Left Lane Associates

Left Lane Associates North America's premier supply chain M&A experts that companies trust to drive their growth and exit plans.

The Cass Freight Index delivered two significant data points in its August report. Truckload linehaul rates jumped by 11...
09/16/2026

The Cass Freight Index delivered two significant data points in its August report. Truckload linehaul rates jumped by 11.3% year-over-year, marking its largest increase since June 2022 and the twentieth consecutive monthly gain. More notably, freight shipment volumes turned positive for the first time in 42 months, up 2.1% year-over-year and 5.6% sequentially.

Total freight expenditures surged by 18.7% year-over-year, driven both by rate increases and diesel prices running 46% above levels from a year ago. At this time, demand remains tepid, but a likely restocking cycle, rising ocean freight volumes, and tariff refund activity in the U.S. are expected to support continued modest freight growth heading into the fourth quarter.

For more info, read this FreightWaves article: https://www.freightwaves.com/news/cass-tl-rates-jump-11-in-august-freight-shipments-turn-positive

Electronic logging devices were supposed to provide the answer to the vulnerabilities of paper logbooks. While they have...
09/15/2026

Electronic logging devices were supposed to provide the answer to the vulnerabilities of paper logbooks. While they have made driver hours-of-service violations harder to hide, it has also led bad actors to devise increasingly sophisticated methods to cheat.

Some noncompliant motor carriers are now skirting safety regulations by working with dubious technology vendors to illegally falsify records, and false records-of-duty status were the second-most cited driver violation in 2025, with more than 58,000 instances recorded in the United States. The impact on compliant carriers is direct when they lose freight to their noncompliant competitors.

Check out the article in Transport Topics to learn more: https://www.ttnews.com/articles/ghost-drivers-eld

The newly launched Transportation and Supply Chain Workforce Alliance – led by Trucking HR Canada and CIFFA, with backin...
09/14/2026

The newly launched Transportation and Supply Chain Workforce Alliance – led by Trucking HR Canada and CIFFA, with backing from the Canadian Minister of Jobs Patty Hajdu – is a meaningful step toward treating Canada's freight workforce challenges as a system problem rather than a mode-by-mode one. Road, rail, marine, air cargo, and logistics are deeply interconnected, yet workforce planning has largely happened in silos. Labour shortages, demographic change, technology adoption, and shifting skills requirements don't respect those boundaries, and neither should the solutions.

For Canadian carriers and supply chain operators already navigating tighter driver availability, the alliance's mandate – better labour market intelligence, cross-modal coordination, and practical workforce solutions – addresses a gap that has been visible for years.

Check out the article from trucknews.com: https://www.trucknews.com/blogs/canadas-freight-system-is-connected-its-workforce-strategy-should-be-too/

Today is a solemn day, remembering all those who were killed on September 11, 2021. On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, we ...
09/11/2026

Today is a solemn day, remembering all those who were killed on September 11, 2021. On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, we should not only remind ourselves of all those we lost but also of how we came together as friends, neighbors, colleagues, religions, & nations. That terrible day showed us how we can all work together despite our differences. That lesson is important today, now more than ever. Never Forget.
september11 love strength nineeleven

Today, we pause to remember the nearly 3,000 lives lost on September 11, 2001. Twenty-five years later, we honour the vi...
09/11/2026

Today, we pause to remember the nearly 3,000 lives lost on September 11, 2001. Twenty-five years later, we honour the victims, the first responders, and all those whose lives were changed forever.

Never forget.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration sent a supplemental freight broker transparency proposal to the White Ho...
09/10/2026

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration sent a supplemental freight broker transparency proposal to the White House for review on August 27, reviving regulatory work that began under the Biden administration and was never finalized. The core requirement of this proposal remains: brokers would need to maintain transaction records electronically and provide motor carriers access to that information within 48 hours of a request. FMCSA described the original intent as addressing "an asymmetry of information between brokers, shippers, and motor carriers that affects the ability of all parties to participate effectively in a fair, efficient transportation system."

The industry is divided on this proposed rulemaking. Now that it is with the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, it may advance and be published in the U.S. Federal Register following review – a process that can take up to 90 days – or be returned to the FMCSA for further consideration.

Read this Transport Topics article for more information: https://www.ttnews.com/articles/fmcsa-3pl-transparency-2026

The Consultative Shipping Group – representing 18 maritime nations including Canada, Germany, Japan, and the U.K. – issu...
09/09/2026

The Consultative Shipping Group – representing 18 maritime nations including Canada, Germany, Japan, and the U.K. – issued a pointed warning this week that geopolitical pressures on global shipping are "not episodic shocks", but rather "signals of a structural shift in the operating environment of global trade." With more than 80% of global trade moving by sea, the group emphasized that global shipping works best when "rules are clear and consistent around the world."

In this environment of uncertainty, this CNBC article highlights the growing threat of a shadow fleet of hundreds of ships engaging in operations to circumvent trade sanctions, operating outside standard insurance, safety, and transparency frameworks. For transportation and logistics operators, the takeaway here is structural. The rules-based maritime framework that underpins global trade is under pressure from multiple directions simultaneously, and planning assumptions built around stable routing and predictable access to ports need to account for that reality.

Learn more: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/08/global-shipping-iran-war-hormuz-rules.html

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced an emergency shutdown of 110 commercial driver training schools last ...
09/08/2026

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced an emergency shutdown of 110 commercial driver training schools last Monday, August 31, with another 160+ targeted for removal. The enforcement – conducted alongside Homeland Security and the Department of Justice – also includes a nationwide audit of third-party CDL skills testers and an investigation sweep targeting more than 200 driving schools across 23 states. The numbers behind this announcement are striking: 10 testers in a single state collectively issued more than 2,000 CDLs to drivers who subsequently failed English-language proficiency requirements. More than 28,000 commercial drivers have been placed out of service for English proficiency violations since June 2025.

The significance here is the direction of enforcement. Previous actions targeted individual drivers, whereas this crackdown moves upstream to the schools, testers, and businesses responsible for training and licensing them.

Read the FreightWaves article to learn more: https://www.freightwaves.com/news/dot-shuts-down-110-truck-driving-schools-in-cdl-fraud-crackdown

Happy Labour Day from Left Lane Associates!We wish everyone in the trucking, logistics, and supply chain industry a well...
09/07/2026

Happy Labour Day from Left Lane Associates!

We wish everyone in the trucking, logistics, and supply chain industry a well-earned long weekend among friends and family.

A carrier can hold a "Satisfactory" FMCSA rating, have drivers in full hours-of-service compliance, and still be making ...
09/04/2026

A carrier can hold a "Satisfactory" FMCSA rating, have drivers in full hours-of-service compliance, and still be making unsafe decisions. Regulations establish minimum acceptable behaviour. They can't determine whether a driver actually slept, whether a scheduling system causes fatigue, or whether a fleet's culture prioritizes safety when it conflicts with utilization and revenue. As transportation attorney Doug Marcello puts it in the article: "Safety culture is what you do when no one is watching."

The business case for going beyond compliance is increasingly measurable. The American Transportation Research Institute found that average liability premiums climbed nearly 38% between 2015 and 2024, and that investments in safety culture, technology, and training were among the most effective tools for influencing insurance costs. The fleets that treat safety as a profit centre rather than a cost centre are the ones holding onto drivers, reducing litigation exposure, and keeping more of the revenue they generate.

Read the article to learn more: https://www.truckinginfo.com/digital-cover-features/safety-starts-where-the-regulations-stop

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