The FMCSA Data Crisis (with Danielle Chaffin) | Episode 312

The FMCSA’s sudden shutdown of data feeds threw brokers, carriers, and safety officials into chaos, cutting off access to critical verification tools and exposing major vulnerabilities in the freight system. Criminals are already exploiting these gaps by hijacking FMCSA credentials, altering carrier info, and stealing loads—while the agency fails to track changes. At the same time, industry groups continue to push the false “driver shortage” narrative, masking how low standards and oversupply are creating real safety and wage issues on the road.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to this week's episode of Freight 360.
Nate is not going to be joiningus.
He is actually at the TIApolicy forum on Capitol Hill,
hopefully meeting with someFMCSA folks in Congress about
what we're going to jump intoimmediately.
Apparently, most of the FMCSAdata feeds just vanished

(00:20):
yesterday with no guidance, noexplanation, no reason, and the
industry was left to just try tofigure things out without any
information that we're supposedto be able to use to verify
carriers, verify safety, verifyregistrations, verify contact
information.
So, rather than jumping intosports, we have Daniel with us

(00:41):
again and we are going to jumpright into what was there, what
is normally there and what justapparently vanished as of like
yesterday morning or somewhere.
I think it was like very earlymorning, after midnight and
between like 6 am is when thiskind of vanished and then it
reappeared inexplicably likesomewhere around this morning.

(01:03):
I think is like the most recentupdate.
So catch us up on like whatactually just happened yesterday
and then we'll just segue fromthere.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah Well, first, thanks for having me back.
I'm excited to be here.
The FMCSA data there's one dataset that I use on a weekly
basis.
It's all of the newregistrations for USDOTs.
It doesn't have to be or thatdata set includes all USDOTs, so
electric companies, towingcompanies, it's not only like

(01:36):
all the road freight yeah.
Yeah, and so that is the dataset that has two million plus
rows, but it's updated on adaily basis and so I can see all
of the registrations that comethrough, whether they get
approved or not.
What I do with it, that's kindof irrelevant, but yesterday we
got a chat in our freight fraudwith Stephen and Garrett and

(02:01):
Justin Martin and I that thedata was gone, and so I went to
the link where that data set issupposed to be, and it was a 404
page.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Literally tumbleweeds , like it literally said that on
the 404 page right, it did.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
And so I don't know.
It was something overnight,because that's when the data is
refreshed overnight.
And Garrett found it, of course, because of search carriers
realizing that a bunch of thejobs didn't actually run or they
failed last night.
And then it came back onlinesometime this morning because
the jobs didn't run last night.

(02:40):
So I don't know what happened.
It was gone.
I know that.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah, just vanished.
Nobody had any idea.
And again, what I want you toexplain for everybody is what is
in here.
And again let's go like, asNate would say, like Barney
style 101 level, like why isthis information important?
Why is it important that it isupdated daily and what does the

(03:07):
industry do with it?
Like just break it down foranybody out there that isn't
familiar exactly with whatcategories are in there, what
that tells the industry and howwe use that to make decisions on
who is doing what.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
There are zero data sets in the FMCSA that actually
are linked together orconsolidated in any way, shape
or form.
I think there's probably 12 ofthem that are incredibly
relevant to what we do on thebrokerage, the 3PL side, and

(03:41):
those have to be consolidatedand presented in a way that
makes sense.
None of us really see that,because we're using the carrier
vetting tools like RMIS,SaferWatch, Highway search
carriers and others, and so theyare the ones consolidating all
of that data and making sense ofit.
For us, Every piece of carriervetting is built on top of the

(04:06):
FMCSA databases.
So that's my issue in and ofitself is because everything
that we're doing is a reactionto those, however many data sets
.
12 may not be an accurate number, but it's somewhere in the 10
to 12 area.
Everything that we do as far ascarrier vetting depends on

(04:29):
those data sets, depends on theFMCSA.
We can't do anything withoutthat data and so not having an
up-to-date set or even a setthat is completely missing.
The data set that I look atincludes the primary officer or
the contact, the physicaladdress, the mailing address Of
course there's a USDOT number inthere, the email address, and

(04:53):
that's the one that just wentmissing.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
OK.
So for everyone out there, Iwant to reiterate to what you
just said.
Right is that the FMCSA doesnot present or is viewable like,
I would say, actionableinformation from what is there.
It is like raw data, and whatraw data means is just like
literally lines.
If you just think of a giantspreadsheet with individual

(05:18):
lines that have columns and thenit just spits out all of these
things, it's like, hey, this isall the information we have.
Then what we do in the industry,almost every broker pays for a
service that takes or ingestsall of those raw numbers in
spreadsheets and then turns itinto a category that we can use
to make a decision as to whetheror not we want to work with a

(05:40):
carrier or, more importantly,whether that carrier is still
the carrier we might've hiredlast week, right?
So, like I think, a really easyone to start with is just like
the MCS 150s and what that means, right, because I'm going to
set a little bit of the like,the stage for you to dig into
some of these, but for anyoneout there, like one of the

(06:02):
biggest ways that carriers arebeing defrauded, because it's
not just carriers defraudingbrokers or shippers Like these
are criminals that areimpersonating legitimate
trucking companies, thenstealing load information, then
using that to either steal theload themselves with one of
their trucks or to then takethat information of their trucks
, or to then take thatinformation and then, secondly,

(06:24):
impersonate a freight broker,book a legitimate carrier, send
them to a warehouse they manageand then steal the freight and
of which nobody is aware ofuntil it's gone.
These are the things that arelike, really, really, I would
say the most obvious, glaringways that people are having
freight stolen, right.
So the MCS-150, and correct meif I'm wrong with any of this,

(06:47):
because you spend more time onthis, but it is the form that
you fill out and file with theFMCSA when you change your name
at your trucking company or anyof the contact information the
address the email address thephone number, the truck count or
the name.
So one of the big phishing scamsthat has been around is like
criminals will send an emailthat is a fake email, that

(07:09):
pretends to be the FMCSA and atrucking company owner employee
clicks it and logs into whatthey think is the FMCSA.
They steal their login info, goback to the FMCSA and then
update that trucking companywith their email address.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
And then I might've worked with that carrier last
week, I might've worked withthem every week all year with no
issue, and if I don't know thathappened, I think I am still
emailing the same truckingcompany or calling and all of a
sudden that email is now goingto a criminal because nobody can
see that that was changed Right.

