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Congress was poised last week to act on legislation that would help owners of family-owned trucking companies pass the fruits of a lifetime’s work on to their children without Uncle Sam taking a giant bite.

In his June 5 opinion piece, Clyde J. Hart Jr., the acting deputy administrator for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, tried to explain “what’s the deal” with the hours-of-service proposal. The federal government is proposing a rule that would ensure drivers of large trucks and buses the opportunity to get adequate rest. It sounds great in theory, but let’s look at the big picture and leave politics out of it for the moment.

Truck maintenance shops used to call to mind images of dreary, poorly-lit places where sparks from welding torches cascade to the floor near unlabeled containers of liquids.

The stage is being set for a congressional a debate on the subject of bigger and heavier trucks, perhaps as soon as next year.

Trucking companies that don’t watch who they do business with internationally could be setting themselves up for civil or criminal penalties under a new federal law that took effect in December.

Although the wave of change for women in the 1970s was slow to hit trucking, one Florida woman rolled in early and is still riding high.

A drop in shipments of van trailers caused truck trailer shipments during the first five months of 2000 to lag 1999 numbers by 3% after taking three months to draw even with the previous year’s figures.

No date has been set for the initial meeting of a House-Senate conference that is to decide whether to stop funding for the proposed hours-of-service rules from the Department of Transportation.

The largest state trucking association has become the second carrier group to support the use of electronic on-board recorders to monitor compliance with hours of service regulations — with some caveats.

Fixing downed power lines and restoring telephone service could take longer if hours-of-service regulations proposed by the Department of Transportation are enacted, according to industry officials.