Safety

Alaska highway workers have moved the Dalton Highway to protect it from a giant mass of frozen debris oozing down a hillside.

State and federal transportation officials amended on Sept. 4 the William H. Natcher Parkway-I-165 conversion agreement to designate the highway stretching from Bowling Green to Owensboro an interstate before several interchange projects along it are completed.

WASHINGTON — The small role Congress currently plays in policy for autonomous vehicle technology could eventually slow, or impede, progress for states and firms testing such systems, a key House transportation authorizer warned on Sept. 5.

An “incursion” nine months ago that shut down the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners still is causing delays in registering new examiners and backlogs for medical examiners to upload truck driver examinations, officials said.

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration chief Ray Martinez will be a keynote speaker at American Trucking Associations’ conference next month to provide an update on new rules covering the industry.

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah driver who slammed her Tesla into a stopped firetruck at a red light earlier this year while using the vehicle’s semi-autonomous function has sued the company, saying salespeople told her the car would stop on its own in Autopilot mode if something were in its path.

REDDING, Calif. — An explosive wildfire that closed down dozens of miles of a major California freeway nearly tripled in size overnight, just weeks after a nearby blaze that left neighborhoods in ruins and killed eight people, officials said Sept. 6.

DETROIT — Ford is recalling about 2 million F-150 pickups in North America because the seat belts can cause fires.

Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems announced the next generation of both its Wingman Fusion advanced driver assistance system and its BlindSpotter side object detection system.

While intermodal may be playing catch-up in the real-time freight visibility race, the consensus among industry watchers is that the gap is closing — fast. You can thank the Internet of Things revolution and the emergence of “in the cloud” software and database platforms.