THE DAILY

Monday, March 23, 2026

The five minutes that makes you the most informed person in freight today

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The Daily

Dry van spot rates break to $2.89 per mile, highest since 2022

Spring arrived early for the truckload market. The SONAR National Truckload Index (NTI.USA), a 7-day moving average of booked spot rates including fuel surcharge, broke out to $2.89 per mile last week, which is a $0.12-per-mile jump in a single week and the strongest reading since 2022.

The drivers are converging. Industrial demand has been the engine: manufacturing signals have strengthened, flatbed activity is running hot, and overall domestic freight volumes are holding at multi-year highs. National tender rejection rates sit in the 13-14% range, with the Midwest stubbornly above 18%. The fact that rejection rates in the heart of U.S. freight country are outpacing the national average tells you capacity is thinner than the headline number suggests. Spot rates have recovered roughly $0.50-$0.60 per mile net of fuel over recent months, climbing from the low $2.00s that defined most of 2023-24. SONAR data shows 20-25% year-over-year improvement in key lanes and metrics.

Seasonal freight is piling on. Produce season is ramping in major growing regions. Construction is accelerating as weather improves. Gardening, home improvement, and beverage distribution are all building into their spring peaks at the same time. These verticals do not stack seamlessly; each one competes for the same dry van asset pool.

The most significant near-term amplifier is the West Coast. Chinese New Year ran later in 2026 (Feb. 17), prolonging the post-holiday lull and keeping Southern California unusually loose into early March, with outbound rejections falling below 5%. That pressure valve is closing fast. Inbound container volumes are surging as post-CNY imports hit West Coast ports, and outbound tenders are recovering sharply. When SoCal tightens, long-haul carriers chase West-to-East transcontinental loads for their superior length-of-haul economics (1,500-2,000-plus miles per move), which drains capacity from Midwest and Southeast corridors along I-35 as trucks reposition toward I-20 and I-40. Interior markets, already tight, will not see relief when that happens.

So What? Shippers without locked-in contracts are entering the most expensive spot market since 2022. The $2.89/mile NTI read isn’t a ceiling as seasonal demand, industrial freight, and a West Coast import surge are all firing simultaneously. Carriers positioned for West Coast outbound and industrial lanes are capturing the gains. Shippers still pricing off 2024 benchmarks are going to feel this before they see it coming.

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Top Stories

Attorneys convicted on all counts in Louisiana staged trucking accident scheme

Vanessa Motta and Jason Giles were found guilty Friday on all major charges in Operation Sideswipe, the largest known staged-truck-accident scheme in U.S. history. The three-week trial in the Eastern District of Louisiana ended with convictions for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, mail fraud, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering. The defense called no witnesses. Both attorneys were remanded to federal custody immediately after verdicts were read. The operation, in which cars intentionally struck commercial trucks to generate fraudulent insurance payouts, dates to at least 2011. In all, 63 individuals have been charged; more than four dozen accepted plea deals rather than face trial. Sentencing for Motta is set for July 7.

So What? The Motta/Giles verdicts are the legal bookend on a scheme that inflated trucking insurance premiums across Louisiana for more than a decade. With 63 individuals charged and the trial record now public, the case for carrier and insurer restitution is the next chapter to watch.

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Heavy-duty repair shops post record revenue, but the technician shortage is structural

Fullbay’s sixth annual State of Heavy-Duty Repair report, released this week, shows commercial vehicle shops generating $5.04 billion in service order commerce in 2025, which is a 68% revenue increase in two years. But they’re still wrestling with workforce constraints that aren’t going away. Median shop labor rates climbed 10% year over year to $149 per hour. Technician wages rose 14.1% to a median $36.50 per hour, nearly three times the rate of inflation. Fifty-four percent of shops report being understaffed. Demographics explain the structural nature of the problem: only 17% of respondents are age 30 or younger, while 42% of technicians have more than 20 years of experience. "It’s basically an auction block at this point," said Peter Cooper, CEO of Ascend Consulting, on the technician hiring market. "They’re leaving a shop and going across town for a dollar an hour raise." Culture, not pay, now ranks as the top retention factor at 49%.

