Book It or Bounce It

Happy Hump Day. Brokerage reps, carriers, enforcement officials, and researchers agreed on new carrier-vetting rules, and one of them means brokers should stop trusting an FMCSA rating that many already check.

Plus:

• Six States Just Loosened Diesel Rules

• FMCSA Shuts Down Paper Logbook Request

• The Great Nvidia Sand Heist

💡 QUESTION OF THE DAY:

A federal court case could cost New York $___ million in highway funding.

🍳 WHAT’S COOKIN’ IN FREIGHT

⛽ Six States Just Loosened Diesel Rules. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared a 30-day statewide disaster after diesel hit a state-record $5.97 a gallon, suspending penalties on dyed diesel use on public roads and raising weight limits to 95,000 pounds for fuel, agricultural, and timber loads. Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Nebraska, and North Dakota took similar action within the same week, each waiving state penalties on using off-road dyed diesel in highway vehicles for periods ranging from 30 to 120 days. Nebraska also added a tax-refund option for agricultural haulers, and North Dakota's waiver runs through the end of November. None of the six waives the underlying fuel tax itself.

🚫 FMCSA Shuts Down Paper Logbook Request. FMCSA denied a petition from the Federation of Professional Truckers asking to let drivers record duty status on paper instead of using ELDs, after receiving 901 public comments. FMCSA said the group "does not provide information establishing that the requested exemption would likely achieve a level of safety that is equivalent to, or greater than" what ELDs already deliver. The agency also said it is bound by a congressional mandate under the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act and cannot grant a blanket exemption to any driver or carrier. The American Trucking Associations and five other groups opposed the exemption.

🕵️ The Great Nvidia Sand Heist. Thieves stole two Nvidia-branded trailers from autonomous trucking company PlusAI's Fremont, California warehouse, forcibly separating the trailers from a truck cab and driving off. Inside: a combined 20 tons of sand, loaded to simulate real freight weight during autonomous-truck testing. "The very apparent branding probably made them think there was very valuable equipment back there," said PlusAI VP of Marketing Lauren Kwan. Police recovered both trailers after an employee's friend spotted them parked outside an office near the warehouse and texted over a photo. No arrests have been made, and the sand never left the trailers.

PRESENTED BY VOOMA

Teams have seen an increase of 0.5-1% in GP, Quote win rates up by 15%, carrier re-use doubling and reps focusing their time on relationships and more strategic work.

Here's What Disqualifies a Carrier Now

Brokerage reps, carriers, enforcement officials, and academic researchers rarely agree on how to vet a carrier.

This month, a working group made up of all four released a new set of Motor Carrier Selection Guidelines and Resources, citing recent litigation and heightened regulatory attention around carrier selection as the reason vetting can no longer run on minimum requirements alone.

Bluewire, a motor carrier risk intelligence platform, coordinated the document.

Announcing the release, Bluewire CEO Steve Bryan wrote that the legal and regulatory environment around carrier selection is changing, and that the resource aims to help the industry make better-informed decisions as data and regulations evolve.

The Line Between Reject and Review

The framework lists clear reasons to turn a carrier down before offering a load: no active for-hire operating authority, an inactive USDOT number, insufficient required insurance, a final Unsatisfactory safety rating, missing PHMSA hazmat registration where required, or an active federal or state out-of-service order.

A Conditional rating does not disqualify a carrier outright. Instead, the guidelines recommend asking the carrier for documentation of corrective actions it has implemented, or evidence that it has submitted a corrective action plan or a safety-rating upgrade request to FMCSA, before deciding whether to book the load.

Wrong Tool for the Job

The guidelines also tell brokers not to use FMCSA's Safety Measurement System scores or alerts to judge whether a carrier is safe to hire, even though many brokers already check SMS informally.

FMCSA built SMS to prioritize carriers for enforcement investigation, not to issue safety fitness determinations, and the system itself "specifically notifies users that it is an enforcement system and cautions against drawing any conclusions about a carrier's overall safety fitness based on data contained in the SMS system."

Not Every Carrier Has a File

For new carriers and those with limited safety data, the guidelines point brokers toward a different checklist: proof of a drug and alcohol testing program or consortium enrollment, ELDs that appear on FMCSA's registered device list, CDL qualifications and average driver tenure, and chameleon-carrier warning signs including multiple companies registered at the same address, frequent address changes, or no verifiable physical location.

The guidelines note that FMCSA's own records may not agree with each other right now. The agency is mid-transition from its legacy SAFER system to a new platform called Motus, and until SAFER data is fully folded in, the two may present conflicting or erroneous information about a carrier's status.

PRESENTED BY FREIGHT FLEX

Who's Behind You When a Load Goes Missing?

A stolen load can turn into a lawsuit fast. Agents under a brokerage without a documented compliance program are exposed in ways they weren't a year ago, and insurance costs are climbing.

Freight Flex saw it coming. Chief Compliance Officer Michael Grace leads one compliance organization covering carrier vetting, fraud prevention and insurance. Every carrier is verified before a shipment moves.

Want a program that keeps you and your customers protected? Freight Flex is the place you need to be.

 🌎 AROUND THE FREIGHT WEB

⚖️ New York Fights FMCSA Over $73M. A federal appeals court heard both sides argue over a rule that doesn't technically exist in writing, and $73 million in highway funding hangs on the answer.

❄️ A Little Blow, A Lot of Trouble. A driver-facing camera caught a truck driver snorting a white powder, and his own trucking company called the cops on him.

📊 Same Market, Opposite Directions. ArcBest and Old Dominion's LTL shipments shrank in August while Saia and XPO's grew. A consultant says XPO's push into smaller business accounts is quietly reshaping who gets the truckload spillover freight.

🛢️ Bulk Freight Waits a Week Now. Lead times that used to take three days are stretching past a week, and a tanker-carrier president says it's the same driver squeeze hitting everyone else.

🤖 Vooma Just Launched Its AI Rep. Vooma launched Vee, an AI system it says handles carrier calls, texts, and coverage planning so reps can spend less time on inbound calls and manual coverage work and more time working their network.

🎭 The Scariest Carrier Doesn't Exist. A new Tive survey of 442 supply chain and security leaders found more than half of identifiable cargo thefts trace back to fake identities, not stolen trucks.

🎣 THE FREIGHT CAVIAR CORNER

Issue 004 of FreightCaviar Print is here.

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😂 FREIGHT HUMOR

FreightCaviar has partnered with Alpha Staffing & Recruiting, a boutique logistics staffing and recruiting firm, to provide you with available roles in our industry. Click the role to learn more and apply.

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🎧 THE FREIGHT CAVIAR PODCAST

Chris Brewer, Founder & CEO of River City Logistics, joined Paul-Bernard Jaroslawski, Lev Krasnopolskiy, and Reed Loustalot on the FreightCaviar Podcast to discuss how he built the company without outside investment, the real cost of bootstrapping a business nobody talks about, and why you shouldn't run a contracted business without a fuel program.

Watch it on YouTube, or listen to the full episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.