A load board provides a series of services to the trucking community. It is the entrance to an online network of trucking resources, the simplest of which is the posting of loads to ship and trucks needing cargo. This simple and original premise of a place to find carriers and loads, a place to find work, has been expanded over time to include all the tools and technologies necessary for planning and overseeing a successful trip.
The most important service a load board offers is access to information. This information, including ratings for trucking lanes, locations for support services and truck stops, automatic matching for trucks and loads, backhaul planning, accurate mileage reports, weather and road condition reports, and credit information for freight holders among other things, is designed provide as comprehensive a set of tools for trip planning as possible. Load boards are about getting the information together, making it accessible, and providing the tools to use it effectively. One of the most recent additions to load boards is the ability to use their services from a cell phone as well as via the internet. This makes it possible for a trucker to get vital information from a much wider geographic area, without needing to stop and find or pay for wi-fi along the road. Without load boards, a trucker’s world would be a lot smaller.
A recent study was published in The American Journal of Health attributing 12, 545 traffic fatalities to higher speed limits implemented between 19995 and 2005. It is an undisputed fact that in a collision driving speed increases impact speed. The faster the involved vehicles are going, the worse the crash. And so the study calls for lowered speed limits on the national level, claiming they will not only save lives, but lower gas consumption and reduce emissions. But the study only tells one part of the story.
Research suggests that the problem may be more complicated than that. Studies by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety have shown that accidents and deaths increase when speed limits for all vehicles are raised. What about when speed limits for trucks are raised? There are eleven states in the U.S. that post different speed limits for cars and truckers. These differences seem trivial to the average driver (who, studies show, frequently exceeds the speed limit), but the long haul driver is heavily penalized by them. Not only do these lower limits represent a lowered income potential, studies are showing that they also represent an increased risk of collision. At high speeds, deviation from the average speed of traffic makes you a magnet for accidents.
Truckers report that, in an effort to avoid being slowed, drivers are engaging in risky, accident-prone behavior. The research backs them up. The roads are simply safer if everyone drives at the same speed.
