Big Carriers Want FMCSA's Crackdown to Stay, Fuller Says

A $604 million jury verdict against C.H. Robinson, a unanimous Supreme Court ruling on broker liability, and a federal push against non-domiciled commercial driver's licenses together mark the most transformative period in trucking since deregulation in 1980, FreightWaves founder and CEO Craig Fuller told an industry audience Nov. 2. For brokers and small carriers, he said, the result is fewer cheap trucks to hire and far more liability for the ones they do hire.

Speaking at Optym's Convergence 2026 conference in Frisco, Texas, Fuller dismissed the idea that a change in administration in Washington would ease enforcement, let more operators into the industry, or end the crackdown. "And I will say no," he said. "Follow the money." The largest motor carriers, along with the American Trucking Associations and the Truckload Carriers Association, have concluded that tighter driver-hiring standards are "desperately needed" and "the only way that they will survive," Fuller said — a position he argued holds whichever party wins.

How much capacity is at stake?

Fuller has tracked the non-domiciled CDL issue for more than a year. In a November 2025 debate with Ken Adamo, he said the federal interim rule on non-domiciled CDLs could remove 5% to 7% of drivers from the market. The D.C. Circuit stayed that interim rule in November 2025; the majority noted FMCSA's own data showed non-domiciled CDL holders were "approximately 5 percent of all CDL holders but only about 0.2 percent of fatal crashes" — though one judge dissented, arguing the five crashes behind that figure were not an exhaustive count. FMCSA's final rule, published in February, took effect March 16.

The agency does not track crash data by CDL category, a gap Fuller stressed. FMCSA's Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts 2022 shows large trucks involved in fatal crashes rising from 1.22 per 100 million vehicle miles in 2010 to 1.76 in 2022; NHTSA's newer Traffic Safety Facts 2024 shows the rate has since eased to 1.58, with 5,340 people killed in crashes involving large trucks in 2024.

Why did small carriers survive the downturn?

Brokers went from handling 6% of freight in the early 2000s to "probably in excess of 30%" today, Fuller said, as shippers' procurement departments mandated bids. "The brokers are effectively the day traders in our industry," he said. Small carriers washed out in large numbers in the 2008 financial crisis but largely survived the Great Freight Recession that began in 2022 — because brokered loads let them cover variable costs. A carrier covering variable cost per mile can keep operating "for five to ten years without filing bankruptcy," Fuller said.

FreightWaves kept asking how so many carriers stayed open. "We kept looking at the data and saying, where, how are they staying in business? It made no sense," Fuller said. His answer: drivers holding non-domiciled CDLs and operators working outside the rules, often at lower pay. "We now know that's probably the primary reason that this market suffered." Steve Troyer, president of California Midwest Xpress, told FreightWaves in December that brokered freight moving more than 500 miles routinely paid 25 to 75 cents a mile below his operating costs for much of the prior three and a half years. In September 2024, FTR's Avery Vise said the market still had "something on the order of 95,000 more for-hire carriers" than before the pandemic.

What does the liability shift mean for brokers?

On May 14, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II that state negligent-hiring claims against brokers fall under the FAA Authorization Act's safety exception. Fuller had called a loss "an extinction event for a lot of freight brokers" — a call that drew "a lot of heat." Then in July, a Dallas County jury found C.H. Robinson 23% responsible in Lipe v. Lupus Superior for a 2021 Mississippi crash that killed three people, returning the $604 million verdict. "It was an oh my god moment for them," Fuller said. The court confirmed the verdict in October; Overdrive reported interest brings it to about $711 million, with the borrowed-employee finding — built partly on the driver's use of C.H. Robinson's app — leaving the broker exposed to nearly all of it. C.H. Robinson has said the carrier held a Satisfactory FMCSA rating and will appeal.

"So now, when you're a freight broker, you're hiring capacity, you're on your own," Fuller said. "The federal government is not going to help determine that aspect." By late May, C.H. Robinson had begun moving carriers to non-certified status based on safety scores, though it has not publicly tied the change to the ruling.

Does liability reach shippers too?

Yes. A suit over the crash that injured Dalilah Coleman — recognized in President Donald Trump's State of the Union address — names Unilever and United States Cold Storage alongside C.H. Robinson, alleging they failed to verify the carrier that picked up the load. Fuller said he would bet 20% to 30% of loads leave a warehouse without anyone checking the truck at the dock. "It's been a security problem, and now we have a litigation problem," he said.

Limits remain. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, in a concurrence joined by Justice Samuel Alito, wrote that brokers "should be able to successfully defend against state tort suits if the brokers have acted reasonably." C.H. Robinson reports one serious accident claim per 500 million miles driven on its customers' loads.

Fuller's closing prediction: shippers facing liability will revert to large asset-based carriers in future bids. "And so my final prediction is that the asset carriers are going to win this round," he said — leaving brokers and shippers heading into 2027 truckload bids to price two costs at once: liability for the carriers they pick, and fewer cheap carriers to pick from.