Moviegoers are flocking to the latest in the Transformers saga, “Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon,” starring Shia LaBeouf, but there is no doubt who the real star of the movie is. A Mack Trucks’ Granite.

Transformers 3, which opened this week, stars a Mack Granite in the role of Megatron, leader of the Decepticons. This is the second appearance for a Mack in the Transformers series, both a Pinnacle tractor and Granite mixer appearing in “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”

And yet no Oscar. Why?

(Watch the movie trailer):

In Transformers 3, Megatron takes form as a Granite military truck and leads the Decepticons in an epic battle against the Autobots. more

Electric trucks are starting to catch on. It only took 100 or so years. Many would be shocked to learn that at the dawn of the 20th Century, it was not gas or diesel power that delivered America’s goods, it was electricity.

The Iowa 80 Trucking Museum is inviting the public to a birthday celebration for its 100-year-old, 1911 Walker Electric Truck. The Walker Electric Truck was built by the Walker Vehicle Co. in Chicago, IL. The company continued to produce electric vehicles until 1941.

“Many people think that electric vehicles are a recent invention, when in fact they were in production over 100 years ago,” says Dave Meier, museum curator. more

Despite the fact that I’ve been with Fleet Owner for more than three years now, I had one of those moments recently that reinforced to me that I don’t know everything. Not that I ever really thought I did, but it’s always nice to have those moments to remind us of that fact.

So it was with a bit of surprise that I opened my email that recent morning to find a press release issued jointly from the Owner-Operators Independent Drivers Assn. (OOIDA) and American Trucking Assns. (ATA) regarding tractor/truck cab safety. The release included a letter the organizations have written to David L. Strickland, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Why did this release surprise me so?

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UPDATE: Just hours after posting this blog criticizing the state of Connecticut for closing the state’s non-commercial rest areas along Interstates 84, 91, and 95, I received a call from Michael Riley, president of the Motor Transport Association of Connecticut, to say that a deal has just been reached today with the administration of Gov. Dannel Malloy to keep all seven of the rest areas open.

“The administration has made assurances to the transportation committee chairman that they will all remain open,” Riley told me. “The outrage that was expressed by this was phenomenal. People who hadn’t called their legislators in 50 years (were calling).”

So Connecticut has reversed course, despite a Malloy adminstration spokesman telling the Hartford Courant on Monday that the closings would not be reconsidered. The trucking industry has won this battle, but there is a still a war to be fought for safe truck parking in the U.S.

The state of Connecticut, in an effort to close a budget gap, will be closing all seven of its non-commercial rest areas in the state, and with those closures will come a significant decrease in the number of available parking spaces for truckers.

(UPDATE at 1:40 p.m.: A deal has been reached to keep the rest areas open.)

The first two areas, in Willington, CT, along Interstate 84 (the main highway crossing from New York to Massachusetts, will close on July 1. The remaining five – in Danbury and Southington along 84, Middletown and Wallingford along I-91 (which runs from the shoreline to Massachusetts), and North Stonington, on I-95 (the route from New York to Rhode Island toward Boston), will all close within a year, the state said.

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