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The Overdrive Radio podcast is produced by Overdrive magazine, the Voice of the American Trucker for 60-plus years. Host Todd Dills -- with a supporting cast among Overdrive editors, contributors and others -- presents owner-operator business leading lights, interviews with extraordinary independent truckers and small fleet owners, and plenty in the way of trucking business and regulatory news and views. Access an archive of all episodes of Overdrive Radio going back more than a decade via this link: http://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio
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'Keep digging' with Dice Mayhem's Trucking, growing dump roots to long-term small fleet success
This week's edition of Overdrive Radio is another in our series highlighting contenders for 2025 Trucker of the Year, with Overdrive Senior Editor Matt Cole’s talk with Virginia-headquartered two-truck straight dump owner-operator business Dice Mayhem’s Trucking, headed up by owner-operator Hunter Hubbard and her husband, Tim. Hunter’s just about six years into truck ownership herself, her husband a good bit longer, yet clearly she’s harnessed a quality that current reigning Trucker of the Year Alan Kitzhaber sees in all successful people when it comes to business. As he put earlier this year in his “Plan for better business,” authored for our Overdrive Extra blog, “99.9% of success is desire.” That is, those who have a clear case of the want-tos, ultimately, probably will do whatever it is they set out to accomplish: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15712314 Cue Hunter Hubbard’s own advice for any aspiring truck owner when it comes to success in business for themselves. "If you have your mind set to do it, go for it. Nothing's stopping you but yourself, and the worst thing you can do is fail. But at the end of the day, nobody wants to fail. You're going to figure it out one way or another." Some days will be awful, but "you'll sit back a month down the road, two months down the road, and be like, 'that was rough, but hey we're still here.' You just gotta keep digging on it." As she well acknowledges, challenges will present themselves day-in, day-out, but those who keep digging will get through to the other side. Clearly, Hubbard herself has been one of those sorts these last years in business. "I might be a little stubborn sometimes," she said. She and Tim have built a steady base of customers for their two-truck straight dump business in and around their Virginia home base, weathering an array of their own customer challenges in recent years when a buyout of one of their main customers and integration of the two business left their own trucking company in an uncertain position for hauling work, given the company's small size. Last year, she pivoted to a certain extent, with purchase of an older Peterbilt tractor, utilizing mechanical prowess with a new shop, too, to get it in working order and standing up a new, one-truck business for livestock hauling regionally: Dice Logistics. Yet dump work remains the Hubbards’ bread and butter, and the seasonality of both businesses continues to inspire the occasional second-guessing of their commitment to niche specialization. They could be hauling food, which always has to run, Hubbard notes, telling her story to Cole in this episode. They could be, that is, but "I didn't really choose that route. Everything's seasonal, everything depends on the weather," she said. "You just wait it out." They’re doing more than just waiting, that’s sure. As also mentioned in the podcast: **Matt Cole's two-part feature on ways to save on insurance at renewal: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15740305 **Learn how you can put your own or another owner-operator business in the running for the 2025 Trucker of the Year honor, with a chance to win a new seat from sponsor Bostrom Seating and Commercial Vehicle Group: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker
Encouraging freight signs -- for now -- in ATBS annual owner-operator income update
