It appears that the death of the nation’s economic recovery has been greatly exaggerated, at least up until now.

Here’s a true story: The editorial office of Transport Topics overlooks a cul-de-sac that leads off a busy commercial street. There is a lot of construction going on in that cul-de-sac and last week one of the trucks delivering ready-mixed concrete broke down.

The good news is that President Obama once again has called for a major new federal investment in infrastructure to fix and expand our roads and bridges.

About one-third of the truck occupants who died in crashes during 2011 weren’t wearing a seat belt, according to new data coming from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

The new “captains” of the nation’s trucking industry — namely the 19 freshly appointed members of America’s Road Team — are now on the job.

While the solution that Washington “crafted” to the looming “fiscal cliff” was far from perfect, it seems to have gotten the job done.

A number of things are conspiring to push driver turnover rates up for smaller carriers, even as larger fleets have been more successful in keeping a lid on employee churn.

There’s been a lot of energy expended recently as the trucking industry pushes to get the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to adopt a reasonable crash accountability standard.

At ATA’s leadership conference last week, we issued a statement pointing out what we see as the increasingly inflexible stance taken by FMCSA in regard to a number of outstanding issues and by some counterproductive steps the agency has taken as it fleshes out the CSA program.

Truck sales remained strong during March, as fleets bought 17,308 heavy-duty vehicles, 33% more than they bought in March 2011. That’s the good news.