I would like to thank the Burley Lions Club for the opportunity to speak at their Luncheon. Mr. Cliff Hanks asked that I recap for your newsletter some of the information I spoke about.

Idaho Milk Transport, Inc. started business in 1987. Its owners are Gene and Robert Brice. We started out with 2 trucks transporting milk for a Co-op in Jerome, ID to Salt Lake City, UT. Since then we have grown from those 2 trucks to over 75 company owned trucks and 45 Owner Operators. We have three terminals which are located in Burley, Idaho, Yakima, Washington, and Buckeye, AZ.

Idaho Milk Transport employees over 110 people. We have sales of over 17 million annually. Besides payroll we spend in excess of 1 million with local vendors and suppliers.

Idaho Milk Transports all types of liquid and food grade products throughout the 48 states, Mexico and Canada. Milk and Milk products account for approximately 50% of our volume, the remainder consists of primarily of Juices, Wine, Vegetable Oil, and Beverage Alcohol.

Being a food grade carrier requires that each trailer is washed after each load. Each wash is based on government and customer specification. Water up to 190 degrees and caustic soap is used to clean the trailer. The trailers are then sanitized prior to the next load. We use our own wash facility here in Burley. When away from the area we us commercial wash racks.

Here is some of the Safety and Economic information of the trucking industry that I shared at the luncheon.

1. Average profit margin in trucking is 2.8%.
2. Average Federal taxes paid by truck per year are $11,457.00 or 10.4% of earnings.
3. Average State taxes paid by truck per year are $11,222.00 or 10.1% of earnings.
4. Government Regulatory mandates by truck per year is $15,307.00 or 13.9% of earnings.
5. A truck must operate until March 15 just to pay the taxes.
6. A truck must operate until May 5 to pay the Government costs.
7. A truck does not turn an after tax profit until December 26th.

Trucking accounts for 82% of all freight moved. Railroads only account for 3.8%. Over 70% of the United States is served exclusively by trucks.

Registration Fees in Idaho for an 80,000 lb. truck are the 4th highest in the U.S. Passenger Vehicle Registrations are the 43 highest in the U.S.

Longer Combination Vehicles. In the State of Idaho you can pull double or triple trailers at 105,500 gross weight versus standard 80,000 lb.

1. Triple Trailer Combination reduces trips by 50%.
2. Reduces pavement wear by up to 20%.
3. Double trailers reduce truck trips by 18%.
4. Improve Idaho Shipper competitiveness by up to 20 cents per mile.
5. Improves safety.

1. The large truck fatal crash rate dropped by 34 percent from 1988 to 1998, even though trucking miles driven increased by 42 percent.
2. The large truck fatal crash rate is now at a record low of 2.28 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled.
3. In 71 percent of crashes, the police assigned one or more unsafe driving factors to the passenger vehicle driver and none to the truck driver.
4. 92.2 percent of fatigue-related crashes involve drivers of passenger vehicles.
5. In fatal crashes between large trucks and passenger vehicles, it’s more than twice as likely that the truck is struck in the rear as the passenger vehicle is struck in the rear.
6. In 89 percent of fatal head-on passenger vehicle/truck crashes, the passenger vehicle crossed the centerline into the truck’s lane.
7. In 88 percent of opposite direction sideswipe accidents, the passenger vehicle was the striking vehicle.
8. In 72 percent of same direction sideswipe accidents, the passenger vehicle was the striking vehicle.
9. 35 percent of fatal passenger vehicle crashes occur in the four blind spots surrounding large trucks.
10. Of all fatigue-related fatal crashes, only 6 percent involve truck drivers.
11. Drivers of large trucks are less likely to have a previous license suspension than are passenger vehicle drivers.
12. Drug use among truck drivers is very low. The latest random testing of truck drivers produced just 1.5 percent positive results, one-fourth the rate of other workplaces.

Robert Brice