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Yet another state is coming to its senses and changing its mind about weight-distance taxes. The Idaho Senate voted to replace its $40 million-a-year levy with an increase in truck registration fees. The operator of an 80,000-pound tractor-trailer traveling 100,000 miles a year in the state would see his or her $4,700 ton-mile tax payments replaced with a $3,300 annual registration fee.

I’m a strong proponent of life imprisonment, with no opportunity for parole, for any transportation professional who uses the phrase “trucking deregulation.” The word “deregulation” implies that government rules and constraints have been removed from a carrier’s decision-making process. This is not what has happened since 1980.

Trucking companies that haven’t been impressed with electronic commerce so far may want to pay attention to opportunities now being created in the business-to-business segment of online transactions.

As major truck manufacturers hawked their newest offerings at the Mid-America Trucking Show, they were haunted by the ironic specter of their own success.

Freightliner trucks built after November can be powered by an engine made by Germany’s Mercedes-Benz, another subsidiary of Freightliner’s parent company, DaimlerChrysler.

Nostalgia competed with modern ergonomics at the Mack Trucks exhibit at the Mid-America Trucking Show.

There are those who would say that becoming the first new entrant in a market that has been either stable or shrinking for the past 70 years seems foolish.

Volvo Trucks North America is trying a new marketing strategy for selling its vehicles by “Cost Per Mile.”

Government regulations, both on the books and in proposal form, could further aggravate the already costly problem of long waits at shipping and receiving docks, according to the Truckload Carriers Association.

The Internet, which offers a wealth of information and business opportunities, is really a Dr. Frankenstein that will slice, dice and reassemble the mighty U.S. economy, including trucking, according to a panel of industry executives.