Editorial

Scott Darling is officially the fifth administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to have been confirmed by the Senate, which did so July 14 by unanimous consent (see story, p. 5).

We bring you in this issue, our annual report on the size, shape and nature of trucking: the Transport Topics Top 100 list of for-hire carriers, our habit since 1989.

Within several weeks, we could see the final form of Phase 2 of greenhouse-gas limits for heavy- and medium-duty trucks. That should not be confused with the rollout of the second half of Phase 1 GHG regulations on Jan. 1 — although the timing seems almost guaranteed to generate confusion.

As the pursuit of happiness in freight transportation and other aspects of life propels us toward the Fourth of July, a couple of milestones popped concerning our constant companion — infrastructure.

Let us pause for a moment and consider the number zero. As in, during a recent test, 150 heavy-duty tractors racked up 3 million U.S. highway miles and there were zero rear-end collisions.

In many ways, this should not be a surprise: After several years of scorching new-truck sales, the market is rapidly cooling.

Once again, commercial vehicle drivers are taking their annual open-book test — International Roadcheck — from June 7 to June 9. About 10,000 inspectors who are members of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance will fan out across the United States, Canada and Mexico with the goal of inspecting more than 70,000 vehicles in 72 hours.

Ours is a loud and angry society today. Look no further than the current presidential campaign, a spirit-killing fiasco and an advertisement for autocracy, if it’s decorous. Going back at least to Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, Americans have argued, but we also developed interests and ideals to bring us together.

Many regular readers of this page were doubtlessly hoping that the December passage of the FAST Act would at long last get us to shut up about infrastructure funding for at least the first three years of the five-year law. But since last week was Infrastructure Week, no such luck.

Quite often when we use the word “health” in stories, it refers to company profits, freight demand or the economy at large. Similarly, many of our stories involving truck drivers have to do with pay and turnover. That is what you expect from a business-to-business publication.