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Week by week, some of the lifeblood of the trucking industry is being drained away to the coffers of the oil-exporting nations that, through sheer happenstance, sit on deep pools of crude.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has formally issued its proposed ergonomics standard, supposedly aimed at reducing musculoskeletal disorders. In doing so, OSHA has signaled its total disregard for basing public policy on sound science. OSHA also claims that the rule will cost American businesses a mere $4 billion a year, when well-respected economists have concluded that annual costs could actually exceed $100 billion. Additionally, many question whether these news costs would actually prevent injuries.

In most states, state police conduct roadside inspections of trucks. In others, trucking safety is the responsibility of the state Department of Transportation or Public Service Commission. There are even some states where truckers must obey four separate agencies of safety enforcers.

Ever wonder how the out-of-service criteria used by roadside inspectors were developed? Believe it or not, they came about in an effort to make the lives of both truckers and inspectors easier, according to the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance.

Small towns have long used speed traps to generate revenue from unsuspecting out-of-towners, but some Michigan truckers are concerned that police in the suburbs of Detroit are establishing “truck traps” with similar profit-minded goals.

A fiery Gulf Freeway crash ended the lives of a 38-year-old Houston man and his three young children last June. The driver of the tractor-trailer involved is serving 60 years in state prison for intoxicated manslaughter.

Although state personnel conduct roadside safety checks, they are not the only cadre of trucking safety inspectors. The federal government fields a small force, concentrating mostly on reviewing the safety performance of entire trucking fleets by visiting the carrier’s office and poring through the records.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is deploying a new version of its five-year-old Inspection Selection System that uses a combination of a carrier’s safety rating and roadside inspection track record to flag who may need more attention from inspectors.

The heist of the Oscar statues from a Roadway Express facility in California recently put the spotlight on cargo theft, but transportation industry officials know this is not a new problem.