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It’s our hope that the executive order President Donald Trump signed last week to create the National Council for the American Worker will lead to an influx of new talent across the industry’s spectrum — from behind the wheel to behind the scenes.

We all want to like our workplaces. For fleet drivers, that workplace extends from the truck cab all the way to the headquarters of the carriers for whom they drive. And its important to keep drivers happy regardless of which place they happen to be on a given day.

From ATA President and CEO Chris Spear: There’s a growing chorus to address federal hours-of-service rules, and American Trucking Associations is actively shaping the debate.

Ray Martinez, the newly installed head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, made the rounds last week, speaking first to trucking executives at American Trucking Associations’ midyear management meeting May 20 and then to lawmakers in the House of Representatives in Washington at a hearing by the Highways and Transit Subcommittee.

If you pay them, will they come? Motor carriers have been boosting driver pay at a steady clip lately. It seems that a week can’t pass without a company announcing that it’s boosting compensation, be it on a per-mile basis or through bonuses and incentives.

The trucking industry is definitely having a moment. Recently, an industry executive spoke from the White House about the positive effects federal tax reform has had on his business, and a noted industry economist predicted that trucking likely has several good years ahead of it before the threat of an economic downturn might rear its ugly head. Plus, sales of new trucks just keep rising.

The adoption of federally mandated electronic logging devices has been a major transition for the trucking industry, but at this point it appears that most longhaul truckers are now using the technology to track their hours of service. While it’s still too soon to get a complete sense of where the industry stands with respect to ELD compliance, the early indications have been positive as enforcement tightens.

The decision by Uber to halt testing of its autonomous trucks in the wake of a fatal accident involving one of its pilot autonomous cars was a prudent move, and one that demonstrates how the relentless pace of technological innovation sometimes needs a pause.

In fairly short order, truck manufacturers have made a series of announcements about new and updated vocational trucks that soon will be hitting the markets.

Automated driving technology has been a consistently hot topic in the trucking industry over the past few years, but the glare of the spotlight was particularly bright last week at the Technology & Maintenance Council’s annual meeting and beyond.