Aren't there several orders of magnitude more trucking companies in the US than 16?

Good opportunity for oligarchs like Musk to move in.

I felt this on my last truck shipment. My previous LTL provider suddenly closed and the next cheapest option is more than twice as expensive.

Totally unsurprising.

I expect these are small companies surviving month to month without the ability (or skill) to plan for catastrophic changes in the future (present).

This is a meaningless stat without comparison. There are nearly 500k trucking companies operating in the US, with ~91% operating 10 trucks or fewer.

16 companies seems like standard churn (if not a significantly lower than what I'd expect in a low margin business like trucking).

Mind you there's a hefty tax surcharge on Diesel that could easily be lowered if the trucking economy was that important to states like California. Two years ago Diesel was at 8$ when it was 4 everywhere else, last year 9$, 5-6 in most other states. Now 10$? Haven't been there lately but it's still at 6 in MO/AR. It's not the oil price that's the problem with the Diesel price.

The interstate pneumatic tube network I designed with macaroni in the fifth grade is looking visionary now.

I did a quick check to see how unusual this is. According to LLM-assisted research on actual U.S. trucking companies filing Chapter 7 or Chapter 11 (rather than carriers simply shutting down) the number appears to be in the realm of ~100 companies per year in recent years. Typically between 75 and 150 per year.

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https://www.freightwaves.com/news/freight-market-pushes-anot... (Early 2026)

https://www.thestreet.com/retail/bulmaks-files-chapter-11-ba... (Late 2025)

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/an-unusually-terrible-frei... (Mid 2023)

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/the-trucking-bloodbath-isn... (Mid 2022)

https://www.truckingdive.com/news/trucking-fleet-bankruptcy-... (Early 2021)

https://www.propertycasualty360.com/fcs/2020/01/13/another-o... (Early 2020)