Trucking news and briefs for Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026:
- Congress again attempting "one of the costliest federal trucking mandates in history.”
- "Virtual" carrier's inspection data, including several OOS violations for operating without a CDL, tanked its chances of receiving driver-application requirements exemption.
- Pay-to-park company's expansion hits 4,000 locations.
Back in play: Legislation to require side underride guards on trailers
Lawmakers in both chambers of Congress this week reintroduced legislation that would require side underride guards to be installed on new trailers, semi-trailers and single-unit trucks.
The Stop Underrides Act 2.0 was introduced in the U.S. Senate by Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) and Ben Ray Luján (D-New Mexico), and in the U.S. House by Steve Cohen (D-Tennessee), Mark DeSaulnier (D-California), and Deborah Ross (D-North Carolina).
The intent of the legislation, according to bill sponsors, is to help prevent passenger vehicles from sliding underneath a trailer in an accident and improving safety.
“Truck underride guards are one of the best and easiest solutions for protecting passengers during collisions with large trucks,” said Sen. Gillibrand. “The Stop Underrides Act 2.0 is commonsense legislation that will protect passengers and make our roads safer. I look forward to working across the aisle to get this passed.”
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has floated the idea of a possible side underride mandate, with an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in 2023, but no further action has been taken by the agency since. The “Spring 2025” Regulatory Agenda published in September noted that NHTSA had set a January 2026 timeline for “analyzing comments” on the ANPRM.
[Related: Side underride guard mandate: Rail disaster waiting to happen?]
Commenting on that ANPRM, many in trucking raised concerns over the costs and added weight of the devices. NHTSA estimated potential additional costs of a mandate at $3,740 or more per trailer in equipment and install alone, plus between 450 and 800 additional pounds. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association at the time said such a mandate could be “one of the costliest federal trucking mandates in history.”
In addition to mandating side underride guards, the Stop Underrides Act 2.0 would also:
- Restart the Department of Transportation’s Advisory Committee on Underride Protection to provide recommendations for how to reduce underride crashes and severe injuries and fatalities caused by underrides
- Require DOT to publish a website making underrides research accessible to researchers, industry, and advocates
- Instruct the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct a study on the prevalence of underride incidents, including those involving the fronts of large trucks
- Instruct the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study of the implementation of NHTSA’s 2022 rear underride rule and provide suggestions to better improve the rule
- Instruct NHTSA to review its Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and correct crashes in the database that should have been classified as an underride but were not
- Instruct NHTSA to create free, on-demand web-based training for state and local law enforcement to better identify and document underride crashes
[Related: Side underride guards the most expensive mandate in trucking history?]
‘Virtual’ carrier’s request for exemption from driver application requirements rejected
The CloudTrucks “virtual carrier” has been denied an exemption request that would have waived the requirement for the company to collect certain information from prospective drivers.
Last summer, the company petitioned the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for an exemption from the requirement to collect the following information from prospective drivers: list of employers’ names, addresses, dates of employment, reason for leaving, nature of the position the driver held, and if the driver was subject to the alcohol and controlled substances testing requirements.
Instead of collecting that information, CloudTrucks proposed using its own verification process that consists of cross-referencing national databases to include HireRight’s Drive-A-Check (DAC) report, FMCSA’s Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse (DACH), Pre-employment Screening Program (PSP), and Commercial Driver’s License Information System (CDLIS).
FMCSA denied the company’s request in a Federal Register notice publishing Friday, Feb. 6, noting that “CloudTrucks’s on-road safety data, including driver fitness violations, indicate ongoing safety management concerns.” In fact, the company met FMCSA’s definition of being a “High Risk” carrier as recently as March 2025.
“CloudTrucks was cited for 27 driver fitness violations in the past two years during inspections, 20 of which were out-of-service violations,” FMCSA said. The company's current Safety Measurement System profile includes several violations of the requirement to have a CDL and driving with a suspended CDL. “Given CloudTrucks’s safety performance record and recent designation as ‘high risk,’” FMCSA said the requested exemption would not result in an equal or greater level of safety than operating without the exemption.
[Related: CloudTrucks' minimum-revenue guarantee program for leased owners]
Truck Parking Club surpasses 4K locations, sets sights on 10K in pay-to-reserve network
The pay-to-park/reserve-a-space Truck Parking Club network has hit yet another milestone with the addition of its 4,000th Property Member location across 49 states, adding 1,000 locations in just the last three months, the company said.
The platform now offers more than 66,000 reservable truck parking spaces and has set a target of 10,000 locations by the end of 2026.
The milestone reflects accelerating adoption across the trucking industry, the company said, noting that 92 of the top 100 carriers in the United States now use Truck Parking Club.
The company in recent years has contracted to manage space reservation and payments processing for existing spaces at truck stops via its platform, taking criticism from some in the trucking community. Company reps did not respond to inquiries about how many of the now-4,000-location network sites were truck stop locations.
When Overdrive reported on TPC's expansion efforts in June of 2024, just more than 5% of then 400 network locations could be characterized as truck stops.
The company has since its start sought to address an industry-wide shortage of 1.7 million parking spaces, it said, a deficit that costs the trucking industry over $100 billion annually and forces drivers to spend nearly an hour each day searching for parking.
Rather than waiting on new construction at $100,000–$200,000 per space, Truck Parking Club activates existing private spaces immediately through its technology platform for paid reservations.
"Reaching 4,000 locations in under three years proves the model works. Now we're scaling it," said Evan Shelley, co-founder & CEO of Truck Parking Club. "10,000 locations by the end of this year isn't aspirational, it's the plan. Every day we're onboarding new properties, signing enterprise fleet deals, and putting drivers in suitable, reservable spaces instead of highway ramps. The infrastructure already exists across this country. We're unlocking it."
Fleets and drivers can find and reserve parking through Truck Parking Club’s website.
[Related: A brick-and-mortar paid trucking parking network, expanding quickly]
