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With the worst of the steepest economic downturn in decades apparently in the rearview mirror, trucking executives are shifting their focus to the recovery in 2010, while also bracing for what could be an onslaught of new safety and environmental regulations.

Some freight executives say they are concerned that the Department of Transportation’s new Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 program — which is intended to boost carrier and driver safety — could be undermined by inaccurate data, flawed methodology and unintended commercial consequences when it begins in July.

Driver turnover at large truckload carriers fell in the third quarter to 43% a year, the lowest level since American Trucking Associations began tracking the data in 1995.

Work crews struggling around the clock to clear a rockslide on Interstate 40 in western North Carolina to speed the clearance of boulders from the road, the Associated Press reported.

The Environmental Protection Agency has refused to back a request from American Trucking Associations and the Canadian Trucking Alliance that foreign (non-U.S.) drivers be allowed to reposition their trailers between two points.

If people won’t voluntarily avoid using handsets while operating a motor vehicle, there are ways to render cellular connections inoperable, or at least report the driver’s activities to management.

PeopleNet said regional less-than-truckload carrier Dohrn Transfer Co. will begin installing its onboard technology system in January.

Some of the year’s most significant information technology developments came from Washington, D.C., where federal regulators planted the seeds for tighter industry oversight for years to come.