Cargo thieves take $31.8M over Labor Day as diesel holds a record

Cargo theft is where the money moved this week. CargoNet logged $31.8 million in losses over the Labor Day weekend across 273 incidents, and reported that annual theft totals are up 70%, with criminals increasingly breaching trusted freight accounts rather than staging roadside grabs.

The practical takeaway for owner-operators and small carriers is at the dock, not the fence line. Confirm you are hauling for who you think you are, verify pickup paperwork and dispatch contacts directly, and treat a load that reroutes or re-brokers at the last minute as a flag.

On cost, diesel is still climbing. The national retail average reached $5.652 a gallon for the week of August 24, up 3.6% on the week and 52.4% on the year -- a record. That figure is a retail pump average including taxes; fleets buying on contract at truck stops pay less, and the gap widens when prices move this fast, so read it as direction rather than what you will pay.

The week's plain good news is reefer. The national refrigerated-produce rate rose to $4.21 a mile for the week of August 25, up 1.8% on the week and 14.7% on the year. It is refrigerated produce only and an unweighted average across whatever lanes ran that week, so the mix shifts with the season -- but the direction has been steady, and it remains the one revenue line pulling the reader's way while the box indices soften.

Worth watching: the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and CALSTART launched a $45 million push toward electric drayage trucks and charging at the East Coast's busiest port, and more than 100 House Democrats asked the Surface Transportation Board to put rail jobs first in its review of the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger -- a deal that would reshape single-line routing if it clears.