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  The New Jersey Motor Truck Association (NJMTA) represents the trucking community serving our state. Since the efficient delivery of goods by truck is essential to New Jersey's economy, when the NJMTA speaks out on trucking issues, we're advocates for the interests of all our state's businesses, institutions and families. Founded in 1914, the NJMTA has more than 1000 members. Some of those members belong to businesses that supply the trucking community, such as providers of trucks, tires, fuel and a vast array of services. However, most of our members operate truck fleets. Some of these fleets belong to large enterprises headquartered out of state, but most are among the more than 20,000 family-owned and corporate trucking businesses based in New Jersey. What Our Members Do Our trucking members transport virtually all the state's food, consumer goods and industrial materials. In 1998, that amounted to 260.1 million tons of freight. Even shipments arriving in the state by air, ship, barge, rail or pipeline often ride on trucks for the last leg of their journey to factory or consumer. An even larger proportion of freight leaving New Jersey for markets around the world moves first - and often exclusively -- by truck. New Jersey trucking, like trucking nationally, comes in two basic forms, private and commercial. Private fleets belong to companies that deliver their own goods, bring in their own raw materials or move goods from one production step to another -- in a manufacturing process, for example. However, most private fleets, like those of beverage companies, food suppliers or industrial supply houses, are engaged in delivering products directly to their customers. Commercial fleets are in the business of for-hire trucking. They provide transportation for companies that do not operate in-house fleets. They also deal with private fleet overflow and special needs. Both private and commercial fleets have various types of trucks and equipment designed for special business needs. Refrigerated fleets deliver fresh and frozen foods. Tanker fleets handle commodities in bulk, from milk to industrial chemicals. Flat trucks and trailers deliver steel, lumber and assorted building materials. Other kinds of trucks deliver commodities from cement to livestock. All these truck fleets, their operating costs and efficiency affect New Jersey's economy directly and across the board. Trucks carry 80 percent of all manufactured goods and 100 percent of New Jersey's agricultural produce. Trucks in NJ's Economy Statistics are just part of the picture. Truck transportation is critical to our state's most important economic sectors. Truck transportation is essential to almost every industry in New Jersey. Trucks deliver freight for 12,370 manufacturing companies, supply goods to 50,180 retail stores and stock 27,130 wholesale trade companies. Trucks also supply goods to over 5,000 agricultural businesses and transport the produce and products to the market. Trucks exclusively serve eighty-six percent (86%) of New Jersey's communities. Retail Food Stores: Whether it's an informal back yard barbecue or a seven-course sit down dinner, New Jersey residents rely on the retail food industry to provide the ingredients to "set the table". How does all that scrumptious food get to these retail stores? Trucks of course. Trucks deliver all varieties of product-meat- dairy-frozen-produce-grocery to our retail stores. Companies like Wakefern /Shop Rite (the states largest employer), Pathmark, A&P, and Stop and Shop all rely exclusively on trucks to keep the shelves stocked. Pharmaceuticals: Take New Jersey's vast pharmaceutical industry, which relies on truck transportation to get its products to markets around the world. While those products may move by air, ocean or rail, they almost always begin their travel on a truck. Airfreight, for example, relies entirely on trucks at both ends of the flight. Bulk carriers move essential pharmaceutical chemicals while van fleets move materials, products and packaging among the profusion of contractors, sub-contractors and vendors it takes to maintain such pharmaceutical giants. We're talking about companies like Aventis Pharmaceuticals of Parsipanny, Merck Research Laboratories of Rahway and Hoffman-LaRoche of Nutley to name just a few. These three companies by themselves employ 25,500 people. Tourism: Atlantic City's casinos, five of which are among the state's top 20 employers, rely entirely on trucks to bring everything but the gamblers themselves. Trucks deliver food, slot machines, chips, office stationery, cleaning supplies, even the sheets that are neatly turned down for hotel guests and the chocolate treats left as a courtesy. In fact, trucks serve New Jersey's entire tourist trade almost exclusively. Trucks deliver pizza supplies to boardwalk concessions and top grade provisions to four-star restaurants. Fleets of trucks help maintain the state's beaches, resorts and golf courses. Service and Software: Even service industries that supply intangibles like software, communications and financial services rely on trucks for the tangibles every business requires. Giant New Jersey employers like Portal Software of Parsippany, Lehman Brothers, Inc., of Jersey City and AT&T of Basking Ridge rely on trucks for the office supplies, maintenance materials and critical equipment every such company must have to function. Utilities: While pipelines and power lines deliver much of the state's energy, power and utility companies themselves depend on trucks for the pipe, wire, machinery and general supplies they need to survive. Meanwhile, trucks are the only way to bring gasoline and diesel fuel to retail pumps around the state or bottled propane to rural and suburban