Judgment Isn’t a Safety Strategy: How Bias Is Blinding Trucking to Its Real Problems

Every time a new story breaks about trucking fraud, unsafe carriers, or tragic accidents, the same narrative rolls out:
“It’s the foreign carriers.”
“It’s the non-domiciled drivers.”
“It’s these fly-by-night operations ruining the industry.”

It’s predictable, emotional, and completely unhelpful.

Because here’s the truth: the biggest threat to North American trucking isn’t who is behind the wheel. It’s how the system allows people to slip through cracks that we all know are there.

When we keep blaming people instead of processes, we’re not solving problems, we’re fuelling hate and perpetuating the root issues.

The Bias Problem

Bias is a shortcut for thinking. It gives people an easy target when the system feels too big or too broken to change.

Blaming “non-domiciled drivers” feels tidy, it gives a face to direct the frustration at. But it’s also a smokescreen that keeps the industry from looking at deeper causes:

• Outdated and inconsistent safety oversight

• Gaps in carrier/driver vetting

• A lack of enforcement across the board

• Perverse incentives that reward cutting corners over compliance

It’s easier to sneer at a driver’s accent or permit status than to ask why FMCSA is under-staffed, why there are "reputable schools” promising CDLs in 2 weeks, or why brokers are onboarding carriers with a few unchecked clicks.

Bias gives people someone to blame, but not something to fix.

The System Is Built to Reward Loopholes

Fraud, unsafe operations, and “chameleon carriers” aren’t new. They thrive because the system enables them. Carriers can reincorporate under a new name after being shut down. Brokers can skip vetting to cover freight faster.
And when something goes wrong? Everyone points fingers instead of tracing the failure back to its roots.

There’s no consistent accountability framework, no real-time cross-check between insurance, safety scores, and operating authority.
Until that changes, scammers and unsafe carriers will keep finding cracks to crawl through, no matter who’s driving.

The Driver Shortage Myth: A Convenient Distraction

For years, the American Trucking Associations (ATA) has pushed a narrative that the industry is suffering from a massive driver shortage. This was a complete fabrication.

It’s been their rallying cry to lobby for looser regulations, lower entry standards, and expanded work visas. On paper, that might sound like a solution. In reality, it’s a distraction and manipulation, a dangerous one.

There is no shortage of drivers. There’s a shortage of retention, safety, and fair pay.

The ATA’s “shortage” story conveniently shifts focus away from exploitative working conditions, wage stagnation, and industry churn. It paints deregulation as progress, when it’s really just another way to push more people into a system that burns them out faster than it replaces them.

By promoting quantity over quality, the industry has watered down safety culture and deepens resentment between veteran drivers and non-domiciled ones. It created the illusion that relaxing standards would “solve” the crisis, when in reality, it’s made the foundation weaker.

Bias Keeps the Cycle Going

Every time someone blames a non-domiciled driver for a crash or a new carrier for fraud, it reinforces the false idea that the problem is individual, not institutional.

And that lets the people with power off the hook.

When the ATA blames a “shortage” instead of systemic exploitation, when brokers point fingers instead of auditing onboarding, when regulators talk of reform but fund nothing to enforce it, bias becomes the perfect scapegoat.

Meanwhile, legitimate carriers and honest drivers, including non-domiciled ones, pay the price in 

Accountability, Not Accusation

Fixing trucking starts with asking better questions. Not “who’s ruining the industry?” But “why do our systems make it so easy for bad actors to thrive?”

That means:

• Tightening enforcement, not just writing new biased rules.

• Shippers rewarding safety and compliance, not low rates and fast coverage.

• Investing in education for brokers and carriers alike, so “due diligence” becomes a habit, not hindsight. And IF english is an issue, offer ESL classes.

• Calling out false narratives that protect lobbyists instead of workers.

Because the longer we cling to judgment and personal biases, the longer we’ll keep building policy on bad assumptions and ignore the actual root issues.

The Bottom Line

Bias is comforting because it’s simple. But the trucking industry’s problems aren’t simple. They are complex and have been fed for decades by false narratives and unchecked capitalism.

Fraud, safety, and retention issues are the byproducts of systemic neglect, and the first step to fixing them is admitting that our own judgments are part of the problem.

Until we stop mistaking scapegoats for solutions, the only thing we’ll keep moving efficiently is blame.