Business

YRC Worldwide’s bondholders agreed to swap their debt for equity late last week, enabling the company to continue operating and avoid a possible bankruptcy filing, Bloomberg reported.

Less-than-truckload carrier Lakeville Motor Express has been sold by the Wren family that founded the Minnesota company in 1921 to Roger Wilsey Sr., an LME vice president, and his wife, Shari.

Initial jobless claims fell to the lowest level since July 2008, the Labor Department reported.

I wanted to write to thank you or your Digest item “Wal-Mart Donates 35 Trucks to Food Banks” in the Nov. 16 issue, p. 33. In this economy, it is refreshing to read a positive, goodwill article. I contacted Wal-Mart to tell them and their CEO what a great job they did. Without trucks, all the goodness of America wouldn’t be delivered.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has taken a step in the right direction with its Comprehensive Safety Analysis, a new way of evaluating trucking safety. Now, some serious tweaking is in order.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said it was delaying some intermodal chassis safety requirements for six months to give operators of that equipment more time to create a database to track the condition of each chassis.

With the worst of the steepest economic downturn in decades apparently in the rearview mirror, trucking executives are shifting their focus to the recovery in 2010, while also bracing for what could be an onslaught of new safety and environmental regulations.

A recent study by one of the world’s largest makers of Global Positioning System navigation devices has concluded that Seattle is the most traffic-clogged city in the United States.

Flatbed carrier Arrow Trucking Co. closed suddenly Dec. 22, shutting off its fuel cards and leaving an unknown number of drivers for its 1,400 trucks stranded around the country, industry and federal officials have said.

Some freight executives say they are concerned that the Department of Transportation’s new Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 program — which is intended to boost carrier and driver safety — could be undermined by inaccurate data, flawed methodology and unintended commercial consequences when it begins in July.