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Nobody Actually Leaves
The Caviar Desk · April 2, 2026 · 4 min read
Happy Thursday. Diesel is climbing, produce lanes are tightening across the board, and brokers on Reddit are fantasizing about quitting. Here is what's trending this week on X, LinkedIn, Reddit, and YouTube.
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Trending on X: The Man Who Started Freight Alley
We posted a clip from our podcast episode with Max Fuller, Founder of U.S. Xpress, in which he talks about his father, Clyde, and how he built a trucking empire from scratch.
Craig Fuller retweeted it with this: "Clyde, my grandfather, was one of the patriarchs of long-haul trucking. He is also the reason that Chattanooga is a thriving epicenter of trucking."
The X thread filled in from there.
Craig confirmed Clyde owned two companies: Southwest Motor Freight and Countrywide, which he sold to CSX
A commenter remembered watching Clyde's boat rip through Watts Bar Lake as a kid. Craig's reply: "He was not known for being slow or doing things small — at anything."
If you want the full story, Issue #2 of the FreightCaviar Magazine goes deep on Chattanooga and how it became the freight city it is today. Click here to subscribe.
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Trending on LinkedIn: The Produce Squeeze Is Already Here
Dean Croke, Principal Analyst at DAT Freight and Analytics, dropped the weekly produce rate report. Four weeks of nothing. Then everything moved at once.
Nogales hit its first full shortage lane of 2026. Chicago at $5,900–$6,200, LA up 21% in a single week.
California's four-week flatline is over. Every region shifted to slight shortage, Oxnard to Baltimore up 17%.
Florida reversed hard, up 7–18% across all six destinations after three weeks of soft trading.
South Texas locked up for a third straight week, some lanes now running 51% higher than last year.
And the Vidalia onion pack date just dropped: April 13. That's the unofficial starting gun of spring produce season. The squeeze is already here before the race even begins.
Trending on Reddit: Nobody Actually Leaves
A broker posted on r/FreightBrokers this week, saying what many won't say out loud. Sitting at the desk every day, fantasizing about quitting. Can't enjoy the wins anymore. Flinching at every notification. 47 comments came in.
One guy left the industry entirely, went into a different sales role, and now brokers 30-50 loads a month on the side for fun, making an extra $4-7k
The tough love corner: "Stop being a b*tch, this is a painlessly interesting experience, the alternative is a relatively painless death."
The honest corner: "The burnout isn't from the bad loads, it's from never getting a second to breathe between them."
Top comment: "Welcome to the Hotel California. You can check out, but you never leave."
OP posted a Friday update. Last loads all picked up. Cold beer in hand. Making it another week.
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Trending on YouTube: The Market Is Moving, But Not Everyone Is
A freight market update from this week that's worth watching. Diesel is at $5.37 a gallon nationally, up $1.77 year over year. California is averaging over $7. And it's changing how the market works.
Flatbed and reefer rates are up almost everywhere, but shippers in the Rockies, Idaho, Wyoming, Eastern Washington, and Oregon are refusing to raise rates. Loads are sitting unmoved because no one will take them at the current prices.
Capacity is dropping, but not because of MC numbers. Drivers who work for companies don't have their own authority, and a lot of them have quietly left the industry.
A significant number of trucks are simply parked right now, waiting for diesel to come back down.
Craig Fuller cited saying more drivers will keep leaving as enforcement gets stricter.
Volumes are increasing while capacity is shrinking. The math on that is pretty simple.
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