News

When the California Air Resources Board (CARB) recently decided to give smaller truck fleets more time to comply with its Truck and Bus Rule it received a strong pushback from fleet owners who are in compliance. CARB’s late April decision prompted a number of carriers to argue that fleets not in compliance now have a…

The U.S. Department of Transportation has sent a four-year surface transportation reauthorization bill to Congress that would pump $302 billion into fortifying the country’s transportation infrastructure. The Grow America Act (Generating Renewal, Opportunity and Work with Accelerated Mobility, Efficiency and Rebuilding of Infrastructure and Communities throughout America) includes $199 billion in earmarks for highway system…

The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) recently released the findings of its independent evaluation of FMCSA’s HOS study and the ATRI report is heavily critical of the federal document. ATRI’s Technical Memorandum cites the following issues with FMCSA’s report: The field study report purports to have measured differences between restarts with one and two nighttime…

Facing a May 21 deadline, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) is asking the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) for more time to meet a new medical examiner registration requirement. OOIDA says there is a shortage of medical examiners that have been accepted to the new national registry. “OOIDA is concerned that, as a…

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is calling for safety changes in tractor-trailer design and mandating rear cameras in light vehicles by 2018. The NTSB has recommended changes in design standards to improve truck drivers’ visibility of other vehicles and pedestrians and to improve the side and rear under ride protection systems on both tractors…

Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, now a senior policy advisor at a law firm, says he doesn’t think Congress will address transportation funding this year because of election year politics. LaHood, now with the firm DLA Piper, says Congress will likely pass short-term continuation funding rather than tackle a long-term solution to transportation…

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) Administrator Anne Ferro and four members of her staff attended the recent Mid-America Trucking Show to listen to the trucking industry and share the agency’s position on key issues. FMCSA wanted to hear from truckers about knowledge testing for new transportation companies but also got an earful about FMCSA’s…

Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) Chairman Tom B. Kretsinger told delegates at the organization’s recent annual convention that trucking is not as simple as it used to be. “There was a time when you could get a truck, take a load from A to B and collect your money,” said Kretsinger, who is president and COO…

California wildlife agencies are turning to trucks to move some 30 million young Chinook salmon hundreds of miles to the Pacific Ocean because record droughts have left California rivers too low for natural migration. Four climate-controlled trucks were the first convoy of the migration effort, each hauling 130,000 three-inch smolts from a federal hatchery 180…

The U.S. DOT’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) recently announced a proposal that would require interstate commercial truck and bus companies to use Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs) to record their Hours-of-Service (HOS). According to FMCSA, the proposed rulemaking would significantly reduce the paperwork burden associated with hours-of-service recordkeeping for interstate truck and bus drivers…