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Funding for a center to develop workers for the transportation industry, and boost the economy of the Mississippi Delta region, got a jump-start when Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee announced a $500,000 building grant April 28.

If pop music icon Warren Zevon were in the trucking business, he’d amend the lyrics to one of his more popular songs to read, “Send lawyers, guns and money — hours of service has hit the fan.”

Electronic communication from trailers in the field has advanced to the point where skepticism of tracking technology is starting to show signs of cracking, according to some fleet executives who are poised to buy the equipment.

Cheating the wind to save fuel — more properly known as the science of aerodynamics — seems to have caught on with the cabs of today’s highway tractors. Streamlined power units, looking as if they’ve just emerged from aircraft wind tunnels, ease their way down the road and through the air, while behind them, vans and refrigerated trailers appear to have been riveted together in a box factory.

New trailer shipments in February totaled 23,212, a somewhat perkier 132 units more than the same month in 1999. The two-month total of 45,314 for 2000, however, was 1.8% below the 46,123 posted in 1999.

Anyone who wants to know how Canada’s recent fuel crisis affected owner-operators should answer the following question: What do you get when you mix high fuel prices, more than 50 disgruntled truckers, a wife and a doughnut shop?

Pat Quigley rang in the New Year in his office in Harrisburg, Pa., on alert in case of any transportation-related problems started with the new century. Then it struck him: He was also ringing in a new beginning for trucking enforcement.

Idling trucks eat up an average annual profit of $1,800 a unit, according to the Department of Energy.

Positioning itself to take advantage of what it believes will be continuing growth in the medium-duty truck sales market, Mack Trucks named Paul Hozza vice president of medium-duty sales and market development.