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New data clearly support what many of us have been saying for months: The new changes to the federal hours-of-service rule for truck drivers are reducing productivity, undermining service levels and raising costs.

There was a time when it was a simple matter to understand the differences between a trucking fleet and a logistics provider.

In these days of diminished expectations in our federal government, we should surely be happy to find that a bipartisan House panel has managed to find unanimity on at least one topic of interest to us: that the nation’s freight system is vital to the future well-being of the country.

There was an unmistakable message that was delivered loud and clear at this year’s Management Conference & Exhibition: It’s time to raise the profile of the trucking industry with politicians and with the public.

As the industry gathers for American Trucking Associations’ 2013 Management Conference & Exhibition this week in Orlando, Fla., there is much good to reflect about from the past 12 months, and there are definite reasons to look forward to a brighter 2014.

More proof that the partial government shutdown sparked by the political impasse in Washington isn’t a “victimless crime” comes in the form of our story that U.S. military business with trucking fleets has come to a virtual standstill.

The opening days of the sad soap opera being played out on Capitol Hill apparently did little damage to the nation’s freight distribution system, according to what industry executives told our reporters last week.

For countless years, we have written about the United States’ dire need of a long-term transportation funding source.

The results from the recent Roadcheck safety blitz by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance provide more evidence of the improvements the nation’s motor carriers are making in safety compliance.

Not so long ago, the primary concern we had about fuel prices each year as the leaves in many parts of the nation began to change was that refineries would divert some of their processing capacity to home heating oil production.