The latest Top Industry Issues report, highlighting the U.S. trucking industry’s leading issues, showed that while the economy led motor carrier concerns, lawsuit abuse reform, insurance cost and availability, and truck parking followed closely, according to the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI).

Among truck driver respondents, driver compensation, truck parking, and English language proficiency rounded out the top three concerns.

The lack of available truck parking dropped two spots this year, while driver compensation held on to its fifth position.

Driver training standard had been on the list of truck driver concerns since 2019, but this year garnered enough votes across all respondents to become the ninth overall top concern. Among truck driver respondents, it was ranked seventh.

Over 4,200 trucking industry stakeholders participated in this year’s survey, a 14 percent increase over the 2024 survey.

Respondents included motor carriers, truck drivers, industry suppliers, driver trainers, and law enforcement.

More than 46 percent of the survey respondents were motor carrier executives and personnel, truck drivers represented 30 percent, and the remaining 23 percent comprised other freight stakeholders.

The not-for-profit research organization’s 21st annual list debuted four first-time issues, including English language proficiency for drivers and artificial intelligence in trucking.

“We’re in the third year of this extended freight recession and the pain is real,” said Andy Owens, A&M Transport president. “Operating costs climbed to their highest ever at the same time that freight pricing has bottomed out. ATRI’s annual analysis is so critical for our industry to not only quantify the issues, but more importantly, to understand what we can collectively do as an industry to address each.”