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About the two May 17 “rate setting” letters: It’s important for trucking companies to understand that we are the ones who set the rates.

Reading the May 24 “Opinion” column on how hard it would be for the smaller freight brokers to exist with a higher bond, my heart goes out to them, but my sympathies run with the trucking companies that use these brokers, small or large.

I agree with “Opinion” writer Paul Landry: There’s no question that safety is more important than money. As consumers, we need to do the same when it comes to setting priorities.

Review of the 2007 generation of diesel engines has been a very hot topic this year. At the annual American Trucking Associations Technology & Maintenance Council meeting, I was one of the panelists asked to score the performance of the 2007 engines based on TransAm’s experiences.

I recently had the opportunity to make an informal survey on in-cab distractions. I have been restoring an old Willys Utility Wagon, and I wanted to see if I could find a couple of leather bucket seats for it. I went to a local junkyard, and they told me to walk around and look in the vehicles and see if I could find a pair that I liked.

I recently started receiving Transport Topics and was especially interested in what you had to say the Feb. 22 p. 1 story, “Transportation Firms Must Improve Recruiting to Satisfy Customers’ Desires, Leaders Say.”

Numerous national health and safety organizations have come together to petition and support the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s regulation to ban cell-phone use in commercial vehicles.

Who is paying the legal costs for the Port of Los Angeles to pursue the “employee only” model? How much taxpayer money is being wasted on a lost cause that has been reviewed and re-reviewed in the courts?

The letter from [an official] of Road Safe America that appeared in the Feb. 1 edition contained a number of misstatements and misunderstandings.

Regarding the letter with the headline “EOBRs Revisited,” there was a very interesting guest commentary about electronic onboard recorders recently in another publication, in which the author claimed only 2% of crashes occur after more than 10 hours of driving time.