We, as editors, contributors and reporters at trucknews.com, don’t lack for opinions. It’s difficult not to develop some when you are immersed in a single industry that you care deeply about.
Here is a countdown of the 10 best-read blogs of 2025. It’s countdown season, after all. Enjoy!
10: Crackdown on licenses and U.S. ban on visas leave truck drivers in limbo
Saisha Mahil, associate with Gardiner Roberts LLP, rounds out the Top 10 list with this blog that provides a legal opinion on U.S. visa crackdowns on foreign drivers. While Canadian truck drivers were generally unaffected, she brought clarity to a complex issue.
9: MTO must be transparent on MELT lesson plan deadline extension
Leo Barros followed changes to Ontario’s mandatory entry-level training (MELT) program throughout the year and raised important questions about repeated delays to a requirement that would see training providers provide detailed lesson plans to the province.
8: Dueling Dash Cams: Two wrongs don’t make a right
A viral dash cam video of a near-miss in Northern Ontario created plenty of debate about who was in the right and who was to blame. Veteran professional driver and trucknews.com writer Jim Park offered his own opinions, suggesting there’s plenty of blame to go around. Not everyone was thrilled to see this near-miss discussed so publicly, but let’s consider it a learning moment for many of us.
7. Trump’s rewriting truck emissions playbook. Where does this leave Canada?
Yours truly, with a piece on the evolving emissions landscape in the United States and what it means to Canadian fleets. We don’t have the means to go it alone on emissions. Our market isn’t big enough. It’s an issue that still has yet to be resolved, but in my opinion, there’s little choice but to stay in line with what the United States is doing.
6. Could self-policing spell the end of Driver Inc.?
Wishful thinking perhaps? But it’s a novel idea worth exploring. Mike McCarron, who needs no introduction as trucknews.com contributor, shares his thoughts that self-policing is the way to restore integrity to the trucking industry and stamp out driver misclassification.
5. Stop hitting emergency vehicles and overpasses, it’s not professional!
The headline says it all. After a series of well publicized bridge strikes (why do these things always happen in bunches?), Leo Barros offers some sage advice to drivers – stop hitting those bridges!
4. Economic storm clouds — and a silver lining
McCarron cracks the Top 10 list again with a look at the crummy economy and the unrelenting freight recession that weighed on the market. A silver lining, you say? You’ll have to read the blog to find out what that is.
3. Could Canadian trucking suffer collateral damage as U.S. cracks down on foreign drivers?
The U.S. crackdown on noncompliance in trucking, illegal residents, and those holding CDLs that were obtained under dubious circumstances had me on alert and should have us all on alert. All it will take is one catastrophic wreck in the United States by a Canadian driver to invite fresh scrutiny on our right to be there, delivering freight in the first place. And while legally protected, this is an administration that acts first and considers the legal repercussions later. This issue still weighs on me.
2. MTO fiddles while Ontario’s trucking industry burns
Jim Park is in the No. 2 spot with this condemnation of Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation. I share his frustration. The MTO is understaffed and working with limited resources, but the Ontario trucking industry is seemingly a cesspool of noncompliance, and those charged with keeping it clean are seemingly asleep at the switch.
1. Why Driver Inc. is doomed
McCarron comes out on top with the best-read trucknews.com blog of the year, optimistically declaring the Driver Inc. scheme to be on borrowed time. He opines that the awful market conditions will drive many of those operators out of business, since they’re operating on the razor’s edge to begin with. If the freight market doesn’t kill Driver Inc., he may still have been right in declaring it doomed as the winds of change in Ottawa have shifted and there seems, finally, to be an appetite to address driver misclassification.
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