Bettaway Supply Chain Services is doubling down on truck safety, investing in trucks with the most advanced integrated driver safety and assist systems - Freightliner’s 2023 Cascadia Class 8 tractors - equipped with the Detroit Assurance safety systems package.

The company this week took delivery of eight new 2023 Cascadias from Campbell Freightliner, one of New Jersey’s leading commercial truck dealerships.

“These are the first trucks to hit the road with the Detroit Assurance ABA 5 complete suite of safety systems,” said John Vaccaro, president of South Plainfield-based Bettaway, which provides dedicated truckload freight transportation services and operates one of the nation’s largest pallet supply management and distribution networks.

Vaccaro, who holds a Class A commercial driver’s license with endorsements, piloted one of the new Cascadia’s from the Freightliner lot to Bettaway’s depot in Piscataway. “I had the pleasure of driving one off the lot and experiencing first-hand all of the safety features” he said, which include active speed intervention, side guard alerts, active brake assist with pedestrian detection, brake hold mode, adaptive cruise control, active lane keeping assist and electronic steering assist.

The truck’s advanced driver-assist features provide operators with support, alerts and active as well as passive assistance which helps reduce driver stress, avoid potential incidents and encourage continually improving driver performance, noted Vaccaro. “That improves the quality of the driving experience as well as safety for both the operator and the motoring public with whom they share the road,” he explained.

“Class 8 trucks are finally catching up to the technology in the world’s best automobiles,” Vaccaro said. “I can’t help but think how much safer our Bettaway drivers will be in these new top-of-the-line trucks. There is no better or safer fleet truck on the road today than these new units which our employees will step into every day.”

The eight new Cascadias are the first of 25 Bettaway has ordered from Campbell Freightliner for delivery this year, replacing older units being cycled out of service, Vaccaro noted. He added that he expects the new trucks with their advanced safety features to have a significant positive effect on Bettaway’s commercial vehicle insurance costs. “That these trucks can help drivers prevent and avoid accidents is something our insurance carriers are very high on, and will actually help reduce our premiums,” he said. Bettaway intends to continue refreshing its fleet with the advanced Cascadias as it turns in older trucks.

Bettaway operates a fleet of 150 tractors and 900 trailers providing local and regional freight delivery services throughout the northeast U.S. As a pallet network operator, Bettaway’s fleet also provides staging, delivery and distribution of pallets for beverage, consumer products and other retail, commercial and industrial customers nationwide through more than 500 pallet depots.

Bettaway also is the founder, sponsor and operator of PalletTrader, a new online platform launched last year. A first for the industry, PalletTrader was designed and built exclusively for the sourcing, buying and selling of commercial wooden and other pallets, bringing the ease, simplicity and efficiency of a common eCommerce transaction experience to what has been a fragmented world of suppliers and pallet “recyclers” who have for years conducted business manually, typically by email, phone calls or fax.

It was an important technology and cost-saving milestone for the ubiquitous wooden pallet, which is critical to every business’ supply chain as the platform on which millions of shipments ride in trucks and trains every day across the U.S. PalletTrader provides an independent, neutral online business platform, enabling and streamlining the digital sourcing, trading and sale of pallets in a collaborative, secure eCommerce environment, providing its user community with workflows and tools, as well as faster payment, to drive improved cash flow and new efficiencies into pallet supply and management.