Ben Van Zee

Accidental FMCSA Office of Registration Apologist. I own a few trucking compliance businesses. Building stuff I think is cool. Come join us.

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

I still can't believe what I have been able to build using Replit Agent.

6 months ago this would have been impossible.

First off, a little background: At the end of 2024, I acquired Don Norman Associates (DNA). At DNA we have the largest collection of motor carrier authority letters in the world. Some stretch as far back as the 1930s.

The system that currently hosts those files was written in ColdFusion back in the early 2000s. The retrieval is fast, but cumbersome. We are working on a new system that allows for self-service retrieval and has broader metadata from each mc letter.

Well, while we're building a more "production-ready" system, I decided to vibe code a new web app with a subset of the documents we have. I started off small and just kept iterating and iterating.

Now I have a fully functioning web store that has indexed and archived 1.1MM motor carrier letters issued by FMCSA. Basically every MC letter issued from 2011-now.

Documents are indexed with company name, city, state, DOT Number, MC Number, type of authority granted, etc, and instantly searchable.

So far beyond a prototype. It's making money and making our service delivery quicker and fully featured. Abandoned carts, discount codes, search analytics, cron jobs, etc.

Now we just need to work on driving more traffic to the site.

I cannot wait to see what gifts Replit delivers in the next year!

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

@GabrielJClark delete your account

[Noah Reinisch @Reinfish]

Day so good you plan your headlines for the L10 ahead of time

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

@msaskin

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

Also, late last week I got sick of wondering if/when MOTUS was last updated, so I built a small service to log when it was last updated.

over the weekend the server was bumped 3 minor versions! and 4 database migrations! WAHOO!

https://t.co/17sodVcFZ5

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

out all day tomorrow but will have a MOTUS update on Wednesday

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

@maybedanielleee

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

ok, some stats are now in from MOTUS data.

I took a quick peek at them - carrier apps still seem to be rolling in with a steady pace ~4k in the last 4 weeks.

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

@maybedanielleee you don't like our branding? lol

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

@chaseshake totally an accident

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

these new MC numbers are just absolutely wild.

8 digits. seemingly semi-random.

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

@StephenRuhe they started recycling in the mid teens. I can't remember if it was like 2016-17 or maybe 2018-2019.

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

also, forgive me if some of these stats aren't accurate, i was rushing to get this out.

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

@StephenRuhe i'm sure there's some rhyme/reason to it, but no, they are non-sequential. same with DOT numbers.

RIP all vetting software algos lol

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

@DefiantTrans @freightcaviar also, just found one that went active post-motus.

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

yo, @freightcaviar this isn't accurate. carriers definitely have been able to apply

[Craig Fuller 🛩🚛🚂⚓️ @FreightAlley]

This is one way to cut off new trucking entrants.

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

i think it's misleading (not saying intentionally so). MOTUS is absolutely broken, but it's not like people aren't going through at all.

We are just about to the 21 day mark, which will be interesting to see if any of those new authority applications get granted.

Unfortunately, with broken datasets, that's making things a bit more challenging.

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

@DefiantTrans we are now seeing authorities listed

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

quick update: sounds like FMCSA is "close" to a patch to solve some issues including the carrier's identity - maybe later today or soon.

Not sure if MOTUS will go offline while this patch applied.

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

no MOTUS update video today, because, well…there's not much to update on

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

@supertrucker @freightcaviar i don't think anything's past the 21 day window yet, but DOT numbers definitely are. ~hundreds/day are being issued from a quick eyeball

[Ben Van Zee @benvanzee]

@garrett_makes @TimothyDooner