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The majority of serious crashes involving cars and heavy trucks are caused by driver factors such as speeding or failure to stay in lane by the automobile drivers, according to a report released by American Trucking Associations.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The use of police accident reports as the sole basis to assign fault in truck-involved crashes is not always a reliable method, an accident reconstruction expert told a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration advisory panel last week.

In the wake of a federal safety report that showed a significant rise in truck-occupant fatalities, heavy-duty vehicle manufacturers said that they have been working on ways to improve the safety of their offerings.

Trucking fleets wasted some $27 billion on fuel and wages as their vehicles sat in traffic jams around the country during 2011, according to a new report from Texas A&M University’s Transportation Institute.

A House subcommittee on highways has targeted some of the top issues for the trucking industry in its oversight plan for the next two years, including the hours-of-service rule for truck drivers and the Compliance, Safety, Accountability ratings program.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has waived the federal hearing standard for 40 deaf or hard-of-hearing people who want to get commercial driver licenses, the agency said Friday.

Spurred by the demands of newer diesel engines, changing emissions technology and escalating competition, truck-stop operators say they have begun placing more fuels and other products where drivers can find them fast and buy them with a single swipe of a credit card.

Used Class 8 truck sales declined in December from a year earlier as vehicle prices increased and average mileage trickled lower, according to ACT Research.

A group of shippers, brokers and small motor carriers told a federal court that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s new carrier safety ratings are “confusing, ever-changing, mercurial and capricious in their effects on carriers.”

Electric vehicles, which have soundless engines, would need to make noises to let pedestrians know they are near, under a rule proposed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Bloomberg News reported.