AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report for Friday, 8/06/21

American Dollar to Canadian Dollar = 0.734720; American Dollar to Chinese Yuan = 0.138010; American Dollar to Euro = 0.995171; American Dollar to Japanese Yen = 0.006774; American Dollar to Mexican Peso = 0.050361.

American Trucking Associations President and CEO Chris Spear told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that automated vehicle technology holds great promise to enhance highway safety, boost economic productivity, and support trucking’s essential workforce. In order to harness this technology’s full potential, Spear emphasized that regulations must be consistent to avoid a patchwork of rules that treat highway users differently. “What’s needed first is a national framework that encourages development, testing and deployment of technology, in direct support of interstate commerce,” Spear said in a hearing before the panel’s Subcommittee on Highways and Transit. “Federal guidance should treat commercial and passenger vehicles equally and require automated vehicles to achieve an acceptable level of safety and performance, rather than requiring the use of specific technologies.”

“The slow, and choppy, climb off of the bottom continued in October,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. “Since hitting a low in January of this year, tonnage is up a total of 3%, plus the index is up sequentially in three of the last four months. No doubt the freight market has improved – albeit slowly – over the course of the year.” In October, the ATA advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index equaled 114.6 compared with 113.3 in September. The index, which is based on 2015 as 100, equaled the reading from the same month last year. The not seasonally adjusted index, which calculates raw changes in tonnage hauled equaled 121.3 in October, 8.6% above September. The seasonally adjusted increase follows a decline in September, which was revised up slightly from the October 22 press release.