The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said Monday its Compliance Safety and Accountability system, which measures carriers' safety records, is now live.  FMCSA said carriers' safety scores are publicly available under CSA, which formerly stood for Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010, or CSA 2010.  "We worked closely with our partners in the motor vehicle community to develop this powerful new program," FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro said Monday.  "CSA is an important new tool that will help reduce commercial vehicle-related crashes and save lives," she said in a statement.  Carriers may access the site here: http://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/sms (U.S. government website.)  Due to high volume and interest, the website was temporarily disabled Monday as the program triggered a huge demand for access.  

Retail sales continued to rise, increasing 0.8% in November, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.  The fifth straight gain followed a revised 1.7% gain in October that was more than the 1.2% originally reported and the biggest in seven months.  The upturn topped economists' forecasts of a 0.6% increase, Bloomberg reported.

Security firms are urging cargo interests, warehouse operators and transportation companies to take added security measures during the holiday season to protect against cargo theft.  A survey by security technology provider FreightWatch International found cargo theft during seven U.S. holiday periods over the past two years was 28 percent higher than during non-holiday periods.  Cargo theft generally increases during the New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, Memorial Day, July 4, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays primarily because cargo is not in motion or is left unattended during those holiday periods.

A total of 6.2 million trucks crossed the eastern U.S.-Canada border so far in 2010, with growth across all 10 bridges.  The three principal crossings for international trade all showed year-to-date increases. Some 2.1 million trucks crossed the Ambassador Bridge at Detroit, a 17.8 percent increase. The Blue Water Bridge at Port Huron, Mich., tallied 1.3 million trucks, a 9 percent increase. The Peace Bridge at Buffalo, N.Y., carried 1.1 million trucks, a 10.4 percent increase over the same period in 2009.