Uncovering the ELD Fraud Crisis (with Danielle Chaffin) | Episode 309

The ELD mandate was supposed to make highways safer, but instead it’s created one of the biggest security and safety risks in trucking. On this episode, Danielle Chaffin exposes how fraudulent ELDs fuel crashes, enable drivers to break hours-of-service rules, and leak sensitive cargo data—putting every family on the road at risk.

Danielle on X: https://x.com/maybedanielleee 

Danielle on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maybedanielleee/ 

Links to Danielle’s Articles

ELD: https://substack.com/home/post/p-168581575

Hope Trans Article: https://www.highwayveritas.com/p/hope-trans-llc-knowns-unknowns-and?lli=1

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome back for another episode of the
Freight 360 podcast we're goingto be this is actually going to
be the first of a series we'regoing to do around some of the
recent things that have beenhappening in our industry
related to safety and ELDs andsome of the dangers and things
that we have to deal with on adaily basis as brokers.

(00:21):
So we've got a guest we'llintroduce here in just a second
here.
But first, if you're brand new,make sure to check out all of
our other content.
You can go through our YouTubelibrary.
There's a whole bunch ofplaylists on there of our short
Q&A sessions called the FinalMile, our full-length podcast,
which you're listening to orwatching right now, and there's
a whole bunch probably hundredsnow of shorter educational

(00:43):
videos.
Educational videos too, onprospecting, on care,
development, all kinds ofdifferent things.
So make sure to check that outthe website as well.
Freight360.net is a searchablelibrary.
So, depending on what you'relooking to improve on or learn
about, just type that keyword inthe search bar and you'll get
all of our blogs short videos,long form videos, et cetera, and

(01:04):
share us with your friends.
Hit the like button, subscribeall that good stuff.
You can check out our FreightBroker Basics course that we did
with DAT.
If you're looking foreducational options for yourself
or for your team and leave areview.
We haven't asked for manyreviews in a while, but, without
further ado, real quick intro.

(01:26):
Here We've got Danielle.
Is it Chaffin?
Am I saying it right?

Speaker 2 (01:30):
It is Chaffin.
I should have asked you thatoff air before.
You are like one of 10 peoplethat say it the way I say it.
Do you say Chaffin?

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Mm-hmm.
I would smack them for that,all right.
So Danielle Chaffin, she's withRevenova.
But real quick, danielle, foranyone who isn't familiar with
you and doesn't see all of yourcontent on X, formerly Twitter,
real quick, just let theaudience know who you are and
we'll get more into your storyand our whole series here in a
bit.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, of course.
Thank you guys for having me ontoday.
I'm super excited to talk aboutthe things that I post about on
X.
Danielle Chaffin.
I am senior solutions engineerat Revenova.
I've been here for six years.
I grew up in the industry.
My grandfather, father bothtruck drivers huge influence in
my life.
I did try to get out of it andgo against my dad's advice that

(02:18):
freight gets in your blood.
So I went and got a master'sdegree in social work and I was
a therapist for a short stint oftime and then my dad was right
and now I'm here.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
You're back.
It's somehow everybody.
Ben, the same thing happenedwith you when you, when you got
out of brokerage and tried tojust do coaching, and here you
are again.
So anyway, danielle, good tohave you on.
We'll get more into your storyand all that content shortly.
But, ben, what's going on downin South Florida today to your
story and all that?

Speaker 3 (02:45):
content shortly.
But, Ben, what's going on downin South Florida today?
It's getting nice and cool downhere.
I mean cool was like low orhigh 80s, but like significantly
different than 98.
So like I'm optimistic for fall.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
I've been wearing hoodies this week at night, so
Buffalo gets cold much earlierthan other places.
But real quick, we're going toskip news because we're going to
talk about a lot of that stuffin the episode today.
But sports, the preseason ofNFL is in the books.
Not that any of those scores orrecords matter, but the reps
and the plays and the rostercuts all do.
So Pittsburgh, how do you feelabout them going into week one?

Speaker 3 (03:22):
I'm optimistic.
We'll see.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
There's always optimism this time of year.
Yeah, we'll see.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
Hopefully he doesn't get hurt in the first game like
he did with the Jets.
But I mean beyond that we'llsee.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, that was against the Bills and it was
like the fourth snap of the game.
So rough start, steven 0-2.
How are the Bengals going tostart off this year?

Speaker 4 (03:45):
Oh gosh, Probably 0-4,.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
If we're being honest , Everyone's been talking about
how optimistic they are inpreseason, so that just means
we'll lose Dude I just thinkabout the amount of momentum
that Joe Burrow had at the tailend of last season and literally
could have been.
He was an MVP candidate and wasplaying MVP caliber.
Like literally could have been.
He was an MVP candidate and wasplaying MVP caliber.
But I feel like typicallywhoever wins the MVP has a

(04:09):
winning team and wins theirdivision, stuff like that.
But if you guys can keep thatmomentum going, I mean that's a
dangerous team to play.

Speaker 4 (04:18):
I haven't looked at last year's stats but I do know
like near the end of the year,like he had a ton of passing
yards, a ton of like completion,like his stats were insane.
But the record was terriblebecause typically in preseason
we don't play any of ourstarters, they all sit.
So then the first four weeksare garbage.
But apparently they've changedit up this year, so I just feel
like that's bs too.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
Like I feel like if you are that outstanding in your
numbers and you're playing witha terrible team, like to me
that's a better case for MVPthan somebody riding the wave
and energy of their team.
Like if you are playing for aterrible team and put up numbers
like that.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
That is way harder.
I don't forget who won MVP lastyear.
That's my boy, josh Allen.
Fair enough.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
Not saying he should have won.
I just mean in generally in allsports that tends to hold true.
That, like, if your team isn'tmaking the playoffs, even if you
have, like, outsized stats, youtend to not get MVP team and

(05:26):
you're beating, like on a statbasis, the players that have all
of the other things going forthem the energy, the vibe, the
culture, the wins and you'restill able to get up and do that
every day.
Like to me, like that says moreabout a player's ability.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
I agree it is performance.
There's an argument to be madebecause MVP is most valuable
player.
It's not most valuable playerof the most important dominating
team.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yeah, of valuable player, it's not most valuable
player of the most importantdominating team.
You know what I mean.
Yeah, of the most successfulteam, exactly yeah, like it's an
individual award, like it'sexactly the guy in the hardest
circumstance with the bestresults yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
So one of the uh, I've been following hard knocks
and because it's been followingbills through preseason, one of
the guys that I was, I wasreally hoping that he was going
to make the roster and they hedidn't.
Yesterday, when they did the 53men um cut down, it was Jimmy
Charlo.
So this guy is, uh, he's alinebacker who went to West
point, um.

(06:15):
So what's interesting?
I didn't, I didn't know howthis worked out, but if you go
to one of the service academieslike um Annapolis or West point
or Air Force Academy out inColorado, when you, if you're
playing a sport and you getdrafted, you still have your
military obligation to do andwhat they'll do is they'll defer

(06:35):
it until your your sportscareer is done.
So like, basically in hardknocks, jimmy Charlo last year
got, I think he was drafted bythe Jets and he got hurt and
before the season started, so hedidn't play.
Bill's picked him up, he's intraining training camp, did very
well in the preseason andbasically in hard knocks they're
like this guy um is eithergonna make the roster or like go
back in the army and go serveeight years or whatever it is um

(06:58):
.
So when he got cut yesterday Iwas joking with my brother,
who's also in the army, and Iwas like I guess, uh, jimmy
charles going put the uniformback on and it's not the Bills
uniform, but he might get pickedup by somebody else.
I just thought that wasinteresting to.
You know, you go through fouryears of an academy and all the
guys and girls you went toschool with are, all you know,
lieutenants now in the Army.
And he's, like you know, justgetting the long hair.

