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Behind this year’s surge in trucking company failures, brought on largely by the double-whammy of slow freight and skyrocketing fuel prices, is another ominous trend: a sharp increase in the number of motor carriers asking larger competitors to buy them out.

It has been a year of retrenchment for most, but not all, of the largest for-hire carriers in the United States and Canada, as fleets scramble to cope with record fuel prices and weak freight demand.

Despite fuel prices zooming toward the outer edge of our galaxy, ours is a nation of crowded highways and busy people who don’t like trucks getting in their way.

American Trucking Associations asked Congress to implement a comprehensive plan to address the soaring price of diesel fuel and ensures an affordable fuel supply for the nation’s 3.5 million truck drivers.

The Bush administration rejected regulating greenhouse gases, saying it would cripple the U.S. economy, and effectively moved the issue to a future administration, the Associated Press reported Friday.

The average retail price of diesel jumped 8.2 cents to $4.727 a gallon last week, more than wiping out the entire 7.8-cent drop in the price of trucking’s main fuel over the previous five weeks, the Department of Energy reported July 7.

Thousands of used trailers are sitting unsold and gathering dust, as freight demand remains tepid and carriers that would typically up-grade their fleets are postponing purchases, spending their money on fuel instead, according to industry experts.