customers. Construction: For New Jersey's construction industry there is no alternative to dependable, reasonably priced trucking. Flat trucks deliver lumber, steel beams, pipes, sheet rock, pre-cast concrete, wire and more. Dry vans deliver hardware, tiles, fixtures, windows, doors and the hundreds of associated products needed to put them in place. Dump trucks haul away fill and deliver aggregate. Cement mixers pour our state's economic foundation. Office buildings, casinos, resorts and golf courses, plus our state's hospitals, universities, museums, theaters, sports arenas and government facilities -- including the Statehouse itself -- are served entirely by truck. Trucks and Jobs Given this enormous enterprise, it's no surprise the truck community is one of the state's major employers. But truck transportation is far more important to New Jersey's economy than its obvious service to state industries. In New Jersey, trucking comprises an industrial sector of its own. That's because we're centered in the most densely populated region of North America between New York and Philadelphia, the first and fifth largest cities in the country. New Jersey is a natural choice for corporate and for-hire distribution centers serving the region and the nation. A New Jersey Department of Transportation study released in February, 2001, cited the Barnes & Noble Distribution Center in Jamesburg as an example. This facility near Turnpike exit 8A fills orders from stores and its Internet site. The building, which can hold 16 million books, ships 150 million pounds of freight a year. Of course Barnes & Noble is one of many, which combined make warehousing, distribution and trucking much larger sectors of the economy in New Jersey than in most other states. In 1999, one out of every 11 New Jersey workers (293,644 people) was employed in a trucking occupation. This represents an annual payroll of $11.3 billion, which contributes a healthy share of income tax to the state treasury. Trucks and Taxes Every truck pays to use public roads. New Jersey's trucks pay state fuel taxes, motor vehicle registration fees and other highway user taxes following very complex and highly-regulated fee schedules -- these totaled nearly $193 million in 1999. In 2001, a five-axle tractor-trailer will pay about $9,280 in state and federal highway user taxes ($3,450 goes directly to the state; the state receives its federal portion from the Federal Highway Trust Fund). Trucks also pay substantial tolls on the New Jersey Turnpike and the southern portion of the Garden State Parkway where they are allowed, not to mention significant tolls to the Port Authority of NY/NJ (an average 5-axle vehicle pays $30 per crossing). Trucking Issues: Safety We want good drivers operating reliable trucks on safe roads. That's why NJMTA supports responsible regulations -- regulations that are practical, enforceable and likely to accomplish the stated goals. For example, we support roadside inspections -- and cooperate fully with the New Jersey State Police. We're working with the State Police, in fact, to train our best drivers to report unsafe road conditions to make driving safer for everyone in a program called NJ Road Watch. We present regular safety management seminars for our members and publish safety updates in our weekly newsletter and monthly magazine. The NJMTA holds the statewide annual Truck Driving Championships and Awards, honoring truck drivers with outstanding safety records. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) recently released its analysis of the Trucks Involved in Fatal Accidents files from 1994 to 1996. Its conclusion: passenger car drivers cause more crashes than truck drivers and need more education on safe driving to prevent future accidents. The study concluded that the passenger vehicle crossed into the truck's lane in 89 percent of head-on collisions; in 80 percent of rear-end crashes, the car was the striking vehicle; the four-wheeler was also at fault in 88 percent of opposite-direction sideswipe accidents and in 72 percent of the same-direction sideswipe accidents. In an effort to educate the public we have started the NJ Share the Road Program. NJMTA will reach-out to the motoring public throughout New Jersey on how to share the road with a truck. To reach our young drivers we would like to include this important program in the curriculum for driver's education classes in our high schools. NJMTA will gladly supply the equipment and drivers to conduct demonstrations. August 2001 a massive Share the Road Campaign began on the New Jersey Turnpike with the assistance of the New Jersey State Police, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority and the U.S. Department of Transportation. The campaign will continue to expand across the state. The campaign includes safety messages on the Turnpike Highway Advisory Radio station, Share the Road - No-Zone signs at all 168 tollbooths, distribution of No-Zone brochures and Professional Truck Driver Safety brochures at rest stops. Our efforts and those of our members in their own fleets are working. In New Jersey, there are fewer fatal accidents involving trucks - 27 percent fewer from 1996 to 1999. During that period, New Jersey's truck fatal accident record of 0.9 per million miles traveled fell well below the national average of 1.5. Trucking Issues: Roadability This issue involving intermodal containers relates directly to highway safety. Intermodal is a term that refers to the movement of goods in freight containers that stack on steam ships and rail cars, but ride the highways mounted on chassis like common semi-trailers. Containerized freight is a brilliant concept that was born here in Port Newark in 1956. Over the next four decades, containerization led to an unprecedented