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The drive to create a separate federal agency specializing in the issues and interests of trucking moved into high gear last week, dramatically improving the chances that such a unit will be in operation before too much more time passes.

The government has an opportunity to seize the moment and advance safety even further by reforming the archaic hours-of-service rules in a science-based fashion. It will be sad, indeed, for the trucking industry, as well as for the motoring public, to end up with rules that advance the political interests of a few while jeopardizing the many.

J. Steven Keate’s plan to reduce customization in Navistar International’s Truck Group generated a mixed reaction among the other truck manufacturers.

Fighting against economic re-regulation and for approval of the sale of Conrail, railroads far outspent trucking on lobbying in 1998, according to a report by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Integrating less-than-truckload, truckload, logistics and freight forwarding services into one company is incredibly difficult. But one company has done it successfully: USFreightways Corp.

Proposals to create a federal Motor Carrier Administration were introduced in both houses of Congress amid a flurry of legislation to improve truck and bus safety.

Oregon legislators have given in to pressure from truckers and voted to eliminate the state’s 52-year-old weight-distance tax.

The closing of Preston Trucking Co., a little more than 12 months after being sold off to company management by Yellow Corp., came as a shock to its 5,500 employees, Teamsters union officials and industry analysts.

At the same time Oregon lawmakers voted to kill the nation’s first weight-distance tax, a pair of influential congressmen were pushing creation of a federal version of a ton-mile levy that they say would result in many truck owners paying less to Uncle Sam.