“This May Not Be the Right Time to Jump Into the Small Carrier Market.” Two Top Transportation Attorneys on Whether the Small Carrier Has a Future.
There is a question hanging over the small carrier world right now, and two of the most knowledgeable transportation attorneys in the country did not flinch from it when they sat down separately on The Long Haul. The question is whether the small carrier, the one-truck owner-operator and the five-truck fleet, still has a viable […]
Google Maps Just Launched Truck-Aware Routing That Knows About Low Bridges and Weight Limits. Here Is What It Means, and What It Does Not.
Every experienced driver has a story about it, or knows someone who does. A truck follows a navigation app built for cars, and the app cheerfully routes it toward a bridge it cannot clear, a road it is too heavy for, or a turn it physically cannot make. The low-bridge strike is one of the […]
When the Supply Chain Broke, Freight Tech Answered: The 2021 to 2023 Acceleration Years
For years, freight technology had been a solution looking for the industry to feel enough pain to adopt it. In 2021, the pain arrived. The pandemic-era supply chain crisis did in eighteen months what a decade of sales pitches could not. It took every abstract argument for digital freight tools, real-time visibility, capacity matching, automation, […]
Axle Logistics Lands a Five-Year Jersey Patch Deal With Tennessee Basketball
Freight companies do not usually show up on the front of a nationally televised basketball jersey. On August 18, 2026, one did. According to an announcement released by Tennessee Athletics, Axle Logistics, a third-party logistics company based in Knoxville, has been named the first official jersey patch partner in program history, with its logo appearing […]
167 Logistics and Transportation Companies Made the 2026 Inc. 5000. Here Are the Freight Names Worth Knowing.
Every year, Inc. magazine publishes its Inc. 5000, a ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in America based on three-year revenue growth, and every year it doubles as a snapshot of where the money and momentum are moving. For 2026, the logistics and transportation category landed 167 companies on the list, and the collective numbers […]
Some Diesel Analysts Are Warning of a Supply Crunch Nobody in Washington Is Talking About. Here Is What Holds Up, and What It Could Mean for Q4.
You have probably noticed something strange lately. The news keeps saying oil prices are calm, even falling, with crude sitting below $100 a barrel. And yet your diesel fuel bill keeps climbing. That disconnect is not your imagination, and there is a single number that explains it. It is called the diesel crack spread, and […]
Why 22 States Are Suing to Block a Federal Demand for 17 Million Truckers’ Records.
A legal battle now underway over the records of America’s truck drivers is being described very differently depending on who is doing the describing. The U.S. Department of Transportation calls it a “radical” effort by state attorneys general to shield dangerous drivers from the law. The states call it an unlawful federal seizure of the […]
Before “Freight Tech” Was a Category: 2018 to 2020 and the Founding Class
Nominations for the 2027 FreightTech 100 close August 31. Nominate your company here. There was a time, and it was not long ago, when telling someone at a shipping conference that you worked in “freight tech” would get you a blank look. The freight industry had technology, of course. It had transportation management systems, some […]
They Watched the Family Business Get Rolled Up. Then They Built the Version They Wanted to Work For.
A Business That Did Not Exist Yet In 1997, if a fleet needed a repair, the truck went to a shop. That was the entire menu. That was the year Bob Dickinson started what became Dickinson Fleet Services out of a small operation in Indianapolis, and his grandsons Kyle and Kevin Coltrain grew up around […]
DOT Says Freedom Haulers Opens an Express Lane for Veterans. Much of That Lane Was Already Built.
What Was Announced U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy announced Freedom Haulers, describing it as a patriotic hiring campaign to move veterans into trucking careers. The Department of Transportation leads it, with contributions from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Labor and the Department of War. The launch package included a digital ad, […]
Georgia Is Building 41 Miles of Toll-Free, Truck-Only Lanes on I-75. GDOT Thinks Nearly Every Truck Will Use Them.
