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The unemployment rate declined to a six-month low of 9% in October while the economy added 80,000 jobs, including 3,100 trucking jobs, the Labor Department said Friday.

Most truckers know that falling off a trailer can result in a cracked skull, but they also need to know that knees, ankles, hips and backs also can be damaged by a jump from the cab — injuries that can make the difference between trucking as a long-term career or just a job for the young.

I’ve driven some “oversize” equipment myself within the past three years, and while not necessarily as “monstrous” as what the letter writer is probably moving most of the time, the 11-foot-wide unescorted mobile cranes and/or 14.3-foot double-decker buses are still considered oversize.

When the largest U.S. intermodal event returns to its roots in Atlanta this weekend, Intermodal Expo attendees will be talking about an industry in which steadily growing domestic truck/rail shipments are stealing the spotlight from slow-growing international cargo.

Trucking and fuel industry officials said a new commodity trading rule is “too weak” to curb the excessive speculation in world oil markets that causes dramatic price swings.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has issued a revised proposal to streamline the agency’s registration process for motor carriers, brokers and freight forwarders — and eventually help the agency identify so-called “chameleon” operators.

The trucking industry’s independent contractor model is being increasingly challenged in the courts, by regulatory authorities and in state legislatures, industry experts said.

RENTON, Wash. — Kenworth Truck Co.’s plant here is busy again, assembling 18 vehicles a day with a single shift of 525 employees.

The Senate passed a spending package last week that would fund transportation programs in 2012 and allow trucks weighing up to 100,000 pounds on interstate highways in Maine and Vermont.