(07:21):
You know playing in the NFL,dreaming of making the big bucks
, and it's like, nope, you'regoing to go be a second
lieutenant.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
Similar thing with South Korea.
Like I had some friends incollege that like I think it's
mandatory Everyone has to spendtwo years in the military,
similar to, I think, israel'ssimilar to that too.
There's only two that like I'maware of, but this was in the
news, I think, last year,because Tom Kim, the PGA golfer,
was supposed to have to leavethe PGA to go do his military

(07:48):
service and I think he got anexemption because he's still
playing.
But it was like all over thePGA where, like all of the guys
in the sport were basicallypetitioning the delay of him
having to do that, cause he'slike at the peak, 23 years old.
Like you go and do that, likeyou're not coming back and going
to compete at that level.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, it's crazy.
Other NFL real quick the Billssigned Jordan Poyer as a free
agent to safety, which I'm happywith that choice.
He was with Miami for a yearlast year, but just one of our
weak spots, man.
When tomorrow Hamlin isstarting, it's not exactly the

(08:29):
best place to be.
So what else we got in sports?
Ben, you got anything?
Us Open I was going to say that.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
Serena Williams was playing?
I think not last week.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Is it still going on right now?

Speaker 3 (08:38):
Yeah, this is a very beginning.
So, like the qualifiers, Ithink are almost all over or
were over yesterday.
So now we're getting to likesome of the third round or
second round.
I watched the Serena Williamsmatch Like she definitely held
her own.
But I mean, she's my age Infact she's only like a month
older than me, so she's 43.
And she was playing like aneighth ranked player, I think,

(08:58):
out of like Czech Republicsomewhere over there.
She didn't win, but you couldtell she seemed better than the
girl she was playing.
But when you're playing a23-year-old, there's just a
giant gap between being 33 and20-something.
I mean, when I looked at thematch clock they were six and a

(09:20):
half hours in.
I play tennis for an hour and ahalf.
I am sore for like a day and ahalf.
I can't imagine playing atennis match for seven and a
half hours.
What's he saying so I mean kudosto her for still being in the
open and playing.
But yeah, we'll see how itplays out.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
Local fan favorite, jessica Pagula is the daughter
of Terry and Kim Pagula, who ownthe Buffalo Bills and Sabres,
so she's been the last few yearsshe's kind of been a rising
name, at least from a WesternNew York perspective.
But yeah, cool Good sports talk.

Speaker 3 (09:58):
She's ranked fourth in the US.
By the way, she won Sunday.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
I saw a stat too.

Speaker 3 (10:03):
that was like the amount of she plays today at 1
o'clock.
Okay, I saw a stat too.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
That was like the amount of it plays today at 1
o'clock.
Okay, when you look at, likethe women's tennis, like the I
think the US has, like Is itlike three of the top four
ranked Players or like somethingBasically, like it's a.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
It's a Big thing in the US, for us it is the two,
one and two, that were insanethe girl who's number one, I
think, is Belarusian and likeshe's phenomenal, and the other
girls from Poland, iga Słatekand she's like they're like you
can just tell, like the more Iwatch tennis, like there is a

(10:40):
world of difference between likenumber two and number 10 and
number 10 and number 20, likejust the speed, how fast they
are, how quick they get to theball, like it's just that margin
of difference between a fewnumbers makes like a huge
difference when you're likewatching is the men's going on
right now too yeah, both so Isaw something yesterday was

(11:00):
basically like with the men'sit's basically like one of two
guys is going to win it, whereaswomen's is way more of a
playing field yeah, because thelast I think seven majors were
won by carlos alcarez or yannickcenter, like number one and
number two.
Have won every one of the lastlike majors in the last three

(11:20):
years, but the women's are waymore, I think, spread out.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Gotcha.
All right, cool, good sportstalk.
Let's get into our episode.
Steven, why don't you paint usa little picture here?
Because this was a little bitof your doing as our producer to
get Danielle on here for thefirst discussion episode here on
the drama with safety and ELDs,and all of this Give us a
background on what you wereseeing on social media and all

(11:48):
that that led to this.

Speaker 4 (11:50):
Yeah, so a little bit of backstory.
I don't know if anyone'sfamiliar with Garrett Allen at
Load Partner.
Me and him have been talkingfor probably two or three years
and he's working on a websitecalled Search Carriers.
Three years and he's working ona website called search
carriers, uh, which is kind oflike a, a safer sis, uh
replacement Um.

(12:10):
It pulls all the FMCSA data outand it looks better, it's much
easier to use Um.
And then, probably I'd say fouror five months ago, a lot of
people, daniel included, startedposting about all these issues
with ELDs and with safety andthe American Truckers United
we're talking about non-domicileCDLs and chameleon carriers and

(12:31):
it was starting to gain alittle more traction, but it
wasn't quite there.
And so then I reached out toDanielle and Garrett and Justin
Martin, super trucker on X, andsaid you know, we need to put
this all together and, like,figure out how to get this out
to everybody on a much largerscale.
And then, a month or so afterthat, an accident happened, and

(12:56):
or it was a mother's dayaccident in chattanooga, and
then it was hope trans intarrell, texas, and then, most
notably, was the accident inMount Platt.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
Florida.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
Yeah, Fort Pierce, Florida, yeah, that made
national attention because GavinNewsom's involved, so you know.
So it's gotten a lot morepublic attention.
And that's kind of how we arehere today is to kind of discuss
the background and how theFMCSA and all those
administrations that areresponsible for governing these

(13:30):
safety things are falling shortof their responsibilities.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
So, danielle, I'm curious, before we get into the
specifics on those incidentswith ELD, the mandate.
What was it like eight yearsago, 2017?

Speaker 3 (13:45):
2017.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Okay.
So I remember, like you know,they're like, yeah, it's going
to improve safety, and there'sbeen reports that people are
like it hasn't.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
No, it absolutely hasn't.
It was about compliance.
It was truly compliance.
They threw safety in there, butit's not about safety.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
I want to ask a question because this is going
to segue right into this,because you talk about this in
your article.
That we're going to sharewithin the links, and I've been
sharing as well is can you takepeople just briefly through the
history of how the ELDs came?
Because, like you cite thatthis was supposed to be done in
like 87, I think you cite thatthis was supposed to be done in
like 87, I think.

(14:26):
And then there was pushback,and then 2000s, and then it
finally was approved in like2010 or 12.
And then the three-year waitfor enforcement led to like 2000
.
So this was like almost 30years in conversation before it
actually rolled out.
You want to go through some ofthe high points on how and why
it took so long to even do thisin the first place.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
I don't know the why.
I mean, I was very young in1986 when all of this started,
so I don't necessarily know thewhy.
I know that with the paper logs, of course people could edit
those or they would have two orthree logs where they would put
them together.
I push back on that because Iknow factually that to falsify

(15:11):
your paper logs or to redo themyou had to have a brain, you had
to have some sense of how thisactually works.
We don't have that with theELDs, with the paper logs.
I don't know the why.
I have went back through theFMCSA um like notes from those
meetings and it's there's reallyI don't know.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety IIHS
challenged the DOT and lobbiedfor this in 86.
And I'm like how the insurancecompanies with massive resources
aren't able to lobby to getthese things done sooner was the
part that kind of surprised meand like to set the stage for

(15:56):
everyone else listening to, like, if any of you were in the
industry in 2017, when theenforcement went into place, it
was like January, like literallythe beginning of 17, where
there was like a hard deadlinefor ELDs.
Capacity literally evaporatedout of the market.
I mean, this was a time whereI've never seen the market
literally overnight shift towhere you could not find trucks,

(16:17):
like there were massive amountsof containers that were stuck
in ports and rail yards, therewere shipments not moving and
rates immediately went upbecause drivers and at least
this was the perception from thebrokerage point of view like
had to now legally drive 11hours a day, when prior maybe
they're driving 13 or 14 withtwo sets of log books, and the

(16:39):
ELDs were supposed to mandatethat drivers drove the legal
amount of hours so that theroads are safe.
I mean, if you're driving atruck or any vehicle for 20
hours a day, like that's not asafe condition, especially if
you're doing it five, six days aweek, right.
So that was the intent and itdid have an impact in 2017, but
it was very short lived, like Iremember the capacity vividly,

(17:01):
like starting to come back intothe market like early summer.
Like there was like three orfour months where it was super
tight rates went through theroof, everything was chaotic and
then it just kind of went backto normal, right?
Is that when some of thesethings started to happen and
I'll let you kind of add yourcontext from kind of that point?

