Rob Carpenter

Fleet fixer. Fact finder. Investigator. Broker/Fleet Expert Witness. Writer covering trucking and transportation. Long-form loyalist. Conservative "Outdoor Cat"

[Rob Carpenter @RobCarpenter]

Got the numbers for the Super Ego segment tonight. 10M+ and 2M on YouTube. There's more coming same topic, different shows, and multiple networks. If the industry makes enough noise as a whole, things begin to change. I've written articles on @FreightWaves that saw trash companies lose $2B in market cap in 20 minutes. You can literally just do things. Be loud enough about it to where the world, not just the industry demands change especially while we have an administration run by @SecDuffy and @BarrsDerek willing to drive real change.

[60 Minutes @60Minutes]

Chameleon carriers are racking up safety violations, then evading enforcement by slapping a new name and federal ID on the truck. https://t.co/9tnUbsXCzg

[Rob Carpenter @RobCarpenter]

@DGunjak 100%, but they're auto haulers, and it's brokered freight. We cover it in other articles. We have the data because several fatality cases are in litigation against those in the network. One of which is a foreign illegal immigrant from Russia with a Russian CDL.

[Rob Carpenter @RobCarpenter]

On Nov. 10, FMCSA ordered YMC Transport LLC out of service. The trucks it ran started moving to a new USDOT number on Aug. 7 and are running under MLTZX Group today. And the next company in line went live on Nov. 1, right on the schedule we said it would. https://t.co/z0z5z7UdLT

[Rob Carpenter @RobCarpenter]

1 bad actor down... a network, and probably close to 10k VINs to go. Our predictive models show the most likely successors:
ZPVR Auto (6014649, Vandalia, IL) was on the bench with no inspections as of Oct. 31. It went live Nov. 1: 17 inspections, 15 VINs and 13 states in six days, through Nov. 6. Ten of those VINs come from the same pool, and seven came straight off SVDX.
SVDX’s USDOT number is now inactive, so ZPVR is picking up SVDX’s trucks the same way MLTZX picked up GVNL’s.
BXRT has no inspections yet. Its officer is the same person listed on Central Transit Services, the first link in the chain, so it’s the most likely next carrier for the trucks.
BXRT Group (5231662, Marion, IL) now has insurance. Artisan and Truckers filed a $1 million policy, CA882125084, effective Nov. 4.

What are you doing Artisan?! I'd love to see the agent who filed the blanket policy on this one with FMCSA.

That’s the same insurer and the same monthly pattern:
SVDX: CA878483137, Aug. 20
MLTZX: CA880216102, Sept. 21
ZPVR: CA881471156, Oct. 19
BXRT: CA882125084, Nov. 4

Three new registrations from the last nine days
All three match the pattern exactly: four-letter “Transport” or “Auto” LLC names, single apartments in small downstate Illinois towns, Proton email, one truck, no inspections, and no insurance yet.

[Rob Report News @RobReportNews]

On a solid note in the trucking world... according to our live data and FMCSA updates, @FMCSA is making progress on accountability. ULADZISLAU YAKUBOUSKI of YMC is no longer operational. @RobCarpenter already had him as rejected on https://t.co/GG8cQre9Pt. No need to worry; they're part of the Suplicium, Galla, Sakara, GVNL, and MLTZX hot shot fleets, so they're probably already back in business elsewhere.
For more on this group, this breaks down their network. https://t.co/2x1yqVL58F

[Rob Carpenter @RobCarpenter]

Push a button. Steal a truck. If this was a manual transmission it wouldn't have happened.

Stolen 18-wheeler, 50 mile chase, then a crash. Twenty years ago that thief has to find the gears on a 10 speed first. Today he pushes D.

2005: about 10% of new Class 8 trucks self-shifted. 2015: 55%. Today: 90% plus. Over the same years, deaths in large truck crashes went from 3,380 in 2009, the lowest on record, to 5,340 in 2024. Correlation isn't causation. But nobody even tracks which stolen trucks were automatics.

[Rob Carpenter @RobCarpenter]

It's been a year to the day since Bambi's Dad here ran into this driver and took the passenger seat.
It's November in Virginia, and this is the month it happens most. Virginia logged 7,486 deer crashes in 2024, half of them in the last quarter. Jake over at @StateFarm paid $1.9 billion on animal collision claims last year.
Don't swerve. Brake, hold your lane, take the hit.

