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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A top National Transportation Safety Board official called on motor carriers to do a better job of identifying drivers in their employ with bad driving habits.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — At the end of the first quarter, there are signs of optimism in the economy but also caution about the sustainability of the momentum, according to economic analysts and trucking executives at the 2017 Truckload Carriers Association conference.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Truck makers returned to the Mid-America Trucking Show, to varying degrees, and while many things seemed familiar, the specter of new competition also loomed over North America’s largest annual truck show.

Throughout Donald Trump’s campaign for president, slashing regulations was a core theme. Many of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees are long-standing opponents of a heavily regulated business environment. I welcome this time to catch our breath. The rate of regulatory change in the trucking industry has been too rapid for many businesses to keep pace.

Truck tonnage dropped 2.8% in February year-over-year, reversing January’s positive momentum, but American Trucking Associations’ chief economist maintains that freight activity remained strong considering February 2016 was a record-setting month.

Last week, we cheered the apparent demise of a federal regulatory provision regarding hours of service. Now we’d like to salute a positive development: a recent discussion on truck safety before a Senate subcommittee.

Conference halls from coast to coast were teeming with talk of transportation last week, with no shortage of prognostications from industry leaders about what the future holds.

As reported in Transport Topics in early December 2016, (12-12, pp. 4, 43) American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear told a roundtable of lawmakers at a Senate hearing in Washington, D.C., that the Transportation Worker Identification Credential, or TWIC, represents the future of secure transportation.