���ϳԹ���

Trucking hopes that the $363,387 the industry gave to members of the House Appropriations Committee during the 1997 to 1998 election cycle bought them some clout.

James P. Hoffa was finally sworn in as general president of the Teamsters union March 22, and he immediately turned his attention to trucking issues.

General Parcel Service, a package carrier based in Jacksonville, Fla., that spawned Transit Group of Atlanta in June 1997 and was spun off to a new management group a few months later, has merged with Bank Air Courier of Columbia, S.C., and Anderson Armored Car/Courier Division in Anderson, S.C., and has adopted a new name — Momentum Logistics.

Germany’s state-owned postal service, which has spent more than $2 billion in the last year acquiring freight transportation companies, announced it will shell out another $580 million for Royal Nedlloyd’s European land transport and distribution businesses.

Western Star Trucks is pinning its hopes for growth on a bid to make new inroads into the owner-operator and small- to medium-fleet markets — and the company’s executives say weight reductions will be the key to success.

Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White said today he is suspending the commercial driver's license of the trucker involved in the March 15 Amtrak collision that killed 11 people.

It’s hard to find anyone who can remember the last time the Federal Highway Administration held a ceremony to sign a new trucking regulation. Major laws of the land sometimes get that kind of special treatment at the White House or on Capitol Hill, virtually always in the glare of the spotlight, with the press in attendance. But to place his name on the regulation that will require reflective tape to be retrofitted to truck trailers, Federal Highway Administrator Kenneth Wykle chose to invite a select few to the Department of Transportation — and then close the doors. No press, no public.

In mid-March, the Truckload Carriers Association took a historic step and adopted a five-year strategic plan. TCA decided to revise its strategic plan because American Trucking Associations’ overall goal, spelled out in the Wren Commission’s report, is to make ATA “first in class” in solving common political problems, with truckload issues receiving a high priority.

United Parcel Service will soon be testing a hybrid engine that’s not as powerful as a locomotive but has the essential characteristics of a train’s power plant.

Plenty of uncertainty remains about the effects of the Year 2000 computer bug. But U.S. diesel engine manufacturers say they’re sure of one thing: Y2K won’t shut down their truck engines.