Overdrive Extra: Page 73

Fixing the credit score mess

The silly rules that credit card companies play by have gotten plenty of airing in recent years. Be a day late on your electric bill, and wham! That’s the sound of extra percentage points piled on top of an already high rate. Your credit score suffers, too. The good news is that Fair Isaac Corp., […]

February 2, 2009

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The price of ingenuity

A perhaps unique scam comes to light via NorthJersey.com, in a report on 50-year-old trucker Allan Flores, who in January was charged with “theft of services and deceptive business practices,” as reported. What he allegedly did was avoid a cumulative $1,200 in tolls on the George Washington Bridge to Manhattan via a manual flip-up rig […]

February 2, 2009

Overdrive Extra

Clogged warehouses a bad sign for freight

Friday’s bad report on the fourth quarter’s Gross Domestic Product bodes ill for those who want to make a living moving freight in the coming months. The economy contracted 3.8 percent in the final three months of 2008, according to the Commerce Department. But strip out production that merely inflated inventories, and the economy […]

January 30, 2009

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When oil abounds, prices fall

Plug the low price of diesel and gasoline into the supply-and-demand formula, and it tells you supplies are plentiful. True enough, and they’re getting more plentiful by the day. U.S. commercial crude oil inventories jumped 6.2 million barrels from the previous week, almost twice what was expected, according to Wednesday’s report from the U.S. Energy […]

January 29, 2009

Overdrive Extra

Twitches of life in housing

Housing’s been down so long that it’s not hard to imagine it could begin to look like up. A few recent stats give that appearance, as a Wall St. Journal blog points out. One is existing home sales rising 6.5 percent in December. The inventory of homes for sale has been dropping since July, […]

January 28, 2009

Overdrive Extra

Next target: Heavy-duty trucks?

One of President Obama’s first moves was to prod the two agencies with the most influence over highway emissions into further tightening the regs. On Jan. 26, he directed the U.S. Department of Transportation to establish higher fuel efficiency standards for carmakers’ 2011 model year. He also asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to […]

January 27, 2009

Overdrive Extra

Werner did it. You can, too.

Werner Enterprises brought in 7 percent less money during the fourth quarter, when the economy was spiraling down the toilet, yet its net income went up 20 percent from a year ago. It accomplished this by reducing the size of its fleet and taking other cost-cutting measures, the company reported this week. Declining fuel prices […]

January 24, 2009

Overdrive Extra

Watch how fast fuel prices don’t change

The economy might be bumpier than I-10 in Louisiana, but according to the feds, diesel fuel prices are in for a long, stable ride. “The EIA expects diesel prices to average $2.27 per gallon for all of 2009,” says the Energy Information Administration. EIA’s latest average price is $2.30 per gallon. OK … […]

January 22, 2009

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Freight’s swan dive

December data is in from Cass Information Systems, and it looks like the year ended on a grand whimper. After a modest pick-up during the first half of 2008, freight expenditures and shipments dropped in the second. The final months took an increasingly steep freefall, as you can see from the Cass chart: www.cassinfo.com/frtindex.html […]

January 20, 2009

Overdrive Extra

Take that job and love it

Last year saw 3,065 carriers of at least five trucks go out of business, according to Avondale Partners, a financial group that does a widely reported count of fleet closures. That’s 766 per quarter. So the bright spot? That only 375 carriers bit the dust in the fourth quarter, notes Economist Bob Costello in […]

January 12, 2009

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White Pine Paving's 'Change Order' 2000 W900L, revisited

From impressive airbrush work and laser cutouts of equipment often hauled behind the rig to a unique lighting package and extra-tall shifter, Maryland-based White Pine Paving's 2000 Kenworth W900L day cab brings style to local work.

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Rewind: Owner-op's vets-tribute FLD and Kentucky trailer, and its story of sacrifice, achievement and hope

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The Business Manual for Owner-Operators

Overdrive editors and ATBS present the industry’s best manual for prospective and committed owner-operators. You’ll find exceptional depth on many issues in the Partners in Business playbook.

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