Despite clumsy rollout, FMCSA says Motus has blocked 'thousands' of bad actors from hitting the highway

Federal motor carrier regulators are leaning heavily on Motus, its modernized registration portal, to purge fraudulent Chameleon Carriers from the highway, even as the digital overhaul works through persistent technical growing pains.

Addressing trucking executives Wednesday at the WEX OTR Summit at the Marriott Sawgrass Golf Resort & Spa in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) Chief Safety Officer Steve Dowling outlined how the agency is harnessing cross-system data to police five lifecycle stages: driver training, licensing, carrier registration, fleet operations, and enforcement.

"Safety’s not a competition," Dowling said. "There’s room in the industry for everyone that wants to play by the rules, but we also need to learn from each other."

Dowling, a veteran law enforcement officer who spent more than 30 years with the California Highway Patrol and later served as director of safety at Covenant Logistics before joining the agency in August, noted that regulators are targeting systemic abuses rather than penalizing minor paperwork errors.

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