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The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said it has dropped a requirement that truckers submit a chassis condition report even if the equipment is not defective.

The changes the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is making to its CSA safety-monitoring system will lead to increased enforcement in the two areas that correlate least with future crash risk, an examination of the revisions has found.

Trucking added 5,900 jobs in July as payrolls in the private business sector increased by 71,000, despite an overall loss of 131,000 jobs, largely because temporary census jobs ended, the Department of Labor reported Aug. 6.

An Environmental Protection Agency proposal to designate scrap tires and used oil as solid waste could be extremely costly for the trucking industry, American Trucking Associations said.

Fleet failures slowed sharply in the second quarter after a bulge earlier in the year, dropping to the lowest number in nearly four years because the trucking business is gaining strength, an Avondale Partners report said.

Federal legislation that would ban the use of double-decker trailers to transport horses has drawn the ire of trucking and other interest groups because they say there has not been adequate debate.

The average price of a gallon of retail diesel in the country jumped 6.3 cents last week to $2.991, the largest one-week increase since early April, the Department of Energy reported.

Retail sales rose 0.4% in July, let by higher auto and gasoline sales, the Commerce Department said Friday.

Business inventories rose 0.3% in June, a faster pace than the previous month, the Commerce Department said Friday.

Consumer confidence improved in August, according to the latest Reuters/University of Michigan monthly consumer sentiment index released Friday.