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Danger of social isolation OTR: Truckers don’t have to be alone

Clifford Petersen

With apologies to the women in the audience, it’s no news that the vast majority of working truckers are men — here’s looking at (most of) you, readers. And if you’ve followed my fulminations here, you’ll know I’m passionate about health, about well-being, about truckers’ efforts to truly improve their lives by focusing on both.

And if there’s a single aspect of health I’m especially impassioned about, it’s the mental variety. Bear with me. I know it’s a subject difficult for many among us truckers to talk about — we’re supposed to be strong, dare I say the most independent, self-sufficient people on the planet, right? If not for us, this country would come to a grinding halt… You know it.

When we have a problem, we saddle up and get back on the horse. We keep our issues to ourselves, keep rolling the miles.

It can go on endlessly, with the toll on relationships back home mounting. Home fires begin to die. It’s easy to fall into the trap of just rolling on, playing out worst-case scenarios on our big-screen windshield like a late-night movie.

Social isolation can hit any of us unawares with huge destructive force, building stress, anxiety, even capital-D Depression. Combined with the constant push of the job, it can be a literal killer.

Suicide rates have been on the rise among workers in male-dominated trades like trucking in recent years. For veterans, the rate’s even higher at an annual 35.2 per 100,000 vets. Truckers and veterans, who already deal with increased risks of social isolation, can easily find themselves behind this eightball, particularly if yet another wrench is thrown into the gears.

I’ve been a trucker myself now for 27 years, and I’ve experienced it. Chronic pain, an illness, financial problems, bullying even — all primary reasons we might tiptoe closer to the edge. I have spent most of my life with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder and spent several years dealing with suicidal ideation. When I was finally diagnosed at 43 years of age, I began to learn about the tools I needed to live with it, and just when I thought I had finally beaten that monster into submission, he snuck around the corner and almost ended my life.

Fortunately, I had a support system in place, and God intervened. But I had traveled well down that path of hopelessness.

We can help each other, and ourselves 

You can help yourself, or your fellow trucker in need, by simply recognizing the risk. It’s not easy when we spend 95% of our time on the road alone. I can go weeks without talking to anyone other than those at the company I haul for. (Dispatchers among you reading here can be a lifeline.)

Still, truckers can be tight-knit with their fellow haulers — pay attention to shifts in behavior, speech, or mood among those you interact with regularly.

Changes can come on quickly or more slowly — a friend may start to self-isolate, with activities they usually enjoy no longer pursued. Increased risk-taking — yes, as my own experience on a motorcycle in the past proved, that may well include aggressive or foolhardy driving — could be a sign, too.

Changes in mood could range from subtle expressions of loss of control or feeling trapped to more extreme hopelessness. Personality shifts from near depression to extreme happiness or calm, detached reactions might signal something more serious.

Starker warning signs:

  • Giving away once-treasured personal items/property.
  • Extreme rage/anxiety.
  • Direct complaints of emotional or physical pain.
  • Morbid fascination with death.
  • Frank or not-so-frank talking about wanting to die.
  • Expression of just how much of a burden someone is to everyone in their life.

If someone begins to say goodbye to friends and family, sometimes precipitated by sleeping a lot less or a great deal more than usual, or big dietary changes, they’re at a critical point.

While it may be difficult for truckers to spot, you may also notice a decline in personal hygiene. (I’m not saying that truckers lack personal hygiene in general, but we all have probably been that guy who goes too long without a shower.)

Today, the World Health Organization’s Suicide Prevention Day, the thing I want you to truly understand is that it is not a weakness to ask for help, or to ask on someone’s behalf. If in doubt, it is always better to share your concerns with someone who can assist in intervening.

If you know someone or are struggling yourself, you can use the suicide hotline by calling or texting 988. When you do, you’ll be connected to a trained crisis counselor who will listen without judgment to your concerns, provide support, and help you explore options for resources and safety. This service operates 24/7, and is strictly confidential.

You may be the saving grace for someone truly in need.

Big Mission. Bigger Needs: TCA calls for increased staffing, funding of FMCSA

Kris Rutherford

 

The Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) recently released a major policy white paper outlining a comprehensive set of reforms to modernize the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and strengthen commercial motor vehicle safety oversight across the United States.

