you interacted with throughout the life of the phone. Your fourth amendment right to privacy now just got a major clarification. Your phone's contents are now protected from prying eyes far better than it used to be. With the Supreme Court's ruling on Riley vs. California, several points about your continued privacy have been made quite clear. The court held that, "The police generally may not, without a warrant, search digital information on a cell phone seized from an individual who has been arrested." The court further concluded that, "the fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought."

Authorities saw it as necessary because information could be gathered before it was able to be erased/destroyed. The Supreme Court sees it differently. "Digital data stored on a cell phone cannot itself be used as a weapon to harm an arresting officer or to effectuate the arrestee's escape. Officers may examine the phone's physical aspects to ensure that it will not be used as a weapon, but the data on the phone can endanger no one." Warrantless searches were permitted when it was to prevent harm to an arresting officer, and/or it was to secure evidence from destruction. The Supreme Court now says that neither applies with cell phone data, without exigent circumstances. It, however, does allow authorities to take reasonable steps to prevent erasure/destruction of that data, but not acquire it without a warrant. One concern of privacy advocates is the Supreme Court's still unresolved issue of data not stored on the phone, but in the "cloud." While easily accessed on the phone, the physical location of the data can be on any storage device in the world. Will there be another warrant needed to search data stored outside the phone? Time and the courts will tell. This article is only meant as a very brief overview on a particular part of the Supreme Court's legal opinion. To see the original opinion of the Supreme Court, please Use this link: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-132_8l9c.pdf

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How Are Your Driving Skills At 100+ Miles Per Hour?

It’s cold and absurdly early on this Las Vegas morning, but 30+ people couldn't be happier. Not just because it’s Vegas, but because East Coast Truck and Trailer Sales is hosting their Richard Petty Driving Experience again. If you’ve never been, the Richard Petty Driving Experience is a thrill ride you control - starting at 100+ mph!

Every year, the folks at ECTTS ask a number of their friends and customers to come out for the driving experience of a lifetime. This is a chance to drive a car as fast as you can – without any fear whatsoever of a ticket. In fact, the faster the better! So much so, we keep track of the stats. 

The day starts with a facility overview of Las Vegas Motor Speedway. There’s roughly 1,500 acres to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, consisting of over 10 tracks.  There’s the 1/2 mile World of Outlaws dirt track, the quarter mile NHRA drag racing facility known as “The Strip” and the 3/8 mile “Bullring”, which is the home track of NASCAR superstars Kurt and Kyle Busch as well as Brendan Gaughan – just to name a few.

But before you’re allowed to put a 600+ HP car through its paces, you have to go through safety and instruction and in-car/on-track training. This isn’t just a formality if you’re driving these beasts, this is absolutely necessary. You need to know how the brute you’re going to be doing your best to control will handle in a curve, or “out of the groove.” You’ll hear from the instructors/drivers just what you’re going to feel, and at what speed. They know these finely-tuned monsters; they drive them every day.

Now it’s your turn at the wheel; right? Well, first you’ll be taken on a ride-along to get a feel for the track, and experience the car “at speed.” You get to see what it feels like to take a curve as fast as possible without slamming into a wall. Then you get to feel the acceleration push you into the seat – when you’re already doing over 100 mph! You’ll amusedly remember when you used to get a thrill punching the accelerator on the family sedan to pass a sluggish truck. And this is just the instructional phase.

“OK, this should be easy”, you convince yourself, as you climb into the driver’s seat. What you don’t understand – until you try it for yourself, is that the instructor made it look easy because of their experience. For you, getting this race car up to something even close to 130 mph is taking some work. Not that the car won’t do it, but because you’re having a tough time getting up the nerve to go much faster. Way too soon, this thrill ride is over, but you get a chance to see just how much bravado you had. After it’s all over, you get a packet that includes a time sheet with a breakdown of every lap you drove on the track.

Finally, at the end of the day, ECTTS holds a dinner for their customers, friends, and employees. The food’s good, but the stories and laughter are even better. Let’s face it, half the fun of this type of outing is comparing how you did with the rest of the guests. The only problem lies with the inevitable request to see the hard copy of your exploits, to confirm those “enhanced” tales of the track. Chris Kelly, one of our customers, posted this year’s top speed at 141 mph! We’ll keep the lowest speed to ourselves, so as to keep the embarrassment to a minimum.  As we said earlier, we do keep track of the stats.

Keep Your Diesel Particulate Filter From Dying an Early Death.

Keep Your Diesel Particulate Filter From Dying an Early Death.

You’re 25 miles out of the truck stop; settling into the long haul, and then the regen warning light comes on - again!You know you just did a parked regeneration to clear the diesel particulate filter yesterday, and you’ve been driving this rig at speed today, so shouldn’t the filter be clean? Well, probably not. Here’s why:

• Unless you’re running a disposable filter system, which are a must in the mining industry and some off-road equipment, the DPF is probably still clogged, but not with soot. The DPF works by trapping soot and other particulates in a network of cells before releasing the smaller gasses through the pores in the filter structure (usually cordierite or silicon carbide). The DPF, like any filter, eventually gets clogged with this material. Unlike other filters, this filter can usually be easily cleared – either while you’re on the road, or parked, by simply heating the filter to the point where the soot burns off to become gasses that pass through the filter. The problem arises when other particles besides soot become trapped in the filter. While hydrocarbons burn, metals and other contaminates from oils in the exhaust don’t burn off at the temperatures used for regeneration, so you end up with a clogged filter – even though you’ve just done yet another regen.

• Why does this happen? The heat from the regen can cause the metal particles to simply fuse into solid masses (sintering), and like the metals, the non-soot particles aren’t going to burn off either. In some cases the filter itself is damaged by the heat being created by the regen. As regeneration happens at temperatures around 850 to 1100 degrees Fahrenheit, and damage happens to some filters at 1200 degrees, the range between clean and damaged can be fairly narrow.

•When the filter becomes clogged with metals and ash; from burning contaminates, it creates high backpressure and triggers a warning on the dash that gets progressively more severe until the truck computer finally throttles back the power – in some cases severely. Filters that become substantially clogged with ash go through what’s called compacting, which can cause filter and engine damage, if not corrected quickly. Overriding the regen causes this compaction. To avoid those consequences, regen every time, on time. Note that the filter will still eventually become clogged with particles other than soot. So what’s the solution? It’s time to have the filter professionally cleaned, as opposed to just clearing the soot.

• Sometimes known as de-ashing, the filter cleaning process begins with an inspection, and then moves through the steps of testing, pneumatic cleaning, thermal regeneration (about 12 hours) and a final air flow test. At the end of the cleaning the air flow test will tell whether it passes for continued use, or needs to be replaced. How often you regen, vs. letting your filter compact with particulates and ash, can greatly affect the usable life of your filter. Similarly, having your filter removed and cleaned regularly increases its lifetime, so this step should be an important part of your regular maintenance schedule.

• Finally, this is not a do-it-yourself job you want to tackle. Unless you have the proper equipment, and knowledge, it will just end up being a very expensive lesson in what not to do yourself. Dealerships and service centers nationwide offer DPF cleaning services; take advantage of it on a regular basis to keep your filter and engine operating at its best.

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