(07:43):
So I want you to go throughmaybe just like kind of that one
and some of the other reallycritical ones that we rely on
that are huge vulnerabilitiesfor theft and fraud in the
industry.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah, so the MCS-150, if anything, if you're changing
anything on your USDOT record,just like you said, name,
contact information, address,phone number, truck count,
driver count, what have you Allof that goes through the MCS-150
.
That is also the every two yearupdate that a trucking company

(08:16):
has to do.
So, yes, they have to update itevery two years.
They're required to do that,and then if anything needs
changing, they also use MCS-150.
What I found with the emailaddress issues is that
previously the fraudulent peoplecriminals I will call them.
Actually they're not justfraudulent people, they're

(08:37):
criminals.
What the criminals have done isthey're just emailing back and
forth and that email doesn'tnecessarily match what is on the
USDOT record.
With the FMCSA, we once had ahigh trust society that could
just email carriers andeverything was fine, and now we
don't.
So no one was checking thoseemails.

(08:58):
Well, they've taken it one stepfurther and somehow whether it's
through an email, a phishinglink, just guessing they are
actually logging into the FMCSAaccount.
I believe allegedly they'relogging into the FMCSA account
and they're changing the emailaddress on the FMCSA account.

(09:20):
I've worked with severalcarriers that this has happened
to and help them prepare thequestions and the documentation
to send to the FMCSA and theonly response that we've gotten
is that the FMCSA support repsays that they can't see a
change on the account and theycan't see that change because it
doesn't go through the MCS-150.

(09:41):
And so that change isn't logged.
And then if your carriervetting software matches an
email address to the email onthe USDOT record, those are the
same now because they've wentinto the FMCSA and changed the
email.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Why is there no record of that?
Because I have.
We have a client, like I justdid this with a client of ours
last week and they got a newphone system and they needed to
update their phone number and Iwalked them through how to
change this and the two ways youcan do it are to fill a paper
form out and I'm sure I'm sureyou can mail it, probably fax it
or email it.
But if there's a paper form,that takes the longer way.

(10:18):
Or you can log in with your pinto the FMCSA and you can update
it.
But what you're saying is whenthat occurs, the FMCSA does not
have a record of that namechange occurring.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
That's what I've been told.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
So the systems that will tell you when those things
changed to your point.
So just take like CARE 411,right, for example, has a little
section and if you go to it itwill show you contact
information.
Fmcsa changes the date.
What was changed.
It will show you the previousvalue and the new value.
And the reason, like carrier411 has this is because they are

(10:57):
ingesting that data every dayand when it doesn't match then
they flag their system that, oh,as of September 17th, it was
this yesterday, it is this now,so the change must have happened
between yesterday and today,which is why having this updated
every day really matters.
Yes, because the FMCSA doesn'tknow that it was changed.

(11:18):
It just is changed and theydon't record the record of the
change, correct?

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, yeah, and it's.
I mean that small change in anemail address, the ones that I
was working on.
They had changed one letter, soit was like abctruckscom or at
whatevercom and they had changedit and just dropped the S.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, it'll be like plural or they'll make it
singular like ABCtruckscom.
That'll now be ABCtruckcom andlike, if you're not really
paying attention, you just don'tnotice that, like to the naked
eye, it is almost impossible tosee.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah, and it can be devastating for a small carrier.
I mean if that load is actuallybooked through their USDOT and
then the claim is filed againsttheir insurance.
Thousands and thousands ofdollars.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
Hundreds Like I've seen three instances this year
that I've worked through wherethis has occurred.
One was the criminal created anew domain that was one
character different.
So like they went and bought awebsite domain and this is one
of the honestly one of thebetter ones that I've seen and I

(12:30):
still don't exactly know howthey did this.
But like the eye was not anEnglish eye, it was an eye from
another dialect that had alittle bit of, instead of a dot
for an eye, it was like an endtilt, like it wasn't Spanish and
wasn't French, but it had justlike a little bit of a different
slant to the dot.
And this happened.
It was a client of ours reachedout, this load was stolen and

(12:52):
when I looked at the domain, I'mlike this looks like the domain
and highway and in 411 andsafer.
I'm like that's strange.
How I found it was I copy andpasted after the at sign for the
domain and search for thewebsite and it came up as an
unhosted site.
And I'm like, wait a minute, Iknow that because it was a large

(13:13):
trucking company.
They had like three, fourhundred trucks.
I'm like I know they have awebsite.
So I looked again and then IGoogled that and I found the
legitimate one and looked atthem next to each other and I'm
like, oh my Lord, I'm like it isthis little dot above the I
that they changed.
And then they change it to yourpoint in the FMCSA.
So every system linked to theFMCSA goes this email is good.

(13:34):
So they tendered the load theway everyone has All the systems
said it was good.
None of them like literally notone of them caught that.
Like, not one of those systemswhen I backtracked had that info
flagged at the time that thatfraud occurred.
Okay, so name changes, phonenumber changes huge area to be
paying attention to and to dothis Like the one thing that I

(13:57):
want to point out for everybodyis, like I don't want to just
point out the issues.
I'm going to point out, likewhat people can do to solve it.
I don't want to just point outthe issues.
I'm going to point out likewhat people can do to solve it.
So, like just that one, becausethat is probably the most
common one that I've seen overthe past few years what are some
ways that you suggest folksverify that info and this is
really important before you sendthe rate con and the delivery

(14:19):
address and the pickup number.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
I think that I think we have moved too much to be
automated too quickly.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
I agree.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
We have automated.
If you, if you export and Iwould love to send an example
file to anyone that wants it,please let me know If you export
this data from the FMCSA in aCSV file and you just doom
scroll, which is what I did formonths, you will realize that

(14:51):
everything that we do past thispoint is built on a broken
foundation.
That in itself is frightening.
I can't do anything withoutthis data being real, being
verified, being confirmed bysomeone, and it's not looking at

(15:13):
the carrier.
And I'm saying that we'veautomated based on what we get
from the FMCSA and the USDOTrecords.
So if you take the CSV file,the raw file, and you start
scrolling through it, you willquickly realize that we have
automated something that shouldnot be automated as far as it is
today.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yes.
So two points on that.
The first I want to point outis like this is a huge
vulnerability with AI automation, because if your underlying
data set is not both two thingssecure, consistent, sorry, three
and accurate, then theautomation makes more mistakes

(15:53):
because it is going to do thingswithout human intelligence to
look to see if it is correct.
It just will act across everyone of those and do the same
action, which means every errorin the underlying information
gets exaggerated and thenhappens more.
And on top of that, right likeas the industry has moved to

(16:15):
efficiency, rates are down.
We've talked about the CDL, cdlmills, why and what is going on
the care side, but, like asrates are depressed, companies
are trying to stay in businessby doing things more efficiently
, which means a lot of timesless people and more emails.
That's what criminals rely on.
They know these people arebooking loads fast without

(16:37):
making phone calls, withoutactually looking at this
information, without payingattention to it.
Phone calls without actuallylooking at this information,
without paying attention to it.
They are taking advantage ofthis of automation, of companies
moving fast without doingthings that we traditionally
would spend even 30, 45 secondsto do before you sent this
information.
Companies are just doing lessand less of this and the
carriers are like it's Christmasbecause nobody's looking at any

(16:59):
of our information and we canjust get everybody to send us
whatever we want Like to me,like address and things,

(17:25):
physical IDs.
Imagine if the entire bankingsystem was not accurate.
This is the equivalent.
It would be like I could justgo to your bank and just pretend
to be you and just change thename at your bank account to
mine, and it doesn't make, makeany difference and they'll just
give me your money.
That is literally what ishappening with our system.

