Controversy is brewing around an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal to deregulate the sales and use of “Glider Kits” in the United States.
    Glider kits are trucks which are sold with key parts missing, usually the engine or transmission. Third party manufacturers then install older refurbished parts. Using older parts allows these rigs to sell at a cheaper rate and avoid some of the environmental regulations that newer trucks are held to.
   24 members of congress are pushing for the proposal but are receiving push back from a coalition of trade groups, manufacturers and suppliers.
    “The EPA proposal, if finalized, would have broad negative ramifications beyond allowing the sale of glider vehicles, which could undermine hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of investment by manufacturers, suppliers, dealers and truck purchasers in the U.S. and jeopardize states’ ability to meet their clean air goals,” said the coalition.
    The coalition demands the EPA perform a regulatory impact analysis (RIA) to understand potential impacts of deregulation. 
    Only a few studies of Gliders have been conducted but one made public on Nov. 20, 2017 showed that gliders emit 43 times the amount of nitrous oxide as new trucks and emit particulate matter at 55 times the rate of new trucks.
    Deregulation “risks major impacts on air pollution and public health,” said senior attorney of the Environmental Defense Fund, Martha Roberts. “For these major decisions, it’s required, and it’s common sense, that the administration should properly weigh and share with the public the impacts that are at stake.”
    EPA officials responded in a letter saying “It is our understanding the EPA does not need to conduct a RIA for deregulatory issues and taking such a step would delay the regulatory action unnecessarily.” Performing an RIA “may adversely impact the U.S. economy by $1 billion and jeopardize 22,000 jobs.”
   If you are dealing with overinflated tow bills and need your truck and trailer released expediently, call Morgan, Cohen & Bach at (520) 442-1303.

​    After three and a half years of illegal tows, Bronx towing company, 809 Collision, has had its license removed by an administrative-law judge.
  Several motorists complained to the Department of Consumer Affairs and, after an investigation, 809 was found guilty of performing unlawful tows, inflating fees, and refusing credit card payments from victims.
    “It’s a scam,” said Johanna Paniagua, whose husband had his car towed after legally parking in a McDonald's parking lot.
    “They came out and the car was gone,” Paniagua said. “They thought it was stolen.”
Another appalling story comes from an 83-year-old driver whose was forced to pull over after experiencing engine trouble.
   “My car was obviously smoking and he was pretending he couldn’t see that,” the driver wrote. The operator refused to release the car until the driver paid him $135 cash.
    “I was basically robbed by them,” the driver said.
  If you are dealing with overinflated tow bills and need your truck and trailer released expediently, call Morgan, Cohen & Bach at (520) 442-1303.

​    The city of Buffalo, NY is considering changing their towing policies after multiple complaints about the difficulty of retrieving towed vehicles.
    Officers complained to city officials that drivers are not being informed when their vehicle is towed which leads to them reporting the vehicle as stolen. These claims and subsequent investigations take up officers’ time preventing them from working other cases.
    City residents had multiple complaints about their experience. Tow yards often close over the weekend yet still charge storage for those days. Not only this, but some towing companies require their invoices be paid in cash.
    "More than anything, the process should be a lot easier for people than the tow truck operators are making it," said South District Councilmember Christopher Scanlon.
    Scanlon put forward an amendment to the city charter that requires yards to be open on weekends and accept other forms of payment besides cash. After other members of the council spoke in favor of the amendment it was sent to the Legislation Committee for revision and public input.
    "It seems like a lot of these tow truck companies are trying to make the transaction of retrieving your vehicle as difficult as possible when it really should be a straightforward, swift transaction," said Scanlon.
   If you are dealing with overinflated tow bills and need your truck and trailer released expediently, call Morgan, Cohen & Bach at (520) 442-1303.

