🎣 Double Freight Rates Overnight

TGIF. Two bills just dropped in the Senate that could reshape trucking faster than anything since deregulation. We break both of them down in today's feature.

Plus:

Russian Hackers Targeted Your Load Board
Flatbed Rejection Rates Just Hit 40%
A Robot Is Taking the Houston-Dallas Overnight Run

Question of the Day: If passed, the Dalilah Law could remove roughly _______ drivers from U.S. roads, about 16% of all active CDL holders.

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🍳 What's Cookin' In Freight

A fake version of the Truckstop RMIS sign-in page is displayed, asking the user to enter their login details. Source: Have I Been Squatted

🪆 Russian Hackers Targeted Your Load Board. Security researchers say a group dubbed “Diesel Vortex” stole 1,649 unique logins from brokers and carriers across the U.S. and Europe, targeting platforms such as DAT, Truckstop, and EFS. The phishing emails linked to clean .com sites, while fake login pages ran behind the scenes. Operators captured passwords and 2FA codes in real time, then redirected victims to the real site. The infrastructure was later taken down by Google, Cloudflare, and Microsoft. The lesson here? Protect your freight logins as you would your bank accounts.

📦 Flatbed Rejection Rates Just Hit 40%. According to FreightWaves SONAR data, flatbed tender rejection rates have surpassed 40%, breaking above records set during the COVID freight boom of 2021. Craig Fuller called it "an extremely bullish indicator for heavy industrial and manufacturing activity." CDL enforcement is pulling smaller carriers off the road, tightening supply faster than demand is falling. Historically, rejection rates have led spot rates by days to weeks, while spot rates have led contract rates by months. Flatbed brokers paying attention right now are ahead of the market.

🤖 A Robot Is Taking the Houston-Dallas Overnight Run. Bot Auto and Ryan Transportation are launching fully driverless freight operations on the 200-mile Houston-to-Dallas corridor starting in Spring 2026. Level 4 autonomous trucks, no driver, no hours-of-service reset, same departure time every night. The lane was chosen specifically because tight delivery windows and federal HOS limits make it brutal for human drivers to service consistently. Bot Auto calls it a foundation for future expansion. For brokers and carriers, it's real-world proof that autonomous trucking isn't a concept anymore.

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The Two Senate Bills That Could Reshape Trucking

What's the Dalilah Law?

The Bill is named after Dalilah Coleman, a 5-year-old left with a traumatic brain injury after an undocumented driver fell asleep at the wheel and plowed into six stopped vehicles on a California highway.

Introduced by Senator Jim Banks (R-Ind) after Trump's State of the Union, it would restrict CDLs to citizens, green card holders, and a narrow set of work visas.

English-only testing. 180-day recertification. States that don't comply lose federal highway funding. If it passes, it becomes a federal statute effective immediately.

The Capacity Math

Foreign-born drivers are roughly 18-19% of the U.S. trucking workforce, somewhere between 630,000 and 720,000 drivers.

A report prepared for J.B. Hunt estimates over 600,000 drivers at risk. That's 16% of the active driver population gone.

"The Dalilah Law would reset who can legally hold a CDL nationwide, and trucking would feel the resulting capacity squeeze and corresponding rate surge immediately." — Craig Fuller, FreightWaves

Craig Fuller called it a potential "trucking super cycle" with spot rates on some lanes potentially surging 50-100%.

The Other Bill Moving Right Now

The SAFER Transport Act, introduced by Senator Todd Young (R-Ind) and backed by the American Trucking Associations, targets freight fraud on the other end, tightening who can operate, not just who can drive.

It would modernize the FMCSA's registration system, phase out MC numbers, tighten oversight of CDL training, and raise criminal penalties for fraudulent certifications. The goal is to close the loopholes that let chameleon carriers steal carrier identities and divert loads.

Cargo theft costs the industry $18 million per day. Strategic theft and fake carrier identities diverting loads are up 1,500% since 2021.

So What For Brokers

Capacity is already tightening before either bill passes. English proficiency checks, non-domiciled CDL crackdowns, and the cancellation of 20,000 California licenses are pulling drivers off the road right now.

Brokers still pricing like it's 2025 are going to get caught. The signal is already there.

Sources: FreightWaves, Senate.Gov, & ATA

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🌎 Around the Freight Web

😑 Driver Caught Going Wrong Way. A truck driver with a Minnesota-issued CDL was caught on camera driving the wrong way for miles on a Missouri highway. The carrier is now under federal investigation.

📈 RXO: The Curve Just Turned. RXO says spot rates are moving back into inflationary territory as carriers exit and enforcement tightens capacity. Translation: the soft market may be coming to an end.

🚛 California CDL Chaos. California is scrambling to reinstate 20,000 immigrant truckers’ licenses before new federal rules take effect on March 16, as a dispute with the Trump administration threatens jobs, funding, and driver supply.

📉 Forward Air Posts Q4 Loss. Forward Air reported a $28.3M Q4 net loss, blaming soft freight conditions. Full-year 2025 loss totaled $108M.

🤖 Flexport Launches AI Trade Agents. Flexport rolled out its 2026 Winter Tech Release, introducing AI agents that automate customs audits, tariff refund prep, and shipment optimization.