Speaker 2 (17:22):
I don't have a lot of context from then, I really
just have the like facts and thetimeline of it.
I do know, speaking on thesafety part of it, where I know
much more drivers that wererunning the paper logs we had

(17:44):
truly professional drivers.
Of course there were still theexceptions, but when we had
truly professional, safe drivers, they would drive until they
were tired and when they weretired they would pull over,
sleep, take a nap and they wouldkeep going.
With the ELDs they are forcedto drive within that amount of
time.
They can't pull over and take anap or pull over and go to
sleep because they're still onthe ELD and being forced for

(18:08):
those hours.
So if they're trying to makemoney, if they're trying to get
those miles in, they have tokeep going.
And that's where I know throughthe reading of those documents,
that no one truly did anytesting for that piece.
There were no case studies doneand they will say it in the

(18:29):
documents that I was readingthrough that they didn't
actually look into that piece.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
That's an interesting perspective.
I didn't think about it likethat, where, historically, yeah,
when you're tired you pull over, whereas now the ELD like so
Ben kind of back to what yousaid I agree.
The eld like so ben kind ofback to what you said I I agree.
It's clearly the whole conceptwould be you want people not
driving when they shouldn't bedriving.
That's the goal right we takeone federal standard and apply

(18:54):
to everyone that's driving, andwe're telling them specifically
too that, hey, if you're drivingfor this long after that eighth
hour, you have to take a 30minute break right, and you have
to take a 10 minute or breakright, and you have to take a
10-minute or, I'm sorry, a10-hour period of time to reset
your daily clock, and you haveto have a 34-hour to reset your
week.
So we're taking everybody,regardless of their bodies,

(19:16):
circadian rhythm.
Yeah circadian rhythm and etcetera, right, and we're putting
them all into one package there, a one-size-fits-all.
So I didn't think about yourperspective though, daniel.
That's, that's interesting.
So do you think because of that?
Do you think any of the did welose capacity of like good
drivers?
Because they're like I thinkI'm just done now I don't want
to have to fall like I guess Ithink I think we did the mandate

(19:40):
incorrectly.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
I don't think that elds are bad.
I'm not against eld.
Some drivers that move frompaper logs to ELDs they love
them.
It makes the job easier.
They don't have to worry aboutthe paper log, yeah, and so they
love them.
And then you have some drivers,like my grandpa, who would have
never used an ELD.
Thankfully he was retiring whenall of this happened.

(20:03):
He was in the exception groupwhere he could still run paper
logs for a long time.
But I don't think they'renecessarily bad.
I do think that they have madethe job too easy for some
drivers, like the one we'll getinto in a few minutes.
And talking about Hope Trans, Idon't know that we lost capacity

(20:23):
because of it.
I don't know that we lostcapacity because of it.
If you're a professional driverand this is your career yes,
being frustrated about it, yes,pushing back about it, but when
you're forced to do something,you just have to do it,
unfortunately.
So I think we just did themandate wrong.
I think it should have been notmandated for everyone.

(20:46):
More of an option.
We have these.

Speaker 3 (20:50):
The ELD.
The difference that we'retalking about between the paper
logs of the ELD transition islike once they start their clock
for that 11 hours, they have todrive until the 11 hours are
done.
They can't pause the clock andthen restart it like they could
with the paper log.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
The hours of service didn't change what you.
It's still the same.
You can drive up to 11 hourswithin a 14 hour period and
there's the exception for, youknow, adverse weather and that
150 air mile radius, etc.
Um, but it's just how theytracked it.
So I think what danielle'spoint was is you might have had
people that weren't complying tohours of the hours of safety

(21:26):
standard, but were in fact safedrivers safer than those that
are compliant under the ELD.
You know mandate now.
But to her point, these, these,these guys and girls now that
are driving, if they feel likeI'm being, I have to do it
within these standards becauseI'm going.
If I get inspected, I will getdinged for it.
They will force themselves todrive as long as they can

(21:50):
unsafely, even though it'swithin the regulations
boundaries, because they want tomaximize their, their earnings
for that day.
Correct, that's a big, bigpoint here, Whereas someone is a
safe driver could you know?
they could f fudge their logsand look compliant, but they're
actually driving safely.
And I think because they didn'tdo a case study on it or any

(22:11):
white papers or anything likethat I think it was under MAP 21
when it was actually mandated,right, that was when it was
initially said.
Here's when it's you know,here's what's going to go
forward.
I think that's the big issuehere.
Ben, are you tracking that?
Is that correct?

Speaker 4 (22:26):
Okay.
So the other thing to keep inmind with paper logs to ELD is
your hours of service went frombeing in control of the driver
in the cab to being in controlof a dispatcher at an office
that is not associated with yourdriving every truck's hours to

(22:50):
the minutes, their drive time,all that stuff, which is
something that you could kind ofguess what it was.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
but you were still relying on the driver to relay
that information, becausethey're not sending you their
logs until the week's over orthey've hit their 70 so you're
saying, now you've gotdispatchers who aren't in that
person's body feeling their youknow tiredness, telling them no,
you got to keep driving untilwhatever the expectation is, you
will drive until you can'tanymore.

Speaker 4 (23:14):
Yeah, if they shut their truck down, I mean they
can, it's not going to doanything to their, it's not
illegal.
But then you have a dispatchersaying this needs to deliver
today and you have four hours ofdrive time left.
So start driving or you'refired.
And we've seen there's beenscreenshots shared on social

(23:36):
media where, like, people havetaken pictures of it and the
dispatchers like it's messagesthrough the ELD, where the
dispatch saying, no, you need todrive, like you don't have a
choice and yeah, so yeah, itremoves that control of the
driver and gives it to somebodyin an office that maybe has
never driven a truck.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
Yeah, dispatcher is over promising to a shipper or a
broker what their driver cansafely do, and that isn't the
reality.
So well, danielle, let's getinto the Hope Trans.
For anyone that's not familiarwith it, give us kind of a
rundown on what happened andwhere ELD comes into all this.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
There is a lot that happened, so when I'm going to
get my article pulled up so Idon't get out of order here,
because I think at this pointevery detail of this one lives
inside of my brain.
So Hope Trans Terrell, texas,semi does not stop, runs into
six vehicles, I think full speed.

(24:33):
The police officers, or theinvestigators, determined that
there was no sign that he eventouched the brakes.
Once they talked to him, theydetermined that he was asleep,
he had fallen asleep and he wokeup to a loud bang.
He was asleep, he had fallenasleep and he woke up to a loud

(24:53):
bang, and that bang was the fivepeople that he killed, which is
incredibly heartbreaking andtragic.
One of the vehicles was afamily of four, plus the
grandfather, I believe, and itkilled everyone in the vehicle
except the 20-year-old daughterand she lost her foot because of
it.
So it is heartbreaking.

