ATA changing its tune?

According to the American Trucking Associations, the situation was dire.

It was 2019, and the organization was telling anyone who would listen that the industry was short nearly 61,000 drivers.

Even worse, it predicted that the “shortage” would reach six figures by 2023 and that trucking would have a deficit of about 160,000 truck drivers by 2028.

“Over the next decade, the trucking industry will need to hire roughly 1.1 million new drivers, or an average of nearly 110,000 per year,” the ATA wrote in its 2019 Truck Driver Shortage Analysis.

Even though the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association continually debunked the idea of a driver shortage, these numbers struck fear into many lawmakers. Then, 2020 happened, and the pandemic wreaked havoc on the supply chain. For weeks, grocery shelves were bare, and toilet paper was nowhere to be found.

ATA pounced. By 2021, the organization said that the pandemic caused drivers to leave the industry and CDL schools to train fewer drivers. ATA suggested that the driver shortage would reach 80,000 by the end of 2021.

Fast forward to 2026, and you rarely hear the phrase “driver shortage” without the word “myth” right behind it.

Instead of hearing about the hundreds of thousands of drivers that need to be recruited, the trucking industry is still dealing with a major overcapacity issue that sparked an ongoing freight recession.

Multiple studies have denounced claims of a truck driver shortage, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said as much in late 2025.

The DOT also believes that states issued an abundance of CDLs in recent years to applicants who were either unvetted, unqualified or in the country illegally.

FMCSA and the DOT have taken action in the past year to clean up the non-domiciled CDL process, which would remove about 200,000 CDLs, and enforce longstanding English-proficiency rules for truck drivers.

During a House Oversight Subcommittee hearing in January, Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., said that the improper use of non-domiciled CDLs and letting individuals who can’t read or speak English operate 80,000-pound trucks have created national security concerns.

“Truck drivers must be able to read road signs, understand instructions, communicate with law enforcement and respond in emergencies,” Van Drew said. “When states ignore those requirements, Americans pay the price.”

ATA President Chris Spear testified at the hearing. Although the surge of non-domiciled CDLs came during a time that ATA was claiming that a severe driver shortage threatened the nation’s supply chain, nothing about a lack of drivers was mentioned.

Instead, he called out states, training schools and federal regulators for “fast-tracking” applicants.

“CDL mills, which masquerade as legitimate schools, have fast-tracked … individuals into trucking by putting profits before training,” Spear said. “Meanwhile, state licensing agencies handed out improper credentials and federal regulators looked the other way, enabling unqualified individuals to climb into the driver’s seat.”

That wasn’t the only moment at that Oversight hearing when ATA changed its tune from past years.

ATA has been a longtime proponent of the ELD mandate. Of course, OOIDA fought the mandate every inch of the way, petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court. As part of that fight, OOIDA voiced concerns about ELDs in regards to cybersecurity.

In 2024, academic research revealed that a truck could easily be hacked into through the ELD, giving bad actors control of the commercial motor vehicle’s accelerator.

Now, even the American Trucking Associations acknowledges the cybersecurity risks.

“Some devices use AI to produce fake documentation like fuel and food receipts and to fabricate hours of service,” Spear said as part of his testimony. “Equally concerning are digital backdoors that can provide U.S. adversaries access to sensitive supply chain data.”

OOIDA could easily throw an “I told you so,” but the Association was much more subtle in its remarks following the hearing.

“It’s nice to see our friends at ATA come around on so many of these issues, including inherent problems with the ELD mandate they previously dismissed,” said Collin Long, OOIDA senior director of government affairs. LL