The violation was found during the pre-authorization safety audit process for carriers who would be a part of the U.S.-Mexican cross-border trucking pilot program, he said.

Quade discussed the finding Feb. 8 during questioning by the Cross-border Subcommittee of FMCSA’s Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee. The subcommittee is meeting this week in Alexandria, Va.

The violations were found with the third carrier to apply for authority under the cross-border program, Grupo Behr of Apodaca, Nuevo León. Behr was found to have been in violation of leasing statutes in Section 219 of the 1999 Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act.

Mexican carriers have been able to “lease to a commercial zone carrier because they could get commercial zone authority,” said Quade. Section 219 was intended to end the ability for a Mexican carrier to lease trucks and drivers to a U.S.carrier for operations beyond the authority the Mexican carrier could get clearance for on its own.

The agency issued a notice to Grupo for violating Section 219, he added, but the agency did not pursue civil penalties. “Our preliminary decision is to monitor the situation for six months to consider whether we should allow them into the program.”

Since the first Mexican truck crossing began the pilot program with Mexico in October, only nine crossings have been made under the program, said Quade. Inspections were conducted during eight of those nine crossings and no violations were found.

Only two carriers, Transportes Olympic of Monterrey and Moises Alvarez Perez, doing business as Distribuidora Marina El Pescador, of Tijuana, accounted for thecrossings. They remain the only carriers to have undergone pre-authorization safety audits (PASAs) under the program that were cleared for participation. Five additional carriers that have undergone PASAs are pending full results as well as acceptance into the program.

FMCSA ordered the carrier to immediately shut down after agency investigators discovered the company was using drivers who did not possess valid CDLs, or read and speak English sufficiently to drive safely. The agency may also take enforcement action against the drivers without a CDL, including civil penalties and/or disqualification.

The order can be viewed here.

The trucks were built between Jan. 31, 2011, and Jan. 19, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The agency said the trucks are equipped with Bendix ATR-6 antilock traction relay valves that may leak fluid in temperatures below zero degrees and result in continuous brake application.

The recall includes Kenworth models T660, T700, T800 and W900 and Peterbilt models 384, 386, 387, 389 and 587. Paccar will provide a free temporary repair until Bendix delivers a permanent remedy. Customers are advised to contact their dealer or call (425) 828-5440 for Kenworth, (940) 591-4196 for Peterbilt or the NHTSA hotline at (888) 327-4236.

Bendix notified NHTSA of the defect in January after receiving customer complaints about brake issues. The company said a permanent fix is forthcoming.

In addition to Kenworth and Peterbilt models, the valve recall affects trucks made by Navistar International and Volvo Group. Navistar said it has delayed International truck production until a permanent fix is available, and the company predicts the valve problem will contribute to a loss for the quarter that ended Jan. 31.

After postponing deliveries of vehicles affected by the Bendix part defect in January, Volvo began using another valve to continue building trucks at its Virginia plant. Volvo is working with customers to repair trucks already on the road.

Bendix estimated the part problem affected up to 60,000 vehicles.

Workers are stabilizing the slope, TDOT said. A 1,500-ton boulder was removed that could have fallen on the roadway. A second phase to shore up the mountainside is expected to begin in late March, the department said.

Traffic has resumed after a second rockslide east on I-40 in North Carolina was cleared away over the weekend, the North Carolina Department of Transportation said.

The Peterbilt 587 SmartWay conventional tractor won in the heavy-duty (Class division and the Peterbilt Model 210 low cab forward won in the medium-duty (Class 3-7) competition. Nine trucks were nominated for the awards.

Other heavy-duty award contenders were the Freightliner 114SD conventional dump truck, International ProStar Plus tractor with MaxxForce 15 engine, and the Kenworth T660 Regional Hauler with Paccar MX engine. The medium-duty truck entries were the Fuso Canter FE160 low cab forward, Isuzu NPR-HD Gas, Kenworth T440 Conventional and UD 2600 low cab forward.

Judges considered the trucks’ overall appearance, cab comfort, noise levels and interior room in choosing the winners.

The meeting is planned for 4-7 p.m. in the BB&T Room of the Workforce Development Center Building No. 1 at Robeson Community College.

The state is seeking to get approval for tolling under a pilot program administered by the Federal Highway Administration. A limited number of interstates could become toll roads under the program. Neighboring Virginia has obtained preliminary approval to toll its section of I-95 to pay for road reconstruction.

Other North Carolina meetings are scheduled for Feb. 13 at Halifax Community College in Weldon, Feb. 16 in Rocky Mount, Feb. 20 at Johnston Community College in Smithfield, Feb. 21 in Wilson, Feb. 23 in Dunn and Feb. 27 in Fayetteville. Each meeting is from 4-7 p.m. Visit here for more information.

The Expo will run concurrent with GATS in an adjoining exhibition hall, and will be produced by Randall-Reilly’s ProPickup magazine, in conjunction with the Randall-Reilly Events Group.

“The ProPickup Truck Expo will give attendees the opportunity to talk with manufacturers whose products make pickups more efficient and better performers on and off the road,” says Dan Tidwell, senior vice president and group publisher of the Randall-Reilly Construction Media Group.

In addition to hundreds of aftermarket automotive products and vehicles on display, the Expo will provide educational seminars called SmartSessions headlined by industry leaders and experts in the automotive aftermarket.

