What are the Best Fleets doing differently?

February 4, 2026

The 2026 Best Fleets to Drive For® winners have been announced and there were some interesting changes in the list this year along with some valuable insights for carriers looking to create a workplace that attracts and retains the best drivers. The 2026 results give us a look into how fleets are innovating while dealing with a freight recession that is in its third year and an unpredictable economy.

In this month’s blog, we’re going to look at some of the highlights, trends, and best practices coming out of this year’s competition.

We launched the Best Fleets to Drive For in 2008, and it remains the premier annual program dedicated to uncovering the best workplaces in the North American trucking industry. To participate, a fleet must be nominated by a company driver or independent contractor currently working for them. We do in-depth interviews with all participating fleets, collect thousands of driver surveys, and identify the most successful programs and emerging trends across the industry. Results are compiled to identify the year’s Best Fleets and published so everyone can see why these fleets are winners.

The 2026 results show that the most resilient fleets are those that prioritize investing in safety technology, maintaining high-quality equipment, and fostering a culture where driver feedback leads to tangible operational changes. These companies maintain high morale and loyalty even during economic downturns.

Fleets are shifting their hiring practices and that has downstream impacts on the how they focus their driver experience efforts.

Many of the finalists in the program have reduced the number of hires of new CDL holders, with some eliminating their new entrant programs entirely. The focus has shifted towards finishing programs for drivers with limited, but some experience.

Onboarding and training

Once a new driver is hired the average length of an onboarding program is 2.8 days. Almost half (46%) of fleets are starting that process before the driver arrives for day one by providing online activity or pre-work in advance. The Best Fleets winners are also working hard to make a good first impression with double the number (52% up from 25%) including a formal welcome from the company executives.

Looking at ongoing training, the average number of training hours fleets are providing to drivers after year one is 16. Online training has become the norm with 85% of Best Fleets using it. Online training has been on the rise for several years and it’s now the main way that fleets are getting training to their drivers.

When we look at our own customers, we know this is being driven by the ability to deliver more training, of more consistent quality, for less money.

While popular, online is not the only way fleets are delivering training. All are using at least one other method in their ongoing training with coaching and classroom training being the most common.

Coaching is becoming more common in the industry and with our Best Fleets winners. While the industry has always relied on more experienced drivers to pass on their wisdom, having a formal coaching program in place is now standard.

What was interesting in this year’s results was that fleets are giving those programs a formal structure. This year, 35% of our finalists have put a formal program in place to select and train coaches and mentors. Fleets are recognizing that they need to support their mentors and coaches if they’re to be a serious contributor to improved safety and driver satisfaction.

We had a new question on our survey this year asking if fleets paid drivers to act as coaches or mentors. While 80% of finalists were providing some kind of compensation for driver coaches and mentors, the level varied wildly from less than $10/day to over $100/day.

In other areas of training, two-thirds of finalists are providing training to help drivers be aware and stay safe when they are on the road, but away from the truck.

Dashcams

Forward-facing dashcams are now standard with 100% of our finalists having them, while only 25% of those were using inward-facing cameras. Dashcams have also become a standard part of training and coaching. All carriers are now using dashcam-triggered events in their coaching programs, likely because it’s become so easy to do.

CarriersEdge itself allows our customers to set up event-triggered actions that will automatically assign training based on dashcam events. For example, if a driver has five hard breaking events in a week, the system can auto-assign a defensive driving refresher.

Metrics from dashcams have also become the default safety measure, replacing more traditional crash and OOS violations. These scores and dashboards that the in-cab technology provides do give fleets something tangible they can grab onto and try to correct, but there are some potential drawbacks.

Focusing on improving dashcam scores can lead fleets to turn their coaching program into one with a strictly reactive and corrective focus instead of a broader holistic approach that also focuses on celebrating good behavior. We explore this in more detail here.

The second potential drawback is something called Goodhart’s Law, which states “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” When applied to this example, it simply means that these easy-to-track metrics take our eye off the bigger goal of improving overall safety. How this shift may play out long-term is something we’ll be watching in the future.

Safety & comfort beyond driving

Fleets are continuing to work to make life easier and more convenient for their drivers. When it comes to downtime for scheduled PMs, only 20% of drivers are down for more than two hours and 60% of fleets ensure there is no downtime at all for scheduled maintenance.

One-fifth of fleets are using a shipper scorecard or similar method to track the driver experience when loading/unloading and use this data to manage customer relationships. There was also an increase in driver-focused amenities at company facilities and a shift away from those that might be more relevant to office staff.

With respect to safety tech, we already spoke about the ubiquity of dashcam usage. And 1/3 now also have panic buttons on their ELDs.

Fleets are doing a lot to make terminals more comfortable, too. 98% include entertainment features like gaming and cable TV/streaming. Showers are standard (76%) and just over half (55%) offer laundry facilities and free beverages and snacks. There was a general signal that fleets are trying to focus more facilities investment at drivers rather than amenities that might be more targeted to office staff.

Fleets recognize the importance of home time and recharging. 80% are offering more than a minimum reset for drivers and 37% are offering generous or exceptional home times.

In our next post, we’ll be digging deeper into some of these results and pulling out some useful trends and innovations that you should be paying attention to. If you want to really learn from the best, be sure to register for our Best Fleets to Drive For Education & Awards Conference in Charlotte, NC, March 16-17.

You’ll hear directly from this year’s winners about what they are doing to make a difference and innovate in this environment. We’ll showcase the emerging trends and best practices that this year’s competition uncovered. And you’ll have a chance to network with like-minded peers in this intense day-and-a-half event.

Save your spot today.