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NEW YORK — A panel of trucking executives painted a generally optimistic outlook for the nation’s economy based on recent freight trends.

Click here to write a Letter to the Editor.On Page One of this week’s TT is some of the first downright positive economic news we’ve heard in many months from trucking executives who were willing to be quoted.

Click here to write a Letter to the Editor.The question I probably get asked the most, at least of late, is where is the economic recovery for the trucking industry. After all, the nation’s gross domestic product grew at a 5.8% annual rate in the first quarter of this year, the highest rate since the fourth quarter of 1999. Yet truck tonnage grew by only a scant 0.3% during the same quarter compared to a year earlier.

Drivers, Construction Works Celebrate Big I Completion • CF Hikes Rates, Drops Andersen • Meridian, Kennametal Seal Management Deal • Crude Oil Prices Drop, As Gasoline-Supply Level Seen Higher • And more...

Mexican Police Recover 8 Tons of Missing Cyanide • Intelligent Transportation Systems Seen Protecting Highways • U.S. DOT Issues Fuel Truck Alert • FBI Reorganizing to Fight Terrorism • And more...

Consolidated Freightways Corp. said Tuesday that its board has named John P. Brincko its new president and chief executive officer.

The national average price of diesel fuel slipped 0.1 cent per gallon last week to $1.308, the U.S. Department of Energy reported Tuesday.

Consumer confidence rose in May to its second-highest level since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Conference Board reported Tuesday.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The first of four public hearings an Environmental Protection Agency panel will hold on potential problems complying with its diesel engine and ultra-low-sulfur fuel regulations produced familiar arguments that reduced emissions engines will be expensive and hard to design but that refiners will be able to make the required low-sulfur fuel.

Transportation officials from the three North American Free Trade Agreement nations will meet in San Antonio May 28–31 on safety and trade issues and to hash out details as the United States prepares to remove restrictions this summer on Mexican trucks operating here.