arlier this year, the warning signs were easy to list: energy volatility, changing CDL eligibility rules, renewed English-language enforcement and increased legal scrutiny around carrier selection. As of this summer, those warning signs have become the market. Trucking capacity tightened to levels not seen since the 2021-22 cycle; by June, spot pricing moved above contract pricing for the first time in five years, and spot rates spiked into July. Then the market turned again: as summer demand softened in August, spot rates posted some of their largest weekly declines in years, even as fuel stayed high. That whipsaw is the real story of 2026. Spot linehaul rates in major truckload segments remain roughly 40 percent or more above last year’s levels, but the direction can change in a matter of weeks, and a market this volatile punishes shippers who plan around last month’s number.

Underneath the swings, the problem is not a surge of freight; it is a shortage of trucks. Freight volumes are roughly flat. Carriers that exited during the 2023-25 downturn have not been replaced, fleet growth is limited, enforcement is removing drivers from the pool, and truck postings are down more than 25 percent from a year ago. For manufacturers, that shows up as delayed pickups, carriers backing out of loads and routing-guide failures.

Carriers are operating under record cost pressure. The American Transportation Research Institute’s latest operational cost benchmark puts the average cost of operating a truck at a record $2.336 per mile, with costs excluding fuel also at a record $1.854 per mile; every major cost category rose last year. Fuel has gone from a pressure point to a genuine shock, and unlike rates, it has not come back down: according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, national on-highway diesel has held in the $5.25 to $5.35 per gallon range through early August, up about 40 percent from a year ago and near the record levels of 2022. Falling linehaul rates and $5 diesel are squeezing carrier margins from both ends. Carriers under that pressure get more selective about which freight they run, and the marginal ones exit, which keeps capacity thin even as rates cool.

Regulatory pressure on driver capacity is no longer hypothetical. The federal non-domiciled CDL rule took effect in March, sharply narrowing which foreign-domiciled drivers can obtain or renew a commercial license regulators estimate roughly 194,000 current holders could be affected as licenses come up for renewal, and courts have declined to pause the rule. English-language proficiency enforcement has placed more than 26,000 drivers out of service since strict enforcement resumed in June 2025. The practical effect for shippers: fewer available drivers in an already thin market.

In May, the Supreme Court held that negligent-hiring claims against freight brokers are not preempted by federal law, ending the early dismissal defense brokers had relied on for years. The Court did not create a new nationwide vetting standard, and it noted that brokers who act reasonably and select reputable carriers should still be able to defend themselves. But the ruling makes carrier vetting, documentation and insurance review a front-line business practice. For shippers, the takeaway is simple: the cheapest truck is not always the lowest-risk truck. Carrier selection should weigh active authority, safety history, insurance coverage, driver qualification and whether the carrier is suited for the freight, and shippers should work with transportation partners who take vetting seriously.

In June, the national truckload tender rejection rate climbed above 17 percent, its highest level since March 2022. By mid-August, it had eased back down to around 13.5 percent, still well above anything seen during the 2023-25 downturn. A rejection rate in the low teens means roughly one of every seven contracted tenders is being turned down. Each rejected tender pushes the shipper into a spot market still priced well above last year, creating pickup risk, higher replacement costs and product sitting at the dock longer than originally planned.

For plastics manufacturers, the equipment mix matters more than the national headline. Resin in gaylords may ride in dry vans, but sheet, pipe, profile, oversized tooling and much of the finished product moving to job sites and distributors rides on flatbeds and step decks, and flatbed is the tightest corner of this market. At the summer peak, flatbed tender rejections ran above 20 percent, more than one in five contracted flatbed loads turned down, against about one in seven freight-wide. Flatbed load-to-truck ratios have remained several times higher than dry vans throughout the year, and flatbed contract pricing has moved above spot, a sign carriers are pricing committed flatbed capacity at a premium rather than discounting it.

Once freight moves beyond legal dimensions, the available carrier pool shrinks even further. Width, height, overall length, loading orientation and trailer type can change permitting, routing, travel-hour and escort requirements; a few inches can sometimes change how a shipment must move. For manufacturers, that makes accurate dimensions and early planning especially important. The shortest route is not always the legal route, and the truck that can move a legal flatbed load may not be equipped or experienced enough to move the same product once permits are required.

The spot surge is still being written into contract rates as bids renew, with the largest summer contract increases on record, so pricing locked in late 2026 will reflect this year’s market, and industry forecasters expect the supply-driven upturn to carry into 2027 rather than snap back.

Make your freight easy to say yes to: Rates get a carrier’s attention; service keeps them. Offer to book the pickup or delivery appointments, handle the problems that come up in transit, and answer every carrier call or text within minutes. A carrier choosing between two otherwise similar loads is more likely to choose the one where someone reliably picks up the phone and resolves situations when they arise. Manufacturers should expect that standard from their transportation partners and mirror it at their own docks.

Treat carrier silence as information and ask about it directly: Carriers who had covered the same lanes for us for months once stopped responding to our requests without warning. When they were asked why, the answer was simple: competitors were paying better on similar lanes. After adjusting the pricing with the customer, the carriers came back, telling us they preferred our freight because of the communication and reliability. That is the honest shape of a carrier relationship: trust can be a genuine tiebreaker, but it does not outrun a below-market rate for long. The questions that surface the problem are not complicated: Why is this lane getting rejected? Which areas do you prefer to run? What would it take to consider going this direction?

Price the lane, not the map: One customer struggled to find carriers willing to run a difficult East Coast lane. After calling local carriers and asking what it would actually take to move the freight, the answers were specific: tolls that had not been factored into the rate, long wait times at the shipper, even the delivery time of day, because a daytime delivery priced differently than a nighttime one. Once the rate reflected the real cost of running the lane, reliable capacity followed. What looked like a truck shortage was an information problem.

Protect the relationship when plans change: The fastest ways to burn carrier trust are long waits with no compensation, location changes, omitted information or cancellations at the last minute. Changes are survivable, but only when the price is reworked so the load still makes sense for the trucking company that planned its day around the original plan. Detention pay and fair compensation when plans change should not be viewed only as added costs; they are part of maintaining a carrier relationship that will still be there when capacity gets tight.

The companies that manage freight best in this environment will not be the ones that chase the lowest rate. They will be the ones that plan earlier, communicate better, ask carriers the questions others do not and hold on to the reliable capacity they have already built.

Brandon Boyd is Co-founder and Senior Logistics Broker at Rush Logistics LLC, where he specializes in open deck and over-dimension freight, job site deliveries and other difficult-to-cover niche markets. His work centers on developing strong customer and carrier relationships, helping manufacturers create more reliable capacity and improving communication between shippers, receivers, and transportation providers.