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Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) is the latest member of Congress to send a letter to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood expressing his strong opposition to a U.S. proposal to buy electronic onboard recorders for Mexican trucks that will travel within the United States.

Class 8 truck manufacturers have a backlog of nearly 100,000 units scheduled to be built over the next 12 months, more than double the number of a year ago, because of a substantial increase in orders over the winter, ACT Research Co. reported.

LAS VEGAS — Freightliner Trucks introduced two new severe-duty trucks last week at the 2011 ConExpo/ConAgg construction conference and equipment exhibition here, in a move by Daimler Trucks North America to recapture market share in vocational vehicles.

American Trucking Associations is “poised” to file a lawsuit against the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration if the agency adopts a proposed rule that could cut driver time to 10 hours a day, ATA Chairman Barbara Windsor said.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators recently introduced a bill that would create a national infrastructure bank to issue loans and loan guarantees for transportation and other infrastructure projects of regional and national significance.

In March 1972, Riva Ridge was training to win the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes, Col. Harland Sanders was still making appearances at his Kentucky Fried Chicken empire, Transport Topics reported that the Secretary of Transportation proposed the “Busting Road Trust Fund,” and a truck tire salesman turned lobbyist hosted the first Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Ky.

LAS VEGAS — Caterpillar Inc., the construction-equipment manufacturer which dropped out of the Class 8 engine market two years ago, entered the on-highway vocational truck market last week with the introduction of the first in a line of Caterpillar-branded severe-service trucks.

Volvo Trucks North America and the United Auto Workers said they reached a tentative agreement on a new five-year contract for workers at the heavy-duty New River Valley plant near Dublin, Va.

U.S. retail diesel prices trickled down last week for the first time in nearly four months, the Department of Energy reported, but analysts said it was unlikely the trickle would start a downward trend at the pumps.

Air and freight forwarder UTi Worldwide’s fiscal fourth-quarter net income jumped to $14.5 million, or 14 cents a share, from $1.5 million, or 2 cents, a year earlier.