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A Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration proposal to create an information clearinghouse for drug and alcohol-testing information related to truck drivers has been approved by the White House Office of Management and Budget and sent back to the agency for publication.

American Trucking Associations appointed Curtis Shewchuk of Con-way Inc. as chairman of the group’s 91��Ƶland Security Policy Committee, ATA said Jan. 14.

Transportation funding and truck safety will be thrust into the spotlight this week as the U.S. House of Representatives convenes its first hearing on a new highway bill and Department of Transportation leaders make several public addresses.

It many ways, 2013 was a good year for American Trucking Associations.

Some $13.6 trillion worth of goods were shipped in the United States in 2012 weighing a combined 11.7 billion tons, with trucks once again doing a majority of the work, according to a federal report.

Trucking companies using the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Pre-Employment Screening Program reduced their crash rates by 15%, with midsize carriers seeing even greater improvements, according to a recent FMCSA study.

A new study has found trucks using lane-departure warning and roll-stability control systems are less likely to be involved in an accident than those not using the system.

By Bruce Lilly, Contributing Writer

This story appears in the August/September 2013 issue of iTECH, published in the Oct.