In 2024, finally, as regular Overdrive readers will know, owner-operator income was up on a year-over-year basis. ATBS Vice President Mike Hosted makes that abundantly clear in this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, featuring the business services firm's March 25 update offering an economic outlook for the year ahead as well as lessons within the benchmarking data ATBS dervies from its tens of thousands of owner-operator clients' performance. If you missed our report from the session as MATS got under way, find it via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/15741374 The small boost in average income is certainly a first in what’s been an exceedingly tough three and more years now as freight demand’s declined, revenues and income falling for many owner-operators as costs just rose through much of the period. The 2024 income gain also comes despite even further rates and revenue declines last year, a sure sign that successful owners are tightening the operation, increasing fuel efficiency to reduce costs as much as possible. Today in the podcast, we essentially let the tape roll on Hosted’s presentation. You can follow along by downloading Mike Hosted’s slides via this link, or watch the Youtube version up top or on Overdrive's Youtube channel to listen along with the presentation of the slides. Download all the slides from Hosted's presentation via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15741380 Yet another bit of positivity to emerge from the ATBS session had to do with the spot market, particularly for flatbed freight, in year 2025 so far. The moves up and down in the spot indices Hosted sees as particularly valuable as near-term indicators of demand in the market. Though the positivity there is tempered by a big degree of uncertainty made even bigger by the President’s tariff announcements this past week, if the surge in flatbed freight and demand seen so far this year doesn’t just prove to be a result of a kind of importers’ pre-buy to beat a variety of tariffs on goods coming across U.S. borders, we could be headed in a longer-term positive direction. Recent trucking market performance recalls Gary Buchs’ advice around freight, around customer identification and the time to strike, likewise when some measure of a kickstart might truly arise. It came back in late September 2024, before elections’ outcomes were known, and following the fed’s moves to begin to ease off the cost of borrowing with interest rate cuts. Buchs advised to set a calendar reminder for 4-6 months out from the time of the fed's cuts. “Odds are,” he said, “that is about the time business will change, as it takes time for companies to have confidence" to place orders, others to respond to those orders with their own confidence, "and the cards begin to fall and make things move....” Here we are, four-to-six months on. Looking at the stock market since the Trump tariff announcement last week we can’t say business confidence is 100% the rule. Yet flatbed freight’s been moving up, as noted, and a couple weeks back dry and reefer rates and volumes finally joined in. Maybe Buchs was right on the timing. And maybe in the freight economy, things are in fact changing for the better. ATBS is coproducer with Overdrive of the comprehensive Partners in Business playbook for owner-operator careers, start to finish, now in a new online content library format. Browse the new playbook: https://overdriveonline.com/pib
Freight markets and fraud, insurance, towing: Small-biz challenges dominate trucking-issues panel
Back from the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Kentucky, this Overdrive Radio edition kicks off continuing coverage as all of us here at Overdrive spent the show fanning out across convention center grounds to cover just as much as possible. The fruits of that labor you’ve seen just a small sampling of to date, the lot of it collected with the MATS tag at OverdriveOnline.com: https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4372607 Today we drop back to the very beginning of the show for an 8 a.m. Thursday, March 27, panel discussion that set the issues stage for the remainder of the event. It was moderated by Brent Hutto, longtime Chief Relationship Officer at Truckstop and now a senior advisor for the load board as he’s joined the staff of the Truck Parking Club company. You’ll hear a variety of voices in the panel discussion, touching on freight market dynamics, small business struggles and ways to overcome, predatory towing, parking, fraud in the brokered-freight marketplace, cargo and payment theft and so much more. Panelists included: **Jason Cowan, leader of 45-truck Silver Creek Transportation, as Overdrive’s Small Fleet Champ in 2021, since which plans for growth have come to fruition. **Hell Bent Xpress owner Jamie Hagen, whose all-Mack fleet operates out of a South Dakota headquarters and which was one of two finalists in the 3-10-truck division of the Small Fleet Championship last year. **Jessica Dotson, co-owner-operator of Dotson Transportation with her husband **Tyler Johnston, Mercer Transportation's director of operations **Lewie Pugh, Owner-Operator Independent Driver's Association executive vice president As mentioned in the podcast: **Overdrive's recent insurance renewal-related feature: https://overdriveonline.com/15740305 **Post-crash litigation series: https://overdriveonline.com/15287415 **Tow companies dominate DOT listening session: https://overdriveonline.com/15678174 **Overdrive's revamped Partners in Business start-to-finish playbook for owner-operator careers: https://overdriveonline.com/pib
