°®¶¹´«Ã½

As legislators in many states close out their sessions and head home, trucking association leaders are reporting noteworthy progress this year in attacking state laws they say too often enable plaintiff attorneys to seek inflated jury verdicts in truck-involved accident litigation.

A total of five individuals have pleaded guilty to staging two accidents in the New Orleans area with tractor-trailers in 2017, and obtaining fraudulent financial settlements totaling more than $282,000.

The California Trucking Association has asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for a full appellate court review of a three-member panel’s earlier decision regarding a state law that many in trucking deem unfair to the industry.

A trucking industry and insurance coalition against predatory towing company practices has sent a letter of support to several Chicago aldermen who are leading an effort to revise a city ordinance that would create a first-ever license for tow truck operators.

Most motor carriers doing business with the federal government are believed to have responded to a requirement that they do their best to purge technology systems of five banned Chinese technology providers said to be potential hackers into U.S. intelligence and defense agencies’ information systems.

Former Pilot Flying J President Mark Hazelwood and two former company executives have asked a federal judge for a change of venue in their upcoming retrial early next year on federal charges of cheating truckers out of diesel fuel rebates.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Medical Review Board put its stamp of approval on a proposed plan for the agency to eliminate its exemption process for truck drivers with vision in only one eye.

The Texas Senate has unanimously approved a House bill that would help curb the growing trend of lawsuit abuse targeting commercial vehicles in Texas.

The Louisiana House has passed a bill that would make staging an accident with a car or truck a serious state crime.

The rate of positive truck driver drug tests recorded in the Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse in the first three months of this year remains on pace with last year’s, and the number of drivers who have yet to enroll in return-to-duty programs remains persistently low.