California Construction Trucking Association (CCTA)

As a member of the CCTA you have access to an arsenal of tools and experts to help you excel in your business; to access them, all you have to do is call.

We know that most owner-operators wear several hats—driver, mechanic, welder and bookkeeper. Trying to compete in this tough trucking industry can become overwhelming. With the cost of fuel being so high and rates being low, it is very important to utilize all of your membership benefits. Don’t hesitate to call on the CCTA experts when faced with an issue that seems overwhelming and/or if you don’t have the time or resources to deal with the situation.

(Also Read CARB Score Card for 'Clean Truck Month')

The future of the state Periodic Smoke Testing Program (PSIP) and the smoke meters that are used to measure exhaust opacity will be going under the CCTA microscope soon.

Now that the new on-road heavy-duty diesel emission rules set by CARB are really being enforced, many trucks will leave California, either on the auction block or driven out by their owners looking for new opportunity in a state just next door. The trucks remaining here will either have been retrofitted with diesel particulate filters (DPFs) or be 2007 and newer engines with DPF – so clean in fact that the smoke testing machines and SAE standard will not be able to read their emissions.

On September 18^th the California Highway Patrol held its Commercial Vehicle Safety Summit in Ontario, California. The free event attracted over 300 attendees from the trucking industry for the daylong conference.

One of the CCTA’s longtime and valued members, Dalton Trucking, was among the few recipients of the STAR (Safety Transportation Achievement Recognition) Award.

Bruce Noble, Engine Control Systems                                                                                                        

Recently, I had the pleasure to join Rudy Navarrete and Doug Nichols as a speaker at the Board of Directors meeting for the California Construction Truckers Association (CCTA).

As part of the CARB Compliance Team at Engine Control Systems (ECS), a manufacturer of CARB-approved retrofit exhaust systems, Rudy and Doug kindly invited me and a couple of our distributors to discuss compliance requirements and exhaust retrofit options for CARB’s On-Road Heavy-Duty Diesel Vehicle Regulation (Truck and Bus Rule) with meeting attendees.

As part of the morning session, Mike Leff (Diesel Exhaust Systems), Ryan Vazquez (Exhaust and Emissions Reduction Service) and I led a round table discussion with question-answer period.  During the discussion, we shared our experiences and lessons learned about the "dos and don’ts" of exhaust retrofitting, financing options and other issues surrounding emissions compliance in California.

As much as we hate to think of the financial burden of retrofitting, those of you that are considering putting diesel particulate filters on your trucks, should read the following article. 

CCTA management and staff members, along with Sean Edgar, of Clean Fleets, met with about 20 Mexican trucking company owners and managers, August 29 in Mexicali, Mexico.
We met with these truckers to discuss the CARB regulations and the effects on Mexican-based truckers. 

It’s up to you to look for warning signs when working for an unfamiliar broker. Time and time again, CCTA members and prospective members ask for our help and advice with collecting past due invoices. We will continue to help guide our members with helpful techniques to protect their billing and collection rights, and when they still cannot get paid, we point them in the direction for legal representation.

As always, we make it clear that we are not a collection agency, but CCTA does have an endorsed collection agency who is an affiliate member.

With July 4, Independence Day in mind, we wanted to salute those who bravely serve our country and sacrifice the comforts of home in doing so.

As we fight the battles of running our businesses, raising families here at home, many of our loved ones are across the globe making sure we are safe from harm’s way. It is because of people like Andrew Ubil, we are the greatest country in the world. So we say thank you to Andrew.  Jake & Patrice Ubil, owners of Jake’s Towing & Recovery, Inc., also AADT/CCTA members, were kind enough to write us a short article.

By: Mike Leff

A couple of months ago I was attending a conference and after I gave a short, informal talk about the retrofit business, I was approached by Rudy Navarrete.  We started talking about the CARB rules that are affecting our industry; retrofit devices, installers, etc. needless to say, we barely scratched the surface. In our meetings that followed, I listened while Rudy talked, heard his concerns, and he listened to what I had to say, hence, he asked me to write a short piece that I hope will help you better understand what is involved with retrofitting your truck.

Today’s economy has changed the way we select our services, making sure that we find the best deal for our money. Being a member of CCTA, you have a benefit that most associations don’t offer, a random drug and alcohol testing program which, for most trucking firms, is required under the DOT regulations.

American Alliance Drug Testing (AADT) was developed for CCTA members and we have grown and changed over the years, now offering so many new benefits to our clients.  If you pay your membership annually you automatically get (1) FREE enrollment saving you $66.00.  If you pay your membership semiannually, monthly, etc. you save $33.00 only paying $66.00 per driver and if you have more than 10+ drivers you save $43.00 only paying $56.00 per driver for the year. 

It is time for change, new beginnings and reorganization. This month we are very excited to introduce a few new faces to the CCTA gang (see “Action in the Chapters”). Along with the association name change, we are also reviving chapter chairperson involvement and stimulating new membership enrollment.

We want to encourage each and every member of our association to reach out to our fellow truckers and ask them to join AADT / CCTA in order to build a stronger and more diversified organization.

The future for the construction industry is looking slightly better than it has in many years. Due to the lack of work caused by a very stubborn and prolonged construction recession, many of the truck brokers and owner-operators were forced to take work at below costs and that has caused a death spiral for our industry.  Over the last four years, too many were working for rates that did not really cover their costs, and to make things worse, the pay was slow and late, many times very late, but this is changing. Many of these factors just added more challenges to overcome for the poor trucker.
The more I talk with those in the industry; it is all too clear that many do not understand or are very misinformed about their rights to be paid on time. Many have a lack of formal construction billing understanding. It is time to go back to school and I’m committed to help those in need, especially members.