The growing list of organizations supporting TCA’s efforts includes the American Trucking Associations, National Tank Truck Carriers, the National Motor Freight Traffic Association, the Trucking Association Executives Council, the National Industrial Transportation League, the National Association of Publicly Funded Truck Driving Schools, the Institute for Safer Trucking and the Intermodal Association of North America.

The 24-point paper, entitled “Proposals for Comprehensive Reform: Prioritizing Investments in FMCSA’s Core Safety Mission,” highlights what TCA sees as a growing mismatch between FMCSA’s expanding responsibilities and its limited staffing, outdated systems and fragmented oversight tools.

The recommendations serve as a wake-up call for Congress and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to “realign FMCSA’s resources, modernize its registration and vetting systems, update its safety fitness framework and streamline its statutory portfolio to focus on crash prevention.”

“The FMCSA is responsible for overseeing one of the largest and most diverse regulated populations in the federal government — yet it remains one of the smallest agencies within the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT),” said TCA President Jim Mullen.

“This imbalance compromises safety, weakens oversight and leaves the motoring public at risk,” Mullen noted. “These recommendations offer a path toward a more modern, data-driven and accountable safety system, and Congress must ensure FMCSA has the resources to fulfill its mission.”

With that mission in mind, TCA’s recommendations are comprehensive when considering issues facing the industry. At the top of the list of priorities are staffing, funding and targeting the focus of the agency’s responsibilities, including the vetting of commercial carriers.

Staffing

It’s no surprise that TCA recommends increased staffing as a top priority when it comes to reforms for the FMCSA. As Mullen noted, the agency is among the smallest in the USDOT in terms of manpower and budget but is charged with regulating one of the largest populations of entities overseen by the Department.

As TCA points out, the FMCSA is critically under-resourced and suffers from overly complex statutory constraints, increased oversight responsibilities and unfunded functions, non-safety related functions, and inadequate oversight and enforcement resourcing.

In short, the FMCSA is charged with performing functions above and beyond its principal safety mission but is not provided the resources to do so.

A look at the staffing levels at the FMCSA proves TCA’s concerns valid. FMCSA employs only 300 investigators — a minute number, considering that the agency oversees safety requirements of 700,000 commercial carriers and millions of drivers and vehicles.

TCA recommends a modest increase in the number of investigators (+600) to handle the existing workload, a number that still falls short of what function demands.

Likewise, TCA recommends the employment of investigators specialized in areas such as hazardous materials, complex investigations, entry-level drivers and registration investigations. Among others. Specialization will allow for more in-depth investigation into specific types of incidents and lead to development of rules and regulations that might otherwise be overlooked.

Funding

The FMCSA’s budget of $1 billion is among the smallest of any agency within the USDOT — and 60% of that relatively small budget goes to grant programs. This leaves just $400 million to focus on functions that directly impact safety.

The FMCSA has been assigned a growing mix of responsibilities, not all of which are tightly tied to its central crash-prevention mission of vetting carriers, overseeing drivers and vehicles, targeting unsafe operations, and reducing fatalities and serious injuries.

The agency’s workforce is spread across too many fronts, TCA states. This results in , not allowing enough investigators, attorneys and other staff members to focus on safety programs that address the timely needs of the industry it oversees. This situation leads the TCA into another recommendation, narrowing FMCSA’s responsibilities.

Targeted focus

TCA’s recommendation is clear and simple: Congress should adopt a general rule that any new statutory duty imposed on FMCSA be tied directly to crash reduction and core CMV safety oversight. The FMCSA is expected to focus on responsibilities that far exceed its core mission of protecting the safety of the nation’s highways.

In 2022, more than 165,000 people were injured or killed in accidents involving commercial trucks and buses, and 70% of those casualties were drivers and passengers in other vehicles. The safety of the roadways is of paramount concern, and with the large numbers of lives at stake, the FMCSA is one of few agencies focused on the issue. If FMCSA were as well funded as the Federal Aviation Administration (with a budget of $27 billion and 46,000 employees), perhaps that number of highway casualties could be reduced. After all, while the FMCSA was busy in 2022, the FAA investigated commercial airline incidents that resulted in no deaths during the same period. The FAA is proof that manpower and money do result in oversight and rulemaking that have results when it comes to safety.

