Kevin Rohlwing
Key takeaways
- Position disabled trucks to give technicians a safe workspace away from traffic whenever possible.
- TPMS can alert drivers to low tire pressure before a roadside emergency develops.
- Proper use of reflective warning devices helps improve safety during roadside tire service.
In May, the Tire Industry Association (TIA) sponsored Roadside Service Safety Week to raise awareness on the steps technicians can take to protect themselves when servicing tires and wheels on the side of the road. Over the past year, the truck tire service industry has experienced several serious and fatal accidents during emergency road service. In most cases, those accidents were preventable.
As someone who performed emergency roadside service decades ago, I can speak firsthand about the dangers of working next to traffic traveling at highway speeds. I’ve had my share of close calls and had to dive under a trailer more than once to avoid getting hit by a passing vehicle. Today’s drivers have far more distractions, speeds have increased, and the number of cars and trucks has never been higher. Just a few months ago, I was on the side of the road filming a video, and we had a couple of cars drift to the right with ample warning devices and a film crew in reflective vests on the shoulder. There’s no shortage of distracted drivers.
TIA is the industry leader in tire technician training and certification, so it felt it necessary to raise awareness of the hazards associated with servicing tires and wheels on the side of a road or highway. We produced a new training video that emphasizes the importance of positioning the service truck behind the disabled vehicle, as parking in front has been a common factor in multiple accidents. TIA made the following video available to everyone on its website.
Furthermore, fleets share some responsibility in protecting the technicians who risk their lives to repair or replace tires on the side of the road. First and foremost, drivers must be trained to evaluate the position of the tire(s) in need of service before positioning the truck on the shoulder. If the tire or tires are on the driver’s side, the truck must be positioned as far to the right as possible so the technician has room to work between the vehicle and the fog line. Conversely, tires on the passenger’s side require more room away from traffic, so the vehicle should be positioned closer to the fog line.
In situations where there is insufficient shoulder space to service the tires on either side safely, the truck should be driven to an area with sufficient space or to the nearest exit. This may require replacing the wheel or wheels, but a technician’s life is worth far more than the cost of a wheel. As emergency road service providers move in that direction, more and more will require the vehicle to be moved to a safe location, or they will decline the job.
When a vehicle is disabled on the side of the road, it is also important to ensure drivers have reflective devices and position them properly. By law, they have 10 minutes to complete that task. In one recent accident, the driver did not position their reflective devices, and the technician positioned the service truck in front of the disabled vehicle to service a tractor tire. Combined, these factors almost cost a man his life.
Tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) help prevent accidents during roadside tire service by typically alerting the driver when a tire is losing inflation pressure. This gives them time to find an exit ramp or area with ample shoulder room so the technician can work safely. Impact-related blowouts will happen, and TPMS cannot prevent them. But TPMS can prevent separations caused by prolonged underinflation by warning the driver that a tire or tires are losing inflation pressure.
Emergency roadside tire service is not golf, so technicians are not going to play it where it lies. If the disabled truck is not positioned where the tire(s) can be serviced safely, it will have to be moved. If that requires a wheel replacement, then so be it. If it can’t be moved, then it will have to be towed to a safe location. Serious and fatal accidents can be prevented if fleets, drivers, and service providers work together to prioritize the safety of technicians working on the side of the road.
Click on link below to see video.
https://youtu.be/9LLv8Vv7lQY
Washington is trying everything from oil-reserve releases to longer driving hours for fuel haulers. None addresses all the forces keeping diesel prices high.
Deborah Lockridge
When diesel prices first shot up after the U.S. attacked Iran, many expected the spike to be short-lived. Instead, the war has dragged on, and the fuel market has only gotten more complicated.
Oil may (or may not) be moving through the Strait of Hormuz, but other shipping routes are threatened, tankers are in short supply, refineries are stretched thin, and Russian diesel supplies have been disrupted.
Despite the administration’s promises to lower prices, there’s no quick fix.
National diesel prices hit a new record of $6.51 on September 21, according to AAA.
The status of U.S.-Iran negotiations seems to change almost daily. It doesn’t help that President Trump often appears to announce major policy developments in social media posts, only for Iran to dispute his version of events.
Even the basic question of whether the Strait of Hormuz is “open” has no simple answer. The United States says it is. Iran says it will not fully reopen the waterway until its conditions are met.
As the Washington Post put it, “In a cacophony of data, claims and assertions, the Trumpadministration figures vary significantly from those compiled by commercial maritime tracking organizations.”
