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Keeping trade moving among the United States, Mexico and Canada helps keep the wheels turning for U.S.-based operations.

In times of great change there are bound to be course corrections, as evidenced by recent developments related to innovations designed to advance the science of moving trucks down the road.

It’s quarterly earnings season, a time of year when the Transport Topics business reporting team is immersed in revenue figures and profit-and-loss numbers. Based on the numbers for the second quarter, the industry is doing pretty well.

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.

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.

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao kicked off Infrastructure Week with the hopeful message that the Trump Administration is keeping its options open for ways to pay for its planned 10-year, $1.5 trillion infrastructure program. But that message — and, perhaps, the very goal of the weeklong initiative itself — was somewhat offset by the reality that U.S. lawmakers likely won’t get anything done on infrastructure this year.

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 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.