(25:19):
All of the details around thewreck, around the driver there's
a lot of it that I would deemirrelevant why he came to
America, what he was doing.
The important pieces are thathe was hauling a postal load for
USPS and in the USPS, likecontract or the rules per se, if

(25:41):
a trip is over 500 miles.
It has to be a team.
There has to be two drivers inthe truck Alexis I forget his
full name, alexis GonzalezCompagnoni.
He was the only driver in thistruck and so that told me
immediately that there wassomething going on with his ELD.
He was not going to make thistrip.

(26:03):
There were supposed to be two.
The trip was going fromPalmetto, georgia, to somewhere
in Arizona.
It was like 18, 1,850 miles orso, so he can't make it on his
own legally because of the hoursof service.
He could not make that tripwhen it was supposed to deliver

(26:25):
at the time.
It was supposed to deliver.
And then so that's the likefederal mandates, regulations
that they went againstvoluntarily.
And then so that's the like,federal mandates, regulations
that they went againstvoluntarily.
And then you also have thatUSPS.
If it's over 500 miles, then ithas to be two.
So that's really where Istarted digging into the ELDs.
I did not realize how bad itwas until the Hope Trans

(26:48):
incident, and when we starteddigging into it and when this
started to gain more traction,especially on X, that's when we
started getting more screenshots, more feedback on some of the
ELDs and what's possible withthem.
At this point it's myunderstanding that anything is
possible.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
To just pause there, right, like that's 18.
Pause there, right, like that's1,856 miles.
Right, and in your article itshows exactly the time one day,
one hour, right?
If you drove 70 miles an hourfrom start to finish no traffic,
no stops, right, no stop signs,nothing, right, it would still
take you.
If you theoretically weredriving 70 miles an hour the

(27:29):
moment you left, it would stilltake just under 13 hours of
drive time each day with onedriver, right, yeah, so like it
isn't even theoreticallypossible to be able to get from
there to there within legaldrive time.
And even if you average it like55 miles an hour, with stops
and starts and refueling, right,you're at 16 hours per day,

(27:50):
right, like, it's not evenremotely close to being doable
within the legal framework.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
Yeah, yeah, and they did.
And I guess part of this that Itry to stay away from is and
even at the bottom of my articleI put in like what the media
gets wrong I try to be verycareful about placing all of the
blame on the driver, because alot of the feedback, like

(28:16):
Stephen was mentioning a fewminutes ago, it's the dispatcher
, dispatchers pushing thedrivers past their limits, past
federal limits, past USPS limits, and then the drivers I I think
a lot of them that come to theUnited States from other
countries.
They don't understand or theydon't think that they can push

(28:38):
back on the dispatcher.
If they do, they're going tolose their job.
If they lose their job, thenwhat?
So I do have an ounce ofempathy there, because I can't
place all of this on the driverafter all of the other details
came out.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
I mean, it's not like he wanted that to happen.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, yeah.
But overall is that if we keepgoing after one driver, one
carrier, it would take us thenext 50 years to clean all of
this up, and so Hope.
Trans is an example ofthousands of drivers and

(29:22):
carriers doing this exact samething.

Speaker 4 (29:24):
And just I mean just for reference and there'll be a
link to the article and the shownotes.
But Daniel put reviews fromprevious drivers at this company
and like one of them, uh it, itsays they they treat the jar,
the driver, like garbage.
Dispatchers are the worst I'veever worked with.
They don't respect you in anyway, you will just be a machine
to them.
I mean, that's that is a review, a Google review from somebody

(29:48):
who drove at this company, um,and?
And is a review, a googlereview from somebody who drove
at this company, um, and, andthat's how they treat.
And this hope trans is notalone in how they treat drivers
and this goes back to, you know,the eld, the paper log to the
eld that transitioned from thedriver being in control of their
hours and how they drive tothat dispatcher at an office
controlling when and how theydrive.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah, so what I did there and what Stephen's
referring to, I just startedlooking for everything on Hope
Trans when I realized how everypiece of public data that we had
from the FMCSA was falsified.
It had just something on itthat was not accurate, and so I

(30:30):
went and looked up the companyand there were tons of reviews
on the company, which almost alltrucking companies have.
These, but not to this extentand there were so many of them
that the driver said that theywill make you keep driving, like
they reset clocks and ask youwhen you're going to start
rolling.
Every time you stop, no matterif you just drove 20 hours.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
That's the thing that I really wanted to get to as
well is right, like we ran themath on just this one load, but
like that doesn't take intocontext what and how long he was
driving prior to this Right.
For all we know, he could havebeen driving 21 hours a day for
the previous four days, thentaken this load, and it only
slept a total of a handful ofhours over two or three days,

(31:14):
then was forced to take thisload right, and I think that is
where I kind of wanted you tosegue into what you were just
about to talk about.
It's like talk about theassociations and what you found
related to this company, fromthe forgery all the way to the
connections with other carriers,the addresses, what the
addresses are and just howegregious the entire situation

(31:34):
is, even when you go deeper intothe situation.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yeah, I will say it is the most complex web that I
have ever encountered.
There are a lot of details.
I received a couple of ceaseand desist letters on this one,
so I had to take some detailsout just because I didn't feel
like fighting it.
There's quite a bit in thisarticle that I did leave out
because I didn't want tointerfere, or I don't want to

(31:59):
interfere with the investigationthat's ongoing.
I was faster than them, which Iwould like get myself a trophy
for this but as soon as thewreck happened and I found the
company, the company's owner Idon't even know how to say her
name, but she had a LinkedInprofile so I found her LinkedIn

(32:21):
profile.
It's in my article and she wasthe CEO of Fiorito Trucking.
Fiorito Trucking has used thesame trucks as Hope Trans and
then also another company, andso I started putting more things
together.
Really, the timeline here wasprobably the hardest part to get

(32:44):
everything together, becausethere was so much that was
overlapping.
The initial address on HopeTrans went to a shared office
space, which is not uncommon.
There are hundreds of thousandsof trucking companies in the
office spaces and we will getpushback on that saying well,
that's legal, that's where theiragent is or whatever.

(33:05):
That's fine.
I will tell you, the majorityof these are because they're
doing fraudulent things.
They're doing things theyshouldn't be doing.
So it was a co-working space.
Everything that I'm about tolist out was changed on the day
that this wreck happened, afterthe wreck, so they're originally
listed in Washington at thisco-working space.

(33:28):
The same day the address wasupdated to a Florida address and
it's an apartment.
There's a huge pond, I think,behind the apartment, no place
for truck parking.
Obviously it's an apartment andso that was changed.
They also decreased the truckcount from 195 to 65 and the

(33:49):
driver count from 195 to 80.
Someone was working very, veryhard after this wreck to get all
of this changed.
I think it was the same day asthe wreck.
It might have been the dayafter, but anyway.
Driver reviews Hope Trans.
So when I started looking intoHope Trans and the names on
there, I found Fiorito Trucking.
Based on the contact that wason Hope Trans and from Fiorito

(34:15):
Trucking, on each inspectionthat we have at the USDOT the
VIN number is listed and so youcan take that VIN from the truck
and run it and match it up withany other company where that
VIN has been inspected and so,yes, trucks can be sold, yes,
drivers can go work at adifferent company.
But when you have 65, even lessthan that, if you have 20

(34:39):
trucks that are using one USDOTnumber and then they move to
another USDOT number and thenthe same ones move to another,
that's not people selling thesame 20.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
Now there could be leased on driver situations, but
that is a whole lot of assetsto be moving under multiple
agencies over a short period oftime.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
Yeah, and so the hard part with this is, and why
there has been such a delay inreporting, is because none of
the linked companies hadanything that would have been a
red flag that they were linkedtogether, other than those VIN
numbers.
Contacts did not match,addresses did not match Phone

(35:23):
numbers did not match Nothing.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
And so Pause there for a second, because I think
Garrett's tool right now is oneof the only ones maybe the only
one where you can search by VINto see associations.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah, and it's beautiful.

