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In this morning's headlines:Illinois CDL bribe money went to political fundraisers, witness says; Georgia quick to ticket overweight trucks, slow to fine; Drivers for mail-hauling contractor vote to unionize; and Truckers extend highway blockades down under.

In an industry like trucking, which is famous for its tenuous profit margins, cutting expenses has become a fine art. Nearly every dollar that can be shaved from the cost column shows up in the net earnings column, so commercial motor carriers large and small have found inventive ways of taking expenses that at one time looked “fixed” — and unfixing them.

The availability of vehicle inspection and accident data on the Internet from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is beginning to play a bigger role in determining who qualifies for insurance coverage.

It has been a good year for Doug Lauer. The chief information officer for Allied Holdings had already been honored as Georgia’s top CIO, and now he has been named the information technology professional of the year by the Information Technology and Logistics Council and Transport Technology Today magazine.

Truckers may cruise Interstate 25 without stopping at a scalehouse now that the highway has become the first major trucking corridor in the nation to be completely wired for electronic weigh station bypass, according to state authorities.

In this afternoon's headlines: Resurging fuel prices an outrage, says Teamsters' Hoffa; Truckers on the road can expect some cuts in phone costs; As economy taps its brakes, will interest rates soon stop rising?; Frozen food express amends financing pact; Investment firm to buy truck stop operator TravelCenters; Delia Moon Meier: A natural for the truck stop business; and The business of moving oversized loads.

The Environmental Protection Agency and American Trucking Associations will face off in the U.S. Supreme Court on how air pollution standards are set.

With fleet insurance rates on the rise, conventional wisdom might be to aggressively shop your insurance program for the cheapest rate. Such a strategy at this time may well prove disastrous for unlucky trucking firms.

Trucking insiders have given an emphatic thumbs-up to the appointment of Clyde J. Hart Jr. as acting deputy administrator at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

A sharp rise in insurance rates is forcing truck companies to accept more risk as well as incur higher operating costs. The problem could reach crisis levels before long, some observers say, and may even push some truckers out of business.