At Getloaded, we’ve focused on simplifying trucking success since 1999. We’ve worked hard to build the industry’s most streamlined yet sophisticated tools for transportation professionals to find freight — but ensuring our services are easy to use is just the beginning. From our perspective, making sure all truckers can easily afford our memberships is just as important. 

From hats to hair to personalities, they say everything’s bigger in Texas — and now you can add the state’s highway speed limits to the list. 

On January 26, the Texas Transportation Commission approved a speed limit increase to 75 miles per hour (mph) for nearly 1500 interstate miles — up from 70 mph. From El Paso and Midland in West Texas to Corpus Christi on the Gulf of Mexico, truckers will now be able to more quickly move freight across the Lone Star State. 

If you think the American economy is struggling and controversial, just wait until you hear what’s happening in Italy. From Sicily to Rome, Italian transportation professionals are protesting proposed fuel price hikes and job competition—and finding trucks make excellent road blockades in the process. 

Trucking freight and want to make sure you’re ready to comply with the new, upcoming hours of service (HOS) rules? To help you out, we thought we’d break down the changes, so you’ll be ready when they go into effect on July 1, 2013.

From Ice Road Truckers to Shipping Wars, trucking companies seem to be a new, popular source of reality television entertainment. And now, if you’ve ever wondered how your truck was manufactured, the National Geographic Channel’s Ultimate Factories has just the episode for you: On January 14, they featured an in-depth, hour-long look at how Mack trucks are made. 

Here’s some good news to start the year off with truckers: the numbers are in, and 2011 closed with some great developments for trucking companies — and the economy at large. 

On January 6, 2012, the Labor Department announced that the economy added 200,000 jobs in December 2011, and of those, 5,100 were in for-hire trucking. As a result, there were 40,100 more trucking jobs than the same time last year. 

As our members are well aware by now, at Getloaded, we’re constantly looking for ways to simplify and improve their freight matching experience. In 2011 alone, we’ve launched new member and public sites, created the industry’s only Spanish-language load board and upgraded our servers to provide blindingly fast searches. Well, we’re showing our commitment to ease again with the release of new technology updates that bring you the results you need — faster than ever before. 

Truckers moving freight across the Western U.S., be forewarned: The Santa Ana winds are overturning tractor-trailers.