(17:46):
And we are trying to automate itto do this more efficiently,
but the whole thing that we relyon, all of this information
that is supposedly verified andaccurate, is just broken,
inaccurate and inconsistent.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, absolutely, and I continually say, and I will
continually post that a fiveminute phone call would mitigate
much of the fraud that we'reseeing today.
It's not foolproof, it's notgoing to be, it's not going to
stop everything a hundredpercent.
But calling on that carrier atthe number that the FMCSA has

(18:21):
provided you or they haveprovided you, pick up the phone
and call them.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
I would say this.
I want to add one little caveat.
I've probably been involved orhelped with at least 15 to 25 of
these stolen load situations inthe past, probably year and a
half right.
Either clients, colleagues,somebody whether it's through
work with Genlogs, with you guysor somebody goes hey, can you
help with this?
Every single one of them?

(18:46):
I have been able to determinethey were fraud inside of 45
seconds by doing what you justsaid, with.
One little caveat is like I goto the FMCSA name changes in the
sites that we pay for theverified ones, because they can
interpret this data, give it tome usability.
I don't call the new one.
I always go directly to phonenumber.

(19:08):
Name changes and I call theprevious one is the first thing
I do when somebody goes.
I got a load stolen.
This is the carrier I booked.
I go to the MC, call theprevious phone number and in
every instance the guy who'spicked up the phone it just
happened to be guys, but likethey've all answered the phone
and went.
That's not me.

(19:28):
I reported this.
No one did anything about it.
Don't book that carrier Everysingle one.
I'm like it's taking me lessthan a minute to find out that
the load was actually stolenwith one phone call.
And like we talk about this inour brokerage, nate, and I talk
about this at the TIA, theclasses we teach.
Like we talk about this in ourbrokerage, nate, and I talk
about this at the TIA, theclasses we teach.
I understand that everybody'strying to do more in less time,
but I can promise you that justbecause it hasn't happened yet

(19:49):
doesn't mean it won't happentoday or tomorrow.
It inevitably will probablyhappen to you if you are booking
even 20 to 30 loads a week, andthe one thing that I would say
is the biggest preventativemeasure is what we were trained
to do 10, 15 years ago in theindustry of like, before you
book the carrier, if they emailyou or even if they call you
when you hang up the phone, gofind the real phone number and

(20:11):
call them back and see if onethe dispatcher you booked a load
with works there and just talkto the person, because normally
they'll just tell you oh yeah,that's my dispatcher, leo, or
yeah, that's Jimmy, that load'sall good, or they're gonna be
like no man, I sold my truckingcompany or, in some I've heard,
I was going to sell my truckingcompany.
I gave them my logins and theychanged everything, and the

(20:33):
FMCSA hasn't helped me fix thisyet in every single instance.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yep, and I will say too, on top of that, as humans
and in this industry, all humanswe have intuition.
When something feels off abouta carrier, we're going to take a
pause and look deeper.
Ai doesn't do that.
Ai doesn't have that spiritualelement and that intuition
inside of it to say this doesn'tfeel right.
And so AI sees checkboxes likespreadsheet brain and AI says

(21:09):
everything matches up.
This looks good Book.
This carrier Human sayseverything does look correct,
but something feels off.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
I'm not going to book this carrier yet.
Give me 15 more minutes.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Two things I want to add to this right, the way we
teach this, that Nate and I inthe TIA classes we're like
listen, just because it feelsoff does not mean it is black or
white, yes or no.
What it should tell you is nowyou dig a little deeper and then
, if it feels a little more off,dig a little deeper, go maybe
four or five steps down the road, like you don't have to make

(21:47):
them black or white decisionsbecause something feels off.
But it should give you pause toask a few more questions, right
?
Okay, I booked like here'sanother.
This is literally another theftoccurrence that happened three
months ago when I looked at thecarrier.
I'm like that theft occurrencethat happened three months ago.

(22:07):
When I looked at the carrier,I'm like that looks a little off
.
It was the email address.
And then I went okay, let me goand look at the assets they
have listed.
They have one dry van.
This broker booked a flatbed.
I'm like, well, that's anotheroff.
And I'm like, oh, wait a minute.
They booked two loads with thiscarrier in the same day.
Oh, wait a minute.
They have one power unit andone trailer.
That seems a little more off.
Then you go a little deeper andyou go FMCSA name changes and

(22:27):
contact info changes.
The email and the phone numberwere changed 48 hours ago.
Now we've got like five redflags.
Now I won't go to that level ofdetail in every load you book
but, like you said, if it soundsoff, if it feels off, if
somebody's offering you a crazycheap rate, then like maybe just
look a little better, like theold saying is, like if it

(22:49):
doesn't pass the sniff test,right, like look a little longer
.
And the other thing too I wantto point out is like we're
talking from the brokerperspective, but in every one of
these examples almost there wasa carrier that was equally
harmed and as much of a victimas the broker as was the shipper
.
And if there's one thing that Iwould say, in every instance

(23:10):
where I've seen a carrier harmed, where they've reached out to
help, that one phone call wouldhave done the exact same thing
for the carrier, meaning like ifyou book a load with a broker
that you don't know, that justposted a load and it's a load
you want, and especially if itpays above market, you're
expecting two grand on the loadand a broker gives you a load,
no question asked for $3,500.

