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The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the Transportation Security Administration have conducted several dozen overlapping fleet inspections, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report about wasteful and duplicative federal programs.

An impending Department of Transportation rule will expand enforcement authority of federal regulators to conduct “enhanced inspections” and investigations of packaged hazardous materials.

The federal standard for underride guards on trucks and trailers is inadequate and should be upgraded to protect the drivers of vehicles that crash into the rear of trucks, an insurance safety advocacy group said last week.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has cast a spotlight on the current federal standard for truck underride guards, which it says is woefully inadequate.

Crash-test analysis by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows that underride guards on tractor-trailers can fail even in relatively low-speed crashes, and the group is petitioning the federal government to require stronger guards that will remain in place during a crash and to mandate guards for more big rigs and trailers.

States are equipping roadside inspectors with carrier-specific information that could lead to more targeted inspections under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s new Compli­ance, Safety, Ac­countability program.

The Texas Transportation Commission has voted to lower truck tolls on two Austin-area highways in an attempt to encourage trucks to use them.

No one knows the Canada-U.S. border and the difficulties even the most trusted individuals and companies have had crossing it in the “security trumps trade” post-9/11 world than truckers. It’s not surprising, then, that truckers welcome the announcement from U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper that the two countries are embarking upon negotiations aimed at improved cooperation and coordination at the border.

Loss of event data recorder — or “black box” — information is one of the biggest problems in trucking accident litigation. While the market for EDR monitoring software has exploded in recent years, accident experts and attorneys are finding that much of this technology is incorrectly downloaded, analyzed and stored, creating legal and financial risks that can threaten the very existence of the company that makes use of it.