Diesel Tops ATRI's Trucking Concerns for First Time Since 2023

Diesel is trucking's number one concern again, and it got there by a route nobody enjoyed: the pump. In the American Transportation Research Institute's annual top-10 survey, released Sunday at the ATA Management Conference & Exhibition in Charlotte, fuel prices claimed the top overall slot after two years absent from the list entirely.

That's the fourth time in the survey's 22-year history that fuel has ranked first. Drivers put it at number one; carriers put it second. The carrier ranking is the telling one.

For years, the industry's working assumption has been that fuel surcharges pass the cost of diesel to shippers cleanly, maybe even helpfully. ATRI's respondents suggest otherwise, at least in part. Higher pump prices apparently hurt enough to rank near the top of carriers' worries, surcharge arithmetic notwithstanding.

The price data explains the anxiety. The Energy Information Administration's highest weekly retail diesel price this year was $6.529 on September 22 — the highest in the data series' history, and roughly 22% above the $5.341 peak recorded on October 24, 2022. AAA's daily average also set a record in September.

What does the Montgomery ruling change?

Plenty, judging by where CSA scores landed. Compliance Safety Accountability ranked third overall — its highest position since 2015 — after finishing fourth in 2025. ATRI tied the jump directly to the Supreme Court's decision in Montgomery vs. Caribe Transport II, which raised brokers' exposure to negligent-hiring claims.

"Compliance Safety Accountability – FMCSA's safety measurement system – has been a top 10 issue for 16 of the 17 years since CSA debuted on the list as the #2 overall concern in 2010," the ATRI report said. "This year, driven in large part by the SCOTUS ruling, CSA is back up to the industry's #3 overall concern."

The logic is blunt. "Based on the (Montgomery) ruling, brokers will need documented evidence that they hired the safest carriers to avoid negligent hiring claims, and carrier CSA scores are one such form of documentation," the report said.

There's a wrinkle, and it's a big one. FMCSA officials have said they don't view their scores as a ratings tool. The nuclear verdict in Lipe vs. Lupus Superior involved a carrier holding a Satisfactory FMCSA rating. So the industry is building litigation defenses on a metric the agency itself declines to endorse. ATRI's list of strategies didn't acknowledge that gap.

Where drivers and carriers split

The annual driver-versus-carrier divide showed up on schedule:

• Truck parking: second for drivers, absent from the carriers' top 10.
• Lawsuit abuse: number one for carriers and second overall for a second straight year; not in the drivers' top 10.
• Driver shortage: third for carriers, invisible to drivers.
• Broker issues: eighth for drivers, off the carriers' list.
• Detention/delay at customer facilities: seventh for drivers, unranked by carriers.
• Driver compensation: first, second, first and third among drivers from 2023 through 2026; it appeared ninth on the carriers' list — the first time in four years it cracked their top 10.

Both sides of the cab, in short, agree on exactly one thing this year. It's the price of the fuel.

The lawsuit-abuse playbook

On lawsuit reform, respondents' top preference was state-level caps on non-economic and punitive damages in truck-involved crashes. A second target: "phantom" medical damages — payouts claimed at the original billed total for medical care rather than the amount actually paid. Several states, including Florida and Georgia, have passed legislation to rein those in. Third-party litigation funding, where outside attorneys bankroll suits upfront, rounded out the targets.

Insurance cost and availability ranked fourth overall, and ATRI's commentary went straight back to Montgomery. "The impacts of the SCOTUS ruling in Montgomery v. Caribe are just now starting to be realized but one thing is certain: insurance rates are likely to increase for motor carriers and brokers," the report said.

The top fix offered: a framework under which insurers would cut premiums "when drivers and carriers adopt proven safety technologies." A discount for cameras, in plain terms. Whether underwriters play along is next year's question.

What does this change for shippers and brokers? Expect surcharge-driven friction that carriers no longer shrug off, and expect carriers to lean harder on CSA paperwork as liability cover — even as FMCSA insists the scores were never meant for that. With diesel at record highs and Montgomery's insurance effects still landing, next year's survey may not look very different.