(23:32):
At least go and call or go tothe FMCSA at least at the very
bare minimum is free and callthe phone number listed for the
brokerage and say, hey, I bookedthis load with this broker with
this email address and thisload number.
I just want to verify thisbefore we go and pick up the
load.
That 30 to 45 second phone callwould prevent 99% of these

(23:55):
situations for both the carrierand the broker.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Absolutely, absolutely, and I don't know.
I mean there's talk all overall over the Internet and social
media about the, the youngergenerations, and their hesitancy
or resistance to making a phonecall, doesn't?
I mean, it takes out the needfor making a phone call, so I

(24:22):
get it in a sense.
I think there are a lot ofthings on the brokerage and the
carrier side where AI isincredibly useful and it's
phenomenal.
I know at Revenova we have likeload building and sending out
notifications.
If something happens it's notsupposed to happen.
I think load building is one ofthe best uses for AI or

(24:43):
tracking updates.
I would much rather put my timeand effort into bettering
something on that end than onthe load tender.
It scares me when I see aproduct that is fully automated
and load tendering.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
Well, here's a few things right.
The few things to that pointright is there is a lot more in
the news recently articles,lectures, whatever.
Wherever you're looking,wherever you get your
information.
People are talking about thefact that many of the companies
that jumped in AI both feetfirst and just said automate

(25:23):
everything, are having twothings of feedback.
One, we did not get the returnon the investment we thought we
would and secondly, it was a lotharder and it actually created
more work and more expenses.
So not only did it not make usmoney, it didn't even save us
money, it cost us money and tookmore time.
And like.

(25:44):
The big takeaway is like, justbecause AI can do something
doesn't mean it should, and youreally should think about your
processes before you implementit within any company and where
you implement it, because it cansave a ton of money in
invoicing procedures, in readingPDFs, in load building.

(26:05):
But even in load building, andwe have that fully automated, we
still have a human beingoverlooking them because it will
still make errors.
And one of the biggest reasonsit still makes errors is I have
not seen any system not any TMS,not any tracking system, not
any carrier vetting system andnot any factoring system that
has 100% accurate data setsunderneath it that are

(26:29):
consistent and accurate at 100%.
Two, that their APIscommunicate at 100% with 100%
accuracy, because the underlyingdata set isn't correct and how
they communicate.
They were designed to providevalue to a human being that can
make decisions and, to yourpoint, has intuition and
experience to go.
That doesn't look right.

(26:49):
Let me look deeper.
Like even the best ones outthere, when we've automated, I'm
like it will blow up this issueso much that you can't see it
or you can't miss it, and likeI'll give you the one is like I
automated a tracking AI to seeif it could call drivers if they
were late, to just basicallysay, hey, is there anything
wrong?
Do you need to speak tosomebody?

(27:10):
And it would put a person onthe phone or just say, hey, like
if you're having an issue, justlet us know.
We didn't want to take up toomuch time.
Or maybe just send a text like,hey, it looks like you're
running behind.
If you need to let us knowabout an issue, you know either
text us or call us right.
But what I did was, instead ofconnecting it to like driver
phone numbers, first I connectedit to my phone and I was like I

(27:31):
want to see how this will workand if it picks up the right
ones or the wrong ones.
It called my phone over andover again for 35 minutes on.
Probably 40% of the phone callsI got were things that weren't
wrong, because the APIs weren't100% accurate.
Where and how it made thosedecisions weren't correct.
And I'm like, oh my Lord, if wewould have just unleashed this

(27:52):
on all of the trucks over theroad, it would have just called
every driver over and over againuntil the driver was just like
this is really, and that's whatwe're hearing from drivers.
They're like we don't want anymore phone calls from your AI
brokerage, because I don't needthat load.
I already have a load and thatload doesn't even match up with
what I'm running.
Can you please stop botheringme while I'm driving with things
that aren't helpful and I don'tneed right?

Speaker 2 (28:15):
Yeah, and I said that from the beginning of hearing
that these things were comingout is again.
I am pro-AI on a lot of things,Knowing as many truck drivers
as I do and growing up withtruck drivers.
They do not want to talk to AI,and if you're having to call a
carrier about something,generally it's something going

(28:40):
wrong or you need something fromthem.
They don't want to talk to AIto do that.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
Well, here let me reframe that for you.
Anybody that has called aboutan issue they have with any
company.
When you get an automatedsystem, how frustrating is that.
Oh my goodness, if you'recalling your electric company
and it goes hey, tell me what'swrong, I can help you with this.
And you press the prompts 15times.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
Nobody picks up the phone Over and over again, yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
Or like it does that, it does that at the pharmacy,
it does that at doctor's offices, it does with your health
insurance company.
They're all like oh, this issuper helpful.
And I'm like my dad was and hada medical situation and I had
to call, like the nurse going tohis house.
She left me a voicemail andsaid call me back.
I spent 15 minutes trying toget through the AI voice system

(29:27):
just to talk to the person thatleft me a message and gave me
the phone number until Ieventually just called someone
else and went I use Zoom infoand I was like I'm just trying
to find this person's cell phonebecause I literally can't get
through main phone numbersanymore because the AI won't
even get you to the person youwant to help.
And it's like to your point.
Imagine if you're a driver andyou have an issue and you need
to talk to somebody and they'rejust going five, five, can I

(29:51):
speak to Ben?
Over and over and it goes sorry, didn't understand that.
Can you please repeat that?
Like that's mind numbinglyinsane.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, yeah, and that the whole my frustrations and
really everyone that I've evertalked to that's where my
opinion on all of this came fromis just the automated menus.
I have not talked to one personthat loves them.
I don't know anybody so we'removing from that, yeah, yeah,
yeah, we're moving from that,and even I have control over

(30:19):
that.
They're telling me what to doand where to go, and I still
hate it.
Yes, much less talking to arobot where I have zero control.
Yep, just trying to tell themsomething.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
And here's the funny thing, right, like those are all
the things that we see areissues with it.
I'm going to point out a veryuseful use case for these where
I've read that they've worked.
I don't work in the side of theindustry, but like doctor's
offices that have to callinsurance companies to just tell
them information so that theyhave it on record, and back and

(30:55):
forth.
I've heard AI works really wellto talk to other AI because the
person doesn't want to talk toit but, like, if the insurance
company has AI and the doctor'soffice, it can call and read the
patient records, let them knowwhat occurred, so it updates
their file and, like I've heardthose have saved a lot of time
because, like, who wants to beon the phone at a doctor's
office just reading details tosomebody typing them in a
computer?

