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HENDERSON, Nev. — Daimler’s Western Star unit launched a new highway tractor offering improved fuel efficiency while maintaining the brand’s classic styling.

The Cass Freight Index, a measure of shipping activity in trucking and other transportation modes, rose in August but expenditures dipped, Cass Information Systems said.

Class 8 truck orders in August were unusually strong, rising about 30%, as freight volumes and rates improved and fleets rushed to fill available build slots, research firms and analysts said last week.

Americans are driving more, the Federal Highway Administration reported, saying that cars, trucks and buses logged 1.47 trillion vehicle miles during the first half of this year, the highest level since 2008.

Volvo Group’s North American heavy-duty truck deliveries rose 21% in July from the same month last year, the company reported Aug. 21.

American Trucking Associations President and CEO Bill Graves accepted an #IceBucketChallenge Aug. 20, rallying about 16 ATA staffers to dump buckets of ice water over their heads to show support and awareness for ALS.

Melton Truck Lines is increasing driver pay by 2 cents per mile and will start student driver pay at 37 cents and the most experienced drivers 50 cents.

Insufficient motor carrier route planning, a failure by a pilot/escort to warn of potential hazards and inadequate evaluation of oversize load permit requests by state officials were the probable causes of an oversize truck strike that brought down the Interstate 5 Skagit River Bridge in Washington state, according to a final investigation report of the National Transportation Safety Board.

A federal judge in New York on Aug. 6 dismissed a class-action lawsuit filed last year by American Trucking Associations alleging that the New York State Thruway Authority is improperly spending more than a billion dollars in toll revenue on maintenance and improvements on the state’s mostly recreational canal system.