Speaker 3 (35:37):
I've been digging into a lot of these for like
other practical reasons, liketrying to find specific
equipment types, and likeknowing these VINs that are
associated with this equipmenttype helps you find which
carriers have them, and you canonly go in one direction.
You can go from the MC down tothe VIN levels and see which
were have them, and you can onlygo in one direction.
You can go from the MC down tothe VIN levels and see which
were inspected and then fromthere see which other carriers

(35:57):
were pinged with that VIN.
But you can't specifically takea VIN and I think any other
system right now, put it inthere and find which companies
are associated with that VIN orhave had inspections listed.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
I'm pretty sure you can do it on highway, Cannot?
I did it tried.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
Can do it on highway, Cannot.
I did it.
Tried it again this morning.
You can go one way, but youcan't go the other way.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
That's also behind a paywall.
So what I think is very amazingabout search carriers is that
Garrett and what he has builthe's truly trying to help the
industry and also anyone outsideof it.
So someone that does not workin trucking has nothing to do
with logistics.
They don't have access tohighway, they can't get in and

(36:38):
see the things.
Right right, you have no accessto that information.
There's been people reached outfrom like Data Republican and
her group and they wanted tolook into some of this stuff.
So they go into the data setsfrom the FMCSA.
The company consensus file atthe FMCSA is 2 million rows.
I can't point someone to thatand say, oh, it's all in here.

(37:01):
And then there's like 12 otherdata sets that to truly get a
picture of a carrier you have topull those together.
That's what Garrett has builtand anyone has access to it.

Speaker 3 (37:13):
Yeah, and now Genlogs has some of this too now in
their UI, where you're able tosee when those VINs have popped
up, under which MCs for whichtime period, which is going to
be really helpful for likegetting this information out for
people to be able to use itmore.
What I want to talk to and Iwant to make sure we get to this
, is like talk a little bitabout the ELDs and how and what

(37:36):
they are, and I think we startwith like a very simple
explanation for anybody else outthere.
It's like the analogy I woulduse is like it's like a Fitbit
for your truck.
It tells you when you'redriving and when you're resting,
and it's supposed to be tied towhen the truck is actually
moving and when it's parked,based on the miles per hour it's
driving Right.
So theoretically it's supposedto be foolproof in a sense that

(37:56):
like if the truck's moving, theclock's ticking, if the truck
isn't, it isn't Right.
That was, I believe, the intentof what this was supposed to do
Right.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
Ben, if I could hop in really quick before we do
that To the point before about,like you know, vin level data
and FMCSA data in general.
I remember I think it was twoyears ago at the TI policy forum
.
I won't name the company thatwas there as a vendor, but one
of the someone who works for acompany that sells software that

(38:27):
does carrier vetting, sellssoftware that does carrier
vetting.
The argument was being madewith folks on the Hill from us
brokers saying we don't have theability to easily get and
extract inspection data andcompliance data.
We have to go pay for itthrough a third-party service in

(38:47):
order to vet our carriersproperly.
And the person who worked forthe company that sells it was
like, yeah, I don't really wantto lobby for this because this
is the reason my company's inbusiness, and I was like that's
a terrible thing mentality tohave, but anyway, I wanted to at
least hit on that becausethat's been a thing for years
that we lobby for.
But back to Danielle Ben's ELDquestion on how it all works.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
Ben, if you want to rephrase, that how it's supposed
to work right, how it'ssupposed to work, and then segue
into what you found on how it'sactually working.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
Because, yeah, so the way that it's supposed to work
is that there is it's a piece ofhardware that plugs into the
truck to read the engine stateif it's moving.
If it's not moving, um, there'slocation data in there where
the truck is.
Really the only thing that it'ssupposed to do is track the

(39:45):
number of hours the truck hasbeen moving and the driver in
that truck.
However, technology is everevolving.
It is ever getting better basedon what people want.
So now we have the plug in thatgoes into the engine, of course
, or I don't know where it plugsin exactly, I'm no mechanic it

(40:05):
plugs into the truck and thenyou have the mobile app or the
tablet app, which is phenomenal.
It tells the driver how many,which is phenomenal.
It tells the driver how manyhours he has left.
It tells him when he needs totake a break.
I think that's phenomenal.
The problem with all of this is,I believe it was built for a
very high trust, respectedindustry, very high trust

(40:26):
companies and drivers.
I do not think that any thoughtwas put into this as to worst
case scenario, what couldpossibly happen in the event
that we have low trust peopleusing this and so, with the ELDs
, we don't have like five orseven companies just selling the

(40:46):
ELDs.
Samsara is phenomenal.
Motive is phenomenal.
There are a handful of others,probably 10 to 15, that are
really great technologies, butthere are 3000 ELDs certified
with the FMCSA.

Speaker 3 (40:59):
Those ELDs Define certified.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
That's where I'm going.
So those ELDs areself-certified.
You buy the hardware, youcreate the app, you go on the
FMCSA site and you put in yourcompany information and say that
you followed the rules to dothis and it gets certified.
So we're up to like 3000.
No one is checking those, noone is reviewing the code or the

(41:25):
information behind those.
What data is getting pulled?
What data is getting pushed?
If you go on the App Storewhich is fascinating if you're
interested, go on the app storeand just search ELD.
I put a lot of screenshots in myarticle, but there are hundreds
of apps.
The UI is exactly the same,except there's different
branding and different likecolor colorway on it.

(41:48):
And so they have the hardwareand then they're building the
app to put on the app store.
They, as in the people that aredoing it as they should not be
doing it, and because they arewhite labeled, they can do
whatever they want.
They have access on Samsara.
I don't have access toSamsara's code base.

(42:09):
I can't change what mydispatcher is allowed to do or
what my driver is allowed to doWith the white labels.
They do whatever they want.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Yeah, you're getting to a point because I remember,
ben, when we were puttingtogether our content on the ELD
portion of our broker trainingcourse with DAT and I was
looking for examples.
Every time I look for ascreenshot of an ELD, the apps
they all look the same Fourcircles showing how much time
for, like you know, break, shift, et cetera, and I'm like which

(42:45):
one is which so and I neverthought about that vulnerability
there were.
You know.
It's just all you know.
That's a mess.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
Here's what was even crazier about this, right, is
that like, not only are theyself-certified, nobody is
looking at this, nobody'sregulating them, right?
But you had found evidence thata lot of them, right, are just
absolutely taking everyinformation they can out of a
driver's cell phone.
And some examples right, bols,pods, shipment details, load

(43:19):
values, where the driver is,where he's going.
So every piece of informationthat we put in a load tender
that we're trying to protect, ofgetting it to that driver is
literally open source in theback end from some country,
nobody knows where, being leakedto whoever Criminals could be
buying it, anybody could begetting access to this, and
we're wondering why loads aregetting stolen and we have no

(43:40):
idea.
Like you pointed out, yeah,maybe back in the day somebody
waited at a warehouse and theyknew a load was going, so they
got a tip and they followed thattruck.
That could be happening.
But what is more likely, thatall of the data from all the
high value loads, exactly wherethat driver is, exactly which
truck, that is where they'relocated, not only where they're
now, but where they're going,when they're going to be there

(44:01):
to be able to rob them is justout the back end of these
systems, going to God knowswhere, to God knows who, and we
wonder why there's theft is ahuge issue.
Not to mention and this is theone that scared the shit out of
me was that like there werescreenshots that you had where
people were reporting that likethese ELD companies are sending

(44:21):
text messages and making phonecalls from my driver's phone
number on my behalf.
So for every brokerage outthere that goes well.
I ran this load with thatdriver last week and the week
before and nothing was wrong.
And hey, the driver sent me atext from that phone number.
You genuinely do not know ifyou're talking to that driver.

