���ϳԹ���

There was further evidence last week of the growing link between fuel prices and Wall Street, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose above 10,000 for the first time in a year, and the price of crude oil exceeded $75 a barrel for the first time since September 2008.

“That which does not kill you makes you stronger.” That would have been an appropriate theme for the 2009 American Trucking Associations’ Management Conference & Exhibition.

Twice in recent days, the New York Times has uncharacteristically turned its attention to the trucking industry, and twice it has tried to give trucking a black eye, strongly implying that the industry is unsafe and has little interest in getting safer.

The Department of Transportation will host a two-day summit this week on problems surrounding distracted driving and solutions to combat what has become a national epidemic.

If you’re in the trucking business, you need to be at American Trucking Associations’ annual Management Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas on Oct. 4.

At the very least, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration needs to provide the freight transportation industry sufficient time to respond to its proposal to fix the clearly broken Unified Carrier Registration agreement.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has proposed “fixing” the underperforming revenue aspects of its Unified Carrier Registration agreement by shifting more of the financial burden to the nation’s law-abiding trucking fleets.

When trucks and truck drivers are mentioned in the general media, they seem almost invariably to be put in a bad light.

We’re still waiting for definitive signs that the economy has turned the corner on this recession, and a return to normal business levels is just down the road.

The new economic Siamese twins, namely the stock market and oil prices, are continuing to rise in lockstep, bringing relief and pain to consumers — and the national economy — simultaneously.