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Reading the May 24 “Opinion” column on how hard it would be for the smaller freight brokers to exist with a higher bond, my heart goes out to them, but my sympathies run with the trucking companies that use these brokers, small or large.

What a difference a year makes: Just one year ago, trucking trade publications were reporting on truckload rates plummeting 27% over the previous year, trucking companies beating down shippers’ doors looking for business, carriers dealing with 50% to 100% excess capacity over the previous two years, and thousands of trucking companies going bankrupt.

Trucking will continue to be “an essential component” of the nation’s freight system, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves, responding to Graves’ recent letter complaining of “misleading” statements about trucking by LaHood and others in DOT.

Thomas Nyhan, executive director of the Central States Pension Fund, told a Senate committee that the fund, which provides retirement benefits for a number of unionized trucking companies, will become insolvent without changes to federal law.

U.S. efforts to resolve the ongoing dispute with Mexico over cross-border trucking have stalled, rankling officials on both sides of the border.

A generation ago, railroad clerks used four words — “your pig is here” — to inform truckers that an intermodal trailer shipment had arrived and was ready for pickup.

American Trucking Associations and other business groups are urging the Senate to move forward with a bill that would create a research program to increase fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from heavy- and medium-duty trucks.

Trucking tonnage grew 9.4% in April above year-ago levels, the strongest monthly gain in more than five years and another sign of solid economic recovery, American Trucking Associations reported last week.

Paint manufacturers and suppliers are notifying contractors and transportation officials around the country that market forces and a scarcity of raw materials are causing shortages of white and yellow road paint used to mark highway lanes.

Registrations of new Class 8 trucks in the United States totaled 25,635 in the first quarter, a 2.5% increase from a year earlier, R.L. Polk & Co. reported.