Being humble doesn’t mean being weak

After spending some 77 years on this sorry planet, 43 of them in trucking, I’ve learned some things. The value of humility was one of the first, and maybe the…

Diesels ‘as we know them’ won’t be here forever

If I owned a small to medium-sized fleet, and wasn’t planning to sell out to one of the big boys, I think my head might be spinning. So much change…

Predictive diagnostics is here

Whether you run one truck or hundreds, one of the worst calamities you can face is a breakdown on the road. Even worse if you’re far from home and not…

Ed Murdoch was no ordinary trucker

Reflective and philosophical is how I’m feeling right now as I sit down to write on this last day of August. It’s been a week. Within hours of each other…

Photo Gallery: Rodeo du Camion’s rolling coal

Rodeo du Camion is a trucking spectacle like few others, drawing thousands of people to Notre Dame du Nord, Que. — all looking to experience the roar of the power,…

Rodeo du Camion finishes 41st run, to return again

The 41st running of the Rodeo du Camion looked like a massive success on Aug. 5-6. There were a couple of hundred racing trucks, quite a few from the U.S.,…

Autonomous trucks face sizeable challenges

So what’s the deal with autonomous trucks these days? Will your trucks drive themselves any time soon? Will you be out of a driving job before you want to be?…

Driver-facing cameras alienate truck drivers

Let me start with this: I am adamantly opposed to driver-facing cameras, known as DFCs. They represent, quite simply, an invasion of privacy. There can be no legitimate argument in…

Trucking needs mentors, not just trainers

With good reason, I’ve been ranting a lot in this column lately. Trucking is in a bit of a mess, so I don’t apologize. But I want to tone it…

The costs of going electric are too great, the benefits too few

There are bandwagons I can happily jump aboard. The Toronto Blue Jays come playoff time, for example. And of course Game of Thrones, Daenerys Targaryen in particular. But I digress…

Driver Inc. is bad news for just about everyone

For months now I’ve been trying not to write about this subject, but I’m giving up. Driver Inc., as it’s called, is a scourge on the freight-hauling industry and I…

A view of future trucks, from a dozen years ago

As we presently know it, autonomous trucking is not something I look forward to. Some folks seem pretty excited by the prospect, especially carrier accountants who write cheques to drivers,…

Ammonia will create the road to the hydrogen economy

Everybody knows the acrid, distinctly unpleasant smell of ammonia. But I bet that not many of us understand that it could save our tiny planet from the environmental devastation we’re…

New emissions regs will arrive in 2027, and chaos may ensue

Oh man, here we go again into the nightmare of emissions regulations, which now make earlier U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandates seem mild in comparison. If you think trucks…

Woeful education system full of misguided thinking

If there’s anybody out there who can say with confidence that our society at large is not comprehensively screwed up, please rise and state your case. Right, I see nobody…