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As trucking companies continue to buy new Class 8 tractors at a record pace in order to meet the heavy demand for freight transportation, companies that sell components to truck makers have seen their sales and earnings lifted to new heights.

Louisiana forbids the owner of a vehicle to offer a chassis or container in intermodal exchange that does not meet federal safety regulations, under a new state law. Truckers would have the right to inspect the equipment and demand that repairs be made if necessary.

A federal grand jury in Richmond, Va., indicted a mother and two of her sons on charges of running a violent hijacking ring that appeared to target older, independent big rig drivers at truck and rest stops along Interstate 95 in Virginia.

The Oregon Senate approved the elimination of the state’s weight-distance tax, but the drive to abolish the oldest such tax in the country faces a tough sell before the House and the governor.

Truckers using fuel or credit cards will be able to whiz through check-out lines at truck stops, according to marketers of a satellite point-of-sale technology.

Ryder System agreed to sell its public transportation service unit to FirstGroup PLC, the United Kingdom’s largest bus operator, for $940 million in cash.

The money’s simply overflowing a lot of trucking suppliers’ coffers these days. Major players like Detroit Diesel, Cummins Engines, Eaton, Dana and Meritor are basking in record second-quarter sales and — in many cases — record profits as well. But what does this tell us in trucking?

Although the current freight system has performed very well over the years, enabling our country’s businesses to import and export their goods relatively inexpensively, the honeymoon could be over if we don’t begin to seriously plan for the future.

The Department of Transportation is under a congressional mandate to come up with a list of protocols for building such a network by 2001. These 17 standards are considered essential in ensuring that the computer-based systems and the equipment that uses them are “interoperable” — that can be interconnected no matter where they are or who runs them.

Shipments of trailers and chassis continued to slide through May, dropping 14.4% below their levels for the same five months during the record-breaking year of 1998.