What we said in June: Trucking Should Prepare for Long Siege of High Fuel Prices
The U.S. military says it has cleared mines, established a protected corridor, and helped move significant oil volumes through the strait. But Reuters estimates that flows remain about one-third below prewar levels. Some vessels are traveling under military protection, during limited transit windows or with their tracking systems turned off.
In other words, oil is moving — but hardly under normal conditions.
Meanwhile, attacks on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline and growing Houthi influence near the Bab al-Mandab Strait threaten routes designed to bypass Hormuz.
The latest wrinkle is a shortage of the giant ocean tankers that are needed to transport the oil. According to the Wall Street Journal, the shipping cost recently rose to about a quarter of the price of the crude itself. Normally, those costs are a small fraction of the value of a ship full of crude oil.
Washington Has Few Quick Fixes For Diesel Prices
With no clear end to the war in sight, the federal government is looking for other ways to address high fuel prices, but few seem likely to give short-term relief from record diesel prices.
Releases from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reservedidn’t appear to have much effect on prices. Earlier this month, the reserve was down to 285 million barrels, nearly 30% below its level a year earlier and close to its lowest point since 1983.
The administration temporarily waived the Jones Act, allowing foreign vessels to carry oil and refined fuels between U.S. ports. Trump extended that waiver in August, with the White House saying it had increased domestic deliveries of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.
Putting diesel fuel in the tank is getting ever more painful as diesel prices continue to set records.
The measure makes fuel easier and potentially cheaper to move within the country, but analysts expect only a modest effect on pump prices.
The White House negotiated access to Venezuelan oil, including rights to buy part of the production from 17 oil fields at cost. The administration says some of that crude could reach U.S. refineries by the end of 2026, with larger volumes in 2027. But that is not an immediate answer.
Trump has pushed Russia and Ukraine to stop attacking each other’s energy infrastructure. The administration hopes that protecting Russian refineries could restore diesel exports and ease the global shortage, but no durable agreement appears to be in place.
It is considering using the Defense Production Act, regulatory changes, faster permitting and federal investment to expand or improve U.S. refineries. No final plan had been announced as of Sept. 11, and building significant new capacity would take time.
President Trump’s recent emergency waiver relaxing hours-of-service requirements for drivers delivering fuel won’t solve the underlying problem.
The 90-day waiver from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration went into effect on September 16 and will expire on December 16. According to the FMCSA, drivers must still take a six-hour break in the sleeper berth at least once during a 24-hour period, or an eight-hour break if they are in a day cab.
But this isn’t like hurricane relief, where fuel is needed urgently in disaster-devastated areas to run hospital generators and fuel emergency vehicles. Longer driving hours can’t suddenly produce more diesel or lower the cost of crude oil, refining and ocean transportation.
More Crude Doesn’t Mean More Diesel
Getting crude oil out of the Persian Gulf is only part of the problem. More crude won’t do much for diesel prices if refineries can’t turn it into fuel fast enough. U.S. refineries have been running near full capacity, leaving little room to quickly increase diesel production.
But while Russia and the Persian Gulf countries have been building refineries in the past 10 years in pursuit of a bigger share of the global diesel market, the last major U.S. refinery was built in the 1970s.
50 Ways Fleets Can Cut Fuel Costs Now — Without Buying New Trucks
The United States had 130 operable refineries at the beginning of 2026. Several smaller facilities have opened in recent years, including a 45,000-barrel-per-day plant in Galveston in 2022. But the newest large, full-service refinery remains Marathon’s Garyville, Louisiana, facility, which began operating in 1977.
Refineries are very much a “not in my backyard” kind of development. So most new U.S. capacity has come from expanding existing plants. That is generally faster and less contentious than permitting and building a refinery from scratch — but it also limits how quickly the industry can respond to a global diesel shortage.
Meanwhile, U.S. diesel supplies are getting tighter. EIA expects distillate inventories to fall below 100 million barrels and remain below the five-year low through the end of 2026 and most of 2027. The agency says high exports, lower international refinery production and seasonal refinery maintenance will continue putting pressure on diesel prices.
Should the U.S. Be Exporting Diesel Fuel?
Between the U.S.-Iran conflict and the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, global markets are looking to the U.S. for diesel and other refined products.
That’s why some politicians are calling for a ban on diesel exports. Although this was something the White House initially rejected, it’s now considering it.
As WSJ reported, a U.S. ban on diesel exports would likely send prices for the rest of the world soaring. And other big diesel exporters such as China and India might follow suit.