(31:15):
Oh, my goodness there are usecases where it's applicable and
helpful, and then there's otherones that create so much more
work, so many more headaches andso many more issues that, like
they, really I just don't.
I don't think the tech is thereto be doing that yet.
Maybe it does get thereEveryone believes it will but
now, like there are things youcan use this for that save money

(31:38):
and time Like this isn't one ofthem.
I want to circle back to a thing, too on like the FMCSA.
What are some of the othercategories that you use, that
you've researched?
That one either aren't accurateor, when they disappeared,
created like hugevulnerabilities just in
yesterday.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
So the daily data sets.
Of course I use the census file, which is everyone two million
rows weekly, multiple times perweek.
Another one was the daily anyof the data sets that are
updated on a daily basis versustheir monthly upload.
Those daily data sets were theones that went down.

(32:19):
One of those was theinspections data sets were the
ones that went down.
One of those was theinspections.
So any of the inspections thatwere uploaded within the past 24
hours, which really two days,since it didn't refresh last
night so any of the inspectionsentered in the past 48 hours,
those aren't uploaded.
So if I have one carrier andthis does happen, I know of one
carrier If I have one carrierthat gets five out of service

(32:42):
violations in one day, I won'tsee those until sometime this
evening.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Oh, so that's helpful .

Speaker 2 (32:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah, I mean.
The other thing too that reallyhit me was this was in Freak
Caviar this morning.
I think I sent this to Stephenand Nate was like, in the same
article talking about the DOTand FMCSA outage, is the article
about broker liability andattorneys suing brokers saying

(33:12):
they need to do a better jobvetting and verifying carriers,
because when people get hurtover the road, we want to hold
freight brokers responsible.
And I'm like the irony of thefact that there's a case
possibly going to the SupremeCourt to make us more
responsible for verifying andvetting trucking companies At
the same time.

(33:32):
The system we use to do thatvery job is both inadequate,
ineffective, insufficient andflat out, not online yesterday,
Like just wasn't there, Likejust no information at all all
day While a court is hearing acase going.
Yeah, we should make them do abetter job at verifying carriers

(33:55):
with information they don'thave that the government doesn't
provide, doesn't update anddoesn't distribute.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
Yeah, and this is I am.
I usually play a very neutralrole between carrier and broker
because I've been a freightbroker.
I grew up with truck drivers,as my dad and grandpa, so I can
see from both sides.
I'm very, usually very neutral.
This one is where I'm.

(34:21):
I'm still pro carrier, but it'snot always 100% the broker's
fault and all of the carriersthere's a huge group of them
that will 100% blame the brokerfor booking this carrier.
That is a downstream symptom ofthe true issue.

(34:42):
And if we continue running inthat circle, chasing our tails
over, blaming a broker for doingsomething that they thought was
correct and true based on thedata that they're given, I don't
have to be careful with whatI'm saying, you don't?

Speaker 1 (35:00):
You can say it and, like I'll help you walk it back
and we can always edit if weneed to.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
Brokers can only make their best decision based on
the information that they'regiven.
And so, just like, even if I'mautomating nothing except for
getting the information from theFMCSA and making sense from it,
from Safer, I see that thecarrier is good.
I call the carrier, I call theprevious phone number,
everything still looks good.

(35:25):
I book that carrier, somethinghappens, and then now it's my
fault because I did my job.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
Correct and I want to walk through exactly what can
occur and why it occurs in thatexample.
Right, so, as a freight broker,right, my shipper pays me to
hire a truck based on theircriteria.
My shipper pays me to hire atruck based on their criteria
safety, insurance, equipment,driver safety, equipment,
reliability across the board.

(35:53):
Right, okay, then theinformation I have access to and
is only available is to thecompany level, so I can reach a
company and I can see what isthat company safety record, I
can see if the company has thecorrect license and the correct
insurance, and then I can callthe driver and ask for his VIN

(36:16):
and then hopefully get as closeas I can to that driver's safety
, equipment reliability or outof service, which you can't see,
equipment reliability or out ofservice which you can't see.
You can see at the companylevel but you cannot see the out
of service records for thatspecific driver power unit or
trailer.
And then, if you call the FMCSAand want information related to

(36:38):
a driver's information, liketheir track record, their safety
, they will not give it to youbecause it's an employment
record.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
No, it's under the Driver Privacy Act.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
Correct.
So like the information for usto actually verify driver level,
safety, equipment andreliability we are not even
legally allowed to access,cannot get, is not provided.
Then if a company makes adecision to hire somebody shady,
with two weeks of training, outof a CDL mill, who has no

(37:10):
over-the-road experience but therest of that company's drivers
were good that guy happens tomove my load, an accident
happens, and then I'm heldliable for a decision the
company made that I can't see,can't verify, can't get
information on, but yet I'm heldaccountable to it and like to
me that's like the equivalent oflike hey, I hire a company to

(37:33):
cut my lawn and they've beengreat all year, but like last
week they hired a bunch ofpeople they shouldn't, that had
criminal records for crazycrimes.
And then when they come to myhouse a neighbor gets robbed and
then they come after me and gowell, you hired the lawn care
company.
I'm like, yeah, but I didn'thire the guy they sent and I
don't know who that was and I'mnot legally allowed to see it

(37:54):
and nobody was going to tell me.
And like there's no visibilityinto any, not, it's not just a
freight broker, get rid offreight brokers altogether.
A shipper hiring a truckingcompany cannot do that Like.
All they can see is the companyinfo.
They cannot see driver info.
So not only is the informationabout the company not even

(38:14):
accurate, all up to date, wecan't even see down to the
driver level, nor a shipper, nora freight broker, but yet if
something bad happens, we getlooped into a lawsuit as if
we're negligent at doing a jobwe don't have the information to
perform.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
And the moment which brings up a point that I've been
asking over and over and tothis date, no one has answered
me the moment that a freightbroker has more information on a
driver than they should, I'mgoing to make an assumption that
I wouldn't have known how tovet a particular individual.

