The president's Thursday Truth Social post names no tariff line, no exemption and no effective date — but the rates now on Mexican goods run from 25% on most non-USMCA imports and Mexican-made autos to 50% on steel and aluminum, on a trade lane that moved $96.34 billion in September, $38.9 billion of it through Laredo.
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FreightWaves' analysis of the Nov. 9 FMCSA census snapshot finds the smallest carrier tier has shed roughly 36,000 tractors since 2023, squeezed by a record $2.336-a-mile cost base and diesel at roughly $1 a mile with no fuel surcharge to recover it. The equipment is consolidating into 20-to-100-truck fleets through lease-ons and used-truck sales, not parking.
NHTSA's early estimates put the first-half fatality rate at 1.02 deaths per 100 million miles, the second-lowest first-half rate ever recorded, on travel up 0.8%. But first-quarter deaths fell 5.0% while second-quarter deaths fell just 0.2%, with May and June rising — and the estimates do not yet separate out crashes involving large trucks.
Sierra warnings up to 24 inches with the Northeast and Rockies joining the snow map, a ransomware gang's lawsuits against Hunt, Ryder and Echo, a stalling decline in highway deaths, and the owner-operator tier's slow consolidation — here's Thursday's briefing.
The Weather Prediction Center's Nov. 11 discussion puts a multi-day winter pattern on the map: lake-effect snow off the Great Lakes starting Wednesday night, upslope snow in the central Appalachians Thursday into Saturday, and a wet, heavy Sierra Nevada storm Friday into Saturday.
Federal prosecutors say VMS Transport LLC owner Armando Martinez Varela recruited B-1 visa drivers to haul domestic freight out of Laredo across the United States, paying $0.25 to $0.50 a mile against $0.70 a mile for authorized drivers and allegedly saving the company about $299,606 in labor costs.
Fleets made more driver pay changes in the third quarter than in any quarter since early 2022, according to National Transportation Institute data — but the raises are concentrated in over-the-road and specialized jobs, not across the board.
DAT's October benchmark puts dry van spot pricing at its highest monthly average since February 2022, with reefer and flatbed close behind — and contract rates for reefer and flatbed set records for a second and third straight month.
FreightWaves reports SONAR's latest review: tender volume climbed nearly 5% week over week to 11,600, a level last seen in late spring, with the tender rejection index at 12.95% and flatbed rejections at 21%. Van spot rates reached $3.49 a mile on Nov. 9, the van contract linehaul index hit a 52-week high of $2.85 a mile, LTL cost per hundredweight rose to $48.98 in October, and diesel eased about $0.06 on the week.
FreightWaves reports Operation Highway Shield expanded into Maryland and Washington, D.C.: FMCSA and Maryland agencies ran 941 inspections, placing 191 vehicles and 92 drivers out of service, while the District's Nov. 6 update reported 125 inspections, 193 violations and 50 out-of-service violations. The same roundup carries local enforcement in Virginia, Oregon and New York, an arrest on suspicion of DUI on I-40 in Arizona after a preliminary breath sample of 0.301, and a British Columbia brake failure that could have caused a catastrophic collision — with DOT's Nov. 4 update putting 33,000 drivers out of service nationally for English proficiency.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported Nov. 10 that on-highway diesel averaged $6.127 a gallon for the week ending Nov. 9, down $0.165 for a second straight weekly decline and the lowest since Oct. 12, with every region lower and California still highest at $7.897. The same day, EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook raised its 2027 diesel forecast to $5.03 a gallon from $4.49 last month.
Weather, immigration, roads and safety.
Driver pay, fuel costs and carrier news.
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A practical utility layer beyond the news
Enter your trip numbers for a fuel-and-tolls estimate. Nothing is saved. Tolls are your own manual estimate — they depend on your route and vehicle.
Estimate only — fuel + tolls. It does not include maintenance, insurance, driver pay, or other operating costs.
All-in: van $2.96 · reefer $3.59 · flatbed $3.55 a mile. Tender rejections at 14.21%.
Arrival rules, detention patterns and driver-reported access details.
Single-use fuel codes at Pilot, Love's, TA and Petro — how they fight pump fraud.
On the roadmap — not live yet, and we won’t pretend otherwise.
