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In these trying times of high fuel prices, escalating intrusion into our workplaces by OSHA and a drive for tougher diesel emission rules from EPA that seems certain to add to fuel problems, it's nice to get a little good news: Trucking is getting safer.

I talk to a lot of truckers every day. In Nebraska we have a great cross-section of carriers. We have huge ones, small ones, milk-haulers and gas-haulers. You name it and you’ll see it in Nebraska. With all my members there is one issue that is critical right now, and it is fuel.

In an industry increasingly populated with electronic trading exchanges, marketplaces for intermodal services have been conspicuous by their absence. That situation, however, is not likely to prevail for much longer.

Authorization for the federal highway program will not run out until 2003, yet the Department of Transportation is developing the first surface transportation proposal of the 21st century, with emphasis on intermodalism.

High bonding and minimum volume requirements by railroads make it difficult for small and mid-size intermodal marketing companies to offer competitive rates to shippers, according to the executive director of the Transportation Intermediaries Association.

James E. Coles, president of Western Peterbilt and Truck Dealer of the Year for 2000, has seen his share of hard times and good times, but regardless of fluctuating business conditions, his philosophy has remained essentially the same.

The Customs Service put its import-export automation eggs in a new basket called the Automated Commercial Environment. But funding and operational issues have delayed the delivery of ACE, and everyone involved in cross-border trade, including trucking, continues lurching along with the old system, hoping it won’t crash utterly and throw the customs-clearance process back into the Dark Ages of massive paper-filing.

In the original Star Trek television show, no matter where in the universe Capt. James T. Kirk went, the intelligent alien species always understood what he was saying, and he understood them.

Considering how Americans love their coffee it’s no wonder that Internet retailing companies are cropping up to satisfy the demand for a good cup of morning brew.

The Internet is sparking the development of new businesses and new ways of doing business throughout the shipping and trucking cycle, and brokers and freight-forwarders are no exception.