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PITTSBURGH — Day-to-day on the job, driving a truck is a mostly solitary occupation, which explains in part why the National Truck Driving Championships attract so many repeat contestants, coming back year after year to rub shoulders with other top drivers from around the country, as well as to carry on their quest for a trophy.

The number of Class 8 vehicles operating in the United States totaled 3.641 million units in the second quarter, an increase of less than 1% over the same quarter in 2008, transportation research firm R.L. Polk & Co. said.

U.S. biodiesel production has been rocketing upward in each of the past 10 years and reached 690 million gallons last year, but industry officials and analysts said it would drop this year by half to 350 million gallons or as low as 250 million gallons.

Truck component maker Eaton Corp. said that it would provide the electric power systems for 378 Class 5 electric hybrid plug-in vehicles under a federal grant, which it called the “largest commercial hybrid deployment” ever.

With total U.S. container import traffic down more than 20% in the first half of 2009 compared with a year ago, all pieces of the supply chain are feeling the pain of the recession.

The battle over how to best accomplish clean-truck programs for drayage fleets has moved from California ports and courtrooms to the halls of Congress.

Transportation and third-party logistics firm Pacer International said Thursday it has completed the sale of its specialized heavy-haul trucking operation to subsidiaries of Universal Truckload Services.

The Department of Transportation said it will host its “distracted driving” summit in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday, Sept. 30 - Oct. 1.

California’s new emission-reduction rule for transport refrigeration units unfairly imposes air quality standards on out-of-state carriers, attorneys for American Trucking Associations and the Truckload Carriers Association told a federal appeals court.

Patriot Transportation Holding lost $402,000 in its fiscal third quarter and the company said it sold flatbed carrier unit Sunbelt Transport.