Distinguished Gentlemen
Our hearts are heavy as we mourn the loss of our dear colleague Mark Boada.
Mark was one of the most intellectually gifted individuals I have ever known; he spoke confidently on a vast number of subjects. A brilliant writer, he was fascinated by the many and varied aspects of fleet. Mark's family is deeply touched by the outpouring of condolences from our fleet community.
We publish an article this week about another distinguished gentleman who is held in the highest esteem in our industry, Art Liggio, president and CEO of Driving Dynamics. We cheered when Art was inducted into the Automotive Fleet Hall of Fame at the recent AFLA Conference. Art has an inspiring life story of "serendipity and self-transformation" and we are delighted to tell it.
Mark your calendars: August 30-September 1, 2021 for NAFA I&E in Pittsburgh, PA, my hometown! We are going to get together, in person!
We are all being warned of some tough weeks ahead with the virus. Please stay safe!
Janice Sutton
Editor in Chief
Safety Shift – Drivers Ages 70-79 Now Have Fewer Accidents Than Those 35-54
Researchers at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety have announced that drivers in their seventies are now among the safest drivers on the road between the ages of 35 and older. This is a shift in safety demographics from prior studies.
“Improvements in healthcare mean that older Americans are remaining active and staying in the workforce,” says Jessica Cicchino, IIHS vice president for research and a co-author of the study. “It follows that they’re not only keeping their licenses longer but also driving more miles.”
The study by IIHS researchers compared trends among drivers 70 and over with drivers ages 35-54, looking at fatal crash involvements per 100,000 licensed drivers and per vehicle mile traveled, police-reported crash involvements per vehicle mile traveled, and the number of driver deaths per 1,000 police-reported crashes. The number of older licensed drivers rose almost twice as fast from 2010 to 2018 as it had in the previous decade, while older drivers’ average annual mileage also continued to steadily grow.
Read the article at Torque News.
Cruise Will Test Autonomous Delivery From Walmart Next Year
Cruise, which is GM’s big effort at autonomous, said Tuesday that it would begin testing autonomous deliveries from Walmart early next year. The cars are also all-electric.
As part of the pilot , customers can place an order from their local store and have it delivered, contact-free, via one of Cruise’s all-electric self-driving cars.
The announcement was short on details, and Walmart and Cruise did not say how many cars would be involved in the test. A Cruise spokesman also did not say how many cars would be involved but did say, “The number of vehicles will start small, with a goal to expand as the pilot expands.”
Read the article at MSN.
Donlen Named a 2020 Company of the Year by Business Intelligence Group
Donlen announced today it received the Business Intelligence Group’s BIG Award for Business and was named a 2020 Company of the Year.
The BIG Award for Business program offers companies, their products, their people, and their tactics a chance to be globally recognized by panels of business veterans and leaders.
“Our employees are working extremely hard in these dynamic times,” said Donlen President Tom Callahan. “Getting external recognition like this for their creativity, teamwork, tenacity, and engagement validates what we’ve always known - we have the best employees in the industry. On behalf of Donlen, we are humbled to be named a 2020 Company of the Year award winner.”
Uber, Gig Economy Companies See California Win as National Model
Gig economy companies want to turn California voters’ decision to make ride-service drivers contractors into a model for the nation, as several states consider requiring drivers from Uber, Lyft and rival services be treated as employees with higher compensation.
The ballot measure, known as Proposition 22, carves an exception for ride and delivery companies in a controversial state labor law and offers gig workers some healthcare, minimum pay and other benefits. The state had said gig workers would have to be treated as employees under the law.
Trend-setting California passed the first state law requiring companies that control how workers do their jobs to classify those workers as employees, and others have followed.
Read the article at Reuters.
