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The latest economic reports continue to show steady growth in the domestic economy, and fleets are buying more tractors and ordering more trailers as freight levels now have exceeded year-ago levels for nine consecutive months.

I just read the great news in your well-written article in Transport Topics, headlined “Truck Deaths Plunge 20%; NHTSA Says 2009 Was Safest Year on Record.”

YRC Worldwide Inc. and the Teamsters last week agreed on a third round of financial concessions that the less-than-truckload carrier said would save it $350 million annually.

SeaBridge Freight Corp., which moves containers by barge from the U.S.-Mexico border to Florida, is expanding via an unusual route — a “reverse merger” and an injection of federal funds to double its current one-barge operation and add heavy-weight container capacity.

William Zollars, the chief executive officer who built YRC Worldwide Inc. into a $10 billion freight company and then navigated the company through large losses during the recession, said last week that he will retire when the company’s comprehensive recovery plan is completed.

Two U.S. senators, with the support of some of the nation’s largest trucking fleets, introduced legislation last week that would require all trucks to use electronic onboard recorders to monitor their drivers’ hours of service.

The national average price for retail diesel dipped 0.9 cent a gallon to $2.951 last week, and gasoline dropped 2.9 cents to $2.694 a gallon, the Department of Energy reported.