Business

As trucking groups continue to express opposition toward the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s proposal to more than double registration fees starting in 2010, the agency said it was extending the public comment period by 10 days.

RALEIGH, N.C. — After four years of learning, technician Christopher Tate, 37, overcame the challenges of 81 competitors, 14 skills station hurdles and a four-hour written test to lay claim to the title of grand national champion of SuperTech 2009.

FedEx Corp.’s Freight unit re-versed two quarters of losses and posted a $2 million profit in the first quarter of fiscal 2010, but the corporation’s net income fell 53% to $181 million from a year earlier.

The House transportation committee is preparing a short-term extension of the current highway funding law, while continuing work on a long-term replacement for the legislation that expires in less than two weeks.

RALEIGH, N.C. — The federal stopping-distance rule announced in late July will generate lots of technical choices for truck buyers, but manufacturing executives told fleet managers here the engineering changes should be minimally disruptive.

The U.S. retail diesel average price fell 1.3 cents to $2.634 a gallon in its second consecutive post-Labor Day dip, the Department of Energy said last week.

Chrysler Group will add a second shift with about 850 workers at its Belvidere, Ill., plant to boost production of its Dodge Caliber crossover car, Bloomberg reported.

The Maine Department of Transportation has installed cameras and scales in an attempt to catch weight violations in trucks that avoid a weigh station on Interstate 95, the Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald reported Friday.

Truckload carrier Schneider National will close fuel and maintenance centers in Wisconsin and Ohio, eliminating some jobs and relocating some employees, the Green Bay (Wis.) Press-Gazette reported.