    Lincoln Towing, a Chicago based towing company, is facing the possibility of losing its relocator’s license after the conclusion of an Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) investigation into its business practices. Investigators recorded an alarming 831 violations of the law within an eight month period.
     Violations included towing vehicles from lots Lincoln did not obtain a contract for, towing vehicles without lot owner’s consent, and employees operating without a valid permit to tow.
    The ICC described this as a “pervasive and ongoing pattern of conducting unauthorized relocations in violation of the law,” and concluded that the company is “incompetent and unworthy to maintain its relocator’s license.”
      Lincoln argues that because the company was not alerted to the violations punishment should be mitigated.
    “The implication of Lincoln’s argument strains logic,” the ICC wrote. “… It is Lincoln’s obligation to conduct its business in compliance with the law, not the commission’s obligation to remind Lincoln to do so.”
     A public hearing on the company is being held in late June and the final judgement is expected to come soon after.
    With such a large volume of violations in such a short time, it's hard to calculate how many other drivers have been harmed by these business practices.
   If you are dealing with overinflated tow bills and need your truck and trailer released expediently, call Morgan, Cohen & Bach at (520) 442-1303.
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​  Businesses all around the U.S. are facing a new problem, the appalling shortage of new truckers.
  70 percent of all cargo moved in the U.S. is moved with trucks. With our economy growing and two day shipping becoming the norm, we need more truckers to compensate for the increased production.
  Instead, researchers are seeing a shortage of drivers within the industry. We are not hiring enough truckers.
  In a study by the American Trucking Associations (ATA), America had a shortage of about 20,000 drivers in 2013. By 2018 it rose to 51,000. Models predict that by 2020 the number will shoot up to 100,000.
   “It is at crisis level,” said Thomas Balzer, president and CEO of the Ohio Trucking Association. “Walking into the local retailer and having a shelf full of product is in jeopardy.”
  Suppliers are now having to pay higher costs to ship their products because of the shortage of trucks. Already retailers have tried to pass this cost off to consumers but reluctantly  rolled the idea back after Walmart refused to raise prices.
 “We're seeing [higher freight expenses]” said Deborah Thomas, chief financial officer for Hasbro. “A lot of it is really coming in the U.S. and it's a little bit throughout Europe as well. And it's really coming from the trucking industry and higher due to the new electronic logging device rules and driver shortages.”
   The U.S. Government has also decided to get involved by lowering the barrier of entry for new truckers. The DRIVE-Safe Act, a new piece of federal legislation, seeks to lower the minimum age of interstate drivers from 21 to 18. Members of the trucking industry complain that during these three years, workers who would consider trucking choose pursue other fields who do not have age restrictions.
  If you are dealing with overinflated tow bills and need your truck and trailer released expediently, call Morgan, Cohen & Bach at (520) 442-1303.

​    Representatives from all sectors of the trucking industry joined members of the California Air Resources Board to express their opposition to new fuel economy rollbacks.
    After Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, decided to remove Obama era fuel economy requirements, California and 13 other states decided to create their own fuel economy standards in line with the old regulations. This puts trucking right in the middle, with two sets of rules truckers have to abide by depending on the state they travel through.
   “Complying with regulations costs money,” said James Burrell, assistant vice president of American Honda’s advanced powertrain group. “Complying with two sets of regulations costs even more money. Those costs are inevitably reflected in the prices manufacturers charge for their products.”
    So at the 2018 ACT Expo green transport conference in Long Beach, California, last week, trucking companies such as UPS, Honda, Cummins, and many more declared their support of California’s stricter fuel economy regulations.
    “We have invested millions and we continue to invest” in clean technologies aimed at meeting these standards, said Steve Gilligan, vice president of product marketing for Navistar.
  If you are dealing with overinflated tow bills and need your truck and trailer released expediently, call Morgan, Cohen & Bach at (520) 442-1303.

​  America’s Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) released their 2017 report card of American Infrastructure and the results are not great.
   Overall the United States received a D+ for quality and upkeep of infrastructure. Congestion, aging equipment, and large improvement costs are frequently mentioned problems facing our country’s upkeep.
   Only 4 of the 16 categories received grades higher than a D.
   American roads, which received a grade of D, “are often crowded, frequently in poor condition, chronically underfunded, and are becoming more dangerous,” according to the report. “One out of every five miles of highway pavement is in poor condition and our roads have a significant and increasing backlog of rehabilitation needs.”
 “The areas of infrastructure that improved benefited from vocal leadership, thoughtful policymaking, and investments that garnered results,” says the ASCE per their website. “These improvements demonstrate what can be accomplished when solutions that move projects forward are approved and implemented.”
  If you are dealing with overinflated tow bills and need your truck and trailer released expediently, call Morgan, Cohen & Bach at (520) 442-1303.