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Jim Hall has resigned as chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, effective Jan. 18. NTSB is an independent federal agency that investigates causes of transportation accidents and makes recommendations for corrective actions.

The nation’s largest maker of diesel engines for heavy-duty trucks is sharply cutting back production, laying off 1,000 workers and “fundamentally restructuring” its operations in response to year-end losses and continuing industry consolidation.

Overdue loans and a lack of new financing have the company that once hoped to be the communications service of choice for over-the-road truck drivers looking for a buyer.

Officials in Manitoba are considering stringent enforcement tools for repeat drugged and drunken offenders that could include forfeiture of commercial or private vehicles.

Eight days after announcing a blockbuster merger with rival M.S. Carriers of Memphis, Tenn., Phoenix-based Swift Transportation struck another deal that expands its freight-hauling business in the eastern United States.

Chairman Alan Greenspan and his colleagues at the Federal Reserve are sending signals that they may soon cut interest rates to stimulate a sagging economy, and the trucking industry has a major stake in the outcome.

As 2000 draws to a close, the rest of the nation is discovering what truckers have known for months: The nation’s economy is slowing down markedly.

The financial markets have a complex, convoluted and constantly changing relationship with the Federal Reserve, the institution wielding power over short-term rates.

At least since the virtual coronation of Ronald Reagan as president, the prevailing mythology has been that our federal regulatory agencies are careening out of control, placing needless and unwarranted burdens on American business that stifle economic growth.

Monthly sales totals for Class 8 trucks in the United States have been retreating all year — and, in the final months of the year, the retreat is turning into a rout.