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Flatbed rejections hit a record 48.7%, broker numbers stop falling, and diesel jumps 30 cents overnight.
Happy Thursday. Here’s what freight X, LinkedIn, Reddit, and YouTube were talking about this week.
Trending Market Rate Lanes Presented by Triumph
Trending on X: Flatbed Rejection Rates Go Hyperbolic
Craig Fuller posted that flatbed rejection rates just hit 48.74%, an all-time high. That means nearly half of contracted flatbed loads are getting rejected and pushed into the spot market.
In the replies, brokers and drivers started debating why:
If this holds, it’s one of the clearest signs yet that industrial freight (steel, construction, machinery) may be tightening faster than the rest of the truckload market.
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Trending on LinkedIn: Broker Count Stabilizing
Freight analyst Kevin Hill shared the latest brokerage authority numbers, showing the total number of active freight brokerages in the U.S. is 24,863, with a small net increase of 14 in February.
Spot rates may be heating up and margins getting squeezed, but the broker population has largely stabilized.
The brokerage shakeout that started after the freight boom appears to have already cleared out most of the weaker players. Broker count hasn’t grown, but it also isn’t collapsing anymore.
Trending on Reddit: Customers Still Don’t Get Fuel
Two separate threads on r/FreightBrokers this week captured how the diesel spike is rippling through the freight industry.
In one post, a broker warned a customer that rates were rising due to higher diesel prices. The customer’s response: could he send “collateral” explaining the increase?
A second Reddit thread asked brokers how customers are reacting to fuel prices more broadly.
One driver wrote:
“Drivers in PA just had to pay $5 a gallon for diesel.”
Another owner-operator said,
“My fuel cost is up by 30% over the last two weeks.”
If the conflict in the Middle East keeps pushing oil higher, expect more of these conversations.
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Trending on YouTube: Diesel Ate the Gains
A new market update from Trucking Made Successful shows how weird this week has been for carriers. Flatbed volumes are up, brokers are getting more aggressive on English proficiency checks, and some lanes are finally paying better again.
But diesel is killing the momentum. In the video, the host says prices jumped by roughly 30 cents overnight in some areas and are now up more than 50 cents month over month on a national basis.
Her takeaway: the market finally started feeling better, then fuel costs showed up and ate the upside.
Meme of the Week
Plus, a carrier pleading guilty to mob money laundering while still FMCSA-active, Iran's first post-ceasefire attack and what it means for diesel surcharges, FedEx Freight's first earnings as a standalone company, and more in today's newsletter.
Bad carriers are gaming the weigh station system. Plus, C.H. Robinson's own engineer goes scorched earth on Reddit, the Ghost Truck Act gets roasted, and more in today's newsletter.
Plus, overseas ELD tampering, 100 pallets of stolen womenswear, 20,000 Mexican truckers losing US visas, and more in today's newsletter.
While everyone in trucking is watching rates, capacity, and fraud, a much bigger shift may be happening quietly in the background: the future of rail.
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