🎣CBS Blames Brokers, Names CHRW

Good Monday morning. CBS turned the camera on brokers and called out C.H. Robinson by name. The chameleon carrier story just got a lot closer to home.

Plus:

• USPS Drops a May 1 Hammer
• The Spot-Contract Spread Is Closing
• Knight-Swift Cuts Its Guide

and more.

🍳 What's Cookin' In Freight

🚨 USPS Sets May 1 Deadline. Starting May 1, the Postal Service will ban unvetted non-domiciled CDL drivers from transporting mail, one of the largest single-employer enforcement actions to follow the FMCSA's final rule. USPS moves roughly 40% of U.S. mail volume via contract carriers. Carriers with non-domiciled drivers on USPS lanes have 11 days to get compliant or lose the work. The crackdown that started with states is now hitting contracts.

📉 The Spread Is Closing, and 3PLs Are Feeling It. Spot rates have climbed fast enough that the gap between spot and contract is shrinking, and that's squeezing 3PLs who built their margin model around a wide spread. When spot runs above contract, asset-light brokers lose their arbitrage edge, and shippers start questioning the value of the middleman.

⚖️ Knight-Swift Cuts Q1 Guidance. KNX trimmed its Q1 earnings guidance but held its bullish outlook on TL fundamentals, citing capacity discipline and rate momentum heading into Q2. The guide cut matters less than what management said alongside it: pricing is moving, capacity is still exiting, and the structural setup hasn't changed. One quarter of softness doesn't undo three years of tightening supply.

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CBS Turns Camera on Brokers

The CBS Sunday Morning segment that aired yesterday didn't just revisit Super Ego, the Serbian-based carrier network FC covered last Monday. It went one layer deeper and named the brokers on the other side of the load confirmation.

C.H. Robinson, the largest freight broker in the country, was specifically identified for awarding Super Ego its "Carrier of the Year" honor in the 1,000+ truck category for 2025, a carrier that had racked up nearly 15,000 safety violations and 500 accidents over the prior two years.

The segment's core argument: chameleon carriers don't survive without someone booking their freight. And brokers, not just regulators, are making that possible.

• As the largest broker in the country, trusted by 450,000 contract carriers, C.H. Robinson has outsized influence over which carriers stay on the road and which don't
• The segment argued brokers like C.H. Robinson profit from cheap capacity provided by chameleon networks while bearing none of the safety accountability

In an undercover portion of the report, Rob Carpenter with CBS approached C.H. Robinson's booth at an industry conference with a camera hidden, testing how the nation's largest freight broker handles carrier vetting in practice.

The numbers CBS put on screen:

• Approximately 5,000 people died in truck accidents in 2024, up more than 50% from 15 years ago
• Chameleon carriers are four times more likely to be involved in crashes, per risk firm Fusable
• An estimated 10–20% of the 700,000 trucking companies in the U.S. operate somewhere on the chameleon spectrum
• It costs $1,000 and 21 days to legally start a trucking company in the U.S., no citizenship required

The Industry Pushes Back

C.H. Robinson issued a statement calling the CBS coverage "misleading," disputing the framing that brokers bear safety responsibility for carriers they don't own, employ, or directly supervise.

TIA President Chris Burroughs backed that position: "Freight brokers do not own trucks, employ drivers, or control carrier operations. Those responsibilities rest with federally regulated motor carriers and the FMCSA."

He pointed to the real gap — 94% of federally authorized trucking companies have never undergone a federal safety audit — and argued that shifting liability to brokers without operational control distracts from that systemic failure.

But TIA also acknowledged something important: it has lobbied for years for a high-risk carrier list and a modernized FMCSA safety rating system, and has faced sustained opposition from trucking organizations in doing so.

The Legal Stakes

The legal stakes here go beyond optics.

The Supreme Court is currently weighing Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, a case that directly tests whether freight brokers can be held liable under state tort law for negligent carrier selection.

Two Supreme Court Cases That Could Change Everything

We sat down with Matthew Leffler, The Armchair Attorney, to dig into two court cases that could redefine the future of brokers and the supply chain. Case #1- Montgomery vs Caribe Matthew calls it the most important court case for brokers across the US. Why is it so important- and

FreightCaviarKaja Kusińska

A ruling is expected this term. If the Court finds against preemption, the entire broker liability landscape changes overnight.

CBS aired this segment the weekend before that ruling could drop.

So what?

The carrier vetting question is no longer theoretical. Shippers are watching this coverage. Plaintiff attorneys are watching it. And if SCOTUS rules against brokers on preemption, every load confirmation becomes a potential exhibit.

Time to document your carrier selection process, and cut carriers you've been meaning to cut, before the ruling, not after.

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 🌎 Around the Freight Web

⚖️ Drivers Sue Over CDL Rules. Nineteen non-domiciled CDL drivers filed a lawsuit against FMCSA and Florida, alleging the crackdown on non-domiciled licensing is causing "ongoing and irreparable harm."

💰 Tariff Refund Portal Launches. CBP's tariff refund portal goes live today. Shippers who overpaid on Trump-era tariffs can now begin filing, though roughly one-third of imports are excluded from the process.

🌎 Mexico Truck Exports Slip. Truck exports from Mexico to the U.S. fell in March, adding to signs that tariff uncertainty is cooling cross-border freight flows even as domestic capacity tightens.

📬 Missouri ELP Bill Advances. Missouri's English language proficiency bill is heading to the Senate; it would impose fines on both drivers and carriers for non-compliance, making Missouri one of the toughest states on ELP enforcement.

📚 A Trucker Wrote the Book. Third-generation trucker Gord Magill's End of the Road: Inside the War on Truckers tells the story of what happened to the profession from someone who lived it.

🎣 The FreightCaviar Corner

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80 pages on the history of Freight Alley.

Print magazine + Caviar Circle access.

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Freight Humor