Trucking industry is one economic gauge

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Positive numbers for the economy were released Thursday. The gross domestic product rose at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the third quarter of the year. That's better than economists predicted and it's the strongest growth in two years.

Talk to those in the trucking business and they will tell you they are a reliable barometer of the nation's economy.

Andy Card runs Noblesville-based Perkins Specialized Transportation, a nearly 100-year-old trucking firm that has 500 trucks, 1,500 trailers and shipping retail goods making 6,000 stops a week.

"Six weeks ago, we had 67 trucks parked on the fence. At the end of the class this week, we had four." said Card.

Card said the trucking industry is the first to get hit in a downturn and the first to feel improvement in a recovery. In the past 6 to 8 weeks, he said, signs point to recovery because volume from his customers is up.

"We've been told by those retailers to anticipate being busy almost all the way up, right until Christmas Day," he said.

Bud Bayne is the president of Indianapolis-based E.H. Hamilton Trucking Co. which specializes in delivering new furniture from the manufacturer to retailers. The company is very dependent on the housing industry.

"We're down about 33 percent in the last year, year and a half," said Bayne.

Bayne too believes the trucking business is a barometer on the health of the nation's economy. Right now, he said, it's in neutral.

"I would say we see a slow stabilization. It's not getting worse. But we don't see any serious uptick yet," he said.

Both Bayne and Card said what would really help the economy, and therefore the trucking industry, is getting more money in your hands, so you'll spend it. Until that happens, neither is willing to say the current hint of a recovery is the real thing.