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Diesel, gasoline and oil prices are at very low levels, and there appears to be little concern within trucking that this will change drastically in the near term. At the recent Oil & Money Conference conducted by the Energy Intelligence Group, executives and analysts within the oil industry seemed to concur with this assessment. Most speakers at the conference believe the price of oil will probably bounce around its current levels, at least for the next few months, and perhaps even longer.

Transponders, the little black boxes in trucks that are essential to electronic vehicle identification and highway-speed clearance at ports of entry, depend on short-range radio communication. There is more than one system on the market, but a single communication standard that would make all transponders “interoperable” has eluded private industry — and the government is under pressure to step in and dictate a solution.

Federal Express and the Hewlett-Packard Medical Products Group are building a bridge with software.

Weight limits on some rural bridges can be increased 25% or more without compromising safety or inflicting damage, allowing heavy vehicles to use the spans and cut their operating costs, according to a civil engineer from the University of Missouri at Columbia.

Trucking companies indulged in some Christmas shopping, maintaining the high sales numbers for heavy-duty trucks through the month of November.

Teamsters president-elect James P. Hoffa said employers should expect a “new militancy” among members as the union seeks “better contracts, more safeguards and improved grievance procedures” under his leadership.

A familiar trucking critic is adding its voice to the debate over moving the Office of Motor Carriers from the Federal Highway Administration to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Approximately 1,400 truck drivers and dock workers at Milwaukee-based ANR Advance Transportation Co. walked off the job last week in a contract dispute with the Teamsters union.

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader believes the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an agency he has criticized for years, is a better home for the Office of Motor Carriers than the Federal Highway Administration.