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A windy hop to Fort Wayne set the stage, but the real turbulence hit when USPS clamped down on non-domiciled CDL drivers and watched service clog almost overnight. We walk through the ban, the backlash, and the DOT’s emergency interim rule, then connect the dots to capacity, safety, and why a slow correction might finally nudge rates higher after a grinding freight slump.
We break the jargon into real-world choices: how lowest-bid USPS contracts implode when diesel spikes, why CDL mills and lax English proficiency testing create safety and fairness gaps, and what happens when visa timelines don’t match CDL validity. You’ll hear how states with friendlier rules amplified the problem and why contractors leaned on non-domiciled license holders to make thin margins work. It’s not a blame game aimed at drivers; it’s a look at the systems that pushed many into bad deals and how enforcement could rebalance the market.
Then we zoom out. Three forces are shrinking capacity even without a demand boom: tighter English-proficiency enforcement, the non-domiciled CDL crackdown, and a major pullback in new truck builds as OEMs cut shifts and big fleets delay refresh cycles. That combination retires older equipment faster than it’s replaced and pushes out noncompliant operators, setting the stage for a gradual lift in rates. Expect a slow burn, not fireworks—more like an instrument approach than a sprint to the runway.
Along the way, we keep it human: instrument training with foggles and 200-foot minimums, the surreal sight of wind turbines from 4,000 feet, and the eternal truck-stop coffee debate that every driver holds strong opinions about. If you care about safety, compliance, and getting paid fairly for the miles you run, this conversation gives you both the story and the strategy. Subscribe, share with a driver who needs the update, and drop your take: will tighter rules help or hurt your lanes this quarter?

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