Business

What happens when you have state budgets that are straining to come in balance and union representation that continues its long-trending downward slope as measured by percentage of workers covered? Unfortunately, the answer is an attempt to radically transform the trucking industry and an assault on the American dream.

American Trucking Associations’ request to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that it delay implementation of its latest iteration of a new hours-of-service rule for a few months — until a federal appeals court has ruled on ATA’s challenge — was very straightforward.

Truck makers and suppliers say they will be among the industries hardest hit by a new federal rule that could cost U.S. businesses nearly $8 billion to search out and shed “conflict minerals” originating from central Africa.

Truckload fleets increasingly are tying pay increases to driver performance, instead of giving across-the-board raises, according to industry experts and carrier executives.

WASHINGTON — The chairman of a key House subcommittee that oversees highways said a tax on the number of miles a vehicle travels is the fairest way to raise the money needed to support the nation’s transportation infrastructure.

U.S. trailer manufacturers booked 20,357 new orders in January, which was down 20.1% from a year earlier but enough to boost manufacturers’ backlogs, ACT Research reported.

Growth in the nation’s heavy-duty truck fleet firmed in the fourth quarter and at the same time many of the oldest trucks — those made before 2000 — were purged, according to a report from R.L. Polk & Co.

When it comes to what relocation companies want in the vehicles they use to move household goods and similar items, fleet managers said two words come to mind — cube, as in cubic feet, and customization.

LOS CABOS, Mexico — The chief salesman for North America’s largest truck manufacturer said 2013 thus far has been “pretty much exactly what we predicted” when company officials created their business projections last year.

As package giants UPS Inc. and FedEx Corp. jockey for a new billion-dollar U.S. Postal Service airmail contract, other carriers said they do not expect major changes if the agency’s plan to cut Saturday mail deliveries becomes reality.