This bill tackles a serious problem in the trucking industry: companies that try to hide their bad safety records by creating new business identities. These are called "chameleon carriers." They might shut down a trucking company with violations and safety problems, then immediately start a new company with the same trucks, drivers, and owners—but under a different name. This lets them dodge safety regulations, avoid penalties, and get cheaper insurance.

The bill does two main things. First, it requires a comprehensive study to figure out how big this problem really is. The Government Accountability Office will investigate how many chameleon carriers are operating, how many deaths and injuries they've caused since 2012, what tricks they use to hide, and what gaps exist in current enforcement. Second, the bill directs the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to build a smart computer tool that can automatically spot suspicious applications when trucking companies register for federal numbers. The tool will look for red flags like the same people running multiple companies, identical equipment, shared addresses, or sudden company creation after another company got shut down. If the tool flags an application, the company gets notified about what triggered the flag and has 30 days to fix their application. A human official still makes the final decision—the computer just helps catch suspicious patterns that humans might miss.