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Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. investment company bought a minority stake in Pilot Travel Centers LLC, owner of the Pilot Flying J truck stop chain, and will become the majority shareholder in six years.

WASHINGTON – On a unanimous voice vote, a Senate committee approved legislation Oct. 4 that authorizes self-driving car makers to sell as many as 80,000 vehicles a year within three years that would be exempt from current safety standards as manufacturers develop technology for autonomous vehicles.

As efforts to renegotiate terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement shift from Ottawa to Washington, two trucking industry groups and the Teamsters union are taking aim at a provision in the current agreement that allows trucks from Mexico to operate in the United States.

The idea of highways being filled with self-driving cars may be alluring, but it has highway safety experts raising numerous questions about common contemporary issues like drunk driving, seat belt use and how other motorists might react to a car without a driver behind the wheel.

An effort to attach trucking-centric provisions to Senate legislation on self-driving vehicles did not materialize during the bill’s consideration Oct. 4.

Efforts to include trucking-centric provisions in autonomous vehicle legislation that a committee will consider Oct. 4 were applauded by American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear.

Shippers expect to put more freight on railroads next year as concern persists about how the electronic-logging device mandate will tighten trucking capacity in 2018, according to a Cowen and Co. survey.