(44:41):
It absolutely could be somebodyin some country.
Nobody knows where that isactually texting that brokerage
going.
Yeah, my driver will pick upthat load through the phone
number you talked to the driverat last week and some other
truck goes and picks it up withan MC with a magnet on the side.
Shipper doesn't know anydifference.
And now all of a sudden, yourload's gone and we're wondering

(45:02):
why theft is in the billions ofdollars.
But the back end of the entiretransportation system is wide
open on the Internet to anybodythat wants to go and pay for
this information.
Yep.
It's absolutely insane.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
It is.
Yeah, it's absurd.
There's not enough peopletalking about this.
When you dig into it and puteverything together that you
just said, this is truly anational security risk.
Yes, it's not just a brokerproblem.
I moved DLD freight.

Speaker 3 (45:32):
For like three years.
We moved secure loads, we movedthings that nobody was supposed
to know when and where theywere moving, and all that stuff
is just filtering out the backend.
Because, guess what and you'regoing to point this out in a
minute, I think but like nobodyknows which ELD provider any
truck has, and when they getinspected, nobody's even asking
law enforcement hey, can youwrite down the ELD that was used

(45:59):
when they got a violation?
So there isn't anybody evenrecording who's using what to be
able to connect the dots tofind which of these companies
are fraudulent.
So not only are they just wideopen to create whoever they want
with self-certification, nobodyis even writing down which ones
are being used when there's aviolation.
So literally nobody's doing itto prevent it or to fix it.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
So, danielle, in a couple of weeks TIA, a lot of
the members, myself included, wedo our annual blitz on Capitol
Hill to lobby for the thingsthat we say are the issues and
we have our asks.
What are the asks based on?
We've clearly identified theissues here, but what are
potential solutions?
Before we get to a solutionhold on.

Speaker 3 (46:37):
I want to put a pin in that for one more second
because I want to draw aconnection with something that
is like the biggest point ofcontention in our industry why
are rates so low?
Here's the thing that I think iseven worse in some ways and is
a bigger disservice to thetrucking companies and to the
lobbying efforts of truckerslike legitimate people that are
doing this job the right way,and they want to yell at brokers

(47:00):
about rates or shippers Right,but at the end of the day, why
trucks are running at a buckfifty five a mile and eight
hundred miles a day is becausethe people breaking the
regulations and the laws aredriving rates down.
So the criminals are literallydriving out legitimate, ethical
businesses.
They're going bankrupt becausethey're following the rules and

(47:22):
then the people literally inviolation of all the regulations
and all the safety standards,are literally pushing the
companies we want to stay inbusiness in favor of criminals
that are either the truckingcompanies, the trucking company
owners and honestly, like Iagree with you that I think the
drivers are almost as close toinnocent as you could make in
that scenario, Right To yourpoint, like if you got to feed

(47:44):
your family every day and yougot to pay for your rent and you
don't have any other way to geta job.
You're probably going to listento your boss when he yells at
you and tells you to go to workright, Otherwise you can't feed
your family.
So there's no way to fix thisdownstream with the drivers.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
At the end of the day .

Speaker 3 (48:00):
guess what?
The company's just going tohire another driver, like, even
if these people go to jail andeven if they make an example out
of individual drivers, thatcompany is going to hire five
more people next week that needmoney, that are going to go and
violate these regulations, whilelegitimate trucking companies
are just closing their doors andgoing I can't operate at a buck
55 a mile because I can't paymy bills.

(48:22):
Well, they're like.
Well, shit, I can operate at abuck 55 a mile.
I'm not paying my driver andhe's driving 20 miles a day.
Until he can't, then we'll findanother one.
Right Like this is like theequivalent of almost like
sharecropping in the early 1900s, of like literally just forcing
human beings to work undercrazy conditions that have no
choice.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Yeah, and I keep saying and I I get frustrated
about it at times this can notbe fixed downstream.
There is nothing.
I mean, once that carrier isapproved to haul freight at the
FMCSA, everything that is donefrom the brokerage, from the

(49:02):
shippers, every technology thatwe have.
None of it is proactive.
We are fighting a broken systemand we are trying to react to
how broken it is.
Until it is fixed at the FMCSA,we will continue to react.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
So what are the asks then?
To make it clear and as basicas possible what's the fix here?

Speaker 2 (49:26):
So I think, on this ELD issue it is very important
to reference, in February 2020,the FBI did I don't know if it
was an investigation or justlike a quick look at the risk of
these ELDs they warned theFMCSA that this is a huge

(49:47):
security risk and incrediblyvulnerable to cyber criminals.
We did nothing about it.
We, as in the trucking, theFMCSA DOT.
Nothing came of this, and sothe FBI pointed out that this is
a terrible, terrible idea.
Can I ask you something aboutthat?

Speaker 3 (50:05):
Because you talked about that in your article and
the one thing, that I wascurious is like we talked about
this off air too.
Is that, like some of thetrucking lobbies are fighting
these regulations?
But the trucking lobbies youwould think are representing
legitimate companies that areall suffering at this issue.
Why do you think maybe evenjust as like a guess why they
would oppose something thatcreates safety and keeps

(50:30):
legitimate businesses operatingand forcing illegitimate
businesses to play by the samerules?
What is the opposition to that?

Speaker 2 (50:37):
I think and I haven't gotten as far down this rabbit
hole as I need to get yet,because it is so, so deep I
think that the more drivers thatwe pump into this industry,
this industry, the financialkickbacks from that, are

(50:59):
incredibly high.
The more drivers that we get in, the more money that they make.
So everything from CDL schoolsto new companies spinning up new
drivers being hired as long asthere are new drivers coming in,
there's more money being made.

Speaker 4 (51:19):
I think the lobbies I mean.
So if you look at the ATA right, they represent mainly mega
carriers, your larger carrierswith a bunch of trucks, and they
would say they have a shortage,but that's because they have a
retention problem.
They don't have a drivershortage problem.
I mean I can write an ad fordrivers.
I've got I think the last timewe looked we've got a backlog of

(51:40):
like 10 or 15 drivers that whenwe have business we will be
looking to bring them onQuestion Stephen, about that
point right.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
there isn't retention related to pay, Like if the
rates were higher, wouldn't theynot have a retention problem?
And aren't the reason rates arelow because they're not
addressing this issue?
Isn't that literally downstreamfrom fixing the thing that
would ultimately solve theretention issue?
If drivers made more money,they wouldn't be turning over so
often.

Speaker 4 (52:06):
Right, exactly.
And the other point to that isand the thing I like to say all
the time is your lowest commondenominator and your shareholder
for the trucking industry isthe blue collar boys and their
diesel toys, right, and theydon't know tech all that well.
So their blind spot is going tobe this backdoor to our

(52:26):
industry.
And when you start talking tothem I mean I'm a third
generation, my grandfather, mydad they're 20 years behind when
it comes to tech.
And anytime I bring this stuffup, I mean they can barely
operate an Excel sheet, theyhave no idea what the backdoor
to an ELD is.
And when you bring it up.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
I don't know it's the same thing.

Speaker 4 (52:47):
Yeah, yeah, this is nonsense.
So that's the issue.
So you got large corporations,carriers that have a retention
problem because of pay lifestyle, whatever Large corporations,
carriers that have a retentionproblem because of pay lifestyle
, whatever.
Or the drivers.
Or the drivers get in becausethey pay for their CDL school
and then they leave and go dotheir own thing or they go to
another smaller carrier thatwill pay them better, or they

(53:08):
have a better lifestyle, andthen, on top of it, they just
don't understand tech.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
But why do you need to understand tech to understand
that, hey dad— Because no onetalks about it in the manner
that we're talking about itright now Because I'm like it
doesn't have anything to do withtech.