(38:55):
I didn't do this in 2016-17because the industry was not
where it is today, but if Iasked for a driver's a copy of
his CDL, all I'm really going tobe able to tell from that, from
my perspective, without likedeep intelligence training, is
that his CDL is not expired andhe's a real person.
That's all I have.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
We rely on the Department of Transportation
state level that issues thatcard that they did their job
Right.
Issues that card that they didtheir job Right, which I want to
go into for a second because,like the thing that Steven put
in the chat is like the brokertransparency, or like it is the
best misdirection the industryhas ever seen, where they're

(39:36):
like, get all of the carriersmad at brokers instead of the
state governments issuing crazyamounts of CDOs to people that
are unqualified, which actuallydrive rates down.
Like you could have twice thenumber of freight brokers.
You could have a hundredthousand freight brokers active
right now.
It does not move rates up ordown because a freight broker

(39:58):
can't pick up a load and deliverit.
The only thing that changesrates are the number of loads
that need moved and the numberof actual power units that can
move it.
If there are more power unitsthan there are loads to move,
rates go down.
It doesn't matter how manypeople are in the middle because
we don't move freight.
So the fact that carriers arebeing led to believe that

(40:19):
brokers are somehow responsiblefor rates one is economically
not even possible.
Like does not, cannot happen,doesn't have anything to do with
anything and it's this giantmisdirection from the actual
problem of your individual statewhere you got your CDL, is just
handing them out like candy toanybody that has one from

(40:40):
wherever in the world becausetheir state decided, hey, we've
got a driver shortage.
Because of a great segue intowhat we were going to talk about
in the green room, which issome things you dug in related
to the ATA, and I think that's agood segue into again what
we've been talking about overthe past few episodes what is

(41:00):
actually causing more fraud,more issues in a system that we
can't even verify anyway?
What is making that even worseand why is that happening?

Speaker 2 (41:10):
On the.
You mentioned brokertransparency, which is funny.
I wrote an article wheneveryone was arguing over this
on X that broker transparency isa decoy, and I think it is.
I don't think brokers andcarriers should be fighting over
issues that are deeper it is.
I don't think brokers andcarriers should be fighting over
issues that are deeper.

(41:30):
A lot of the rabbit holes I'vewent down as far as the CDL
mills, where the money's comingfrom, where the money's going to
.
I can't release all of thatpublicly for multiple reasons.
For multiple reasons, but it isvery interesting.

(41:51):
There's a lot going on rightnow in the political realm with
the immigration and the NGOs andwho's getting paid, who's
paying for what.
I continue to reiterate thatthis is directly linked and
associated with trucking.
The driver shortage If we havea shortage of something, we need

(42:12):
more of something.
We have a driver shortage, weneed more drivers.
We have, I don't know, notgoing past driver shortage.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
That would be selling If there is a shortage of
anything, just supply and demand.
The price goes up, does not godown.
So if there's not enough ofsomething, capitalism will force
the wages to that job to go upuntil those jobs are filled.
And it doesn't matter what jobthat is, doesn't matter what

(42:40):
product it is.
You can go back thousands ofyears and look at any business.
That is supply and demand.
When there's less of something,the price goes up until it
reaches a point where there'senough of it.
Then the price stables out.
So you can't have a shortage ofdrivers.
At the same time, drivers ratesare the lowest inflation

(43:03):
inflation adjusted, becausethat's this little caveat that
the ATA plays of.
Driver salaries have gone up.
Yeah, Also, they've gone up atless of a percentage than
inflation has, at one of thehighest inflationary periods in
the past 40 years.
So, yeah, they went up, buteverything that they also pay
for went up even higher.
So they didn't actually makeany more money.

(43:24):
They're actually making lessmoney when you look at the
inflation adjusted numbers, butsomehow there's not enough of
them.
So why the line?
I know we've been talking aboutit over and over again, but you
really dug into what thesefolks are saying to Congress, to
the people that should beaddressing these issues, and
what are they saying to them andwhy do they believe this?

Speaker 2 (43:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
Economically unfound bullshit.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
Yeah, when I started really digging into this and I'm
glad that I started writingabout it and really talking
about it when I did, because itwas prior to all of this coming
to the public, the public light,especially before the wreck in
Florida recently and when Istarted digging into it, I

(44:10):
wanted to figure out whatlanguage and how is that
language, those words, how isthis message being communicated
in such a way that is incrediblyconvincing?
And what I found was it isplain language and it is numbers
.
People hear what they canunderstand.
Everyone can understand numbers, everyone can understand plain

(44:33):
language.
And so an issue that we have inthe industry and those that have
went to Capitol Hill and Ihaven't went for transportation,
I went when I was a socialworker, especially my graduate
program, but what I realizedthere is they're not in the
industry, working day in and dayout with carriers, with brokers

(44:53):
on the road in all thesetransactions, like we are.
They don't understand theacronyms, they don't understand
our jargon, and so you have topresent this information in a
way that's going to make senseto anyone that reads it, anyone
that is a politician, anyone inCongress, anyone outside of
there that could be an advocatefor the industry that were going

(45:28):
through the subcommittees inCongress, I realized that the
losing side on all of theseissues does not present numbers,
does not speak in plainlanguage.
The other side, the winningside, in every single document
it is full of statistics andnumbers, again, which people
hear, and it is plain language.
It is not incrediblyintelligent huge words and

(45:49):
industry jargon.
It is easy for someone tounderstand, easy for someone to
get the issue and then also bepresented a solution.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
So and I want to go back to some of my notes from
this right Because it saysduring the July 22nd Senate
subcommittee hearing, chrisSpears, who is the head of the
American Truckers Association onthe driver shortage, says he
referred to the driver shortagesimply as a gap between the

(46:21):
current workforce and what'sneeded to meet demand.
Here's that number 60,000shortfall reported as of last
October.
So there's your number, there's60,000 less than we need.
Okay, now what I would say isthere's 60,000 less than you
need because they're not paidenough to go and take the jobs.
There's not a shortage of60,000 licensed CDL holders in

(46:49):
the United States.
It's that they won't take thosejobs because they're not paid
enough.
Then he said, framed theshortage in general terms,
pointing out that if it didn'texist, driver pay wouldn't have
increased by 19% during afreight downturn, but did not
attribute the shortage to anyparticular subsector right Now,

(47:12):
meanwhile, sean O'Brien of theTeamsters identified a
pronounced contrast and said yes, because turnover rates are 90%
in truckload versus 10 to 15%in LTL.
So he's like yeah, there's not ashortage of them, it's just
that they're turning them overbecause nobody stays in the job

(47:33):
longer than a year, becausethey're not getting paid well.
So, like Sean O'Brien's likecomment clarifies the fact that
the shortage of 60,000 isn'tthat there aren't 60,000
licensed CDL drivers that wouldtake the job, it's that the
companies don't pay them enoughso that they can earn a living

(47:54):
and they don't stay more than ayear.
So, like the fact that it'sjust like this, what's it lying
by omission?
Yeah, we have a shortage of60,000 that these companies need
to hire Well, there's plenty ofthem out there.
You just don't want to pay them.
Need to hire Well, there'splenty of them out there, you
just don't want to pay themenough to take the job.
Right, like that's not, we needmore CDLs to fix it.
You actually need less CDLs sothat the companies wouldn't be

