Yes, Those Semi-Trucking Outfits ARE a Problem

You may have noticed an increase in semi-truck crashes and "incidents' over the last several years.

There's a reason for that.

 

...Our reporting focused on Super Ego Holding — a network of commercial trucking and leasing companies based in Serbia and the U.S. It's currently under federal investigation and named in a class action lawsuit. Regulators and former employees call it one of the most notorious chameleon schemes — a ticking time bomb on our nation's roadways.

Rob Carpenter: Chameleon carriers are basically a network of companies and they constantly reincarnate and the idea is we are revenue-focused, we are going to start this trucking company, we are going to run it into the ground to make as much money as we possibly can.

Rob Carpenter has been a trucker for 25 years. 

He now is a trucking safety consultant and has been tracking chameleon companies which have surged since the pandemic.

Chameleon carriers, as their name suggests, are commercial trucking operations that skirt federal regulations and escape bad safety records by changing company names to evade detection.

Rob Carpenter: And when you move on to the next, you're really doing that to try to abandon the history that you've created with that other trucking company because you've run so poorly in the past year, right? So then you just adopt a new identity and you move on to a new carrier.

Bill Whitaker: Just dissolve that company and--

Rob Carpenter: Just completely dissolve it--

Bill Whitaker: --slap a new name on the truck and move on--

Rob Carpenter: That's right.

You can see how easy it is in this undercover video, shot by another trucker: 

Same drivers, same trucks, same bad records —in this case hundreds of violations erased with the switch of a carrier name and Department of Transportation number – the federal ID used to track a carrier's safety history.

Rob Carpenter: You've got no violations. You've got no crashes. Things that people are gonna look at and scrutinize on whether they're gonna let you haul their freight or not don't exist. You're just a clean carrier to them. 

Networks often owned and operated from eastern Europe, India and central Asia, set up chameleon carriers in the U.S. with different names and owners, who then register with the Department of Transportation, secure minimal insurance....

Rob Carpenter: And within 21 days, you have a trucking company. ...

Bill Whitaker: That's all it takes.

Rob Carpenter: That's all it takes. There's no requirement to own a trucking company that you be an American. You can start it from anywhere in the world. $1,000, pay online, say you are who you say you are, and you've got a trucking company. 

Trump's DOT is working hard on this, unlike the DOTs of Obama and Biden.  Meantime, if you see a SuperEGO trailer, (they are all around Chicago and the I-80/90/94 corridors) maintain at least 10 car lengths' distance.  At least.