Highway deaths involving large trucks rose for the second year in a row in 2004, increasing 3.7% and topping 5,000 for the first time since 2002, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The Senate took another step toward passing its version of multiyear transportation legislation as the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee approved its portion of the highway bill Thursday.

Annette Sandberg, administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, last week asked a Senate subcommittee to include truck drivers’ hours-of-service rules in the multiyear highway funding bill because it would help establish clear guidelines and eliminate the uncertainty surrounding the issue.

The head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said the agency opposed a congressional measure that would require shippers to pay a fuel surcharge to truckload carriers.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said that people with interests in commercial transportation would prefer safe-operations incentives that emphasized rewards over those with punishments.

Trucking industry representatives voiced concerns last week over the start of the government’s program to fingerprint hazardous materials drivers, but a federal official called the program “immensely successful.”

Governmental mandates may be needed to ensure protection of hazardous materials shipments, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said in the agency's final version of its report on technologies to protect hazmat shipments.

As the Bush administration moves more deeply into its second term, federal and state transportation officials and trucking industry administrators still are trying to reach a consensus on how to lessen the possibility that trucks might be used as part of a terrorist attack.

The House of Representatives approved changes to the federal hours-of-service rules for truck drivers and eliminated some legal liability for truck and car rental companies as part of a series of amendments passed during the first day of its debate on the multiyear highway bill.

American Trucking Associations said March 1 it would appeal a federal court decision that dismissed its lawsuit seeking the rollback of a sharp toll increase for seven Delaware River bridges connecting New Jersey and Pennsylvania, an association official told Transport Topics last week.