explosion in world trade. It also led to unfortunate maintenance practices that make some freight containers less safe than they should be. The basic reason is economic. Many container chassis owners - usually steamship lines and railroads - do not conduct preventive maintenance on air brakes, electrical systems or tires on these chassis. Instead, they perform what is called running maintenance, which essentially means making repairs when something is broken. To find what needs to be repaired, these chassis owners rely on the outside truckers who come to pick up containers. Truck drivers must inspect containers and chassis before pickup because they are responsible once a container is on the highway. If a driver finds trouble -a broken light, under-inflated tire or blown brake line -- he must take the chassis to the owner's garage and wait while the repair is made. Neither carriers nor drivers are paid for this down tim Operating this way, chassis owners need not conduct responsible preventive maintenance programs; they don't even pay the expense of moving broken chassis to and from a garage on their own property. Despite the best efforts of the motor carriers, this way of doing business results in inadequately maintained, sometimes unsafe container chassis on our highways. This situation has been recognized and dealt with by a number of states including Louisiana and Illinois that now assign at least part of the responsibility where it belongs, with the owners of poorly maintained container chassis. New Jersey needs protection too. Here the Port of Newark/Elizabeth accounts for most of the freight movement in the Port of New York and New Jersey. In 1998, the Port of Newark/Elizabeth did $20 billion in business, handling 18.2 million tons on 1.1 million containers, most of which moved on New Jersey highways. Considering the enormity of these container operations, it is long past time to deal with the problem of unsafe container chassis. Thus we support Assembly bill A514 and it's identical counterpart Senate bill S2325, which would instruct state police to keep records of roadside container chassis inspections separately from records for the tractor pulling the load. This will begin to provide serious documentation of the problem. At the same time it will put container chassis owners on notice that New Jersey is serious about inadequate chassis maintenance where highway safety is involved - and that's all the time. A514 is sponsored by District 8 Assemblymen Francis L. Bodine of Moorestown and Larry Chatzidakis of Mount Laurel. S2325 is sponsored by District 10 Senator Andrew Ciesla of Monmouth and Ocean Counties. Trucking Issues: Congestion The density of traffic on our highways and local streets is of greatest concern to our members who make their living there. The highways and roadways are our workplace. Congestion costs time and fuel; it adds to pollution. According to a study by the Texas Transportation Institute, traffic congestion creates costly problems, including $78 billion in wasted time and burned fuel. We support any reasonable effort to ease congestion and make our road system more efficient. However, we understand better than most that trucks prove the expression, "size matters." To serve the economy, trucks must move freight efficiently. Intense trucking competition here predates national deregulation in 1980. So the state's trucking fleets have long used the most efficient means possible to eke out any competitive advantage. That always involves trucks of a practical size. Unfortunately, large trucks are more visible than most other traffic despite their practical efficiency. That leads some to an erroneous conclusion: that large trucks cause congestion. In general the exact opposite is true. New Jersey's truckers move millions of tons of freight, yet their vehicles account for less than 2 percent (3% nationally) of all vehicle registrations. Most of the vehicles on our roads aren't trucks -- they're cars, vans and pick-ups. Forcing fleets to use smaller vehicles doesn't reduce the amount of freight on which the economy depends; it only increases the number of vehicles or trips needed to deliver it. In fact, restricting allowed truck size in an effort to reduce traffic is usually counterproductive. Moreover, restricting trucks from congested areas entirely does not reduce the demand for delivery service. It simply turns every merchant's van or car into a delivery vehicle. Therefore, we support policies that will genuinely relieve congestion. Those policies begin with responsible budgets for highway maintenance and expansion at state, county and local levels of government. Well-maintained roads move traffic at peak efficiency. Poorly maintained roads slow traffic and ultimately cost users and taxpayers more. We support the rapid completion of projects to relieve specific bottlenecks around the state. We understand the impact of traffic delays on the economy; we feel it directly in real dollars. We also understand the detrimental impact of delays on the economy and the environment. Therefore we support efforts to lure commuters from their cars and into mass transit. In fact, transportation alternatives for drivers and passengers exist - trains and buses, for example. There are no such alternatives for the physical goods on which our economy depends. Homes and retail stores simply do not have steamship piers or rail sidings. Trucking Issues: Environment You can color the New Jersey trucking industry green. Today's trucks use cleaner diesel fuel in cleaner-running engines than in the past. This has reduced emissions from trucks greatly. New trucks made in 2000 emit 88 percent less pollution than heavy-duty diesels built just 15 years ago (trucks to be built in 2002 will be even cleaner). New Jersey