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NEW ORLEANS — Sophisticated recording devices built into modern trucks and diesel engines can generate information that plaintiff’s attorneys can use to force fleets and their insurance companies to pay massive settlement claims.

Truck maker Volvo AB said its sales for the first two months of the year fell 13%, as U.S. deliveries plunged following new emissions standards that boosted truck prices, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

Truck and engine maker Navistar International Corp. said Tuesday it saw signs of strength in non-traditional and overseas vehicle markets, despite a 6% downturn in Class 6-8 North American truck and bus shipments in its fiscal first quarter.

While much of the heavy-duty truck sales hoopla during 2006 focused on truck makers as they set new monthly and yearly sales records, trailer makers were quietly posting their third-best sales year ever, according to new data from ACT Research.

LAS VEGAS — Leaders of the Truckload Carriers Association said they will take a more active role in shaping trucking’s policy in the coming year and emphasize the need to provide drivers a safer work environment and wage stability.

WASHINGTON — Trucking and law enforcement groups said a recent report claiming the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has failed to ensure trucking safety was unproductive and poorly research

WASHINGTON — Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), author of the rules Congress set for opening the U.S. border to Mexican trucks, told Transportation Secretary Mary Peters she suspected the agency may be stacking the deck in its recently announced pilot program.

A coalition of trucking safety groups issued a report this week giving poor grades to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for failing to do enough to reduce large truck-related fatalities.

Safety-watchdog group Public Citizen said Tuesday it sued the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on behalf of a highway safety organization to compel the agency to release information about recent decision to allow Mexican trucks onto U.S. highways.

The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed for the first time sharp cuts in exhaust emissions from railroad locomotive and marine engines in a plan a spokesman said would “follow exactly the same pattern” as environmental regulations for truck engines.