(48:17):
forced to pay enough to keepthese folks that are trained to
stay on the job.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Yeah, I think we have .
Unfortunately, trucking inAmerica has went from an
incredibly respectedprofessional position and a
career my grandfather drove hisentire life.
That's all he did.
He was only a truck driver.
But it has went from that typeof respected and professional

(48:46):
career into something that islow paying and tree level type
work.
Anyone can go get a CDL at thispoint.
Anyone can get on the road.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
They've lowered the bar so much, based on this false
narrative, that they've floodedthe entire industry with
untrained and, a lot of cases,not responsible folks.
That they've flooded the entireindustry with untrained in a
lot of cases, not responsiblefolks that they've just put
behind the wheel, which hasdiluted the ability for trained,
respected professionals to earna real living doing the thing

(49:19):
that they've been doing for insome cases like, oh, 28 years,
right, and they're just to thepoint where companies are like,
yeah, we can just pay somebodyhalf what we pay you and let
them drive for a year, and thenwe have an endless funnel of
folks coming in that'll takethat job when they quit.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
Yeah, and it's like this the safety issue, the
unqualified driver issue,fraudulent CDLs or CDLs traded
in for cash, that doesn't justaffect our industry and the
rates, that is a national safetyissue.
These drivers, the unqualifieddrivers that are just handed a

(49:55):
CDL and expected.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
The whole country shares the road with them.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
Yeah, to me.
That's the part that scares methe most.
Me too, and again, likeeverybody kind of knows
politicians for the most part,and I'll make a sweeping general
statement I'm moreself-interested than Me.

(50:21):
Too hard for me to wrap my headaround, right that, like people
can go and stand there and pusha narrative that, like this
person is very well-educated,with a very stellar resume, when
you look at what he's done inhis career, like this is not
somebody that doesn't, in myopinion, isn't aware of what his

(50:42):
statements are beinginterpreted as and how and what
he's doing to sway folks to thatpoint of view.
Right, this was we.
It was Justin and I were talkingwith somebody on LinkedIn and I
think it was one of the state'sDOT officials that was saying
like oh, this is a great thingthat the ATA is doing to solve
driver shortage.
And they were going back andforth and Justin was like listen

(51:04):
, like there's not a shortage,there's hundreds of thousands of
CDLs and unemployed driversthat won't take these jobs.
It's not that they're not there, they just aren't getting paid
enough to provide for theirfamily to do that work, so
they're not filling the jobs.
Then the government goes ohwell, we'll just bring in
cheaper labor to fill those jobs.
Problem solved, everybody'shappy.

(51:24):
Except that that doesn't takeinto account the safety aspect,
the training requirements, andthat you're driving 80,000
pounds down a road.
I mean, think about thehighways we drive on.
Like there are not New Jerseybarriers.
On most highways where you'redriving 60 miles an hour there
is a painted yellow line.
You are two yards away from avehicle that weighs 80,000

(51:47):
pounds driving 60 miles an hourin the other direction.
Right, like you talk about themargin of error for something
fatal to happen.
It is so slim and we have somuch trust that these things are
doing what they should be andthey just absolutely aren't
right.
And like the one comment this isthe one that I put in there
because they were going back andforth and I was like, even if

(52:09):
you split the difference betweenan oversupply of CDLs and the
truckload market or we kind ofoperate and shortages in certain
niches, because they said youknow they can't hire local
drivers for like cement and someof these other things, they're
not able to get enough of them.
I said the ATA didn't do theindustry any favors with broad,

(52:29):
sweeping statements about adriver shortage.
I said during the Senatesubcommittee testimony this
summer.
He made no clarification andoffered no specifics about which
sectors were truly facingshortages and why those
shortages may exist, whether itwas a supply of drivers or
whether it was a shortage of pay.
And I said whether it was asupply of drivers or whether it
was a shortage of pay.
And I said whether it wasintentional or not.

(52:50):
The head of one of the largestadvocacy groups for trucking had
to know that those remarkswould be applied writ large
across the industry, and that'sexactly what happened.
His statements became thejustification for efforts to
weaken CDL and safety standardsin order to solve a problem that
only affected a narrow slice ofthe entire carrier market.

(53:13):
Right, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
And I have my dad does bulk cement and fly ash.
He doesn't see any of theproblems that we're dealing with
.
There's no fraud.
There's no.
I mean sometimes it's hard tofind a driver during certain
seasons, especially their offseason, but the fraud, the FMCSA
issues and the data nothingTotally oblivious to those

(53:37):
things being a problem.
It's really drive-in reefer,drive-in and reefer.
I think it's trickled a littlebit into flatbed but flatbed
does require um you to know howto secure your load.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
Like there's more risk and like that's the thing
we talked about with Gordon andlike I've again, it's anecdotal
and it's one person's view ofthis, but like I don't see this
at all.
I don't see the fraud and Idon't see the like I don't want
to say like ineptitude, but likeI that require like very

(54:12):
stringent, like SDS safety datasheets where, like if there's a
spillage, like somebody's goingto die because it's very, very

(54:35):
toxic chemicals.
And the interesting thing wasand I think I talked about this
in that episode like I hadGarrett and I worked on this and
I worked on this with Genlogs.
I pulled a list of every,basically every open deck piece
of equipment you could use toship heavy haul from like double
drops through RGNs, and Istarted with a list of like
32,000.

(54:56):
Then I got that down to like8,000.
And then I spoke to hundreds ofcarriers to get rates for some
large projects and I can tellyou that in speaking to them I
could tell you exactly whichones hired those drivers and
which ones didn't, because theywould tell me they're like yeah,
my drivers don't have enoughexperience to take that.
We have an RGN, but we are notgoing to take anything that

(55:17):
requires a permit.
We're not going to takeanything over height and we're
not going to take anythingoverweight because, like my,
drivers just aren't confidentrunning those types of loads.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
And like they're honest and I'm like my list that
was enormous ended up beinglike a couple dozen carriers
where they're like, yeah, we'lldo this all day long.
And like, when you look at therates per mile, carriers are
arguing van rates are like twobucks a mile.
I think national average waslike 220 or 230, which I still
find hard to believe.
But regardless, theseover-dimensional loads, they're

(55:49):
$11 a mile.
Some of them are $16 a mile, $9a mile, Tanker loads that are
$8 and $9 a mile.
You're not seeing the same ratedepression, oversupply and
underskilled drivers.
When, if something goes reallywrong, something could happen to
the driver, the driver's like,dude, I don't have could happen
to the driver, the driver's likedude, I don't have enough
terrain to do that.
Don't put me behind the wheelof that thing.

