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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.

Sometimes, a word to the wise really is sufficient. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. found that when trucking company managers and their drivers were told how to avoid costly accidents that could result in property damage, lawsuits, crippling injuries or death, they did indeed pay very careful attention.

Rail shipper groups are hailing a decision by the Surface Transportation Board that the Union Pacific Railroad overcharged FMC Corp. on some 2 million tons of chemical shipments over past three years.

The mandatory “weekends” that drivers would be required to take under the Department of Transportation’s hour-of-service proposal would cut into trucking productivity more than any other provision of the regulations — possibly by as much as 28%, according to a consultant’s study.

Economic ruin, not highway safety, would be the result of the hours-of-service changes envisioned by the Department of Transporaton, according to the leader of American Trucking Associations.

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.

Rep. Lee Terry wants to stop the proposed hours-of-service rules dead in their tracks.

KISSIMMEE, Fla. – The Information Technology and Logistics Council, unable to decide among three less-than-ideal options about its future, chose to go back to the drawing board.

The Distribution and LTL Carriers Association has asked that its members be excluded from proposed ergonomics standards in the workplace.

The Department of Transportation's proposed hours-of-service rules would mean more trucks, lower driver pay and no real gain in safety, trucking industry groups said during the May 31 hearing over the controversial trucker drive-time issue.