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About 6:30 every morning, Urbano Petrizza arrives at the RPS Inc. terminal here dressed in an RPS uniform and picks up his RPS van. But he's not an employee: He's an independent contractor.

Reflecting a changing business and legal environment, the ATA Litigation Center is taking a new direction and focus, the American Trucking Associations president told 150 lawyers attending a conference on highway accident litigation in Beaver Creek, Colo., last week.

On Sept. 29, a select group of Florida truckers set out to become the extra eyes and ears watching and guarding the highways.

The public overwhelmingly favors an overhaul of federal motor vehicle safety standards, stepped-up attention to intersection safety and more frequent license testing for the nation’s youngest and oldest drivers, according to a Louis Harris poll released Sept. 27.

Overnite Transportation Co. Chairman Leo Suggs challenged the Teamsters union to a winner-take-all national vote by company workers on whether they want to join the union.

Faced with the possibility of new taxes to cover dredging operations, ports are starting to exercise their political muscle.

Despite stiff opposition from rail labor organizations and farm-state senators, the Senate Commerce Committee voted Sept. 30 to confirm Linda J. Morgan to a second five-year term as chairman of the Surface Transportation Board.

There is no sign that rising prices of petroleum and diesel fuel have “topped off,” a commodities specialist told truck fleet managers last week.

The retail price of diesel fuel failed to rise this week – for the first time in 16 weeks – but analysts saw little significance in the pause and most continue to predict further increases.

Transit Group agreed to acquire the assets of Land Transportation LLC and a related freight brokerage operation from Rocor International of Oklahoma City for $18.5 million in cash and debt, plus an undetermined number of shares of its common stock.