Autonomous

WASHINGTON — Strengthening commercial truck safety has made it onto the Most Wanted List of policies and actions issued annually by the National Transportation Safety Board.

WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said his department had plenty of information under which to justify opening the U.S. border to Mexican trucks despite a report from the Inspector General that said there were too few participants in a pilot program to determine if all Mexican trucks were safe enough to run U.S. roads.

WASHINGTON — Environmental officials from California and the East Coast said during a Transportation Research Board panel here that trucks still require special attention because of diesel emissions, even though such output became much cleaner from 1998 to 2010.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said the nation’s trucking companies must continue random drug testing for at least 50% of drivers and other “safety sensitive” employees during 2015.

Class 8 truck orders jumped 38% to 43,900 units in December, capping the industry’s second-best year on record, ACT Research reported.

Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive Officer Mark Fields said that an automaker probably will introduce a self-driving vehicle within half a decade, but it won’t be his company, which is focusing on less expensive features that assist in driving.

The possibility of more Mexican trucks running in the United States is still up in the air after a recent report by the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General concluded participation in a three-year pilot program was too small to yield sufficient safety data.