ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø

In a 5-4 opinion, the Washington State Supreme Court has interpreted a state overtime provision to apply to interstate truck drivers who work in excess of 40 hours in a week, regardless of whether a portion of those working hours take place outside of the state.

EL PASO, Texas — The Transportation Department’s pilot project allowing a limited number of Mexican carriers to access U.S. highways would not diminish security at the border, Michael Jackson, deputy secretary of ºÚÁϳԹÏÍøland Security, said at a Feb. 23 press conference.

WASHINGTON — Advocacy groups and congressional leaders, citing safety concerns, questioned the Department of Transportation’s decision to allow Mexican trucks into the United States, and a key senator said she would hold a hearing on the issue.

Schneider National Inc., which recently received a license to operate as a domestic carrier in China, is at the leading edge of a growing Asian investment wave by U.S. fleets, joining both truckload and less-than-truckload companies that have partnerships or logistics operations there.

Surface trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico dipped 0.1% in December from the same month a year earlier, though both truck and rail numbers rose, the Department of Transportation said.

The new chairman of the pivotal House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. James Oberstar, said he would support a pilot program to test the effects that raising truck size and weight limits would have on the nation’s highways.

Transportation stocks, including airlines, trucking companies and railroads, were among the hardest hit in Tuesday’s stock market tumble, the Associated Press reported.

WASHINGTON — Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), a key transportation legislator and a longtime opponent of increasing truck sizes and weights, told Transport Topics he would now support a pilot study of larger vehicles on U.S. highways.

Trucking executives said efforts to ban the use of cellular phones from the nation’s highways would receive industry support as long as state laws do not also ban two-way radios and satellite communication devices.