Overdrive's new Partners in Business playbook, start-to-finish resource for an owner-operator career
In this Overdrive Radio edition, big news: We’re releasing today our brand-new Partners in Business playbook for owner-operator business, start to finish. The 2025 reboot of the PIB program is a total revamp designed with the decidedly mobile professional trucker in mind. You can access it today at https://overdriveonline.com/pib For more than two decades, Overdrive's Partners in Business, coproduced with owner-op business services firm ATBS, has focused on training and continuing biz education. Today, you'll find a brand-new format for all of the content that last year made up the 100-plus-page manual -- and plenty in the way of new updates. For this year's release, PIB goes from a single-download format to a much more dynamic online content library, easily accessed on any smartphone, tablet or laptop or desktop computer. The reorganization collects valuable tactics and strategies for long-term profitability in eight categories, charting the journey of owners from start-up all the way through to retirement: 1. The “Starting Line” section details the choice of business structures, motivating factors for different individual owners, and plenty to think about in terms of business and goal planning, choosing a freight niche, a motor carrier to lease to, and/or how and why to take another route altogether. 2. The “Equipment and Maintenance” category pulls on Overdrive and ATBS resources along with the accumulated knowledge of so many of our industry-participant contributors over the decades to detail the ways to acquire the best equipment at the most-favorable terms, down and dirty PM and repair tactics, and much more. 3. The third, “Business Management” section offers a wealth of insight on tracking costs, revenue and profits; building those profit and loss statements; and paying yourself for better business health analysis and load planning, among many other subjects germane to both beginners at the start of an ownership career and seasoned veterans in need of a business refresh. These three sections contain more individual parts than the remaining five, and there’s a reason for that. They represent the bedrock foundation on which owners throughout history have built their success. The remaining five sections in large part will be pretty self-explanatory when you see their titles, and all is aimed at a self-help assist for owners to, long-term, better enjoy the fruits of long labor put into the business. That last bit's a nod to the title of Part 2 of Overdrive Trucker of the Year Alan Kitzhaber’s “plan for better business” authored for Overdrive and published right around the time we announced Kitzhaber’s big win in January. He's looking ahead to being able to retire quite soon, actually, after more than three decades trucking, mostly as an owner-operator. He’ll be parking his truck amongst the rest of you at MATS this year, and I’m honored to be able to help host him at the show. If you won’t be there, keep tuned for much more from him and other longtime owners in our show coverage. Truth be told, all of us here at Overdrive lean on those among you who engage with us for ideas worth sharing, a lot of Partners in Business itself in fact made up of the accumulated wisdom of those in the readership who’ve shared their expertise with us over the decades. Here's huge appreciation for all of you. Run through the new PIB at https://overdriveonline.com/pib As mentioned in the podcast, here's the registration link for ATBS's live update scheduled for March 25 charting 2024 owner-op income performance: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/3349075480558501214 And keep tuned for our MATS coverage later this week and certainly in the weeks to come here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4372607 Also in the podcast: MATS-preview retreads from three interviews from the last several weeks with Jamie Hagen, Hotels4Truckers.com proprietor Dan Fuller, and trucker-songwriter Tony Justice.
