As an investor and figurehead president of a freight brokerage, I don’t live in the weeds of the business. I’m too old and crusty to run the day-to-day at Rite Route.
But then I got a call from a pal I know from the golf course. He was frustrated with the service and extra charges he was getting from his regular carrier. Our team jumped in to help.
The legacy carrier was charging around $4,450 to move a weekly load. A Rite Route partner carrier quoted $3,400. We matched the rate, stuffed over a grand in our jeans every week, and the carrier has nailed the service ever since.
I was blown away. The carrier was Driver Inc. It was time to learn more.
Playing Santa
Every December, the team at Rite Route hands out poinsettias to the carriers who move our freight. It’s our little thank-you to partners we can count on to keep our promises.
This Christmas, I tagged along with one of our dispatchers, playing Santa.
I figured we’d be visiting my old buddies, the carriers who moved all my freight for decades. Instead, I didn’t recognize a single name.
The companies we visited were all Driver Inc. carriers. Owned and staffed by Serbian, Ukrainian, South Asian, and Russian entrepreneurs. All polite, professional, and proud of what they’d built. A lot like the guys I knew back when we were building MSM.
That’s when it hit me. The trucking industry I knew had changed, and I was late to the Christmas party.
My moment of hypocrisy
I’ve been one of the loudest critics of Driver Inc., yet here I was, benefiting from it. The fact is, if you run a freight brokerage today and claim you never use Driver Inc., you have a lot to learn about your own operation.
This was my wake-up call. I wasn’t part of the problem or the solution. I was part of the reality.
Three classes, one mess
Canadian trucking is no longer split into “good” and “bad” carriers. It’s divided into three classes.
The Old Guard are the “payroll” fleets. They’re the backbone of the industry and use a traditional trucking playbook. They’re exhausted competing against operators that skip source deductions, undercut rates by 25%, and don’t play by the rules.
The Hybrid Middle are the fleets I met handing out poinsettias. Not crooks, just survivors. They adopted a Driver Inc. model to stay alive when margins collapsed. Now, they’re professionalizing. Training drivers, maintaining equipment, and improving operations while gradually evolving away from a pure Driver Inc. model.
The Bottom Feeders are the rot. These outfits exploit new Canadians, run junk equipment, game safety, forge logbooks, short drivers on pay, and dodge insurance and taxes like it’s a sport.
These aren’t entrepreneurs having a bad year. They’re criminals running a racket that ruins reputations and kills people. Enforcement and public outrage should be focused on putting them out of business.
The industry’s uncomfortable truth
Here’s what few will admit: even the compliant carriers who loudly denounce Driver Inc. quietly rely on it through their brokerage divisions.
They aren’t hiring the shady operators. They’re using the up-and-coming Hybrid Middle fleets. Just like me, they benefit from the very segment they publicly criticize.
That’s not hypocrisy. It’s survival in a market that stopped caring about old definitions of compliance a long time ago.
Owning the grey
Making the rounds with Christmas poinsettias forced a bigger realization.
It’s 2026. Gig economy carriers are here to stay, despite the noise coming out of Ottawa. I’ve accepted that reality and moved on. Why should an outdated notion about Driver Inc. stop me from making money when everyone else already is, especially now that I know it can be done ethically and professionally?
Bottom line
Driver Inc. isn’t the disease. It’s the symptom.
The cure starts when the good operators stop fighting each other and start focusing on the real criminals: The Bottom Feeders.
If you still doubt me, grab your dispatcher, load up the Escalade with thank-you gifts, and visit the carriers moving your brokerage freight.
You may be surprised to see who’s really moving your freight. If you’re honest with yourself, they may remind you of you and your buddies from back in the day.
You may even walk away with a new respect for uncomfortable truths.
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