The U.S. trucking crackdown is not going to ease with a change of administration. FreightWaves founder and CEO Craig Fuller made that call at Optym's Convergence 2026 conference on Nov. 2, and the reason is simple: the biggest fleets now want the tighter rules.
He tied three developments together: federal enforcement against non-domiciled commercial driver's licenses, a Supreme Court ruling that opens brokers to state negligent-hiring claims, and a $604 million jury verdict against C.H. Robinson. Fuller called it the most transformative stretch for trucking since deregulation in 1980.
The industry has spent years asking why small carriers did not wash out during this downturn the way they did in 2008. Fuller's answer is drivers holding non-domiciled CDLs and operators working outside the rules. He said in November 2025 that the interim rule could remove 5% to 7% of drivers from the market. The D.C. Circuit stayed that rule, but the final version was published in February and took effect March 16.
Large carriers, along with ATA and the Truckload Carriers Association, now publicly back higher hiring standards. Fuller's phrase was "follow the money."
For brokers and small carriers, two things happen at once: fewer cheap trucks to hire, and more liability for the ones they do hire. After Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, brokers can no longer rely on federal preemption to block state negligent-hiring suits. Before the ruling, Fuller said a loss would be "an extinction event for a lot of freight brokers."
For cargo moving on U.S. truckload and last-mile legs, compliance cost now belongs in the quote. Shopping purely on the lowest rate and sorting out liability later is a risk that no longer sits with the carrier alone.