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In the wake of two West Coast bus crashes that each killed multiple passengers within weeks of each other, federal officials have launched a crackdown on unsafe bus operations, in which officers and auditors will investigate high-risk motorcoach companies.

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.

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.

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.”

While the attention of the nation was focused for much of the year on the costly and protracted presidential election campaign, trucking probably will look back on 2012 as a turning point for the adoption of natural gas as a viable alternative fuel for heavy-duty fleets.