We’ve all heard the old adage, “This is for your own good!” at some point during our lives. And while we know there’s truth to the statement, it doesn’t make whatever the saying prefaces any easier to stomach. For drivers and vehicles in the trucking industry, there’s a good-for-you event every June.

And the question is, are you ready for Roadcheck?

Begun in1988 and now in its 28^th year, International Roadcheck is an annual three-day event that takes place in early June. During the predetermined 72-hour timeframe—scheduled this year for June 2, 3 and 4—CVSA-certified inspectors undertake compliance, enforcement and educational initiatives throughout North America. These targeted checks are focused on determining safety and security compliance of various elements of motor carriers, vehicles, drivers and cargo.

The largest targeted enforcement program for commercial motor vehicles in the world, an average of 17 trucks or buses inspected every minute during Roadcheck.

According to CVSA, in 2014, 95.2 percent of all drivers had no out-of-service (OOS) violations, and 4.8 percent were placed OOS following checks (up from 4.3 percent in 2013). The highest percentage of driver violations occurred in the hours of service category (46.5 percent), with false logs coming in at a distant second (13.7 percent in 2014).

For vehicle inspections, 81.3 percent had no OOS violations, and 18.7 percent were placed Out of Service (down from 20.6 percent in 2013). The most vehicle violations resulted from bad brakes: 29.5 percent for overall brake system non-compliance, and 16.7 percent for needed brake adjustment.

Here’s another catch-phrase we all know and love: Knowledge is power. While International Roadcheck may not be something every trucker looks forward to, being dinged for noncompliance is 100 percent avoidable. Getting your truck into the shop now, having any necessary repairs done, and keeping accurate logs will serve as the best defense against being on the wrong side of this year’s stats. Get started by reviewing the International Roadcheck Checklist for Drivers online.

Late in 2014, Congress passed an appropriations bill that, much to the relief of truckers and trucking companies everywhere, eliminated funding for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s 34-hour restart provision. By suspending this provision for the foreseeable future, regulations have reverted to their pre-July 1, 2013 status.

Specifically, these provisions have been suspended:

1. That drivers’ 34-hour restarts include two periods between the hours of 1am and 5am, and
2. That restarts are limited to one per 168 hour-timeframe (i.e. one week).

Drive-time regs are still intact, allowing operators to drive no more than 11 hours per day, but drivers can restart the clock whenever they deem appropriate and safe. While truckers and trucking companies are rejoicing, the suspension could be temporary, with the DOT and DOT Inspector General performing a cost-benefit analysis.

Before they were originally passed, those in the know conjectured the provisions would have detrimental effect, by forcing more trucks onto the road during peak traffic times, thereby increasing the likelihood of accidents. For many, then, it wasn’t surprising that a new report released last month seems to corroborate the speculation.

For a study, the ATRI reviewed the GPS records of large trucks to quantify truck travel based on both the time of day and day of the week truck travel following the implementation of the HOS Restart Rule. The authors of the study then cross-referenced previous years’ pre- and post-July 1 crash data.

The study showed that the provisions had both intended and unintended consequences, according to the report, with some outcomes still to be determined:

• Intended: “The shift of truck trips from nighttime driving to daytime driving.”
• Unintended: “The higher numbers of crashes at other points in the driving schedule also appears to have occurred.”
• Uncertain: “What is presently not known is whether the net direct costs of the post-July 1 crashes are higher than any ostensible benefit that might be associated with the driving shifts [that resulted from the rule change].”

While the HOS restart provisions shifted truck traffic favorably—to daytime and weekdays—they also affected the opposite of the FMCSA’s original desired result—increased safety. Not only did the provision seemingly result in more accidents, there was also an increase in the number of injury and tow-away crashes. With the provisions currently suspended, hopefully the FMCSA will see the light, and eliminate the provisions altogether.

According to a recent report by University Of Minnesota’s Minnesota Population Center’s Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, a career as a truck driver is among the most popular nationwide, and has been since the late 1970s. Using data from the Current Population Survey, the project, referred to as IPUMS-CPS, is dedicated to integrating and disseminating data, with goals to collect and preserve data and documentation.

After the report was published, National Public Radio’s program Planet Money looked over the data and wondered, what’s with all the truck drivers? There are a few reasons, they discovered.

The first reason is that, as an occupation, driving a truck has not fallen prey to the biggest trends affecting U.S. jobs: globalization and automation. While driving may eventually become automated, it still requires a human being behind the wheel to get from point A to point B. But it’s also a question of when a truck driver isn’t a truck driver: In other words, for the sake of brevity, the government lumps all truck drivers into one category. So a truck driver could be a delivery driver for UPS or a grocery delivery service, rather than a long-haul or intermodal truck driver.

If, after considering these facts, you still question how there could be so many truck drivers, especially in light of the current driver shortage, you’re not alone. Yahoo Finance points out several questionable conclusions in the NPR report. NPR’s analysis eliminates several categories, namely “salespersons not elsewhere classified” which includes retail workers; it also neglects to consider part-time workers. If part-time workers had been included, schoolteachers become one of the most common jobs in many states; overall, retail salespeople and cashiers were actually the two largest occupations in the U.S. in 2013, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

Despite arriving at questionable conclusions, the report does benefit the industry by casting a favorable light on the driving trucks as a viable and popular career choice. And with demand for truck drivers forecast to nearly double over the next decade—from 1.44 million on the road in 2014 to 2.76 million in 2022, according to BLS—every bit of good PR helps.

As an industry, trucking is concerned with safety—from the governing associations all the way to the each independent operator. Speed limit is always a major safety consideration, especially when the laws of physics determine that a higher rate of travel equals a greater chance for serious damage, injury, or worse. Benefits of keeping the speed limit low are well documented, and include improved fuel economy, and curbing the number of accidents by reducing a truck’s stopping distance.

But sometimes, the perceived benefits of an increased speed limit—less travel time, in particular—outweigh the sensibility of keeping speeds lower, and some Minnesotans simply want the option to drive faster. Last June, an amendment was approved which began a systematic evaluation to determine whether individual corridors throughout the state could shoulder the burden of increased speed. The amendment was offered by Sen. Torrey Westrom (R-Elbow Lake), who explained that the longer distances traveled by drivers in rural Minnesota necessitate higher speed limits, citing safer roads and better cars as evidence that the infrastructure could handle the increase.

An alternative to raising the speed limit that’s been considered but voted down is to create a different speed limit for cars and trucks. Because a greater speed differential inevitably leads to more crashes on the roads, roads become more dangerous when trucks slow down and cars continue to drive at current speeds. Truck drivers know this from experience; engineers with the Minnesota Department of Transportation corroborate the fact based on empirical evidence: “Study after study shows uniform speeds provide the safest conditions,” Amr Jabr, a MNDOT traffic engineer, is quoted as saying.

As such, the Minnesota Trucking Association continues to name uniform speed as one of their top policy priorities for highway safety, specifically opposing different speed limits for cars and trucks.