A trade group is suing to strip California and New York of the power to issue commercial driver's licenses entirely. Plus: $3/mi is now breakeven, DOT wants to rate every carrier, routing guides are falling apart, and more.
Shippers want the same things they’ve always wanted: reliable execution, fair pricing, and a partner who shows up prepared.
"We're basically in the center of the United States. As middle as you can get. Every class one railroad comes through Kansas City. It makes it very unique."
Plus, Utah hands down an $81M nuclear verdict, hundreds of Mexican driver visas revoked at the border, Q1 earnings roundup, and more in today's newsletter.
TGIF. CVSA inspectors are 12 days out...and more than 1 in 5 trucks failed last year. Here's what inspectors are looking for this month.
Plus:
Correction: In Wednesday's issue, we incorrectly attributed a detail from a Knight-Swift story to STG Logistics. The line "slashed its carrier pool by 30% in Q1" belongs to Knight-Swift, not STG. It has been removed.
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🚨 Utah Just Set A Nuclear Verdict Record. A Utah jury handed down an $81 million verdict against Allied Building Products — now owned by QXO — after one of its drivers killed a 12-year-old in a crosswalk in 2018. It's believed to be the largest civil verdict in Utah history and possibly one of the largest nuclear trucking verdicts ever recorded. The case went to retrial after the first jury found the driver not negligent; an appellate court reversed that finding and sent it back for damages. The two sides have since settled for an undisclosed amount.
🛂 Mexican Driver Visas Are Being Pulled At The Border. Hundreds of B-1 visas for Mexican commercial drivers have been revoked in recent days across the US-Mexico border, with enforcement targeting cabotage violations going back as far as three years. The revocations are driver-level, not carrier-level, meaning one carrier can lose multiple operators simultaneously. Matt Silver, Co-Founder and CEO of Cargado, notes: "Even a limited number of impacted carriers can create real, immediate capacity constraints." The Otay Mesa Chamber of Commerce is warning importers and exporters to expect delays and higher pricing on cross-border moves.
📦 Q1 Earnings: Brokers Squeezed, Carriers Grinding. C.H. Robinson posted $4 billion in revenue in Q1 but gross profit slipped 1.6% YoY to $646.6 million as rising spot rates bit into contract margins. The company has cut its North American brokerage headcount by 34% since Q4 2022 and kept cutting in Q1, down to 4,752 in the division. Schneider posted flat YoY revenue at $1.4 billion with adjusted income from operations down 21%. ODFL reported net income of $238.3 million on revenue of $1.34 billion, with demand improving through the quarter. XPO cruised past expectations with $2.1 billion in consolidated revenue, up 7% YoY, and an LTL operating ratio of 83.9%. The pattern across all four: cost discipline is holding margins together while the market does the rest.
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Twelve days from now, inspectors across North America will start pulling trucks at 15 per minute. You have until May 12 to get your house in order.
The 2026 CVSA International Roadcheck runs May 12–14 — a 72-hour enforcement blitz that is the largest targeted inspection program for commercial vehicles in the world.
This year inspectors are coming for two things specifically: ELD tampering and cargo securement. Both happen to be areas where the industry has been quietly failing at scale.
The numbers from 2025 tell the story:
Adriana Pulley
The ELD picture has gotten worse, not better. FMCSA revoked 38 ELD devices from its registered list in 2025, an increase of more than 80% from 2024. In February and March of 2026 alone, another 23 devices were pulled.
The pattern, according to compliance experts, is concentrated in startup and overseas-manufactured devices that have flooded the market. If your carriers are running one of these, they may not know it until an inspector flags it.
The 8-day rule is what catches most people off guard. Inspectors don't just check the day of inspection; they pull the previous seven days of logs, meaning a violation from this week shows up at Roadcheck next week. The preparation window is now, not May 11.
Why It Matters
A carrier placed out of service during Roadcheck is your problem too. The truck doesn't move. The load doesn't deliver. And unlike a breakdown, an OOS order from an ELD violation or unsecured cargo doesn't come with a quick fix. The carrier has to correct the violation before the truck is released.
This is also a carrier vetting moment. Roadcheck results are published publicly and feed directly into CSA scores. Carriers who come out of May 12–14 with violations will have those scores updated. Brokers who track CSA scores should flag the post-Roadcheck window as a time to run updated checks on their core carrier base.
If you're tendering loads the week of May 12, build buffer. Plan for capacity tightening on lanes where your carriers are likely running through weigh stations and pop-up sites. The 72 hours will pass, but the carriers who fail will be on your radar for months.
Rapido is a top nearshore staffing company providing logistics and supply chain talent to companies in the United States. Based in Guadalajara, Mexico, Rapido offers a unique combination of cost savings and access to a skilled workforce, making it an attractive option for American logistics businesses.
See what makes nearshoring to Mexico an attractive option for scaling a logistics company and how partnering with Rapido Solutions Group simplifies the whole process.
🚛 500 Self-Driving Trucks. Iowa-based refrigerated carrier Hirschbach signed an MOU with Aurora Innovation to operate 500 autonomous trucks powered by Aurora's virtual driver, with deliveries starting in 2027. The deal is valued in the hundreds of millions and would generate 500 million driverless miles on Sun Belt long-haul routes.
🍊 Florida Produce Rates Surging. The FL→NY lane is up 55% since April 14, with New York jumping 35% and Boston 20%. The produce calendar is rotating fast; Florida winding down, California's desert valleys just opening up.
⛽ Midwest Gas Prices Just Spiked. Pump prices jumped $0.70–$0.90 in a single day across Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin, with some stations hitting $5 per gallon.
🤖 Augment Moves Into Distribution. The freight AI platform acquired Merlin, a stealth AI company built for wholesale distribution, giving Augie its first foothold in a sector worth over $8 trillion. Brokers' biggest customers just got added to the platform.
📦 Amazon's Q1 Revenue Hit $181 Billion. The company is pushing same-day and next-day delivery harder than ever, which means more pressure on every carrier in its network to hit tighter windows at higher volume.
🚂 Anti-Merger Group Launches Against UP and NS. As Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern refile their merger application with the STB, opposition is already organizing.
🔗 PCS Adds DAT One to Cortex. PCS's TMS platform now pulls DAT One load board data directly into its Cortex workflow.
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A trade group is suing to strip California and New York of the power to issue commercial driver's licenses entirely. Plus: $3/mi is now breakeven, DOT wants to rate every carrier, routing guides are falling apart, and more.
"We're basically in the center of the United States. As middle as you can get. Every class one railroad comes through Kansas City. It makes it very unique."
Freight fraud is a multi-billion-dollar problem, and the old verification model is broken. Here’s the new standard every broker needs to build toward in 2026.
S&P is cautiously optimistic about the freight recovery, but it still kept RXO's rating below investment grade. Plus: the Strait is set to reopen, Volvo pulls the safety driver, the U.S. goes after cheap trailers, and more.
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