Diesel Price Spike Shortens Payback for Natural Gas Trucks, Report Says
While the U.S. banned crude oil exports from 1975 until 2015, refined products like diesel and gasoline were legal to export.
Although diesel was exported for decades, it took the 2006 Clean Diesel Fuel standard, which required sulfur in diesel to be reduced, to make U.S. diesel competitive abroad. Around 2010, the U.S. transitioned into an overall net exporter of petroleum products.
U.S. exports of ultralow-sulfur distillate rose from 32.8 million barrels in January to 47.7 million in May before falling to 36.9 million in June, the latest month available in EIA’s data.
That does not necessarily mean all of it was on-road diesel, but it illustrates how important U.S. refineries have become to the global distillate market.
And an export ban might not lower prices as much as proponents expect.
U.S. refineries are concentrated on the Gulf Coast and set up to serve export markets. Restricting exports could increase domestic supply, but it also could reduce refinery production if plants can’t profitably redirect all that fuel to U.S. markets.
Many of the Trump administration’s “energy dominance” policies are designed to increase crude-oil production. But today’s diesel crunch isn’t just about crude. It is also about disrupted refinery output, scarce tankers, high shipping costs and a global diesel trade thrown out of balance. Producing more U.S. oil alone won’t quickly fix any of that. Click on following link to see video “High Diesel Prices? 3 Ways Fleets Can Save Fuel” https://youtu.be/W5j9jIBsdUo
Awards reached $3.4 billion across 12 cases in 2025, up from $1.4 billion in 2024
Marathon said juries in Texas, California, Florida and Maryland consistently produced large awards, based on 2025 totals. (adamkaz/Getty Images)
Noel Fletcher
Nuclear verdicts against the trucking and automotive industries nearly tripled to $3.4 billion in 2025 as researchers found settlements were becoming harder to reach and juries were more inclined to award larger damages.
Overall, about 200 juries last year delivered verdicts of $10 million or more — the threshold for so-called “nuclear” verdicts — totaling $25.6 billion, a 40.7% increase from 2024.
The findings are detailed in the 2026 edition of Marathon Strategies’ annual report, Corporate Verdicts Go Thermonuclear. The New York-based public relations firm specializes in crisis and issues management.
“For the second consecutive year, juries returned more than 40 ‘thermonuclear’ verdicts exceeding $100 million, including four awards topping $1 billion,” Marathon said. The report defines thermonuclear verdicts as those exceeding $100 million.
The trucking and automotive industries remained among the sectors most affected by large civil litigation awards.
“The sum of verdicts against the trucking and automotive industries nearly tripled in 2025, rising to 12 cases for $3.4 billion, compared with 15 cases for $1.4 billion in 2024,” the report stated. “Marathon’s research has found that these sectors are among the top targets of nuclear verdicts, mainly in wrongful-death and negligence cases.”
The first nuclear verdict involving autonomous vehicle technology litigation occurred last year. A Miami jury awarded $243 million in damages after determining car and truck manufacturer Tesla was partially liable for a fatal crash involving its Autopilot driver-assistance technology.
Marathon said the case could establish legal precedents as more manufacturers incorporate automation into their products, particularly because liability in motor vehicle cases involving corporate defendants often is shared between the company and the vehicle operator.
The 2025 jury awards set a record for the highest annual total since Marathon began publishing the report in 2023. Beverage companies faced the largest total awards at $3.8 billion, followed by pharmaceutical and automotive companies at $2.9 billion each. More than two dozen industries were hit with at least $100 million in nuclear verdicts.
Phil Singer, Marathon’s founder and CEO, said the rise in nuclear verdicts has expanded beyond a narrow group of industries and is occurring in a growing number of jurisdictions.
“These cases are becoming broader, more frequent and increasingly difficult for companies to predict or prepare for. Organizations across virtually every sector should view this as a long-term shift in litigation risk, one that requires not only stronger legal strategies, but also proactive communications planning to mitigate the significant reputational damage these cases can inflict,” Singer said.
Marathon said juries in Texas ($3.4 billion), California ($2.6 billion), Florida ($2.5 billion) and Maryland ($1.7 billion) consistently produced large awards, based on 2025 totals.
Despite Florida’s sweeping tort reform legislation enacted in 2023 to curb frivolous lawsuits, juries there continue to address a record wave of 280,122 civil suits filed before that legislation — House Bill 837 — took effect.
Singer told Transport Topics that Marathon researchers determined most nuclear verdict awards in Florida during 2025 stemmed from 16 of the 20 lawsuits that were already “in the pipeline” before March 24, 2023, when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law.
