by oriettaxx | 2025-12-07 13:09:21+00:00
wow, did you guys read what user "1634bwatt" wrote at that link? He is super brilliant, I would really like to write like him

Let me report his full post, since I'm scared it could get lost:

1634bwatt:

How to Fix the Trucking Mess — or Can You Point the Way to 30 N Gould St., Sheridan, WY? (Hint: Find a Map.)

America’s trucking system is broken. Not “my-kid-left-his-iPad-on-the-parking-meter-again” broken. More like “your GPS just routed 80,000 pounds of frozen chicken through a horse trail in Idaho” broken. And naturally, everyone wants to fix it. OOIDA wants to fix it. The US DOT’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) wants to fix it. DHS wants to fix it as soon as they remember their password. And motor carriers and freight brokers, especially the ones living inside mail drops in Sheridan, Wyoming, REALLY want to fix it.

Or at least they want you to send money there.

Let’s begin with the obvious question: How did trucking get this messed up?

Well, gather ’round, children, and let Uncle BrianGPT explain deregulation. In 1980, Congress decided trucking needed the same free-market treatment as disco. The result? Forty-five years later, we have 1,164,093 motor carriers, 97% of which are three guys, a dream, and a 2007 Freightliner held together entirely by bungee cords and prayer.

FMCSA is supposed to regulate and field audit all this. Unfortunately, FMCSA has conducted approximately one safety audit since the fall of Constantinople. The agency explains this by noting it “lacks resources,” which is bureaucratic for, “We misplaced the staff directory in 1997 and never found it.”

Meanwhile, DHS is in charge of verifying immigration status for CDL applicants. This sounds simple, but DHS databases were apparently designed in the Truman administration using punch cards and the honor system. This is why a “wanted ■■■■■■■■■” received work authorization, a CDL, and possibly a welcome basket from Pennsylvania.

Then there are the CDL schools — 44% of which, according to federal review, have the structural integrity of that drawer in your kitchen where dead batteries go to die. Some are legitimate. Others are “CDL mills,” which promise to make you a professional driver in 72 hours or less, including lunch breaks.

The government is now cracking down on these schools, which is excellent news for safety and terrible news for anyone hoping to graduate from the “We Teach You CDL Good Academy” behind the strip mall.

Now, let’s talk immigrant drivers. Twenty percent of the workforce. Forty percent on the West Coast. Many have perfect safety records. Some have better English than your cousin ■■■■■, whose vocabulary consists entirely of the words “dude,” “bro,” and “hold my beer.”

But after two badly handled tragedies, we instituted a nationwide crackdown that revoked tens of thousands of licenses, terrified the Sikh community, and left carriers asking the obvious question: “Who exactly is supposed to drive the trucks now? Senators?”

At the same time, brokers — the superheroes of “arranging transportation while never touching the freight” — are fighting in the Supreme Court for the right to be immune from negligence, because otherwise they’d have to vet carriers. Which, as we all know, would require effort.

This is where 30 N Gould Street, Sheridan WY comes in.

This is America’s most beloved address for “motor carriers” and “brokers” who operate entirely from a UPS Store mailbox. These companies specialize in things like:

moving (stealing) freight taking your money disappearing into the void like a raccoon that stole your sandwich

FMCSA occasionally shuts these operations down, but since anyone can acquire a new MC number for $300 and a dream, the criminals simply reincarnate more often than a Tibetan monk.

Let’s talk the US DOT Census Report. This is the master database produced by the U.S. Department of Transportation, overseen by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration — a $945 million agency staffed by roughly 1,450 people, most of whom apparently have never met a spreadsheet they liked or a fraudulent registration they noticed. This where you can find this data: [https://data.transportation.gov/…/az4n-8mr2/data_preview](https://data.transportation.gov/…/az4n-8mr2/data_preview)

The Census Report is built from the MCS-150 form, the self-reported “Tell Us About Yourself” document that every carrier, broker, or semi-ambitious scammer must fill out to get a USDOT number. Whatever they type — truth, fiction, ■■■■■ tale, or their cousin’s address — gets loaded into the federal database, no questions asked.

As of this morning:

1,164,093 motor carriers are listed as “Authorized for Hire.” 107,757 freight brokers are “Authorized for Hire.” And right now, 206 of them list 30 N Gould Street, Sheridan WY 82801 as their primary address.

