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Factory orders excluding aircraft jumped 5.1% in August, the Commerce Department said Monday.

WASHINGTON — The new truck market is showing signs of picking up further this fall as the economy improves and the nation’s truck fleet continues to grow older, the head of Daimler Truck’s U.S. financial arm said.

Changes to the federal truck driver hours-of-service rule are among many issues trucking executives are likely to focus on when American Trucking Associations’ members gather in Phoenix for their annual meeting, the federation’s chief executive officer told Transport Topics.

Orders for new commercial trailers jumped 55% in August over the comparable month last year, and new orders for the year to date are now 71% above the first eight months of 2009, ACT Research Co. reported.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety drew an angry rebuke from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood over a study the group released that showed no relation between texting bans and fewer car crashes.

The impending combination of FedEx Corp.’s two less-than-truckload networks is a “game-changing growth strategy” that will return FedEx Freight to profitability while maintaining volume in a slimmed-down LTL operation, the company’s top executive said last week.

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.