Trucking Laws · Illinois · October 30, 2026

Illinois Company With 50 Trucks and Truck Drivers Says FMCSA's Motus System Wrongly Labeled It a Hazmat Carrier and It Cannot Book Loads

By Big Rig Daily Staff

A flatbed trucking company in Illinois says it has been grounded by a computer error. Vasile Sorocean, president of Dynamic MD in Carol Stream, found out Tuesday, Oct. 27, that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's (FMCSA) Motus registration system had reclassified his company as a hazardous materials carrier, CCJ reported. Dynamic MD, he said, is not a hazmat carrier.

What the owner says happened

Dynamic MD is a 13-year-old company with 50 trucks and drivers that hauls flatbed and step deck freight. According to CCJ, Motus changed its classification from general freight to hazardous materials. The same screen flagged the company as inactive and under involuntary suspension.

The change raised the carrier's minimum liability insurance requirement to $1 million. The company's active $750,000 filing was then deemed insufficient, and the operation was grounded, CCJ reported.

"We have not been able to book a single shipment since this happened. As a small company, we cannot hold out long," Sorocean said. He said FMCSA never notified him of a problem. "You can't just put 50 people out of work overnight with no communication."

Why he says the fix is stuck

Sorocean said the fix would have been simple with a warning. "We are already insured at $1 million in auto," he said. "I could have just updated the SAFER filing and been compliant."

The reinstatement option in Motus is greyed out, he said, so he cannot correct the problem himself. He has opened three support tickets since Tuesday, asked the Illinois Trucking Association for help, and was on the phone with FMCSA until 10 p.m. Wednesday.

A wider pattern

CCJ said an analysis by the Central Analysis Bureau (CAB) and CCJ on Thursday found more than 6,475 companies with changes in required bodily injury and property damage insurance, from $750,000 or below to $1 million and above, that led to involuntary suspensions. CAB found that roughly 6,000 of them were processed the same day as Dynamic MD's change or later that week. CAB told CCJ that arbitrary insurance limit changes are one of the more common issues among Motus users.

FMCSA did not respond to CCJ's request for comment. FMCSA Chief Safety Officer Steve Dowling estimated this week that "95% of the carrier registration that's going on in Motus is working," adding, "If you're part of that 5%, that's still a challenge." He also said the system has kept "thousands of people" out of the industry, according to CCJ.

Sorocean said the system is not catching the carriers it is meant to catch. "While the FMCSA is trying to remove bad actors from the industry, the bad actors are not even enrolling in Motus," he said. "Good carriers are being compromised."

Quick facts

• Company: Dynamic MD, Carol Stream, Illinois, with 50 trucks.
• Found out: Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026.
• Insurance: $750,000 on file, $1 million now required after the reclassification, the company says.
• Status: flagged inactive and under involuntary suspension, with the reinstatement option greyed out, per the owner.
• FMCSA: did not respond to CCJ's request for comment.

Big Rig Daily has explained what Motus is and how registration works and covered how FMCSA's Elison said Motus fixes could take weeks, not months.

A question for readers

If a system change could park a carrier overnight, how much warning should FMCSA be required to give first?

Save this story for later

Save this to Pinterest