Vetting of carriers

Among the most important safety reforms proposed by TCA is increased vetting of new registrants for commercial carrier registration. “Implementation of meaningful vetting processes is key to identifying pre-operational safety status of applicant motor carriers,” TCA states.

TCA further recommends that this vetting process be funded by the carriers themselves. Charging of filing fees would allow for the hiring of personnel and employment of technology to operate the vetting process.

Currently, vetting carriers is more of an administrative duty than a genuine safety gatekeeping system, TCA notes. Vetting carriers for safety BEFORE their vehicles and drivers hit the road would be a major step forward as under current regulations, a new carrier can be in operation up to a year before being looked at by the FMCSA.

“New entrant oversight should likewise be restructured so that provisional authority is conditioned on meaningful review, including onsite examination and enforceable knowledge requirements,” TCA states regarding the vetting of new carriers

 In other words, vetting of carriers can’t done from behind a desk. Field work is necessary to gain a meaningful overview of a carrier’s operation. Data on a computer screen is not enough to make decisions when the safety of the nation’s highways is at hand.

Reform needed

While staffing, funding and vetting of carriers are seen as priorities under TCA recommendations, the call for reforms does not stop there. Other key recommendations include strengthened oversight of CDL licensing, ELDT providers and third-party testers, and improved crash causation analysis and data integrity.

“This is a moment for Congress to act,” Mullen said. “A stronger, more efficient and more accountable FMCSA is essential not only for public safety, but also for the stability of the nation’s supply chain.

“TCA stands ready to work with Congress and USDOT, and we strongly urge Congress to provide the resources necessary to support FMCSA’s critical mission,” he concluded.

To download a copy of the white paper, click here.

ELD Fraud

Arnold & Itkin Research Team – Reviewed by Adam Lewis

The goal of the electronic logging device (ELD) mandate was simple: by connecting the logging system to the truck’s engine, driving time would become nearly impossible to hide. The final rule published December 16, 2015, and effective December 18, 2017, requires ELDs to synchronize with the vehicle engine and automatically record driving time. The mandate was intended to address the long history of paper log manipulation that plagued the trucking industry.

The mandate worked, in part. Hours-of-service violations fell sharply after the ELD rollout, a trend the FMCSA attributes to improved compliance. But the reduction in recorded violations does not reflect the complete picture. The commercial pressure to keep trucks moving beyond legal driving limits did not disappear when paper logs did. Carriers and drivers adapted, exploiting gaps in the ELD system and in the regulatory framework’s enforcement capacity.

Federal Prohibitions on Falsification and Tampering

The federal prohibition is unambiguous. Under 49 C.F.R. Part 386, a person who knowingly falsifies, destroys, mutilates, or changes a report or record required under Parts 390 through 399 of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations is subject to a maximum civil penalty of $15,846 if the falsification misrepresents a fact that constitutes a safety violation. Carriers that require or permit egregious violations of driving-time limits face additional exposure.

The regulatory framework makes clear that liability for log falsification applies to the carrier, not just the driver. Under 49 C.F.R. § 395.8, no driver or motor carrier may disable, deactivate, disengage, jam, or otherwise block or degrade a signal transmission or reception, or reengineer, reprogram, or otherwise tamper with an ELD so that the device does not accurately record and retain data. The FMCSA’s own regulatory guidance is equally direct: “a carrier is liable both for the actions of its drivers in submitting false documents and for its own actions in accepting false documents.”

Falsification Penalty

$15,846

Maximum civil penalty if the falsification misrepresents a fact that constitutes a safety violation, under 49 C.F.R. Part 386

Liability for log falsification applies to the carrier, not just the driver.

The Methods of ELD Fraud

ELD fraud takes several forms, ranging from opportunistic misuse of legitimate features to deliberate, carrier-directed criminal schemes. The most common methods include fictitious co-driver accounts, device disconnection, personal conveyance abuse, and back-end record alteration.

