U-Haul is an American rental equipment and rental company, based in Phoenix, Arizona, which has been in operation since 1945. The company was founded by Leonard Shoen (LS "Sam" Shoen) in Ridgefield, Washington. started in his wife's family garage, and developed it through a franchise with a gas station.
Video U-Haul
Overview
U-Haul is owned by AMERCO, the holding company that also operates Amerco Real Estate, the Republic Western Insurance and Oxford Life Insurance. The Shoen family currently owns, directly or indirectly, about 55% of publicly traded stock companies. The company leases trucks, trailers and other equipment, but many U-Haul centers and dealers also provide self-storage units, LPG (propane) fueling, obstacle and trailer cabinets, and carpet cleaners, among other services.
Since companies are everywhere (there are more than 16,000 active dealers across the country), the name is sometimes used as a common trademark to refer to any rental company service. The features used on rental vehicles are widely recognized, mainly consisting of white and horizontal thick orange stripes, next to a large country-or province-themed image, known as SuperGraphics.
Maps U-Haul
History
In 1945 at the age of 29, Leonard Shoen founded U-Haul with his wife, Anna Mary Carty, in the town of Ridgefield, Washington, with an investment of $ 5,000. He started building a rented trailer and split the cost for his use with the owner of the gas station he franchised as an agent. He develops one-way rentals and invites investors as partners in each trailer as a method of growth.
In 1955 there were over 10,000 U-Haul trailers on the road, and the brand was nationally known. Disturbed to some extent by growing his business, Shoen takes time for double marriage and eventually has a total of 12 children, each of them making shareholders. Shoen transferred all but 2% of the controls to his sons when two of them, Edward and Mark launched a successful business takeover in 1986. The family quarrel over the U-Haul empire turned into a physical confrontation between several of his sons at a company meeting, even before the takeover of 1986. The takeover sparked a major family dispute that led to a 461 million dollar valuation that supported Leonard Shoen and others. In 1999, 83-year-old Leonard Shoen suffered a fatal wound when he hit a telephone pole near his home in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Shoen family, currently headed by chairman and president Edward "Joe" Shoen, owns about 40% of the company through their AMERCO parent company. AMERCO filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2003 and appeared in March 2004. The filing did not include or affect the U-Haul operation.
In 2012, another transfer and storage company, PODS, sued U-Haul in US District Court for a trademark infringement, claiming U-Haul is "inappropriate and illegal" using the word "pod" to describe his U-box product. On September 25, 2014, the jury ruled that U-Haul had violated the trademark PODS, causing confusion and damaging the business to PODS. The jury finds that U-Haul unfairly takes advantage of mentioning terms on marketing and advertising materials and starts using the word only after PODS became famous as a brand name in the industry. The jury gave PODS $ 62 million for damages. In 2014 UHaul sued HireAHelper for trademark infringement, a lawsuit that was settled out of court.
In December, 2015, U-Haul was used by UPS to help boost the UPS fleet temporarily to handle the spike in Christmas and other holiday volumes.
Tools
The U-Haul rental fleet consists of trucks, trailers, auto-transport, and various other equipment. Heavy duty pickup trucks and van cabins manufactured by GMC, Dodge and Ford were mated to U-Haul truck production boxes at fabrication plants located in various places in North America. All vehicles use gas, with the previous model offering a 17-foot (5.2 m) diesel truck that must be brought back to the same location where they were hired. Six truck sizes are available, ranging from 10 feet (3.0 m) to 26 feet (7.9 m), and some trailer sizes, in addition to two wheel "Tow Dolly" and "Auto Transport" four wheels. U-Haul advertises that their truck has a lower deck built under the peak rather than above the rear tire like a standard cargo box truck. Several trucks are also on top of the cabin storage area called "Mom's Attic." The trucks are painted with SuperGraphics which is an educational image from various states and provinces throughout the United States and Canada. Pickup trucks and cargo vans are also available at most company-owned centers, and choose environmental dealers.
U-Haul has two main classifications for equipment in its fleet. The first type of equipment is known as "In-Town" or "One-Way". The "One Direction" equipment is mostly used for one-way travel, which means picking and delivering at different locations where as "In-Town" equipment is intended to be picked up and lowered at the same location and the equipment is intended to be used for local steps. U-Haul has built a new one-way vehicle in bulk, and since this one-way truck is being built, the older one-way fleet model will be discontinued for local use "In Town" only and "Inside Town" previously "Local trucking is being imaged and sold.
All trucks owned by U-Haul companies (including those assigned and decided to be used in Canada) feature Arizona license plates that are out of date. The new trailer in the U-Haul fleet has a shared plates, registered in various states. In the markets of Alaska and Hawaii, U-Haul registers equipment locally because the states do not have a distributed vehicle registration system.
Rental storage space
Some U-Haul facilities provide self storage lockers for weekly or monthly rentals, and rent a portable storage locker called U-Box every month. Storage facilities are in most company locations.
Ford Explorer ban (2010 and older models)
U-Haul had not previously hired a trailer that was meant to be attached to Ford Explorer. According to U-Haul: "U-Haul has chosen not to lease behind this crane vehicle based on the history of our excessive costs in defending lawsuits involving a combination of Ford Explorer pullers This policy does not involve security issues. U-Cargo. " This applies to all production years and models (for example, this ban includes the Ford Explorer Sport Trac) from Explorer, regardless of the embedded brand of tires. It comes from many accidents involving Bridgestone or Firestone tires.
Security issues
In Canada, news agencies have found serious security concerns on U-Haul equipment. In July 2005, Toronto Star reported statistics showing that about half of U-Haul vehicles in Ontario were unsafe way. Shortly thereafter, the Ministry of Transport (Ontario) reported that, of the 296 U-Haul vehicles checked in the summer of 2005 (43.5% of all inspections were conducted), 58 (19.6%) were found to have defects outside the service, meaning they are not a proper road. CTV followed in October 2005, conducting their own inspections across the country, and found that all 13 U-Haul trucks hired failed to meet basic provincial safety standards.
Replying to Toronto Star, a Canadian company official cites the inspection policies and procedures expected to be followed by employees and dealers. Responding to CTV results, the Canadian vice-president U-Haul admitted ignoring previous warnings to improve the safety conditions of their vehicles, and said older trucks would be replaced.
In October 2006 CTV W-Five re-investigated U-Haul by renting trucks from 9 locations in Canada. The rental was then taken to the mechanic for inspection. Of the nine trucks hired, 7 failed basic safety standards and are not considered road worthy; The other 2, while the highway, has a small problem.
On June 24, 2007, Los Angeles Times published a story about U-Haul's security issue entitled "Driving With Vulnerable Risk". There are also related articles published such as "Upkeep Lags In U-Haul's Aging Fleet" and "Key Trial Evidence Goes Missing". The articles outline reports of ongoing maintenance issues, falsification of maintenance records and lawsuits against companies for injuries and accidents with quotes from former maintenance and executive workers.
References
Further reading
- Fitzpatrick, Tom (December 1, 1994). "U-Haul Tragedy". Phoenix New Times . Phoenix, AZ . Retrieved January 15, 2011 . Ã,
External links
- Official website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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