The independent-contractor label does not automatically let the trucking company off the hook. In trucking, federal rules and the realities of how the work is controlled can still make the motor carrier responsible for a driver it calls a contractor.
Trucking companies often lease drivers and equipment through arrangements that, under federal regulation, can keep the carrier responsible for the operation on its behalf. And regardless of the label, how much control the company actually exercised over the work matters to the analysis.
The bottom line is that a company cannot always avoid responsibility just by calling its drivers contractors. Whether the carrier is on the hook is a fact-specific question worth having reviewed, using the contracts and records behind the arrangement.