Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Challenges Trucking Industry to Approach Environmental Stewardship with Renewed Vigor
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., staunch
environmental activist and law school professor, challenged members of the
trucking industry today to make environmental stewardship among their top
priorities at the 64th Annual Meeting of NationaLease, the largest full-
service truck leasing organization in North America representing 185 member
companies.
We at uShip, of course, support the effort to bring environmental issues to the forefront of the transportation service industry. Along those lines are our partnership with Terrapass that allows our service providers to purchase offsets that sponsor green energy projects. However, just as important as offsetting carbon emissions is cutting down on the total that reaches the atmosphere in the first place. Millions of miles are driven every year by transportation service providers, which means even incremental improvements now will yield big results. Cheers to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for bringing attention to this important issues.
FMCSA Extends Safety Rule Suspension for Relief Efforts
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration on Friday, Sept. 26, issued a 10-day extension until
Oct. 8 of its temporary suspension of certain federal safety
regulations for carriers and drivers involved in the emergency relief
effort in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Safety rules, which have been
suspended since Sept. 13, include hours of service.
We blogged about how service providers can help with disaster relief a while back and noted FMCSA had posted expiration dates on their website. Those dates have been pushed back to October 8 due to recent fuel shortages in the South. This is a great opportunity for service providers to give back to those in need. And once the shortages in the South subside, remember that you can always help with charitable shipments with uShip's newly announced 'Highway to Help.'
ALK Partners with AMSA for PC Miler Member Discount
ALK Technologies has partnered with the
American Moving and Storage Association to enable AMSA to offer ALK’s
PC Miler routing, mileage and mapping software to its members at a 15
percent discount.
ALK has been busy as of late. Only recently uShip announced our own partnership with ALK to offer PC*Miler. PC*Miler will allow us to offer more accurate routing, as well as add more value to TSPs looking for our Canadian listings. We are very excited about these possibilities--AMSA made a great choice in partnering with ALK.
Recent uShip Stories
When we browse through the uShip stories, some of our favorites are when people are reunited with items or pets when they thought shipping would be too costly. This week a few users shared with us their touching tales of reunion.
uShip user christianeblackwood 
needed to find someone to ship her kittens to Florida. Jorge from shipwithjla was able to complete the shipment for $100 and reunite a family with their cats:
We had a kitten that need to come
from Georgia to Florida, and were very concerned with finding a trust
worthy shipper to transport my 2 purebred expensive kittens and Jorge
was very professional and took great care and communicated with us
every step of the way. and went above and beyond the call of duty to
help us. thanks so much will use them again.
Also this week is a carpet shipping story from DebraInFlorida. Debra's mother had been storing a carpet for her daughter for fifteen years. After moving to Florida, Debra had room for the carpet but traditional freight carriers proved to be out of her price range, but after three years of searching she found uShip and EASTwestCONNECTION:
I shipped a large oriental carpet
from New York to Florida. I bought this carpet 15 years ago. Right
after I purchased it, my life changed and I no longer had a home to put
it in, so I never had the chance to use it. Then three years ago I
moved to Florida from New York. Now I had a space to put it in, but I
couldn't afford to ship it down the coast. For the past three years,
I've been inquiring with freight carriers about the cost of shipping
the carpet, but it was always way too expensive. Then one day about two
weeks ago I stumbled upon UShip while I was once again looking for a
carrier.
I received three bids on my shipment. They were hundreds of dollars
less than the big-name carriers. The three bids were close enough in
price, and I really liked the feedback on Juan's profile. I accepted
his bid. I told him that the carpet was with my mom who is a senior
citizen & she wouldn't be able to lift or roll the carpet. he said
no problem. He called my mom & made arrangements to pick up the
carpet. He took care of everything-the carpet was laid out under a bed
and an armoire. Juan was able to get the carpet out from under the
furniture & he took care of rolling it & packing it. My mom
& stepdad didn't have to do a thing.
A week later Juan delivered the carpet to my new house. He had been
traveling all day with other deliveries and he was coming down with a
bad cold, but he still arranged with me to make the delivery in the
late evening. Then he carried the carpet upstairs for me which was very
nice. He even offered to wait around while I unrolled it. So now after
15 years I finally have my carpet and it's going to be perfect in my
home and my mom won't have to worry about storing it for me anymore.
I will definitely use UShip again and I will recommend UShip and the
service provider I used to my friends and family.
Now, thanks to uShip and the hard work of Juan at EASTwestCONNECTION, Debra once again has her prized carpet and future shippers will be able to see Debra's glowing feedback--another way that uShip is different from traditional shipping methods.
Finally this week is a dog transport story from bonnie1954. Service provider cajflynn came through in time to make a young girl's birthday special:
My daughter's dog - a German Shepard
was in Tampa and we moved to Las Vegas. She really missed her dog and
we were having a problem finding a way to get the dog here reasonably
priced. This shipper was great. The dog arrived as promised on time and
in great shape and he kept in touch with us. My daughter was getting
this as a surprise for her 11th birthday - so timing was crucial. All
worked out just GREAT. Thanks so much for a job well done.
Do you have a favorite reunion shipment story? Thoughts on transportation news we may have missed this week? Leave your thoughts below and we will feature the best comments next week.