[Rob Carpenter @RobCarpenter]

@GordMagill Cattleman's is good wherever you go Ft Worth or otherwise

[GHOSTOPSUZ @GHOSTOPSUZ]

It’s worse than this. @NODAWOLF @OqBori513 @Outrageous_ease @JohnDut74399381

[Rob Carpenter @RobCarpenter]

53 people were loaded into a trailer at an East El Paso truck yard on Oct. 28. The man's carrier, which still holds active FMCSA authority, hauled freight for a defense prime contractor and had a truck moving loads in Kansas the day after his arrest. https://t.co/7IpS1VEptj

[Rob Carpenter @RobCarpenter]

@TimothyDooner @ring The videos that will no doubt come from this thing catching people in day-to-day acts inside their homes are going to make for really good, or really bad, content.

[Rob Carpenter @RobCarpenter]

Did everyone get the @ring pre-notice of the in-house Ring drone that floats room to room? I have Rings and security all over my house, but I don't know about this one.

[Rob Carpenter @RobCarpenter]

Who could imagine... a state or city that aids and abets select fugitives and criminals being overturned by a court? The fact that we argue about this is insane to me.
But make it a church having services during COVID or Daniel Penny protecting people from being victims, and they're on it.

[Adam B. Coleman, Proud Father & Imperfect Man @wrong_speak]

They said it wasn’t happening in schools. They called parents “book banners.”

But labels don’t answer the question: What’s actually in the books?

This is a trailer for my documentary, "America's Moms" exclusively on https://t.co/d5x7hcdKW4

[Rob Carpenter @RobCarpenter]

One thing a lot of people push for is cross departmental cooperation and collaboration that's going to change things. That's a great idea. What's even better is if you have true top-down from executive support to departmental buy-in and support to agency enforcement and right now we have maybe 50% of that regardless what's being said and messaged we might be getting it done at the front line and at the agency level but top down it's not there and I'm going to show you why I think that this week and I voted for this administration and have always voted Republican. So it's definitely data driven not my personal preference

[Rob Carpenter @RobCarpenter]

I've got an article or two coming out on this week and there's definitely more of a reason why the fix isn't happening. You got the agency and half a department pushing for it but there's a little bit above that that's causing an issue whether they know it or not.
On one side of their messaging is pushing "we want deportations and safer highways and immigrants are dangerous" on the highways.
On the other side they're receiving money from and partnering with foreigners who own immigrant driver import businesses and the worst carriers in the industry and that are placing immigrant truck drivers with the worst trucking companies in our country.
We have serious conflicts in our approach because we have serious conflicts in executive leadership and who they're receiving money from and partnering with.

[Rob Carpenter @RobCarpenter]

14,500 bridge hits a year. Plan the FN trip! The excavator cleared the trailer. It didn't clear the bridge. Now the overpass needs a rebuild, the machine is in the road, and there's a car in the back of it. 4 claims. Paperwork. Higher premiums and probably a new job. This why we built https://t.co/kWwI6xaf0b with over height, ground clearance, over height, hazmat, enforcement, crashes and more built into the route.

[Rob Carpenter @RobCarpenter]

Our political leadership top-down is generally unfamiliar with day-to-day issues the frontline of society deal with beyond what someone tells them and advises them on. Who our leaders listen to for insight sometimes amazes me. More than that, it turns to us as a society and both the advisor and the politician move on with their lives. Virginia tops the list right now.

[Rob Carpenter @RobCarpenter]

@4MillDriver1996 That's why we did the video. The number of companies doing CDL in place of the road test is insane to me. I'd never hire someone I hadn't riden with

[Rob Carpenter @RobCarpenter]

What's wrong with Indiana's CDL program? This is a start, and it's similar to many State CDL programs.
If they have a CDL, do you have to road test them to hire them? No. As an employer, you can use a CDL in lieu of a road test.
Should you do a road test and go beyond compliance? Absolutely. Don't trust the EDLT program, the examiner, or the state that licensed them. Trust what you can see: a proficient driver who fits your fleet.

[Rob Carpenter @RobCarpenter]

Six vehicles a day get hit by trains in the US, what are the odds two trucks get hit within a 1/4 mile by the same train on the same day?

[ErikDPrince @realErikDPrince]

LFG!