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Ever wonder how the out-of-service criteria used by roadside inspectors were developed? Believe it or not, they came about in an effort to make the lives of both truckers and inspectors easier, according to the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance.

In most states, state police conduct roadside inspections of trucks. In others, trucking safety is the responsibility of the state Department of Transportation or Public Service Commission. There are even some states where truckers must obey four separate agencies of safety enforcers.

Small towns have long used speed traps to generate revenue from unsuspecting out-of-towners, but some Michigan truckers are concerned that police in the suburbs of Detroit are establishing “truck traps” with similar profit-minded goals.

A fiery Gulf Freeway crash ended the lives of a 38-year-old Houston man and his three young children last June. The driver of the tractor-trailer involved is serving 60 years in state prison for intoxicated manslaughter.

Although state personnel conduct roadside safety checks, they are not the only cadre of trucking safety inspectors. The federal government fields a small force, concentrating mostly on reviewing the safety performance of entire trucking fleets by visiting the carrier’s office and poring through the records.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is deploying a new version of its five-year-old Inspection Selection System that uses a combination of a carrier’s safety rating and roadside inspection track record to flag who may need more attention from inspectors.

The heist of the Oscar statues from a Roadway Express facility in California recently put the spotlight on cargo theft, but transportation industry officials know this is not a new problem.

Small carriers planning to grow quickly should hire owner-operators rather than buy new trucks and grapple with driver shortages, according to a panel addressing small carrier issues.

Trucking companies and driver training schools opened hailing frequencies with each other during a landmark March 17 meeting organized by two national driver training groups. A transmission came in loud and clear: Better cooperation is needed among the parties.

Six months ago, Lana Batts said she wouldn’t have dreamed of being an executive for an Internet portal. But one day after her last public speech as president of the Truckload Carriers Association, on March 20, the grande dame of trucking was leading a press conference introducing Transportal, an Internet service she said is designed to help her former constituents operate more efficiently.