Tony Justice: Top billing at MATS, honoring a mother's legacy, prospects for new record
This week’s edition of Overdrive Radio starts with a brief part of "Truck Stop," earmarked by today's guest for a special place in his heart the last time we hosted him. That'd be trucker-songwriter Tony Justice, who back then in 2023 spoke to the inspiration the song took from Justice’s mother’s long work at a couple of different East Tennessee truck stops you’ll hear him mention in today’s podcast. Yet it’s with a bit of heavy heart, here, that we get this edition rolling, given Sharon Justice passed in November last year. It’s no small number of truck drivers -- and one trucking magazine editor at least -- that were touched by her life, that’s sure, Tony Justice and his late father chief among them. "She felt like she was still taking care of dad," Justice said, noting how much Momma J, as she was known to so many, loved the work she did over the last nearly two decades of her life. "You wouldn't find a cleaner shower on the interstate, or a more warming smile to meet you when you walked into the door." Fellow trucker-songwriter Bill Weaver, Justice said, summed it up best once noting he didn't "know anyone who was called Momma by so many different people." Tony Justice is back on Overdrive Radio this week for a bit of preview of his big headlining concert upcoming next week Friday, March 28, at the end of the day at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Kentucky. Find more about MATS happenings via the collection at this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4372607 If you're unfamiliar with Tony Justice’s music, know that for a decade and a half and more now it's been nothing if not steeped in his life over-the-road, joined in the journey by his wife and chief promoter, Misty Justice. For many years he trucked with Everhart Transportation out of Greeneville, Tennessee, among others prior, yet these days enjoys not having to deal with shippers and receivers so much behind the wheel of his own tour bus. And if you’ve not seen Tony Justice live, get ready for a spectacle at MATS, that’s sure. He performs with a crack group of players, and it’s always a great show. Dive into a conversation with Justice that touches on plans for the big show with Colt Ford at MATS March 28, the Justices' huge Large Cars & Guitars Truck Show event in East Tennessee in May (at a new location this year), and the legacy of Momma J, the late Sharon Justice.
Trucker of the Month Kenny Wingate leans into the pride, and brass tacks, of owner-op trucking
The voice you'll hear at the top of this Overdrive Radio edition is that of Overdrive's February Trucker of the Month Kenny Wingate. Clearly, he knows of what he speaks when he invokes the feeling -- "nothing like it," he said -- that he associates with best of trucking as an owner-operator, running your own game when times are good. It's part of what drove him to take the leap back from company work he was doing to launch his Southpoint Exchange businss with one truck and his own authority in 2019. He’s up to two trucks today, headquartered in Auburndale, Florida: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15738560/how-truckings-supposed-to-be-done-meet-kenny-wingate He's the proud owner of two sharp Peterbilt 579s and stainless reefers, and he's been focused throughout the company's relatively short six-year history on business brass tacks, building a team around him for freight with regular brokers, many of whom he’s known going back decades. Likewise on the accounting, bookkeeping and general business management side of Southpoint Exchange, and he's set up for further growth after a lifetime spent trucking, as you’ll hear in the podcast. He's 55 years young today and relishes that long history in the business, though many of the men he learned from, and some of those he came up with in trucking, have passed on. Magnanimous in manner, clearly on top of his game as a business owner, Wingate is also nothing if not grateful for all the help of those who came before him. He told the story of a recent encounter of an old friend at a dock. "Our generation is starting to be few and far between ... The other day I run across a gentleman I probably hadn't seen in 25 years, and we trucked together," Wingate said. "We sat down on an old wooden bench at the back of our trailers while we were getting loaded" remembering all those who came before but also "we just laughed, man, and just cut the fool, and it felt good. It felt good to see somebody that you trucked with years ago, you know, when when things were a little different." At once, most of the folks the two men asked each other about were gone, he said, or at the very least off the road for good for health or other reasons. Wingate, 55, stays grateful for his own longevity, and looks ahead to the future and opportunities to build better business with Southpoint Exchange. In the podcast, hear that perspective but also just how two-truck Southpoint Exchange is getting the work done with dedicated freight on lanes between Florida and Northern Ohio. After being nominated by one of his customers, he’s officially in the running for our 2025 Trucker of the Year award, which you can enter yourself or nominate another owner via https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker
