Have you heard about Highway.com? This new company says it offers information about carriers, such as their trucking authority, their DOT number, proof of insurance, that sort of thing. Not a bad idea – we’ve all heard about fraudsters in the trucking industry. A single website sign-up? That makes sense.
The highway’s purpose is to assure shippers that their loads are safe and not at risk of theft or being held for ransom. They say they want to help brokers by providing accurate and up-to-date information about trucking companies.
Some of that data includes
https://highway.com/products
- instant visibility into a carrier’s verified fleet
- compares carrier equipment ages to peers
- location insights – find a carrier within a 5-minute walk of a broker
- operation insights – identify carriers with a low inspection-to-truck count
- catch a carrier using another carrier’s equipment.
So how is Highway.com doing it?
Highway.com’s stated purpose is to verify carriers’ identities. Trucking companies and independent owner operators sign up with Highway.com to gain access to certain loads. Some brokers say they won’t work with a trucking company unless it has signed up with Highway.com.
Most truckers don’t see a problem with this. They go online and sign up. The onboarding process looks simple enough.
Until they get to this one point.
They want access to your ELD data. You’re asked to submit your ELD access information, including your password. Which will give them 100% access to your ELD data all the time.
Not even the DOT gets your ELD data all the time.
The DOT doesn’t even have access unless they request an inspection file. Then they only get the inspection file. They do not have full unlimited access.
Highway.com requests access to your ELD. That has nothing to do with identity. Once they access the ELD they have full access all the time to all of your ELD data.
Are you comfortable with that?
Are they taking the data from your ELD and making it available to brokers?
- What if they start telling brokers or insurance companies that your company is unsafe because the ELD reports that you’ve been speeding, even if you never received a ticket? (They can get that information from your ELD.)
- What if they tell the broker that your check engine light is on?
- What about other driver behaviors like hard braking?
- What if this causes you to be disqualified for certain freight lanes without your knowledge? What if this data gets to your insurance company and they raise your rates or cancel your insurance completely? GM just discontinued doing exactly that recently.
What do you think? Is this necessary to do business or an unwanted intrusion?
Who owns your ELD data?
The US government requires that we have ELDs in our trucks. They have a list of ELDs that meet the requirements. Periodically, they will announce a product that isn’t compliant with the FMCSA standards. This is important.
The government doesn’t ask for your ID and password to access your ELD data.
Here’s the deal: Highway.com wants your data. All of it.
Some ELD companies collect this data. Some ELD companies sell this data.
TruckingOffice does not sell your data.
Your email and all other information about your company is safe with us.
Do you have a problem with a company compiling more data than the government does? How do you feel about a private company collecting and likely analyses of your data?
Data mining isn’t limited to Google tracking your cookies anymore. Highway.com’s website says that they don’t sell data. In their Privacy Policy, they say
We may use aggregated (anonymized) information about our End Users, and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction.
https://highway.com/privacy-policy
Just because it doesn’t identify you… does that make it okay? We all know that companies change their policies. What if Highway.com changes theirs?
These are just some things we’re thinking about. What do you think about Highway.com?
The problem is that the Highway.com does not populate information from FMCSA or USDOT
when you have an issue they can not explain how to resolve issue or offer any advice. I feel that this will cause more fraud since the data is not matching FMCSA data.
We have canceled three load because of Highway’s intrusive requirements. On the the third load, I asked the broker, what happens to the tracking after a load is delivered? He said Highway tracks you as long as ELD is active. This is where another issue arrises, Highway wants all your credentials: Title, Lease, or Sales Contract for your equipment, Cab Card and driver’s license. What about the owner operators’ rights to privacy
? Isn’t such request by a third party company too overreaching and intrusive? What else does a private company has to protect itself from the competitors, the mega trucking companies in particular? What if all those datasets get into the wrong hands?
Here is another important info about Highway – this company is funded by Reliance Partners, an Insurance company. Reliance Partners is funded by Lamp Post Group, and Carousel Capitals. One of the top guys along the chain of command used to be one of the main guys at UPS.
Also, Armstrong Transport is parts of the assets they invest in. I strongly believe that Highway is not only what it purports itself to be to the carriers. The data it’s collecting from the carriers is used for more than it promises, and is serving other intrests which might be detriment to the carriers down the line.
Highway Carrier OnBoarding is hard to work with.
Brokers never ever should work with them.
I had to get a new phone service because of them and now have 2 different phones number which is useless.
Can’t even edit your own personal info in the web.
They make is so hard for Carriers to register. Their Customer Services on the phone were ALL OverSea and can barely Speak English.
Just Hoping Brokers stop working with them.
Suddenly over half of the brokers in my Highway account are “Access Denied” due to a “Failed Assessment” by Highway. ABSOLUTELY nothing has changed on my end from the time I became linked to Highway nearly two years ago. I am not hazmat certified, I do not offer Power Only, I do not have a refrigerated trailer, but these areas and few others I do not completely understand are the fail points. What makes matters worse is when I call Highway I am routed to a call center in Mexico; the reception is poor and the accents are thick which makes for a frustrating conversation. Highway put the failed assessment back on the brokers, so now I am awaiting responses from the brokers to my emails. I am not hopeful they will respond.
Did you find out the problem finally?
We have a similar situation and in our case the issue came to be that a broker falsely reported us for double brokering.Highway wont tell us what broker did it and has to go out of way to find out from other sources.
Highway and the brokers refuse to discuss security aspects for the information about copies of equipment titles, copies of drivers license with signatures etc. So a carrier has no idea how this information is treated, who has access etc. Eventually this will lead to title fraud and identity theft.
Highway claims they don’t retain the information/copies and that they just pass them on to the brokers. The brokers claim that they don’t receive anything except a thumbs up or down from Highway. So already one of the parties in this process is lying to you. All of this just to haul their cheap freight.
The freight theft problem is of their own making by trying to make everything just a couple of clicks on a computer or phone. They and the shippers do little to nothing to verify the truck and the driver they are loading. Ask yourself “When was the last time a shipper actually got up from his desk in the shipping office and went out and looked at the information on the truck or had the forklift driver do it prior to loading?” Larger shippers may have a security guard but many don’t and as long as you have the pickup number or know where you’re going the shipper just loads the truck. Then bellyaches when the load disappears. Maybe that’s the service you deserve when you want cheap.
I think the small carriers should document every time a broker doesn’t give you a load because of Highways unverified information they provide about your company. We need to get all the documentation collected and file a multi million dollar lawsuit for revenue lost because of there false data.
Highway is horrible 3 companies already cancel loads on me because highway.