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The federal government’s truck size-and-weight study began taking shape last week as researchers outlined how they plan to assess whether larger trucks affect highway safety, pavement wear and modal shifts.

A majority of all drivers support mandating speed-limiting devices on trucks, according to the latest National Highway Traffic Safety Administration survey on driver attitudes and behavior.

American Trucking Associations and the Minnesota Trucking Association are asking the federal government to do a pilot project to study whether greater flexibility in hours-of service-rules for truck drivers who use sleeper berths would affect highway safety.

The Federal Highway Administration is extending the deadline for public comments on its draft of a Primary Freight Network to Jan. 17, according to a notice in the Federal Register.

Some $13.6 trillion worth of goods were shipped in the United States in 2012 weighing a combined 11.7 billion tons, with trucks once again doing a majority of the work, according to a federal report.

U.S. diesel prices dipped 0.4 cent to a national average of $3.879 a gallon, ending two weeks of increases that were the fuel’s only upturns in the past three months, the Department of Energy reported Dec. 9.

A federal appeals court has thrown out an Environmental Protection Agency rule that allowed Navistar Inc. to pay penalties while it continued to sell engines that did not meet 2010 federal emissions standards.