Common Methods

  • Fictitious co-driver accounts
  • Creating a second driver account that serves as a reset mechanism.
  • Device disconnection
  • Physically disconnecting the ELD or disconnecting the smartphone from the hardware transmitter during driving periods the carrier wants to conceal.
  • Personal conveyance abuse
  • Switching from on-duty driving to personal conveyance status once available hours are exhausted.
  • Back-end record alteration
  • A third-party service or carrier back-office staff member altering ELD records after the fact.

Fictitious Co-Driver Accounts, Known as “Ghost Drivers”

The most consequential form of ELD fraud involves creating a second driver account that serves as a reset mechanism. The structure of the ELD system requires each driver to log in under their own credentials. Driving time accumulates against that account. When the driver approaches the 11-hour limit, the carrier adds a fictitious or inactive co-driver account to the ELD profile. The primary driver logs out and the fictitious account logs in, opening a fresh 11-hour driving window. The real driver never stops. The federal regulations are explicit: no driver or motor carrier may reengineer, reprogram, or otherwise tamper with an ELD so that the device does not accurately record and retain data. Adding a fictitious account to circumvent driving limits is a direct violation of this prohibition.4 These multi-driver login schemes are the most deliberate forms of manipulation and the one most directly tied to documented fatal crashes.

The Ghost-Driver Reset

  • 1 – Each driver logs in under their own credentials, and driving time accumulates against that account.
  • 2 – When the driver approaches the 11-hour limit, the carrier adds a fictitious or inactive co-driver account to the ELD profile.
  • 3 – The primary driver logs out and the fictitious account logs in, opening a fresh 11-hour driving window.
  • 4 – The real driver never stops.

The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) has documented similar schemes in its inspection bulletins. In one example, a motor carrier created a fictitious ELD account using the same driver’s name but slightly altered credentials by changing a letter from uppercase to lowercase and modifying one digit in the CDL number. The driver alternated between the two accounts to continue driving after exceeding hours-of-service limits.

Disconnecting the Device

A simpler but well-documented method involves physically disconnecting the ELD, or in app-based systems, disconnecting the smartphone from the hardware transmitter during driving periods the carrier wants to conceal.

Personal Conveyance Abuse

Personal conveyance status allows a driver to use the truck for personal, off-duty purposes without the time counting against available driving hours, such as traveling from a truck stop to a nearby restaurant.

Drivers can falsify logs by misusing personal conveyance, such as by switching from on-duty driving to personal conveyance status once their available hours are exhausted in order to:

  • Finish delivering current loads,
  • Advance their position for the next pickup, or
  • Perform other work-related moves, such as driving to a repair shop.

Because personal conveyance is recorded with lower location precision than on-duty driving, it can partially obscure where the truck was and what it was doing during the concealed period.

Back-End Record Alteration

The most technically sophisticated fraud involves a third-party service or carrier back-office staff member altering ELD records after the fact, either through exploits in ELD software or through direct manipulation of the underlying data. This category of fraud has grown significantly since the ELD mandate took effect.

ELD tampering has become so widespread that sales agents are cold-calling motor carriers offering “ELD editing” services. One such company, Logbook Hub, advertises on Facebook that it can “FIX your logbook” for $30 a week. CVSA’s Roadside Inspections Specialist, Jeremy Disbrow, has described a scenario where carriers instruct their drivers to call when the drivers run out of available time. The carrier then “contacts a third party who is able to quickly alter the records to eliminate any violations”, without any record in the ELD file that edits were made.

One industry veteran, Dave Moss, reported that at his last company, his logs were “edited overseas.” When he raised the issue with management, management told him, “We have to do this to make money.

The Economic Pressure Behind the Fraud

The economic stakes explain why this fraud has become industrialized. A carrier operating with falsified logs can move more freight per driver per week than a fully compliant competitor. The resulting cost differential is significant enough to affect contract bids and rate negotiations. Compliant carriers lose work to non-compliant ones. Some industry observers have characterized ELD fraud not just as a safety problem but as market distortion: it penalizes honesty and rewards falsification, with the cost externalized onto the public in the form of crash risk.

