AT NewsBlitz: diesel forecast, oil field bubbles, carrier report card, Twitter truck

American Trucker’s round-up of this and that this week features bite-size news of diesel prices for 2015-2016, the impact on trucking of an oil-field slowdown, a carrier qualifications report card and a trucker who’s making his rig internet savvy. Want to know how much diesel is going to cost this year and next? The U.S. Dept. of Energy has updated its latest short-term forecast for fuel prices. Looking ahead, diesel fuel retail pump prices, which averaged $3.83 per gallon in 2014, are projected to fall to an average of $2.85 in 2015 but rise to $3.25 in 2016. Speaking of low fuel prices, want to know how an oil glut will effect carrier rates? Mark Montague, industry pricing analyst at DAT Solutions has recently posted a blog, "Energy Bubble Bursts; New Freight Markets Emerge,” dealing with the issue. Essentially, a slowdown in the oil and gas fields will mean fewer drilling-related loads and a lower demand for truck drivers. Want to know how shippers rate their carriers? Transplace, a billion-dollar 3PL and transportation technology company, has published its Carrier Audit Checklist, a tip sheet for safety and risk management. Basically, Transplace offers recommendations for making sure brokers don’t rely on Compliance Safety Accountability (CSA) scores in carrier selection. Instead, they should be looking at official safety ratings, insurance, the quality of equipment and whether a carrier uses electronic logs. Want to know how to wire your truck to the internet so you can update and broadcast your load status to social media or email with the push of a button? The BBC has a video featuring a trucker in Britain who “is on a one-man mission to bring the haulage industry into the 21st Century.” (You’ll need to be able to translate some English words and accents into American, however.)