“Our SmartSessions will cover a wide range of topics of interest to pickup owners, from how to increase fuel mileage to setting up the mobile office to spec’ing out their next new pickup,” said Bruce Smith, editor of ProPickup.

A joint committee of the agency’s Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee and Medical Review Board adopted 10 recommendations that would, among other things, require all drivers with a body mass index (BMI) measurement of 35 or higher to be tested for sleep apnea.

The final recommendations marked the first time the two groups had worked together drafting potential regulatory guidance, said Dave Parker, MCSAC chairman and senior vice president of Great West Casualty, but it wouldn’t be the last. “We’ve got discussions ongoing with Larry [Minor, FMCSA associate administrator for policy]. This will not be the last time this group gets together to work on something directly.”

Consensus on the recommendations was broad among members, with the notable exception of Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association. While acknowledging some regulation of driver health conditions was needed, “I think the focus on the singular medical condition of apnea is misplaced,” Spencer said. “Realistically, I don’t think this will survive the cost-benefit analysis” required of any rulemaking. “While we may pat ourselves on the back for what we’ve done here, none of us has a clue how this will work realistically in the world of drivers.”

Any rulemaking or guidance based on the recommendations would be put up for public comment, and a rulemaking would take years to develop, noted Minor. He said drivers could expect the interim recommended guidance issued by the joint committee last December to come up for a 30-day comment period this spring.

The 10 new recommendations stem from a January meeting of the group’s obstructive sleep apnea subcommittee, where seven key questions about the condition, its treatment and monitoring compliance with treatment, and its relationship to highway safety were considered.

The central question in FMCSA’s possible regulation of the condition will be whether individuals with obstructive sleep apnea are at an increased risk for a motor vehicle crash compared with those who do not suffer from it. When it comes time to impose regulations, cautioned Rob Abbott of the American Trucking Associations, questions of data quality are likely to loom large.

The OSA subcommittee linked crash risk with sleep apnea largely by extrapolating data from studies on noncommercial drivers (and one that involved commercial drivers) that showed a range of increased risk. “How many crashes actually occur because of this?” he asked. “The causal relationship has not been studied.”

Spencer said, “I’m stunned with the absence of knowledge of the particular group that we’re trying to regulate. There’s a world of difference between people who drive a truck professionally than those who don’t.”

Danny Schnautz of Clark Freight Lines said, “The pressures a driver is under would be better managed for a much lower risk than that of a college student trying to get home for Thanksgiving. I think drivers manage their risk very well.”

But experts from the Medical Review Board found the extrapolation to be a valid one since, as noted by Dr. Indira Gurubhagavatula of the Veteran’s Administration’s medical center, apnea is “an extremely treatable disorder and extremely prevalent among commercial drivers.” She cited obesity statistics that suggested well more than half of male adult commercial drivers were overweight if not obese, a well-known apnea risk factor. She added that a study found that “people with severe apnea were impaired similar to the effect of an alcohol level of 0.05.”

The recommendations issued Feb. 6 would allow a 60-day conditional certification to be issued for drivers screened for testing due only to BMI. If determined to have apnea, those drivers would need to return to their examiner with proof of one week’s worth of successful treatment before being issued a 90-day certification pending further evaluation of treatment compliance. (As long as they are being treated, those drivers would get no longer than a one-year medical certification.)

A second group of drivers – those with an apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) measurement greater than 20, who have reported experiencing excessive sleepiness during their major work period, day or night, or who have experienced a crash “associated with” falling asleep – would be denied the conditional certification.

A large amount of discretion would be given to individual health professionals in requiring drivers with BMI measurements lower than 35 to be tested and in issuing conditional certifications. “We focus on BMI as a mandatory factor,” said MRB member Brian Morris, associate corporate medical director for AllOne Health Resources. “If you set the bar high enough – 35 rather than 30 or 33 – you’re not burdening the system with getting a lot of people without sleep apnea caught up…”

The testing methods recommended as allowable by the committee were at-home polysomnography tests with verifiable chain of custody (to keep testers from faking the test) and an in-lab overnight polysomnographytest, designated as the most comprehensive and accurate. Costs for at-home tests, said Dr. Gurubhagavatula, are estimated at a third of in-lab tests.

The final recommendations from the subcommittee on acceptable areas of treatment put the most confidence for most sleep apnea sufferers in continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines, due to the ease of monitoring that is in place in current devices.

The latest price is 34.3 cents higher than a year earlier.

Prices in most regions rose, with the exceptions of small declines in the Lower Atlantic, Gulf Coast and the West Coast without California. The biggest increases were in the Midwest, up 1.7 cents to $3.751, and New England, up 1.3 cents to $4.101. California remained the most expensive market at $4.128 a gallon.

The record diesel price was $4.764 in July 2008.

For diesel price information, click here.

January orders were down 17 percent from December and 9 percent lower than January 2011, FTR Associates said. Although the figures are down, the January activity is in line with those reported over the last six months, the firm said.

 “We continue to expect strong order activity as we finish the first quarter in preparation for the modestly robust freight environment that we anticipate for 2012,” said Jonathan Starks, FTR’s director of Transportation Analysis. “The three-month annualized rate of 300,000 orders is slightly above our current 2012 production outlook but well below the highs seen back in 2005 and 2006.

“The preliminary net orders for both Classes 5-7 and Class 8 support our forecasts for production in 2012,” said Kenny Vieth, ACT Research Co. president and senior analyst.