������ý

WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said work on a regulation that would ban texting by commercial drivers will be finished in the near future.

U.S. intermodal rail traffic dropped 3% in the week ended Saturday compared with the same week last year, the Association of American Railroads said.

Roadrunner Transportation Services Holdings Inc. said it bought less-than-truckload carrier Bullet Freight Systems Inc. on Dec. 14 to expand its services in the western United States.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has begun enforcing its New Entrant Safety Assurance Process rule, requiring stricter safety standards for newly registered truck and bus companies.

WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the department was working to complete its work on a regulation to ban texting by commercial drivers, and that it would be finished “sooner rather than later.”

Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) will introduce a long-awaited rail bill on Dec. 15 that expands the Surface Transportation Board and adds several provisions that could give shippers more choices of rail carriers, committee officials said.

Today’s new diesel-power trucks are, by law, equipped with particulate filters, and in many models the DPF will soon will be joined by another aftertreatment device — selective catalytic reduction, or SCR, in a canister.

In a local newspaper, I recently read an editorial titled: “Truckers Should Not Be Texting While Driving.” The writer improperly quoted statistics and singled out the trucking industry as the problem.