As Q2 winds down, the freight market isn’t simply tight or soft – it’s exposing something more structural. The disruptions that stacked up in May didn’t resolve when the calendar turned. They clarified.
Roadcheck is in the rearview, but its rate signal is still reverberating. The Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed four months ago, and analysts are now telling OPEC+ the disruption will last through the end of the year – no matter how quickly the strait reopens. Two Supreme Court decisions handed down in the past two weeks rewrote the legal posture of anyone who selects, hires, or manages a carrier. And a tightening capacity market is turning all of it into an execution problem.
For shippers finishing Q2 and planning H2, the signal is the same across every data stream: the cost of a fragile logistics network is no longer theoretical.
Roadcheck’s Aftershock: The Rate Market Already Knew
International Roadcheck ran May 12-14, with inspectors across North America focused on ELD compliance and cargo securement. The inspection results are still being finalized, but the rate data came in immediately.
According to DAT Freight & Analytics, dry van linehaul rates climbed more than 10% during inspection week – but the reefer number is what stands out: reefer linehaul rates surged 33% in a single week, reaching $2.68 a mile as compliant capacity tightened and some drivers opted to park rather than run. Rates stayed elevated the following week even as volume normalized.
DAT principal analyst Dean Croke noted that the shape of 2026’s rate chart looks similar to 2021’s – the year the spot rates jumped during Roadcheck week and then continued rising through the rest of the year. His read: supply has been quietly exiting the market for months, and enforcement is accelerating the process.
“It’s all supply exiting that’s doing all the work in terms of rates,” Croke said.
That matters because reefer capacity is not interchangeable with dry van. Temperature-controlled freight has a narrower pool of compliant carriers to begin with. When enforcement events or fleet rationalization compress the pool further, the impact on food, beverage, and perishable freight is disproportionate.
Roadcheck also served as a reminder of what the underlying carrier network actually looks like. Over 90% of motor carriers don’t have a safety rating from FMCSA. A carrier can operate for years as “presumed safe” without ever receiving a formal rating. In a selective market, the carriers that make it through an enforcement week without incident aren’t just the ones who happened to be compliant – they’re the ones who had process rigor built in from the start.
Hormuz: The Disruption That Won’t Resolve on a Short Timeline
Oil industry experts told OPEC+ at a technical briefing on June 1 that the supply disruption caused by the Strait of Hormuz closure will persist through the end of 2026 – even if the waterway reopens promptly. The Adnoc chief executive went further, suggesting oil flows from the Middle East won’t fully recover until well into 2027.
The bottom line for shippers: this is no longer a situation where you wait for the problem to pass.
As we covered in the May market update, the strait – through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil and gas previously flowed – was effectively blocked when the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran began Feb. 28. Brent crude surpassed $100 per barrel in March for the first time in four years. The IEA called it the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.
What’s changed in June is the timeline. Analysts in Vienna aren’t talking about weeks. They’re talking about the rest of the year, minimum.
For H2 planning, that means carrier rate structures, fuel surcharges, routing decisions, and the cost of recovery when shipments miss planned windows all have to be modeled against a diesel baseline that isn’t returning to normal before peak season.
2 Supreme Court Decisions That Change the Liability Calculus
Two unanimous rulings handed down in the past two weeks have reshaped the legal environment for anyone who touches carrier selection.
First: brokers can now be sued for negligent hiring under state law.
In Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, the Court held that state tort claims against freight brokers are not preempted by federal law. According to Trucking Dive, the case involved C.H. Robinson coordinating a shipment tied to a 2017 crash that resulted in a driver’s leg being amputated. The ruling removes the preemption defense brokers had relied on to limit state court liability.
TD Cowen’s research framed the outcome plainly: the decision will push freight volume toward compliant capacity and accelerate the exit of non-compliant carriers from the market. Insurance costs for brokers could rise three to five times, pushing smaller operators out entirely.
Second: last-mile workers don’t have to cross state lines to be covered by interstate commerce law.
In Flowers v. Brock, the Court ruled that a driver whose intrastate route forms part of a continuous interstate journey is still engaged in interstate commerce – and thus exempt from mandatory arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act. The legal definition of a “transportation worker” is broader than many operators assumed. Downstream effects on last-mile delivery contract structures are still unfolding.
The practical takeaway isn’t legal. It’s operational. Partner selection has always mattered for execution. It now creates direct legal exposure for the parties making carrier decisions – brokers, 3PLs, and shippers alike.
What the Rate Data is Saying About H2
The broader freight indicators reinforce what enforcement and the legal landscape are already showing.
Cass Freight reported April shipments still down year over years, while expenditures rose both monthly and annually – shippers are paying more into a market that hasn’t fully recovered on volume. DAT and ACT data show dry van spot rates running more than 20% higher years over year.
The U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index showed spending rising faster than shipments. The gap between spot and contract rates has narrowed sharply – a pattern that historically precedes a full market turn.
DAT’s Croke has drawn an explicit comparison to 2021: the rate shape looks similar, and in 2021, rates that jumped during Roadcheck week kept climbing through the rest of the year.
None of this means demand has fully returned. What it means is that the cost of execution is rising before the market feels broadly normal – and shippers still planning as if capacity will remain forgiving are going to find out the hard way.
The Second Half Requires a Different Kind of Planning
Earlier this year, Transport Topics cited Source Logistics as part of its coverage of North American supply chain restructuring – reflecting what we’ve been tracking across our customer base: nearshoring is no longer a directional bet. It’s an operational reality actively reshaping decisions around warehousing placement, cross-border flexibility, and corridor strategy.
The companies best positioned for H2 aren’t waiting for the market to normalize. They’ve already treated resilience as a network design problem – reviewing inventory placement, carrier exposure, cold chain requirements, and the reliability of every handoff in the chain.
The second half of 2026 will be shaped by energy costs that won’t quickly retreat, a legal environment that raises the stakes for carrier selection, enforcement that is actively weeding non-compliant capacity from the market, and a rate structure that increasingly rewards shippers with discipline baked into how they operate.
The window for reactive planning is narrowing.
Worth a Conversation
If your network is being tested by rising freight costs, Hormuz-driven fuel volatility, tighter carrier capacity, new legal exposure around broker and 3PL selection, or cold chain risk heading into summer – now is the time to review where the gaps are, before H2 makes them more expensive.
Connect with our team to talk through what the second half of 2026 may require from your supply chain.
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