Jeremy Disbrow, CVSA’s Roadside Inspection Specialist, stated that these third-party companies are “completely fabricating the record to show a compliant ELD file without any violations, and in many cases, even falsify[ing] electronic supporting documents to match the ELD file.” Federal ELD technical specifications require that any edits to a record be flagged and identifiable to safety officials. Under 49 C.F.R. § 395.30, a motor carrier must not alter or erase, or permit or require alteration or erasure of the original information collected concerning the driver’s hours of service, the source data streams used to provide that information, or information contained in any ELD. When records are altered without triggering edit indicators, inspectors confronting the data cannot tell it has been changed.

Inspector Findings

In 2025, falsification of records of duty status was the second most-cited driver violation in CVSA inspection data, with 58,382 violations recorded. And five of the top ten driver violations were related to hours-of-service or ELD compliance. In response, CVSA has designated ELD tampering as the driver focus for its 2026 International Roadcheck.

2025 CVSA Inspection Data

  • 58,382 -records-of-duty-status violations
  • 2nd most-cited driver violation was falsification of records of duty status
  • 5 of 10 of the top ten driver violations related to hours-of-service or ELD compliance

Roadside inspectors are finding complete altering of records of duty status (RODS) without any indication that they were edited at all. Per ELD technical specifications, driving time detected by the ELD cannot be reassigned to a non-driving duty status. Any edits that are made to the record must show that they were edited such that the edits are identifiable to safety officials. However, in practice, inspectors are encountering altered RODS with no indications of edits.

Disbrow described the detection challenge as follows:

“The falsifications are often many hours or days off from what actually occurred. For example, a fuel receipt and bill of lading may say the driver was in Fargo, N.D., on Jan. 1 at 11 a.m., but the record of duty status shows the driver picked up in Fargo on Dec. 30 and was in Santa Fe, N.M., on Jan. 1. . . . The inspector can prove the ROD is false but cannot determine when the driver was actually driving or resting because the entire record is inaccurate.”

The issue of record falsification is known to CVSA inspectors. Disbrow stated that inspectors around the country agree that ELD fraud is not isolated incidents.

ELD tampering is happening on an “industrial scale”. Businesses are created to help motor carriers elude HOS regulations. “This type of tampering cannot happen unintentionally. It is not a simple error in a record of duty because a driver accidentally made a mistake,” says Disbrow.

New CVSA Out-of-Service Criteria

To address this issue, CVSA updated its North American Standard Out-of-Service Criteria to address tampered ELD records. The New OOS Criteria distinguishes between traditional “false log” violations and false-log violations resulting from ELD tampering.

Traditional “false log” violations are misuse of personal conveyance or failure to log into the ELD. These types of violations are easier for inspectors to detect. When “a driver is over hours at the time of the inspection…inspectors can usually determine how much rest was actually taken and whether the driver should be placed out of service.”13

More concerning, however, are records of duty status that have been reengineered, reprogrammed, or otherwise tampered with because the ELD does not accurately record or retain the required data. These altered logs may show no indication that any changes were made. For false-log violations that result from ELD tampering, new out-of-service criteria prescribe a specific violation. Drivers will also be placed out-of-service for 10 hours if records have been so thoroughly altered that inspectors cannot determine the last rest period.

  • Traditional False Log
  • Misuse of personal conveyance or failure to log into the ELD.
  • Easier for inspectors to detect.
  • Inspectors can usually determine how much rest was actually taken and whether the driver should be placed out of service.
  • ELD Tampering
  • Records are reengineered, reprogrammed, or otherwise tampered with, which may show no indication that any changes were made.
  • Drivers will be placed out-of-service for 10 hours if records have been so thoroughly altered that inspectors cannot determine the last rest period.

 

Sources

 

Freight Forward: DOT’s Roadmap for Trucking’s Next Era

Scopelitis

The U.S. DOT’s newly released 2026 National Freight Strategic Plan may not be the type of document most trucking professionals read cover to cover, but it provides an important look at where federal freight policy is heading over the next several decades. While previous freight strategies often focused heavily on infrastructure needs and longstanding operational challenges, this plan spends considerable time looking ahead at how technology, security, supply chain resilience, and workforce development will shape the future of freight transportation.

