Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Administrator Derek Barrs gave emphatic speeches, promised wide-ranging new crackdowns, and issued stark warnings to fraudsters while walking among truck drivers and attendees of all sorts at the Mid-America Trucking Show on Friday.
Highlights from the speeches include:
- Barrs inviting drivers to participate in two HOS pilot programs.
- Duffy announcing a new rule to prevent non-English speakers from ever getting a CDL
- Duffy announcing a crackdown on "ghost offices," or Principal Place of Business fraud
- Duffy predicting spot rates would rise as a result of the multi-pronged fraud crackdown
- Duffy also detailing President Donald Trump's commitment to "make trucking great again."
Barrs spoke at a scheduled appearance, but Duffy's appearance came as a surprise to the thousands of attendees at the show.
Barrs opened the Friday morning activities by telling drivers to stand up and be recognized. "Give yourselves a round of applause" he told the packed audience.
After relating personal stories of tragedies he's seen on the road and recognizing about a dozen drivers in attendance who said they'd been a party to fatal or near-fatal wrecks, Barrs announced the coming of "a new FMCSA."
"I want you to hear this clearly from me and our team," said Barrs. "I hear you and I listen to you. I may not always agree on every single item," but he's laboring to make the "best possible changes for the trucking industry."
Barrs mostly recapped the laundry list of changes FMCSA has made of late: The non-domiciled CDL crackdown, ELP enforcement, CDL school audits and decertifications and ELD vetting changes.
But he also shared a note about his process: "I told our rulemaking team" to make new rules "trooper proof. It has to be that simple," he said to laughter.
"Us troopers aren't the smartest knives in the drawers and that’s all right," he joked, harkening back to his two decades with Florida Highway Patrol. "We have to make it simple. There's so much guidance out here, but what good is it? We need to make it clear and understandable so you can follow it."
If the rules and regs are "so difficult for you to be able to comply with and then so difficult to enforce, then nothing comes into compliance."
Barrs called FMCSA's 2025 "Pro Trucker Package" as not "just a policy initiative," but a "direct response to drivers."
[Related: FMCSA drops major hint on fate of broker transparency rulemaking]
As such, Barrs said he's heard from drivers that they needed more flexiblity for HOS.
"Systems need to reflect how the job actually works," he said, encouraging the audience to contact FMCSA to get involved in two HOS pilot programs, one that expands sleeper berth options and another that allows drivers to pause the 14-hour clock.
Barrs described his team as "relentless" in hunting down fraud and said "we are not putting our head in the sand and saying" that carriers "circumventing the system just slapping on a DOT number" doesn't happen.
FMCSA investigators have found some addresses with 400 to 500 registered carriers, said Barrs. "How does that happen?"
"I’m coming for them," he said.
Barrs then addressed the "driver shortage" narrative without naming it, saying he knew these actions would take CDL drivers off the road, but that he was sure the "cream would rise to the top" and American drivers could fill the seats.
Right about the time Barrs' speech concluded, DOT Secretary Sean Duffy appeared at MATS. Duffy walked among the crowd and spoke candidly with drivers, attendees, and Overdrive.
Finally making his way to the stage for an impromptu address, Duffy explained just how much trucking had broken through into the consciousness of the American public.
"President Trump wants to make trucking great again, 100%," said Duffy, noting that Trump mentioned trucking and even invited Dalilah Coleman, a young girl injured in a crash with a non-domiciled CDL driver, and the namesake of the major Dalilah's Law bill making its way through Congress, to the biggest annual address from the highest office in the land.
"So many Americans who didn’t pay attention have now seen all these videos of people being killed or injured on American roads, oftentimes coming from folks who were not well trained," said Duffy. "What we're doing is to roll us back from the Wild Wild West," via both Dalilah's law and DOT rulemakings.
Duffy touted the non-domiciled CDL crackdown, the state-by-state follow-ups naming and shaming California, New York and Illinois, and the actions against the rise of "CDL mills."
"The last administration decided it was a good idea to let CDL driving schools self-certify that they’re qualified to instruct a new driver in skills and road knowledge," he said.
[Related: FMCSA Administrator Barrs to make radical changes to driver training, ELDs, med cards]
"Total bull$#!#," Duffy added. "We are rolling back these schools, taking away their certifications," in a way that will affect the entire industry, he said. "CDL mills are a thing of the past."
Duffy echoed Barrs in saying they would "decertify ELD scammers." Roadside enforcement will play a big role in his plans, he explained. "We're launching the Operation Safe Drive initiative to enforce ELP and do a alway with our chameleon carriers."
Furthermore, Duffy announced that states could no longer offer CDL tests in multiple languages. Barrs said he'd taken down bilingual signage at the FMCSA exhibit at MATS.
Near the end, he spoke to the difficulties of the hardworking American trucker.
Duffy and Barrs walking the show floor at MATS.
"When I have small businesses, been in families for generations and going out of business, that's because there's too much fraud and abuse in trucking," said Duffy. "We're going to systematically roll back the fraud, prosecute the fraud, and I think what you’re going to see is your spot rates are going to go up.
"You have been forgotten too long. With President Trump, with me as your Secretary and Barrs as your FMCSA Administrator, we're focusing on this like a laser."
With that, Duffy urged drivers to communicate with DOT on how to improve rulemakings, and lauded the vocal trucking community for letting their thoughts be known. The alternative, which he described as "bi#^$ing at the windshield," does no good, he said.
With that, Duffy left the stage and walked the floor alongside Barrs, taking a series of impromptu questions from attendees as they walked.