New battery-powered auxiliary A/C system: Small fleet owner looks to move truck-to-truck for better ROI
Jamie Hagen's got the inside scoop, but won't divulge the name of the new Mack tractor model set to be debuted next month in New York in this year of Mack's 125th anniversary as a company. Small Fleet owner Hagen has actually driven one hand-built production model already around the company’s test track hidden behind the walls, and come June he expects to be leasing one of the first production units in an arrangement with Mack’s marketing arm -- it’ll add to his all-Mack fleet, South Dakota-headquartered Hell Bent Xpress, among finalists in 2024 for Overdrive’s Small Fleet Championship: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15704803/small-fleet-champ-four-finalists-to-square-off The new truck will add 1 to Hell Bent's power-unit count, currently sitting where it was back when we last spoke around the Small Fleet Champ program’s conclusion in November, at 9 trucks, so there’s big things ahead for Hagen and Hell Bent, no doubt. Yet the new Mack wasn’t the principal reason we brought him in for this edition of Overdrive Radio -- rather, the forward-looking small fleet owner happens to be the first U.S. owner to install a new-to-the-U.S. auxiliary air-conditioning unit in the sleeper of one of his Macks. That’s the Fresco 9000 MaXX system built by an Italian manufacturer and powered by U.S.-based Dragonfly Energy’s Battle Born Batteries Lithium Iron Phosphate battery to deliver cooling power in the warmer months: https://www.overdriveonline.com/gear/product/15684579/autoclima-fresco-9000-maxx-batterypowered-auxiliary-ac-unit-hitting-us-shores Hagen walks through the unit’s design and, along the way, his rationale for jumping into the modular, portable system after years forgoing alternative A/C for his mostly upper Midwest regional fleet. (Yes, he’s got auxiliary heat in the form of Webasto bunk heaters.) If you’ll be in attendance at the big Mid-America Trucking Show later this month, too, Hagen will be part of a panel discussion opening the event on Thursday, March 27, about small trucking business issues. It also features a past Overdrive Small Fleet Champ in Silver Creek Transportation’s Jason Cowan, among many others: https://truckingshow.com/opening-breakfast/ Hear more about that in the podcast, likewise the story of how a 2023 Mack Anthem in the small fleet of Hell Bent Xpress came to be the first truck to get an install of the Fresco 9000 MaXX battery-powered alternative air conditioning system, performed by the way by Jim Fowler and his team at Michigan MD Alignment. Much more from in the way of MATS preview coverage at https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4372607
Get in where you fit in: Hotels4Truckers revamped for truck parking-friendly, discounted bookings
In this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, Hotels4Truckers.com proprietor Dan Fuller, former driver and independent owner-operator, details completion of a project years in the making. The website and now mobile app as well got its start simply as a cataloging of hotels around the nation where parking a tractor and 53-foot trailer was not only possible but welcomed, provided for by the hotel facilities. Within the last year, users of Hotels4Truckers.com, though, noticed some significant changes, boosting the seamless-experience factor with booking possible now, with discounts, right from the site itself. Functionally, Fuller said, "We're like Hotels.com for the trucking industry now. Tell us where you're looking, you do your dates, and all the hotels come back" with a search, showing the discounted rate available to Hotels4Truckers users and with a built-in parking filter you can use to show only sites where parking's available. The new website soft-launched back last Fall -- legacy users, Fuller added, will need to re-register if they haven't already -- and ever since he's been tweaking the design and adding hotel chains and truck parking-friendly facilities. In total, close to 13,000 rooms are represented within the platform (many with parking) among dozens of hotel brands. In Canada, too, with a very recent update for users up North. That just so happens to be where Dan Fuller lives today -- he came off the road in 2017 after much of his life spent headquartered near Detroit. A second marriage to a Canadian health-industry specialist took up to rural far Northern Ontario, where he's been hard at work building out the new version of his longtime service. I'm willing to bet he's looking forward to warmer climes as he preps for an official launch of the new Hotels4Truckers.com upcoming at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Kentucky, next month. (You'll find him in the North Lobby near the main registration -- attendees can sign up for the service there for free and with a special gift as part of the bargain. I think it will be worth the visit, I'll say, for now.) In the podcast, Dan Fuller lays out his personal story trucking, likewise the 15 years or so he's spent at work building a network of discounted hotels and with, as noted, verifiable intelligence about whether tractor-trailer parking is available at any site. Find Hotels4Truckers via https://hotels4truckers.com and via iOS and Android app stores. More Overdrive Radio: https://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio
