Business

It’s that time of the year again. The roads are filled with people hurrying to their holiday travel destinations and parties and trying to get gifts purchased.

An awful lot has changed over the years in the trucking industry. And, like in so many industries today, the pace of that change seems to be escalating every year.

Used-truck prices have risen in recent months as more late-model, low-mileage equipment has reached the market, according to industry analysts.

November Class 8 truck orders rose 5.7% from a year ago, holding at more than 20,000 for a second straight month, but slipped from October’s almost two-year high, ACT Research reported.

UPS Inc. Teamsters were voting last week on the single largest remaining barrier to implementation of the union’s package contract.

WASHINGTON — An Oregon congressman has introduced legislation that would boost federal taxes on diesel and gasoline to fill a widening shortfall in the federal government’s main source of transportation funding.

“Slapping that iron,” a trucker’s term for adding snow chains to vehicles during winter months, is one task that drivers generally dislike.

When the federal government reported last month that U.S. truck-involved fatalities crept up by 3.7% in 2012 over the previous year, American Trucking Associations labeled the report “incomplete and misleading” because large trucks were grouped with smaller ones.

The significant growth in U.S. crude oil production, which recently overtook imports for the first time in 18 years, should help trucking by increasing freight volumes and possibly keeping a lid on prices, industry experts said.

IRVING, Texas — Developments in safety technology have the potential to dramatically change the trucking industry, perhaps eventually leading to driverless trucks, technology leaders told fleet executives here at a meeting organized by American Trucking Associations.