Truckload carriers are probably going to post another rough quarter when the earnings reports hit. But what's happening underneath those numbers might be a different story.
That's really what this comes down to. Q1 may still look ugly on paper. Weather was a factor. Fuel costs bit into margins. The numbers are still tight. But there are signs the truckload market itself is in better shape than it was just a few months ago.
A big piece of that comes back to capacity. The industry has spent...
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If you're an interstate carrier, broker, freight forwarder, or leasing company, your registration costs could be going up in 2027. FMCSA has officially proposed another round of Unified Carrier Registration fee increases, publishing the proposal in the Federal Register on April 7. The average hike across the board comes in at 20%.
The increases won't hit every bracket the same way. Depending on your fleet size, FMCSA says the changes would range anywhere from $9 to $9,329 per entity. The...
Truck parking has been a thorn in the side of this industry for a long time, and now FMCSA is taking another formal step toward getting a handle on just how bad it really is.
The agency dropped a Federal Register notice on April 6 saying it plans to move forward with a new information collection effort called "Quantifying the Benefits of Creating New Truck Parking Spaces." The goal is to pull in roughly 1,000 survey responses from truck drivers about their real-world parking experiences. If...
A new federal lawsuit is putting Kroger and three major trucking companies under a bright light after former Quickway Transportation drivers accused them of working together to block those drivers from getting hired after Quickway shut down.
The case was filed April 2 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio by Dan Cheatham, Brian Kuhn, and Eric Cabler. The defendants listed in the case are The Kroger Co., Werner Trucking Company, Swift Transportation Services, LLC, and...
A new White House proclamation signed April 2 changes how Section 232 tariffs are applied to steel, aluminum, and copper imports and their derivative products, with the new structure taking effect April 6. The change does not scrap the metal tariffs. It redraws them.
Under the new rules, goods made almost entirely of steel, aluminum, or copper will continue to face a 50% tariff. Certain derivative goods that are substantially made of those metals will face a 25% levy instead. The...
EPA just made a change that could matter a lot more to truckers than most regulatory updates ever do. The agency said DEF quality sensors are no longer required, and manufacturers can use NOx sensors instead to meet the requirement. EPA says the move is meant to cut down on bad fault readings that have been causing unnecessary derates, shutdowns, towing bills, and downtime.
That hits a sore spot in trucking for a reason. DEF systems have been one of the most hated problem areas on newer...
The fight over EPA’s Phase 3 truck emissions rule just got bigger, and this one reaches far beyond Washington policy circles. Truck makers have now stepped in to support EPA’s repeal of the Phase 3 greenhouse-gas standards for heavy-duty vehicles. Those standards were supposed to begin with model year 2027 trucks, and this legal battle could help decide whether fleets still get pushed toward zero-emission equipment on the timeline the old rule pointed toward.
For trucking, this is not just...
Freight fraud is no longer just another warning topic at trucking conferences. At the Mid-America Trucking Show, FMCSA used one of the industry’s biggest stages to make it clear that fraud, cargo theft, fake identities, and bad actors in trucking are now squarely in the agency’s sights. FMCSA opened MATS with a fraud-focused panel aimed especially at small-business trucking, while agency officials described open investigations tied to chameleon carriers, identity theft, registration issues...
For a long time, one of the clearest signs of how weak the freight market had become was the gap between spot rates and contract rates. Contract freight was paying better, spot freight was lagging behind, and a lot of small carriers were stuck trying to make bad numbers work.
That gap is starting to close.
The latest data shows spot rates averaged $2.01 per mile in February, up 6.6 percent from the month before. Contract rates averaged $2.12 per mile. That leaves a spread of just 11 cents...
Diesel prices may not be climbing as fast as they were a few weeks ago, but that does not mean carriers can breathe easy. The latest numbers show the national average diesel price rose 2.6 cents to $4.06 per gallon, while California climbed all the way to $7.22. Regional prices were mixed, with some areas easing while California kept moving in the wrong direction.
That is the part truckers need to pay attention to.
The national average makes for a nice headline, but trucking does not run...
Autonomous trucking keeps getting talked about like it is some far-off idea, but this time it is not a concept video or a test track demo. It is moving real freight on a real route.
International Trucks and Ryder have launched a Level-4 autonomous truck pilot on a 600-mile run between Laredo and Temple, Texas. The truck is an International LT Series equipped with factory-installed sensors and Plus’s SuperDrive autonomous software. A Ryder driver is still in the seat to supervise, but the...
The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing a case that could have a real impact on freight brokers, small carriers, and the way freight gets booked across the country.
At the center of it is a legal fight over whether freight brokers can be sued under state negligence laws for hiring an unsafe carrier. The case is Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, and it comes out of a 2017 crash involving a tractor-trailer that hit a parked truck. The plaintiff sued freight broker C.H. Robinson, arguing the...
Starting April 1, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance rolled out its 2026 North American Standard out-of-service criteria. That matters because this is the handbook inspectors use when deciding whether a truck or driver keeps moving or gets parked on the spot. This year’s update includes 17 changes, and several of them hit issues drivers and small fleets deal with every day.
The change that will get the most attention is the new out-of-service condition for tampering with an electronic...