Pull over. The lanes are talking.
The Full Truckload desk tracks dry van and reefer pricing, tender behavior, and contract season across the lower 48. We file at 04:30 ET with the morning DAT pull.
DAT national van prints $2.31/mi this morning — the first time above $2.30 since November 2022. Seven lanes are doing the heavy lifting. The structural setup that produced this break is unlikely to reverse in 2026, and the contract-spot spread now favors carriers in a way procurement teams haven't seen since the post-COVID surge.
Outbound McAllen reefer just printed $3.22/mi on a 7-day weighted DAT average — the highest May number since 2018. The pull is so strong that California and Florida reefer carriers are repositioning into South Texas at a pace that's starting to drain the West Coast supply ahead of the Salinas peak. Three lanes to watch.
National load-to-truck ratio holds at 6.7 — but the regional spread is the widest we've measured since June 2022. Texas at 9.4, Pacific NW at 7.8, Southeast at 7.2 — versus Midwest at 3.1 and Mid-Atlantic at 3.8. The carriers that figure out the cross-regional repositioning math first are about to take outsized share.
Sandhills' May print shows 2020-2022 sleeper tractors clearing 21% below year-ago. The two largest used-truck dealers tell us asset-based fleets are the buyers and small fleets are the sellers — capacity isn't really exiting, it's being transferred up the food chain at fire-sale prices. The implication for the 2027 emissions mandate is the part nobody's pricing yet.
Single-truck and 2-5 truck authorities revoked at the FMCSA jumped 38% MoM in the April print released this morning. The bottom of the carrier pyramid is exiting faster than at any point since the 2024 freight recession trough — and the capacity story for Q3 is being written quietly, fleet by fleet, in insurance renewals.
The 5-4 en banc ruling out of New Orleans Wednesday joins the Ninth Circuit in holding that FAAAA preemption does not shield freight brokers from state-law negligent selection claims. Markel and Falcon have already signaled mid-cycle premium hikes. TIA's emergency legislative push is back on. Here's what every freight buyer should do before Monday.
Mega-carriers are tendering Q3 bids at 6-9% increases on incumbent contracts. Werner, Schneider and Knight-Swift have all signaled the same number on shipper calls. Three years of shipper-side rate compression are ending — and the procurement playbook that won 2024 is the wrong one for 2026.
Outbound capacity from McAllen, Lakeland and Salinas is rejecting tenders at rates not seen since the post-COVID surge. Brokers say contract carriers are quietly pulling trucks to chase the spot premium — and shippers are about to feel it.