Georgia is moving ahead with an idea that most of the country has only talked about: a stretch of interstate where the trucks get their own road. The Georgia Department of Transportation has released a construction timeline for its I-75 Commercial Vehicle Lanes project, and the plan is concrete. Design work will be finalized and […]
The Safety Audit Comes After the Trucks Are Already Rolling. A Long-Dormant Rule Asks Whether That’s Backwards.
Here is how a person becomes a federally authorized motor carrier today. You apply for a USDOT number. As part of that application, you certify on a form, the MCS-150, that you are knowledgeable about the applicable federal motor carrier safety regulations and, where relevant, the hazardous materials regulations. You check the box. You get […]
“It Ain’t That Bad That I Got to Pay Somebody to Come Here.” Why a Man Who Runs 65 Owner-Operators Says Sign-On Bonuses Repel the Drivers You Actually Want.
Sixty-five owner-operators is not the same thing as sixty-five trucks. That distinction sits underneath everything Christian Martinez does. As director of operations at Voyager Nation in Mulberry, Florida, he manages a fleet that is 100% owner-operator, which means he manages 65 independent business owners who have no obligation to stay and every other option available […]
FMCSA Says the Broker Transparency Proposal Is Coming This Month. It Could Be the Most Important Rule for Owner-Operators in Years, or It Could Change Almost Nothing.
The regulation at the center of this fight is not new. It has been sitting in the Code of Federal Regulations since 1980. 49 CFR 371.3 requires property brokers to keep a record of each transaction, and it gives each party to that transaction the right to review the record. On paper, an owner-operator who […]
August 2019: Two Trucks and a Fresh Start. Today: Nearly 40 Trucks, 140 Trailers, and a 40-Year-Old Carrier.
I have known Jerry Murphy for almost two years. We talk every couple of weeks. And I can tell you there is no version of him for the cameras. The man you hear on this episode is the same man I get on those calls. He did not have a driver’s license when he started […]
He Found His Way Out of the Streets in a Prison Cell With a Pamphlet. This Is How Debon “DJ” Sims Built a Trucking Business Nobody Could Take From Him.
The decision that changed Debon Sims’s life got made in a prison cell, over a pamphlet. That is where this story starts, and it is worth sitting with, because it frames everything that comes after. In 2015, Sims got into what he calls the only kind of trouble he had ever been in, his first […]
PACCAR Is Raising the DEF Limp-Mode Speed From 5 MPH to 25 MPH. It Is Part of the Biggest Rollback of Diesel Emissions Enforcement in Years.
For any owner-operator who has ever been stranded on the shoulder of an interstate at 5 miles per hour because a sensor decided the diesel exhaust fluid system had a problem, the announcement PACCAR made on July 6, 2026 will read like overdue relief. The company is rolling out updated software for trucks equipped with […]
A Truck Driver Made One Phone Call and Saved a Life. There Is an Award for That, and Nominations Close August 15.
A driver rounds a curve on a dark rural road and sees a woman standing near the fog line, head shaved, wearing nothing but a beach towel, no other car or person anywhere in sight. Something is wrong. He acts. That woman turns out to be a human trafficking victim, and because a truck driver […]
Three Trucks Hit CSX Trains in Metro Atlanta in Under a Week. Every One of Them Is a Lesson in the Crossing Mistake That Kills Drivers.
In the span of five days, three tractor-trailers were struck by CSX freight trains in metro Atlanta. The trucks were destroyed. Fires broke out in each case. By something close to luck, no one was killed. That cluster is worth every owner-operator’s attention, not because Atlanta is uniquely dangerous, but because the same scenario repeated […]
Operation Safe Driver Week Hits July 12. The Ticket You Get That Week Follows You Long After the Week Is Over.
From July 12 to July 18, 2026, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance runs Operation Safe Driver Week across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and for those seven days the number of officers watching for unsafe driving goes up sharply. CVSA announced the dates and the focus on April 30. The official area of emphasis […]