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The House moved quickly last week to shift $7 billion to the nearly depleted Highway Trust Fund, and the Senate followed suit, although Senate leaders continued to advocate for extending current highway legislation for 18 months.

Truckers who text from the driver’s seat are about 23 times more likely to have a crash, or at least a close encounter, than are drivers who are watching the road, according to a Virginia university study for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

A sharp drop in intermodal business helped to drag down second-quarter earnings for the largest North American railroads.

Finance and leasing industry officials said a proposal to reclassify equipment leases as a form of debt or asset, rather than an expense, would be difficult and costly for most companies to comply with.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s decision to cut the maximum allowed stopping distance for large trucks by 30% will increase truck buyers’ costs somewhat, but will not force a widespread shift to new technology such as air disc brakes, industry groups and manufacturers said.

The U.S. economic downturn and the resultant oversupply of for-hire hauling capacity curtailed the growth of many corporate-owned truck fleets during the past year.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission last week began laying the groundwork for a stronger regulatory hand over oil traders and investors, with a series of hearings and a report on trading patterns that could lead to limits on some purchases of futures contracts.

American Trucking Associations’ tonnage index declined 13.6% in June from year-ago levels, the biggest such decline since early 1996.

The U.S. average retail diesel price rose 3.2 cents a gallon last week to $2.528, the first increase in five weeks, the Department of Energy reported.

Intermodal rail traffic in the United States fell 17.9% last week compared with the same week last year, the Association of American Railroads said.