Safety

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Safety advocates have again gone to court to try to block the Department of Transportation’s rule on truck driver hours of service, news reports said.

European truck makers would have to cut urban air pollution in the European Union as much as 80% under new draft EU rules that would move Europe closer to U.S. standards, Bloomberg reported Friday.

President Bush defended the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to reject California’s plan to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, saying that a national strategy toward climate change is more effective than a state-by-state approach, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Ryder System said Wednesday it will buy the truck leasing business of Lily Transportation Corp., a Northeast regional transportation services company based in Needham, Mass.

Bill Pugh, executive director and general counsel of the National Motor Freight Traffic Association, resigned the post he has held for the past six years, NMFTA said.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will publish its final rule on electronic onboard recorders during 2008, Administrator John Hill said.

Kudos to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for reaffirming its new hours-of-service rules for commercial drivers and removing much of the uncertainty that has hung over these rules since the recent court action vacating portions of it.

The Department of Transportation said Tuesday it is asking private industry, research organizations, and state and local governments for commercially available technology to fight congestion and improve the safety within the U.S. transportation system.