(56:10):
I'll yank a van down the roadthat someone else loads that I
don't got to pay attention to.
But like, hey, if you're goingto put me on something where I'm
responsible, I'll take a passon that one.
Find me an easier load.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And I think, thankfully we dohave those niche parts of our
industry, those sectors, and wecan see that that's not a new
thing.
That's how the entire industryat one time used to be.
It was a very high trustindustry.
We had drivers that we didn'thave to call every 15 minutes or
track them from their cellphones or ELDs.

(56:50):
My grandpa I actually did apodcast with him once and I
asked him how he would have feltif I called him every 15
minutes and he told me he wouldturn his phone off.
He would have let me know whenhe got there and I was like I
wish and I desire so much for anindustry that is high trust
again.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
And it wasn't even that long ago I mean like 2018,
2019, it still was pretty closeto operating that way.
I mean we didn't really usetracking on any loads back then.

Speaker 2 (57:22):
Oh no, I think maybe 20% of my loads got tracking
yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
And it was only because the customers required
it and they wanted it, becausethey needed a plan for when the
guy arrived, mostly or just tobe able to know what was going
on in their supply chain for,like overall visibility.
It wasn't a trust thing, it wasmore just the customer wanted
to be able to time when theirinventory was getting to where
and even then, like we hadrequirements to like check all
your drivers, like at least oncea day.

(57:48):
But like most of my loads werecarriers that like I'd run with
I knew like they would call mewhen there was an issue.
I rarely would worry aboutthose things and like it was
back when like you could justcall carriers and be like, yeah,
you got a guy out there.
Yeah, hey, like you, kind of youhad such less worry and energy

(58:10):
to do the job back then becauseof the trust and as that's
eroded, the job's gotten riskier, there's more liability,
there's more fraud and, to behonest, like I am always a huge
advocate of taking personalresponsibility, even when other
things change.
But like you can only do somuch when you need to rely on a

(58:31):
centralized system of one, likejust driver's licenses, like if
states are just handing them out.
How are we supposed to knowwhich guy was qualified when he
got it and which one wasn't,when they're just handing them
out?
There's no oversight.
There was that news articlewhere they were showing drivers
going in with like a hole cut intheir shirt and a microphone in

(58:53):
their ear, yeah, andJacksonville, and they're just
like.
there's just such rampant fraudand ineptitude and state level
DOTs handing out CDLs and thenyou have state officials going
out and saying we're going tobring more people into the
country to fix this drivershortage.
And you're like what kind ofbizarro world are we living in,

(59:15):
that like that is the answer tothis giant problem.
That just makes it even worse.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of terrifying to be honest.
Yeah, it's kind of terrifying,to be honest, it is.
It certainly is.
Yeah, I don't.
Since I started this and reallydigging into the issues, we
can't.
Throughout the course of mytime in the industry the market,

(59:43):
we brokers, shippers, carrierswe've always been able to just
like self-correct and fix things.
This issue is so large and sorampant and so deeply funded
we're not going to be able tofix it by ourselves.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
I think that's pretty accurate, like I've been
working with quite a fewcompanies that are coming up
with some, I think, really goodsolutions that will help
mitigate these problems and helpreduce the risk and get us
closer to it.
But I don't think any onesolution is going to solve this
without the government at thevery least making sure the

(01:00:17):
people that are authorized todrive a truck should be
authorized to drive a truck,right, I mean?
And to me like that's just likethe bare minimum, that like we
should be able to expect fromlike taxpayer funded roads that
we put our family and childrenon every day.
Like every single child in theentire country is required to go

(01:00:38):
to school, most of which get ona public school bus and share
the roads with these samevehicles every single day.
Right, like every single thingin our entire country is
dependent on the safety over theroads, and yet they've just,
pun intended, fell asleep at thewheel at making sure the other
folks driving these vehiclespass some bare minimum of safety

(01:01:03):
standards and training right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Yeah, the thing, the last thing too, that I just was
like.
I think also and we talkedabout this too are the
basketball episodes, but like Ithink the ELDs, like there was
that great article in overdrivethat made a lot of this worse,
the accidents, the safety hasgone down because now drivers
are trying to rush and driveless safe.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
Oh my goodness yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
But the other thing too is that, like we talked
about phone calls, well, sincenobody's certifying any of the
ELDs, like I genuinely don'teven know that if that driver I
talked to last week, if I get aphone call and that same phone
number shows up, I don't knowthat that's that driver, because
it literally could be someonethat hacked into the back of the
ELD and just called me onbehalf of that driver and asked

(01:01:49):
me for information.
So, like, even bare minimum ofphone information isn't even
verifiable.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
Yeah, and the documents.
Everyone keeps pointing toemail inboxes getting hacked and
being able to get the documents.
But if you have an ELD wherethe driver has a mobile app and
can take a picture of a bill oflading, of a proof of delivery
receipt or a rate con and it'sgoing through that ELD, that
data center now has thatdocument.

(01:02:19):
They don't even have to getinto an email.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
No, it's just totally accessible.
Yeah, wow, well, appreciate youcoming back on.
I mean, I know it seems kind oflike super depressing, but I do
think it's super important.
There is hope.
There is, and I think the moreof us that talk about it and the
more of us that bring up what'sactually happening, yeah,
hopefully more of thisinformation gets to people out
there because, honestly, likeeveryone out there, if you're a

(01:02:44):
truck driver and you can't get ajob or pay your bills, you
should call your localcongressman, you should send an
email, because if they don'thear from us, they're not going
to care and they're not going todo anything.
I mean, we're at Capitol Hillthis week trying to do some of
these things.
The more of us that arereaching out to local
congressmen sending emails,making phone calls, congressmen

(01:03:05):
sending emails, making phonecalls, getting on Twitter,
following folks like you,stephen, us, out there the more
you can share this and get outthe information that everyone
and you guys are doing so muchwork to uncover, the closer
we're going to get to solving it, because if they keep
pretending like the problem'sover here and no one's looking
at it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
There's no chance it gets solved?
Yeah, and we've done that for avery, very, very long time.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
Correct.
Well, appreciate you having onAny final thoughts before we
wrap.
I don't think I have any.
Actually that was a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
God, we got it.
Where do you want people tofollow you at?
Yeah, I am on all social mediaLinkedIn and the others.
My handle is maybe Danielle,with three E's at the end, and
don't be afraid to talk aboutthe issues in the industry Just
because it's something negative,something that happened to you.
We've hidden it.
We've brushed a lot of thingsunder the rug for so long, and

(01:03:59):
that's part of the reason why weare where we are today.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
I couldn't agree with you more, and whether you
believe you can or believe youcan't, you're right.