The IIC Blog

By Timothy Cama, Staff Reporter, Transport Topics The federal government defended its program allowing Mexican trucks into the United States, telling a court this month that the pilot program complies with all federal laws related to safety, environmental protection and driver licensing, in addition to the laws specific to the program itself. In a Feb. 15 …

By Rip Watson, Senior Reporter, Transport Topics CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Freight rates will continue to rise by several percentage points this year, carriers and shippers said, which should open the door for further pay increases for drivers. “We are looking at a driver pay increase in late March,” said Richard Bailey, president of Boyd Bros. …

After surging 8.7 cents last week, the national average diesel price increased 1.7 cents in the latest week, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information. It was the sixth increase in the last seven weeks, during which the diesel price has risen 17.7 cents. The latest price is $3.96. A year …

By Eric Miller, Staff Reporter, Transport Topics American Trucking Associations has asked a federal appeals court to throw out the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s recently published hours-of-service rule and is likely to challenge specifically the rule’s 34-hour restart provision. The lawsuit, filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Feb. …

Southbound lanes of I-405 in Orange County, Calif., will be closed this week, the Orange County Transportation Authority said. Southbound I-405 will be closed between I-605 and Valley View Street in Fountain Valley from midnight Feb. 21 to 5 a.m. Feb. 22. Southbound I-405 will also be closed between midnight and 5 a.m. from I-605 to …

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor, TruckingInfo.com The North American Council for Freight Efficiency has released the results of its first fleet fuel efficiency study, representing 75,000 OTR tractors and 130,000 53-ft trailers from eight fleets. The study highlights successful applications of products and practices that provide fuel savings during real-world usage. It analyzed the adoption …

By Jonathan S. Reiskin, Associate News Editor, Transport Topics Fleet maintenance directors and their suppliers will return to Tampa, Fla., this week to discuss ever more complicated techniques for eking out new slender margins of efficiency to keep the nation’s trucks rolling down highways longer and more smoothly. More than 300 exhibitors are expected to show …

The Port of Los Angeles said Feb. 15 its import and export container volumes each rose more than 5% in January from a year ago. Loaded imported containers rose 5.3% from 2010, to almost 356,400 twenty-foot equivalent units, while exports rose 5.9% to just over 168,400 TEUs. The port attributed some of the increase to …

By Eric Miller, Staff Reporter, Transport Topics Federal regulators will not issue a final rule this year mandating electronic onboard recorders for nearly all interstate carriers, a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration spokeswoman confirmed last week. Instead, an FMCSA spokeswoman said, the agency probably will not even issue a supplemental — or second — proposed rule …

By Oliver B. Patton, Washington Editor The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration decided to take a step back from its pending electronic onboard recorder rules and begin a supplemental process to resolve legal and technical problems. Officially this will be known as a Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, but for simplicity call it EOBR3. EOBR1 …