This year’s legislative labors are certain to be especially critical to the way you conduct your trucking business. Efforts likely to receive attention in legislatures across the country include highway tolls, fuel taxes, speed limits and emissions, to name a few. You can have a powerful effect on the decisions lawmakers make. Are you ready to be a player?

Most state lawmakers will be back to work by early February, if not before. Here are four easy steps to making your concerns known to those who shape your state laws.

1. If you don’t know who your elected officials are or how to contact them, OOIDA members can call the association’s Membership Department at 1-800-444-5791 and they’ll look it up for you.

2. Watch Land Line and OOIDA’s Web sites – landlinemag.com and ooida.com – and read “State Update.”

3. Contact your elected officials and tell them your concerns. Don’t sit on the sidelines. To help work for change, click here for information on joining OOIDA’s Call to Action team.

4. If you become aware of a new law being proposed in your home state that will affect trucking, call Land Line and ask State Legislative Editor Keith Goble to place it on our state legislative watch list. Send e-mail to Keith at keith_goble@landlinemag.com.