TRUCKING

Washington's decision to let the July 1 review deadline for the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement pass without renewal has injected fresh uncertainty into a freight market that had only just begun climbing out of its longest downturn in industry memory — and executives warn the fallout could take years to settle. The lapse lands at an awkward moment. Cross-border truck freight has been one of the sector's few unambiguous bright spots, with volumes to Mexico surging 23.4 p

The tell in trucking right now is a simple divergence: rates are going up while fuel is going down. When those two lines move in opposite directions, it means one thing, and carriers know it. All-in truckload rates kept climbing through the end of June even as diesel slid another 16 cents to $4.67 a gallon nationally, helped along by softening oil markets after the U.S.-Iran ceasefire. Falling fuel usually hands shippers leverage. Not this time. Demand is outrunning supply, t

The freight downturn that flattened American trucking for the better part of four years is over, and the recovery reshaping the market has almost nothing to do with a surge in demand. Spot truckload rates hit an all-time record in early June, jumping nine cents per mile overnight to $3.83, according to FreightWaves data — the highest figure ever recorded. Contract rates followed. But the story driving those numbers is one of disappearing capacity rather than roaring freight v

A wave of federal enforcement is colliding with an already-strained freight market, driving US truckload spot rates to the highest levels ever recorded and reshaping how shippers move goods this summer. Truckload spot rates hit an all-time record in early June, jumping nine cents per mile overnight to $3.83 per mile, the highest level ever logged. Behind the surge is a supply squeeze rather than a demand boom. Spot rates climbed on a combination of supply-side capacity tighte

The U.S. truckload market has crossed into territory the industry has not seen since the pandemic, and the people who move freight for a living are warning that this is not a passing squeeze but a structural reset. Truckload spot rates climbed near $3.83 per mile in early June, brushing against the COVID-era ceiling of $3.72, before settling in the low $3.70s as the month wore on. Tender rejections, the share of contracted loads carriers simply decline, hovered around 17 perc

America's truckload market has roared back to life, but the recovery driving freight executives' optimism is built on a foundation that worries shippers and regulators alike: not booming demand, but a shrinking pool of trucks. Spot rates hit an all-time record in early June, jumping nine cents per mile overnight to $3.83, the highest figure ever recorded and roughly $1.20 above where they sat a year ago. Tender rejections, the rate at which carriers turn down contracted loads

The U.S. truckload market entered one of its tightest stretches on record this week, with spot rates closing in on the COVID-era ceiling and shippers bracing for a late-June squeeze that brokers warn could overwhelm routing guides. Truckload spot rates are about $1.20 above last year and nearing the pandemic peak of $3.72 per mile, with tender rejections sitting at 17% nationally. Excluding fuel, rates remain up more than $0.90 per mile year over year. The defining feature of

The American trucking market has barreled into conditions that industry insiders are no longer pretending to recognise. Heading into the week of June 8, spot rates on well-trafficked lanes were running at roughly double their normal levels, and analysts at multiple freight desks have begun using a phrase that ordinarily invites eye-rolls: uncharted territory. The numbers carry the argument. Truckload spot rates have climbed to around $3.55 per mile against contract rates near

For two years the trucking industry's story was a glut of capacity and rock-bottom rates. This week, it became something else entirely: a market being reshaped less by demand than by the federal government deciding who gets to stay on the road. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's enforcement push, layered across English-language proficiency rules, a non-domiciled CDL crackdown, ELD decertifications and a training-registry purge, is pulling drivers out of the sys

Aurora Innovation has announced an agreement with Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary McLane Company to begin commercial driverless trucking operations between Dallas and Houston, in what analysts say is the most significant commercial deployment yet for autonomous long-haul freight in the United States. The deal, announced on 6 May, will see Aurora's SAE Level 4 self-driving system run two round-trips per day between the two Texas cities, seven days a week, carrying perishable foo

Washington's uneasy truce with the trucking industry frayed further this week, as lawmakers signaled fresh appetite for regulatory overhaul following a "60 Minutes" exposé that pulled back the curtain on the industry's most stubborn safety problem. The CBS segment spotlighted so-called "chameleon carriers," operations that routinely dissolve and re-register under new Department of Transportation numbers to evade enforcement. The 13-minute feature zeroed in on Super Ego, a spr

A figure set when Jimmy Carter was still in the White House is at the centre of a new Congressional battle that could reshape the economics of American trucking. Reps. Jesús "Chuy" García and Derek Tran reintroduced the Fair Compensation for Truck Crash Victims Act this week, a bill that would increase the minimum insurance requirement for interstate motor carriers from $750,000 to $5 million. The arithmetic is straightforward. Congress established the $750,000 insurance mini

The Iran conflict is delivering a gut punch to America's trucking industry, with diesel prices spiraling to levels that are rewriting the economics of moving goods across the country — and threatening to push an already-stressed carrier base toward the breaking point. Average on-highway diesel prices have surged past $5.40 per gallon nationally, with the situation in California dramatically worse. The Golden State's on-highway average hit $7.22 per gallon in late March, a 44.

The testimony was damning in its simplicity. "Everything was a lie to get paid," said Damian Labeaud — a self-described "slammer" who spent years deliberately driving cars into eighteen-wheelers on New Orleans highways, on behalf of personal injury attorneys who would then sue the trucking companies for millions. Labeaud's words, delivered last week from the witness stand in federal court, cut to the heart of what prosecutors are calling one of the most audacious insurance fr

The Supreme Court handed the Trump administration a stinging defeat last month, striking down the president's sweeping use of tariff powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — a ruling that reverberated immediately through the nation's freight networks. But for an industry that has spent three years navigating one of the worst downturns in its history, the verdict has prompted relief and anxiety in roughly equal measure. The court's 6-3 decision found that

The U.S. trucking industry was supposed to be turning a corner in 2026. Instead, the war in Iran just moved the corner further away. Diesel futures surged as much as 17 per cent on Monday after the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz choked off roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne oil supply. Retail diesel prices have already climbed past $3.75 a gallon, the highest in more than three months, and analysts warn the worst may be ahead. For an industry that burns throug

The US Department of Transportation has moved to close more than 550 commercial driver's licence training schools across the country after a sweeping five-day federal investigation uncovered widespread safety violations and fraudulent practices. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the enforcement action on 18th February, revealing that more than 300 Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration investigators had been dispatched across all 50 states to conduct over 1,4

Moody's has stripped freight brokerage giant RXO of its investment-grade credit rating, cutting it one notch to Ba1, a move that underscores just how deep the pain runs in America's trucking sector even as the market shows early signs of tightening. The downgrade, announced on Tuesday, applies to RXO's senior unsecured notes, its corporate family rating, and its probability of default rating. It also covers a newly announced $400 million debt offering due in 2031, which RXO i

A landmark piece of federal legislation introduced last week could fundamentally reshape the American trucking industry by allowing autonomous freight trucks to generate revenue while still in their testing phase. The Self Drive Act of 2026, formally introduced on February 5 by Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio), grants the Secretary of Transportation explicit authority to permit manufacturers and fleet operators to conduct "limited commercial operations" under a testing permit — a firs

A startup founded by a former CIA officer just pulled in $60 million to bring intelligence community tactics to one of the most unglamorous corners of the American economy — and Washington is paying attention. GenLogs, an Arlington, Virginia-based firm that deploys roadside sensors and artificial intelligence to track truck movements across the country, closed its Series B round this week, led by Battery Ventures with participation from IVP, Cathay Innovation and 9Yards. The