The plan begins from a simple reality: trucking remains the foundation of the American economy. Trucks move nearly two-thirds of domestic freight by weight and more than 70 percent by value, connecting manufacturers, ports, distribution centers, retailers, and consumers. USDOT expects freight volumes to continue growing through at least 2050, driven by population growth, e-commerce, energy production, and domestic manufacturing expansion. In other words, regardless of how freight transportation evolves, trucking will remain the industry’s central mode.

The plan addresses familiar concerns such as congestion, safety, and truck parking, but these issues are largely presented as challenges to be managed to support future growth. Instead, some of the most interesting portions of the plan focus on how freight transportation itself may change over the coming years.

One of the clearest themes throughout the plan is the increasing role of technology-enabled freight operations. USDOT envisions a future freight network that is not only larger but significantly more connected and data-driven. The agency highlights investments in digital infrastructure, real-time traffic information, freight data sharing, logistics technology, and intelligent transportation systems designed to improve the efficiency of freight movement across all modes.

For trucking, that means greater access to tools that can optimize routing, reduce delays, improve asset utilization, and provide better visibility into freight movements. While dispatch systems, telematics platforms, and predictive analytics are already common in many fleets, the federal strategy suggests these technologies will become increasingly integrated into the broader transportation network.

The plan also pays significant attention to Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technologies and connected vehicle systems. These technologies allow trucks to communicate with traffic signals, roadside infrastructure, work zones, and other vehicles using real-time data. In practical terms, future drivers could receive automated warnings about traffic backups, roadway hazards, weather conditions, crashes, or lane closures well before those conditions become visible. For fleets, connected vehicle technologies offer the potential to improve efficiency while further reducing crash risk.

Another notable aspect of the strategy is its balanced discussion of automation. Public discussions often portray autonomous trucks as either an imminent revolution or an existential threat to professional drivers. DOT’s plan takes a more measured approach. It acknowledges that automated trucking technologies are advancing and that testing of highly automated Class 8 trucks has already begun in certain operating environments. At the same time, the plan makes it clear that professional drivers will continue to play a critical role in freight transportation for the foreseeable future.

Instead of focusing solely on driverless operations, the plan emphasizes automation as a tool that can improve productivity, increase safety, and support freight movement in a growing economy. Many of the technologies highlighted—advanced driver assistance systems, automated braking, lane-keeping capabilities, and predictive safety technologies—are already in use in many commercial vehicle fleets today. The freight system envisioned by USDOT is one in which drivers increasingly work alongside sophisticated technology rather than being replaced by it.

The plan also demonstrates a growing federal focus on supply chain resilience. Lessons learned from pandemic disruptions, extreme weather events, and global supply chain bottlenecks have substantially influenced the strategy. USDOT emphasizes the importance of creating freight networks that can adapt to disruptions while continuing to move goods efficiently. For trucking, this means greater attention to freight network redundancy, improved freight planning, stronger intermodal connections, and investments designed to keep essential supply chains functioning during emergencies.

Security emerges as another key priority. The plan specifically highlights the rapid growth of strategic cargo theft, a sophisticated form of freight crime involving fictitious carriers, fraudulent identities, forged credentials, and cyber-enabled schemes that divert loads before they reach their destinations. Unlike traditional cargo theft, these incidents often exploit weaknesses in digital freight matching and transportation management systems. As a result, the plan encourages stronger authentication procedures, enhanced cybersecurity protections, improved information sharing, and greater collaboration between industry and law enforcement.

Finally, the strategy recognizes that even the most advanced freight network still depends on people. The plan acknowledges workforce challenges facing the transportation sector and emphasizes the importance of recruiting, training, and retaining the next generation of transportation professionals. While drivers remain central to this discussion, the workforce conversation extends beyond operators to include technicians, logistics professionals, technology specialists, and other skilled workers needed to support an increasingly sophisticated freight system.

The bottom line is that the 2026 National Freight Strategic Plan is not simply a discussion about highways, congestion, or infrastructure funding. It is a forward-looking vision for how freight transportation may evolve over the coming decades. For trucking, the most important takeaway may be that the future of freight is expected to be more connected, automated, data-driven, and resilient than ever before. The companies and drivers that successfully adapt to those changes will likely be best positioned to thrive as the next generation of freight transportation takes shape.