Speaker 3 (53:22):
It's like, hey, guess what?
You're competing driving 11hours a day.
They're competing with youdriving 15 to 20 hours a day.
Do you think you could make asmuch money in 11 hours as the
guy that's able to work 15 to 20?
No, I wouldn't Well guess what.
They're doing that?
Because whatever black box istied to their truck doesn't do
what yours does, so we need tomake sure theirs does the same

(53:43):
thing as yours, because you'replaying on an unlevel playing
field and you're going to loseand they're going to beat you on
rate every day because they canwork twice as long for the same
amount of money.
It doesn't need to be abouttech.

Speaker 4 (53:54):
The common response, but that's illegal.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Yeah, need to be about tech, the common response,
but that's illegal yeah.
Oh my gosh If I hear that onemore time it's illegal.
Okay, people do illegal things.

Speaker 3 (54:03):
Correct.
So is robbing a bank, but thatshit still happens All right.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
So do we want to get into what the what, the ask, or
the fix is here?
I know you outlined it in someof your in your article and
we'll share that link, likeSteven mentioned.
But what's the in your ownwords, right, because this is
essentially what I would call aproject of yours that you're
continuing to go down the rabbithole on.
But what's the?
What do we ask?
Or, you know, what do we wantto see changed?

Speaker 2 (54:28):
Yeah, two things and we could clear, clean this well.
One thing to clean it up, onething to prevent it from
happening in the future.
The first thing is when a DOTinspector or an officer
determines that logs have beenfalsified, if they record the

(54:49):
ELD being used and we get thaton the inspection record, we
could clean up probably 1,500 ofthese ELDs that are being
manipulated and illegal.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
So tie the device to the violation.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
Yes, yes, because we have the violation codes that
say the logs have been falsified, they're not being reported
correctly, but we don't havewhich ELDs being used.

Speaker 3 (55:15):
Correct.
But that only is going to workif the second thing happens,
because if they're all whitelabeled and they can just pop up
under another brand, you alsoneed the other thing to occur.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
Correct.
So the second thing isself-certification is fine.
I am not against that.
I am against no one checkingwhat that ELD is doing.
No one there's.
There is no review of it, sothere has to be.
I don't know if it's reviewingthe code, I don't know if it is

(55:46):
using a tool to review.
I don't know what that part isin detail, but there has to be.
The barrier to entry on the ELDhas to be much higher.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
I mean, I would even I might have a different opinion
and say that I wouldn't wantself-certification.
If all we're trying to do iscertify that it's tracking just
the things you want it to trackand nothing else, that shouldn't
be that hard for a company thatwants to get in the business.
If we have to go through aprocess to get our license as a
freight broker and you've got togo through a process to get our

(56:22):
license as a freight broker andyou've got to go through a
process to get your yourauthority as a motor carrier, um
, if you want to play in ourspace, that's regulated by the
under the dot.
You know, like I would imagine,like a, a flight recorder in an
aircraft probably doesn't haveself-certification right and
what's what's interesting onthat piece is most of the
self-certified ELDs are owned bya trucking company.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
So when you trace the LLC through, like open
corporates, and you find theofficer on that corporation
filing, you open it and they'relinked to one or 17 different
trucking companies.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
You know why I feel like this is just like
absolutely hard for me tocomprehend.
Like I came from finance andeverything is regulated.
Like you can't have a bank thatlends money, that also is
involved in trading, that doesinvesting right.
There are all these regulationsbecause when people lose money,
people give a shit and all of asudden we need regulation.
You do not have drug companiesand this for sure isn't

(57:19):
foolproof self-certifyingmedications and going take this
because we think it'll be okayfor you and like would be okay
with that.
But for some reason, the roadswe drive on every day drive to
work, go to get groceries, takeour families on have 85,000
pound vehicles driving withpeople that are falling asleep
because nobody is payingattention to the regulation for

(57:40):
safety, when that is literallythe mandate of that government
agency.
I think it is absolutelyasinine that self-certification
ever existed in the first placeand that they can't do that now.

(58:09):
Like there for sure are ways toregulate ELDs if it is a
mandate in this country forroads that are paid for with our
tax dollars are dragging theirfeet on to deal with, while
they're talking about everyother issue that has nothing to
do with why these these crashesare taking place in the first
place.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
Yeah, you could have.
You could have a governmententity do a symbol certification
or, even simpler, with anannual, have third party
independent folks that arecertified by the government to
give a stamp of approval, folksthat are certified by the
government to give a stamp ofapproval.
And I'm like, I'm not all, I'mnot huge on government
regulation, but if we're alreadyplaying in a regulated arena,
the tools inside of that arenashould be regulated.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
You regulated the ELDs, which opened a door for
all of this mess.

Speaker 3 (58:56):
Yeah, you're requiring companies to use a
technology that we know isfraudulent, has a backdoor that
is allowing all of the sensitiveinformation on everything that
is transported.
And, by the way, like everybodylost their shit when we felt
like, oh, during COVID, we hadto bring all this stuff in from
overseas and we don't make ithere, who cares if you make it

(59:16):
here, if anybody can steal it?
This is medication, this isdrugs, these are chemicals,
these are things that can beused in explosives.
Literally every single thing inour country is on a truck at
some point in time, and wherethey are and who's moving it and
where it's going to, is justoff into the web, where anybody
can go and pay for thisinformation, steal it and do
whatever you want with it.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
All the talk about the like freight freight theft
not freight fraud, becausethat's too broad the freight
theft about how strategic andhow intelligent these bad actors
are.
I think that that is anexaggeration.
You're overestimating theirintelligence.
They have all of the data thatthey need and where that truck

(01:00:01):
is.
All they have to do is tellsomeone where it is and what's
on it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
Yeah, and they don't even need to steal it themselves
.
They just book a legitimatecarrier to go and steal the load
and send it to a warehousewhere the thieves are waiting to
pick it up, like they don'teven have to put themselves at
risk.
Once you have the information,you don't even theoretically
need to steal it.
You can agree to pay alegitimate carrier to pick it up
and deliver it to anillegitimate location.

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
I had that last year Legitimately.
Some poor owner operator had noidea that the BOL he was given
was falsified and he ended upbasically helping someone steal
$300,000 worth of Adidas appareland had no idea, thought he was
just doing his job.

Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
It's happening every day, multiple times every day.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
Tie the device to the violation.
And the second part because wekind of went all the way up here
Certification process.
The certification process Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:00:50):
All right, I think.
The other thing I would add,and I don't think I'm incorrect,
but I'm pretty sure the FMCAdoes have a new entrant audit,
correct?

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
As a new carrier.

Speaker 4 (01:01:02):
So why not do that?
I mean, they don't do itanyways, or there'd be more
people auditing carriers but whynot audit the ELD that they're
supposedly using and do it onsite, don't do it from a
computer?
Like you know, the whole PinkCheetah issue the FMCSA audited
their claim, but they did itfrom DC instead of actually

(01:01:24):
going to TQL.
That's.
The other issue with ourindustry is the lack of
enforcement mechanisms.
It's just a bunch of rules in abook that you know.
I mean.
It's a $10,000 fine, civil fine, right for double work rate.
Have we ever seen that applied?

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:01:42):
Probably not.
No the answer is no.
The answer is no.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
Well, I mean literally the Household Goods
Consumer Protection Act, or Iprobably botched that one.
That was the big thing welobbied for last year, that and
which did get sponsored andpushed through.
That is the one that gives theFMCSA the ability to impose
fines that they didn'tpreviously have.

(01:02:08):
So they, they, the fine existed, but the ability to enforce the
fine was not there.
I don't know if that, if thatbill became a law yet or what,
but that was like it just takesforever to get anything done in
government.
Like four years ago I sat in DCmy first time and they didn't
understand what a freight brokerwas.
The next year they knew what wewere, but they didn't

(01:02:29):
understand what double brokeringwas by the third year.
They're helping us figure out.
You know what direction do wego.
You know how do we get all thisstuff done.
They're helping us figure out.
You know what direction do wego.
You know how do we get all thisstuff done.
And you know it's just you haveto slow and then these people
turn over because there'selections and all that stuff.
So it's just a mess.

