Start with two numbers from the same September report. The Cass Freight Index shows shipments up 1.9% year over year. Over the same period, freight expenditures rose 20.4%. On a two-year stacked basis, shipments are still down 3.6%.
Source: Cass Information Systems, Cass Freight Index, September 2026
The freight didn't come back. The price of moving it went up. Strip out fuel and the spot gap is wider still: DAT's van linehaul rate is up 35% from a year ago, reefer is up 33% and flatbed is up 29%. A 35% price jump on 2% more volume is not a demand cycle. It's a supply shock, and the supply that's short is people, not trucks.
Source: DAT One spot market data, via The Trucker
The trucks are not the bottleneck
Look at what equipment buyers are doing. FTR says North American Class 8 net orders reached 263,499 units through September, up 95% from the same period last year. Part of that is a soft comparison, since FTR itself describes last year's order period as one where tariff and EPA 2027 uncertainty held demand down. Even with that caveat, fleets are buying iron. RigDig counted over 229,000 units of verified equipment added to U.S. fleets in the third quarter, according to CCJ.
Now look at the used market, which reacts fastest to a real truck shortage. ACT Research says same-dealer retail sales of used Class 8 trucks fell 7% month over month in September, the second straight monthly drop, and the average retail price slipped 1.5% to $61,000. ACT's Steve Tam named "ongoing challenges in the driver pool" as one of the forces holding that market back. If trucks were the constraint, used tractors would not be getting cheaper while spot rates sit a third above last year.
ACT's president, Ken Vieth, calls supply-side constraints "the defining feature of this cycle." The supply side that matters most is the seat.
Where the seats went
On the DAT One load board, truck posts are more than 20% below a year ago while load posts are higher in all three equipment types. The van load-to-truck ratio is 10.5, against 6.3 a year earlier. FTR puts active truck utilization at about 99%. For-hire trucking employment is roughly 1.47 million, up 8,000 over three months but still below the 2022 peak of about 1.59 million.
The pressure is mostly regulatory, and it is cumulative:
- English proficiency. FTR's Avery Vise says out-of-service enforcement has "sidelined roughly 30,000 drivers over the last year," with a run rate of probably another 28,000. FMCSA has now proposed writing the out-of-service consequence into the FMCSRs, so it would stand on regulation and not only on CVSA criteria.
- Non-domiciled CDLs. Since the final rule took effect March 16, new or renewed non-domiciled credentials are limited to H-2A, H-2B and E-2 visa holders, valid for one year at most. When the interim rule came out, FMCSA estimated that about 194,000 of roughly 200,000 holders would exit within about two years as their licenses came up for renewal. States are speeding that up: Texas alone revoked 6,407 after federal auditors found a 49% failure rate in a sample.
- The second-order effects. Vise also points to a "chilling effect", with some immigrant drivers leaving or avoiding certain lanes, plus ELD scrutiny and friction from the Motus registration rollout.
None of this shows up on an OEM order board. Every item on that list removes a driver, not a truck.
Why the rate floor may hold
Driver-driven tightness doesn't unwind the way a demand spike does. FTR expects spot rates to "flatten, not fall," with 2027 linehaul growth of just 3.2% for dry van, 1.3% for reefer and 2.3% for flatbed after gains of roughly 35% to 38% this year. Vise called that pattern "unusual." Normally a spike draws capacity back in. That's hard to do when re-entry runs through a licensing office, a visa category or a roadside English test.
One legal wild card remains. The D.C. Circuit heard Lujan v. FMCSA in September, and FreightWaves reported that the panel appeared more skeptical of the government's side. A ruling against the rule would loosen part of the squeeze. It would do nothing about English-proficiency enforcement.
Brokers are now pricing your driver file
Then there's the liability side. In May, a unanimous Supreme Court held in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II that federal law does not shield brokers from state negligent-selection claims. Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence put it plainly: brokers should be able to defend themselves "if the brokers have acted reasonably and arranged transportation with reputable trucking companies."
So brokers now have a legal reason to check who is behind the wheel, and Vise reports "much more scrutiny on the selection of carriers." Add liability insurance that ATRI puts at a record 10.2 cents a mile, up 18.6% from 2021 to 2024 while truck-involved crash rates fell. The asset that wins freight in this market is a clean, verifiable, English-proficient driver roster. The truck matters less.
What this means for your next equipment dollar
For fleet owners: count qualified seats before you count tractors. A new truck with no driver to put in it is a depreciating asset and an insurance line item. Some carriers have already moved: 26% of carriers raised driver pay in 2026, with Melton adding 5 to 8 cents a mile and Crete 1 to 3 cents. Retention may now pay back faster than another tractor.
For owner-operators: your authority, your inspection history and your ability to pass a roadside ELP check are the product you're selling. A broker who can now be sued over the choice is paying for that record as much as for the truck.
For upfitters and dealers: the CDL line is a spec decision. Under federal standards a Class B CDL starts at 26,001 pounds GVWR, and a straight truck rated below that can be driven by someone who doesn't hold a CDL. That widens the hiring pool for local and regional work. It does not get around the English rule: FMCSA treats proficiency as a qualification for CMV drivers, not as a CDL credential. When a customer asks for a 26,000-pound box truck, make sure the body, payload and axle math actually work at that rating, not just the paperwork.
The rate spike is real. The truck shortage isn't. Buy for the driver you can actually hire.
