Heavy Duty Trucking, December 2020

HDTs NEWSMAKER OF THE YEAR COVID 19 Pandemic Welcome to the inaugural HDT Newsmaker of the Year Each December our editors will reflect on what event person trend or company was in our headlines the most and had the greatest impact on our fleet readers By Deborah Lockridge Editor in Chief dlockridge@ truckinginfo com I t wasnt hard for our team to agree on the COVID 19 pandemic as our first HDT Newsmaker of the Year Even before we dug into our web traffic statistics there was little doubt that the novel coronavirus was the story we had covered the most that our audience had consumed the most content about and that had the most profound effects on the trucking industry Our first story came in early March Trucking Prepares as First Effects of Coronavirus Hit Port Trucking Hardest As China battled the virus container imports coming into the West Coast ports were down significantly Our reporting at the time concluded by saying It remains to be seen just how severe any economic lag will be and how deeply into the North American interior the disease and its associated economic impact will reach Just a couple of weeks later it was starting to become clear that the impact would be profound The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued its first ever nationwide emergency relief exemption for fleets hauling coronavirus relief supplies including food and other supplies for emergency restocking of stores as panic buying led to shortages of toilet paper meat hand sanitizer and other supplies That exemption with some changes on what freight is exempt is still in effect today and recently was extended until the end of February Since those first couple of articles weve run hundreds of stories webinars podcasts blogs and more on the impact of the novel coronavirus on trucking As the country started shutting down in mid March we started reaching out to fleets to find out how they were being affected We reported on the cancellation and postponement of industry events including our own We started a special page devoted to COVID 19 resources such as government exemptions and deadline extensions and advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention We shared in the countrys appreciation for an army of truck drivers out there delivering needed goods facing possible infection with bandanas for masks and homemade hand sanitizer unable to have a hot sit down meal as restaurants were closed down by shelter in place orders A series of fleet surveys allowed us to report on and track how the industry was being affected PHOTO UPS PHOTO GETTYIMAGES COM BLACKJACK3D While the novel coronavirus has caused trucking many challenges it also has driven long lasting innovation We put together webinars offering insight from fleets economic experts regulatory experts and more Our May cover story featured stories from fleets about how they were dealing with the pandemic We heard about challenges in finding hand sanitizer setting up procedures for what sick drivers needed to do preventing virus spread in maintenance shops and dealing with surging freight or pivoting when business all but disappeared HDT DECEMBER 2020 30 WWW TRUCKINGINFO COM