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
And that's in my writing.
So I started this about sixmonths ago, really writing and
going into these issues, what Ithe majority of what I post, 100
percent of what I write.
My audience is not thetransportation industry.
Most people here know what'sgoing on, maybe not all of the
details of it, but Iintentionally want to explain it

(01:03:10):
in a way that anyone can readit and realize that this is
truly an issue.
Because the problem we have ismost of especially the ones
lobbying against the biglobbyist is they're talking in a
way that's so specific to ourindustry that no one understands
.
They're throwing out, like theFMCSA regulation, codes and just

(01:03:34):
industry specific words, jargonthat no one understands and
they just look over it like it'snot an issue.
And so when we frame the issues, it has to make sense to
someone outside of the industryand our politicians are outside
of the industry.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
That's a good point, and I remember I sat with Tim
Burchett last year.
He's from Tennessee.
And he literally I used the.
I think I said FMCSA and he'slike I'm going to stop you last
year.
He's from Tennessee and heliterally I used the.
I think I said FMCSA and he'slike I'm going to stop you right
there.
He's like there's two thingsyou don't do in my office Talk
about the Holocaust and useacronyms that I don't understand
.
All right noted, and I also seethat .50 cal sniper rifle right

(01:04:12):
behind you.
Yeah, so, and I reallyappreciate that you like the way
that you're writing this isdigestible and understandable by
people that aren't us, and IBen you and I probably, like
this is a fault of ours is thatwe talk to certain people,
assuming that they understandexactly what we're referring to.
Danielle, the way that you putit out there, I think, is super

(01:04:33):
helpful.
I'm definitely going to be ableto use what you've written down
and even talked about today tohelp have this conversation in a
few weeks here.
So I appreciate that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:41):
Do you know what this reminds me of?
Like, as far as an analogy likethis reminds me of exactly the
way the US economy worked before.
We had like work standards andminimum wage.
Like if I own a company and allfour of you own a company, I
pay my guys four bucks an hourand make them work 18 hours a
day.
You pay your guys $8 an hourand make them work eight hours a

(01:05:02):
day.
Who's going to make more money?
Me?
So what did the government dowhen you had child labor and
five-year-olds and six-year-oldsworking in steel mills for 18
hours a day?
They came in and regulated why?
Because it wasn't safe.
Literally the exact same thingis happening with truck drivers.
Like this is no different than1920s steel mills, oil companies
and railroads that literallydid this a hundred years ago.

(01:05:24):
The exact same thing ishappening in trucking.
We're just a hundred yearsbehind the curve on every other
industry in the United States.
We've regulated hours ofservice, what people can get
paid to work, how long they canwork and who can work, but in
trucking, for some reason,they're like oh, we'll regulate
this and you just tell us ifyou're doing it, okay, and we'll

(01:05:45):
just take your word for it.
But meanwhile, hey, you know wedid our job, check that box
right.
It's insane.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
All of this is fixable.
Like I keep saying it, we couldfix this and I know that
there's enforcement Probably 90%of it.
Yeah, yeah, it wouldn't be hard.
I mean, I have documents ofcarriers that should not be on
the road today Clear, convincingevidence of why HOPE Trans

(01:06:13):
should not be on the roads.

Speaker 3 (01:06:14):
They're probably pulling loads right now.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
Well they are.
They just got a freight guardSomeone mess they are.
They just got a freight guard.
Someone messaged me.
They just got a freight guardbecause of a stolen load.
They're on their third that Ican clearly prove USDOT, which
brings them to like.
I forget how many wrecks thatthey've had and how many people
have been killed because ofthese drivers.
They have new USDOTs ready togo a freight brokerage.

Speaker 3 (01:06:39):
On the shelf.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
And at some point someone's going to listen, I
don't know when.

Speaker 3 (01:06:47):
Yeah, think about that when you're taking your
families on road trips for LaborDay, like these people are on
the road right now driving nextto you, and when you're going 65
miles an hour down a highwayand the only only thing between
you and that 85,000 pound truckis a painted yellow line and
three feet from somebody drivingin the opposite direction that
has slept three hours in thepast three days.
Realize that's the risk you'retaking every time you drive down

(01:07:08):
a highway because they're doingnothing about this Nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
I just randomly pulled up Hope Trans on a
specific carrier vetting site.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
I won't say who they're approved in all of them.

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
I grabbed, like I just pulled one of their VINs
and it's like seen with threeother, three other DOT numbers,
let me name them B-Zone.
Nope.

Speaker 3 (01:07:30):
Oh, I don't know then I know that they were B-Zone
Well, Cardin Trucking.
Cardin Trucking.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
Cardan had a huge crash.
I put it in my article.

Speaker 1 (01:07:39):
They were card and trucking or fear radio there's
one b zone card and go, gobillions.
Yep, I pulled the second vinnumber because the first one
didn't match those.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
But yeah, some of them don't overlap as much, but
there's cardan f-Zone and then acouple of random ones in there.
I'm not really sure where thosecame from, but Crazy yeah, they
should be on the list.
I need to mark them as do notuse in my software right now.
Yeah, every freight broker.
Actually, I can't say that I'llget sued, never mind.

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
Scratch that, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
Well, this is a good first discussion on this whole
topic here.
Danielle, anything that youwant to wrap up with or kind of
booking on your loads will domore than something giving you a
green checkbox or a red X notto use the carrier.
There are so many ways thatthese carriers are breaking an

(01:08:50):
already broken system and so,just like we talked about with
Hope Trans, they're stillverified, confirmed in every
vetting platform that I know.
No one is picking up on a lotof these things that are broken.
Just pick up the phone fiveminutes and it'll do a lot more
than a red X or a green check.

Speaker 1 (01:09:10):
Yeah, we kind of I mean, ben, that kind of echoes.
What we say in general is likeyou know, when people are just
trying to book via email, it'sso scary.
Yeah, you're literally.
I've had it four times thisyear.
We've had cargo theft in ourcompany and three out of those
four were carriers that hadtheir email hacked.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
And we're trying to automate.

Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
We thought we were talking to Everything we're
trying to automate Anyautomation.

Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
We were talking to Everything.
We're trying to automate Anyautomation that takes the
relationship out of trucking.
I don't like it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:44):
Yep so but yeah, the phone call that's a good.
It'll go a long way.
It will To build rapport toowith these carriers, so you're
not just some person on theother keyboard.
So but yeah, well, danielle,appreciate you hopping on here
today we're going to put linksto.
You've got an ELD article thatwe referenced a lot, and then

(01:10:05):
the Hope Trans one.
We'll put those both in there.
If people want to reach out toyou, what's your handle on X?
How do they reach you, how dothey follow you, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (01:10:13):
Yeah, my handle on all social media, the one I'm
really only on, is X andLinkedIn, but it's at maybe
Danielle with three E's at theend of my name.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
We'll throw it in the show notes as well, so make
sure you give her a follow.
Steven, thanks for putting thistogether.
You got any final thoughts offepisode one of this series?

Speaker 4 (01:10:31):
I mean I can't wait for the rest of them to come out
.
I mean, this is just a drop inthe bucket and what's going on
in the trucking industry and youknow, a big shout out to
Garrett and Search Carriers andthe information that he's making
available to the public, notjust our industry, absolutely.
And yeah, I look forward to therest of the episode.

(01:10:52):
It's going to be great, awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:10:55):
Ben, final thoughts.
Whether you believe you can orbelieve you can't, you're right.
And until next time, go bills.