trucks are highly regulated for emissions, and they obey the regulations; the New Jersey State Police have reported a less than 6 percent emission failure rate among New Jersey trucks, indicating excellent compliance. NJMTA members have also volunteered to assist the U.S. Department of Environmental Protection to test new engines to insure that truck manufacturers are in compliance. In addition, fuel efficiency has increased, so that trucks cover more miles using less fuel. Over the past 10 years, large truck miles rose 42 percent while fuel consumption rose only 23 percent. This impressive improvement comes from a combination of better truck technology and smart routing for deliveries. The efficacy of these technologies would be greatly reduced and the environment harmed by restricting truck size and access. More, smaller vehicles required for the same job would simply put more pollutants in our air. Similarly, some environmental objections to highway expansion projects are counterproductive. Environmental concerns have blocked any number of highway projects in the last two decades. However, for every project blocked to protect one New Jersey neighborhood from traffic, another neighborhood absorbs the adverse impact of predictable, growing traffic delays. Moreover, a recent study indicated that trucks were much more environmentally friendly than railroads. Those hoping to increase rail traffic over truck traffic should keep this in mind. Trucking Issues: Cargo Theft The FBI estimates that over $6 billion is stolen from carriers nationwide. New Jersey is the third hardest hit in the country. That's hardly a surprise since there is so much freight here. However, considering the economic importance of New Jersey's distribution and trucking sector these losses are unacceptable. So we applaud and support the efforts of the Cargo Theft/Robbery Unit of the New Jersey State Police, which targets these crimes. On March 22, 2001, NJ Assemblyman David Russo, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, submitted NJMTA's proposed cargo theft legislation (A3357). The bill contains the most comprehensive cargo theft deterrence legislation in the country, amending N.J. criminal statutes to make theft from a carrier a specific crime with higher penalties. Trucking Issues: Enforcement We recognize our obligation to the public. We want bad truckers off the road more than anyone. Their irresponsible actions reflect badly on the trucking community as a whole. We support and encourage law enforcement to enforce the motor vehicle regulations. The highways and roadways are our workplace and we want a safe work environment for our drivers. There are myriad laws, rules and regulations regarding truck safety. Our members run compliance-training programs for drivers, maintenance personnel, and dispatchers to ensure that they are in compliance. Further, we believe the New Jersey State Police do a good job of conducting roadside inspections and weeding out unsafe operators. They conduct those inspections professionally under the safest conditions possible along busy highways. However, some bills in the current legislature would authorize local and county police departments to conduct the same kinds of safety compliance inspections now reserved for State Police. The State Police oppose these measures and so do we. Local departments simply lack the training and resources necessary to safely pull trucks over and conduct inspections. In other states, unsafe inspection procedures have cost the lives of truck drivers and inspectors alike. We should not allow that here where many local jurisdictions have no suitable areas to conduct inspections. Indeed, the political push to allow local inspections arises from New Jersey's restrictions against certain interstate trucks on local highways. Some localities demand stricter enforcement. But in 7,432 stops from May through December of 2000 New Jersey State Police found only 279 violators of the ban. There is no reason to believe local police would turn up significantly greater numbers. More likely, local police in their efforts to find violators will stop trucks belonging to our members and other New Jersey-based fleets, which have every right to use those roadways but who will be inconvenienced and harassed nonetheless. New Jersey Trucking's Bottom Line The NJMTA and its members are in business to serve the institutions, businesses and people of New Jersey. We support responsible legislation, regulation and enforcement. We want unsafe trucks and irresponsible truckers off the road. We only ask that lawmakers, regulators and enforcement officers be responsible. Trucking is a highly visible activity -- a tractor-trailer is 20 times the size of the family car. We understand that motorists sometimes find it aggravating to be behind a truck in traffic. But it is important for everyone to understand the impact of efficient trucking on our economy, and on our style and standard of living. If a truck or its cargo is stolen, merchandise is lost and businesses are disrupted. Someone pays for that. If a truck is delayed by an unnecessary inspection, a driver must still be paid, fuel is still burned and a truck must be maintained. Someone pays for that. If a big truck is ordered replaced by three smaller ones, then three drivers must be paid, three engines will release exhaust into our air and three vehicles will require maintenance, insurance and financing. Someone will pay for that. In every case, those costs are passed on in one of our state's critical industries and from there to consumers and taxpayers. That's why we believe it is imperative that those who make our laws and regulations understand the impact of those laws and regulations on trucking. |
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