So What? Fleet maintenance budgets need to price in continued labor rate increases because the technician supply problem will get worse before it gets better. Shops offering bonuses, transparent wages, and real training programs are winning the talent war. Those that don’t are losing techs to the shop across town.

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Trailer storage demand climbs as tariffs and nearshoring strain warehouse capacity

Manufacturers and retailers across North America are increasingly turning to mobile storage trailers rather than fixed warehouse space as supply chains absorb tariff volatility and shifting freight patterns. Warehouse on Wheels, which operates roughly 37,000 trailers across 37 locations in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, says demand is rising on both sides of the border. Traditional warehouse leases average around $11 per square foot before operating expenses; trailer storage runs approximately $6.64 per square foot. Along the Monterrey-Laredo-El Paso corridor, nearshoring manufacturers are scaling mobile capacity rather than locking into long-term leases. "Any kink in a finely tuned just-in-time supply chain creates total chaos," CEO John Brooks said. "You don’t have time to negotiate a warehouse lease when production is on the line." One Midwest automotive assembly plant scaled its deployment from 60 trailers to more than 1,600.

So What? Flexible storage is becoming a deliberate supply chain tool rather than a crisis workaround. With tariff policy still in flux, operators who can convert fixed warehouse costs to variable trailer costs have a structural advantage when demand signals shift without warning.

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A cocaine-positive truck driver used a federal database loophole to clear 1,000 drug violations

A FreightWaves investigation by Rob Carpenter reveals that Brandon Blackburn, a commercial truck driver from North Wilkesboro, N.C., with no clinical credentials, registered himself as a Substance Abuse Professional in the FMCSA Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse and spent years clearing drug-positive CDL holders’ federal records for $100 per driver via Zelle and Facebook Messenger. Blackburn was arrested in August 2025 after he was caught with cocaine in his cab while impaired in a Mississippi construction zone and falsifying his logbook records, on the same day he was sending green checkmarks to drivers who had paid him. Law enforcement estimates he fraudulently cleared approximately 1,000 CDL holders. The SAP registration process in the Clearinghouse requires no credential verification. A user selects a credential type from a dropdown and checks four compliance boxes, then the system grants database access. Blackburn is out on bond, awaiting trial on a felony cocaine charge, and evidence reviewed for the investigation indicates he has continued offering his services since his arrest. There are 6,305 SAP-level accounts in the Clearinghouse, all registered through the same honor system.

So What? Every carrier that ran a pre-employment Clearinghouse query and hired a driver Blackburn cleared may have negligent hiring exposure it can’t yet quantify. Three fixes — credential verification at SAP registration, anomaly detection on accounts logging abnormal completion volumes, and document upload at step 5 — require no act of Congress. FMCSA has the authority. The door is still open.

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What We’re Watching

▸ Southern California outbound rejections. The post-CNY import surge is hitting West Coast ports right now. Watch how fast outbound tender rejections climb out of SoCal over the next two to four weeks — the speed of that spread will tell you how broad and sustained the spring tightening becomes nationally.

▸ Motta and Giles sentencing dates, July 7-21. The financial penalty attached to Operation Sideswipe — restitution, fines, forfeiture — will set a public benchmark for what staged-accident fraud costs when federal prosecutors go all the way to trial. That number will matter to every carrier and insurer that absorbed fraudulent claims from this ring.

▸ FMCSA’s response to the Clearinghouse SAP investigation. The agency has documented this fraud on its own website and done nothing structural to fix the registration architecture. Watch whether the FreightWaves investigation prompts a rulemaking proposal or another web-page warning. The difference is whether 1,000 fraudulent clearances produces regulatory action or a FAQ update.

That’s your Daily for today. See you tomorrow.

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