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The Los Angeles area has the nation’s most brutal traffic, according to two studies of urban road congestion.

When a trucker is hauling a triple through a steep mountain pass, the last thing he needs is to be surprised by an ice storm. That’s why the Utah Motor Transportation Association’s winter weather command center prides itself on keeping truckers up-to-date on road conditions across the state and beyond.

The New Jersey Turnpike Authority wants to raise tolls 26% over the next three years on truckers paying cash at tollbooths. Discounted fares would be available to truckers taking advantage of E-ZPass, the state’s electronic toll collection system.

By Dec. 1, all trucking company employees who use forklifts must be trained in the vehicles’ use under an Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule.

C.H. Robinson Worldwide, the nation’s largest freight broker and a major non-asset-based transportation service provider, is buying one of its biggest competitors, American Backhaulers of Chicago.

North American Van Lines and Allied Van Lines completed a $450 million merger to create the world’s largest household goods mover.

Trucking had much to be thankful for as the nation celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday — a solid economy generating plenty of business, greater public awareness of the importance of good highways, and now the realization of a long-held dream: Trucking will get its own government agency in Washington.

Everyone in our industry who operates a forklift — powered industrial truck, in government parlance — should be extensively trained and evaluated before December 1, under a federal regulation that kicked in earlier this year.

It is said that technology will alleviate the national shortage of truck drivers. Probably not, but that statement illustrates the theme at the Society of Automotive Engineers International’s Truck and Bus Meeting and Exposition in November that technology’s influence in the coming years will reach far beyond the truck.

If a blizzard hits Dec. 31, it likely will have a greater impact on public services and business operations than the much-hyped rollover to the Year 2000.