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The average price of used Class 8 trucks rose again in March, increasing 6% from February, and buyers accepted higher-mileage vehicles as well, according to ACT Research Co. and retail dealers.

Both orders and factory production of new commercial trailers more than doubled in March, compared with the same month of 2010 and leading to escalating prices and longer wait times, industry officials have said.

WASHINGTON — Trucking industry groups last week criticized a bill introduced by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) aimed at freezing truck size and weight limits on the 160,000-mile National Highway System, saying it would block increases in truck productivity.

Multiple security background checks and costly fees have caused the population of truck drivers with Transportation Security Administration hazardous materials endorsements to decline by roughly 1.2 million since 2004, a top American Trucking Associations official told a congressional subcommittee last week.

At Boyd Bros. Transportation Inc. in Birmingham, Ala., Chris Cooper, grandson of the founder, has been running the firm from the cab of his pickup truck since one of the most powerful tornadoes on record devastated Tuscaloosa April 27 before reaching Boyd’s office about 55 miles away.

A draft of the Obama administration’s transportation reauthorization plan calls for creation of an office within the Federal Highway Administration that would spend six years studying a vehicle-miles-traveled tax to help fund the nation’s surface transportation system.

Bill Malone must have been one of the few people in trucking who could chuckle at the price of diesel one day this spring. It was well over $4 a gallon, but Malone was untroubled because the 18 tractors in the fleet he oversees are fueled with liquefied natural gas.

Seat-belt use among drivers of medium- and heavy-duty commercial motor vehicles rose in 2010 to 78%, up from 74% last year and the fourth annual increase in a row, according to a new Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration study.

The average retail price of U.S. diesel resumed its upward march last week, climbing 2.6 cents per gallon to $4.124 and sparking renewed attention to fuel surcharge collections.