“With some exceptions, the reforms apply to causes of action filed after that effective date. Looking over the cases, we’re looking at an average of 4.4 years to reach a verdict among that set. There could obviously be more cases in the pipeline filed prior to 2023. We’ve seen some cases take a decade or more to reach a verdict, so there will likely be years of lag in assessing how effective Florida’s legislation will be,” he said.
Researchers attributed larger awards to younger jurors, who tend to be more skeptical of U.S. corporations and place greater weight on ethical business issues.
“A shift toward ‘juror activism’ may also become further pronounced as Gen Z and Millennials comprise a larger share of juries,” the report said. “Surveys of corporate counsels indicate that reaching pretrial settlements has become more difficult due to increasing legal costs, regulatory changes and high settlement demands.”
The industry has evolved since FMCSA’s establishment in 2000. But the agency hasn’t evolved with it.
David Heller
Key takeaways
- FMCSA enforcement is expanding across several areas of carrier and driver compliance.
- Registration and vetting remain key challenges as regulators target fraudulent and unsafe operators.
- Modernizing FMCSA could change how safety risks are identified and addressed.
I reminisced this past weekend as my son, representing 20 years’ worth of world knowledge and experience, and I discussed some of the major events that happened before he was born. I chuckled about the Y2K non-event that came and went with way too much fanfare and little impact.
But the year 2000 did bring something entirely new that, looking back, has had a much greater impact on our industry than Y2K: the establishment of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, or FMCSA, as we all know it.
Since 2000, the agency’s primary mission has been to reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities involving large trucks and buses. It’s simple to understand but complex to execute, given that the agency’s regulated population is nearly 8 million entities. In other words, from the very beginning, FMCSA has been faced with a daunting task.
For years, industry leaders, safety advocates, enforcement officials, and policymakers have identified gaps in carrier vetting, registration integrity, safety fitness determinations, and crash data collection. Until recently, the agency has had some success. But compared to the premise that agency chief Derek Barrs now operates under, the FMCSA is taking enforcement to a new level.
The problem is not a lack of commitment among FMCSA personnel. Rather, it is a mismatch between the scale of the agency’s mission and the resources available to it. FMCSA remains one of the smallest operating administrations within the U.S. Department of Transportation despite regulating one of the largest and most diverse transportation sectors in the federal government. Without modernizing the agency, the idiom that comes to mind is that it is wielding the proverbial knife while in a gunfight.
Make no mistake, this is not a call for deregulation, but rather an appeal for modernization. FMCSA oversees millions of commercial drivers, hundreds of thousands of motor carriers, and a substantial portion of the nation’s freight network. Still, it cannot fulfill its mission effectively with outdated systems, fragmented oversight tools, and staffing levels that have not kept pace with its responsibilities.
The most recent example is the rollout of Motus, one of the agency’s most compelling modernization recommendations, as it seeks to develop a unified, secure registration and vetting system. Bad actors continue to exploit weaknesses in carrier registration processes, creating opportunities for chameleon carriers, fraudulent operators, and entities seeking to evade enforcement.
A more robust pre-operational review process would allow FMCSA to identify risks before a carrier begins operations, rather than after violations occur. That shift from reactive enforcement to proactive prevention represents exactly the type of modernization a safety-focused agency should pursue.
Equally important is recognizing that most motor carriers have no current safety rating, and the chance of receiving one is not high. Current safety ratings often depend on resource-intensive investigations and information that may not reflect a carrier’s current operating performance. In an era when regulators have access to far more inspection, roadside, and operational data than ever before, safety oversight should incorporate more timely and accurate risk indicators. A modernized framework would not only improve regulatory effectiveness but also answer when this needs to happen and why.
The overwhelming majority of truck drivers are true safety professionals, and the agency has made tremendous strides in CDL oversight, questioning training techniques and examining the compliance of ELDs. However, public confidence in the system depends on applying compliance, licensing, and training standards consistently, and ensuring qualifications cannot be circumvented through weak oversight.
Overall, the most important issue to stress is the need for Congress to provide FMCSA with sufficient staffing and sustainable funding. Modern systems, advanced analytics, and stronger oversight all require resources. Policymakers often demand more from federal agencies while expecting them to do it with less. That approach is rarely successful.
If Congress expects FMCSA to identify unsafe carriers more quickly, improve oversight of training and licensing, and combat fraud, it must provide the personnel and funding necessary to achieve those objectives. The transportation sector has evolved since 2000, and regulatory agencies, though not at their fault, have not evolved with it.