At one point, more than 500 carriers and brokers used this one mailbox-sized building as home base — until the address got caught in the sunlight and, true to the species, they scattered like logistics cockroaches.

And yes — almost daily, my inbox pings with an email from “Garry Cooper of VAB Logistics,” proudly claiming to operate out of 30 N Gould Street, Suite 4235, Sheridan WY 82801.

Suite 4235. In that building. The one in the photo above.

Unless Wyoming real estate comes with Narnia portals, Suite 4235 would be located on the 42nd floor of a building that barely has one.

But 30 N Gould isn’t the only such address. There are dozens of these ghost-office maildrops scattered across Wyoming, Montana, Delaware, and South Dakota — the Bermuda Triangle of Corporate Invisibility. But Sheridan’s Gould Street is the crown jewel. The Las Vegas Strip of regulatory opacity. The spiritual homeland of ghost brokers, reincarnated MC numbers, and dispatch “offices” located somewhere between Bengaluru, Belgrade, and a Best Buy parking lot.

And this — this building — is where FMCSA could start fixing freight fraud, chameleon carriers, identity laundering, and foreign-operated outfits hiding behind U.S. mailboxes.

But here’s the rub: FMCSA doesn’t seem to know how to read a map.

They can revoke 17,000 CDLs in California. They can threaten states over expiration dates DHS approved. They can spend years chasing non-domiciled drivers who’ve never had a violation. But they cannot, with their $945 million budget and their Census Report full of duplicates, fabrications, 42nd-floor fantasies, and mailbox empires, identify the obvious: If 200+ carriers share the same five-foot-wide doorway, something is wrong.

Every fraudulent carrier.

Every ghost broker.

Every reincarnated MC number.

Every identity wash job.

Every foreign dispatch operation pretending to be domestic.

Every problem we’ve discussed from deregulation to FMCSA’s blind spots to DHS’s database failures — it all shows up right here.

At 30 N Gould Street, Sheridan WY 82801.

And the truth is unavoidable:

If FMCSA started its enforcement roadmap with literal maps, if it simply opened Google Street View instead of another “pre-decisional memo,” if it asked, “Does Suite 4235 even exist?” if the FMCSA would use its enforcement authority and get out into the field to visit these companies at these companies offices –

the entire industry would look different tomorrow.

But until then?

The trucking crisis will continue.

The fraud will continue.

And I will continue receiving emails from “Garry Cooper,” CEO of a Fortune 500 empire supposedly headquartered between a trash bin and a tree in Sheridan, Wyoming.

Because nothing exposes the absurdity of modern American trucking quite like a federal regulator who could clean up half the industry…

…if only it were willing to zoom in.

So — how do we fix trucking? Experts have proposed:

Rebuilding FMCSA’s auditing system

Strengthening training standards Fixing DHS data Eliminating fraud Paying drivers a living wage Building actual truck parking Reversing 45 years of economic entropy Getting Congress to read something longer than a tweet

But let’s be honest: none of that is happening before the Dolphins win the Super Bowl.

So here is the real Brian-Watt-style solution: We simply mail every trucking problem in America to 30 N Gould St., Sheridan WY, since everything else in trucking already ends up there anyway.

Bad carrier? Send it.

Ghost broker? Already there.

Duplicate MC numbers? They breed there like rabbits.

FMCSA regulations? Just drop them in the lobby next to the potted plant shaped like a freight claim.

Once all of trucking is consolidated into this one mail drop, we send a guy with a big net and a jar labeled “Common Sense.” Whatever we manage to scoop up becomes the new federal regulatory framework.

In conclusion:

Yes, America’s trucking system is chaotic, confusing, deregulated, poorly enforced, and occasionally terrifying.

Yes, the databases are broken, the schools are broken, the policies are broken, and the iPads are absolutely still sitting on top of the parking payment machine where you left them.

But fear not. If you ever get lost, just point your truck toward Sheridan, Wyoming. Somebody there will take your freight. Or your money. Or your identity.

Either way, it’ll be the most consistent part of trucking you’ve experienced all year. By the way, that truck you are passing on the Interstate? I’d get around it quick. You never know when the driver might make a sudden U-turn.