Don't be an unwitting accomplice to cargo theft: Cautionary tale, steps to mitigate risk
Today, a bit of a hypothetical that is really not hypothetical at all, though we’ll withhold names with multiple court cases pending. But consider the scenario: You engage with a broker you feel you know is legitimate for a load of copper moving toward the Northeast. You drop that load for $1,600, you ultimately get paid, and you go on about your business to the next piece of freight. Meanwhile, though, the same load of copper is being rebooked by the same “broker” – note the scare quotes, certainly safe use them in this scenario. The “broker” contracts with yet another owner to move the copper west to the center of the country, whereupon that owner drops the cargo and goes along his own merry way. Yet again, the “broker” now has another owner-operator in his sites for the third move of the copper, this time with a destination in the Los Angeles area. The operator who picks this load up, though (promised a handsome rate for his work), along the way gets a good indication of just where the "broker" wants to send him. It's no kind of manufacturer who needs the coiled, finished copper for their products, rather the address for what looks to be the kind of place where old cars and trucks and scrap metal of various kinds are sent to die, to be reprocessed -- a salvage yard, in essence. This operator obeys his spidey senses and calls the cops, opening a case that then winds its way back to the origin of the copper in the rural Southeast, where a rural detective IDs and then orders you, the owner-operator who picked up the load to begin with, arrested. You land in jail in your home region, spending several nights locked up before being bonded out for $50K. The original crooks -- the “broker” on the load, likely impersonating a legitimate entity or otherwise part of a double-brokering ring of authorized entities -- meanwhile get to sit at their computers wherever they might be and keep up the "good" work. You and your leasing carrier face scheduled court dates that come and go, ongoing discussion amongst defense and prosecution, with no resolution to your charge. When we first learned of a particular case fitting these parameters back late last summer, the arrest had just happened, with a September court date scheduled, which was then pushed to October. None of those court dates held for the owner, and still, there’s been no resolution as efforts to untangle the scheme continue. The charge? "Obtaining property by false pretenses in excess of $100,000," apparently for falling for a fake broker’s representation of himself as legitimate as he schemes with an unknown number of actually knowing accomplices to steal the copper. How's that for personal risk? Today on the podcast, a conversation with cargo-theft security firm Overhaul’s Danny Ramon about just what that company’s seeing in the so-called “strategic theft” landscape around the nation. That’s the kind of theft described in the scenario above, often with multiple layers of deception and misrepresentation involved to use entirely legitimate, unwitting operations to steal hot commodities. As mentioned in the podcast: **Alex Lockie's recent story about the FraudWatch system from Overhaul: https://overdriveonline.com/15737195 **Transportation attorney Hank Seaton's "Supply chain protocol": https://overdriveonline.com/15302784
'Road less traveled': Trucker of the Month Ken Brodeur takes control with authority
In this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, January Trucker of the Month Ken Brodeur, owner-operator out of Escondido, California, tells the tale of his circuitous path to trucking over three decades of prior IT tech and music-industry careers. He leased and then purchased his first and current truck in 2016, a new Kenworth W9 that he’s kept in great working order ever since, with a diligent maintenance approach, some good luck, and plenty in the way of shrewd decision-making over tumultuous years for trucking, the economy in general and more. The flatbedder’s experienced highs and lows through his now half-decade in business with authority, before that leased to Landstar, learning from successes and failures and putting them into practice. In essence, as a fellow owner and friend said about him in Cole’s feature story, Brodeur’s just “one of them good old success stories” in trucking. In some ways, Brodeur's is a story that repeats itself all around the nation for owner-operators who successfully manage revenue against costs for solid income. It's a tale of a man who “started with a big company and moved his way up, bought himself a truck, got himself a trailer and watched his Ps and Qs," his friend said. "Just a true owner-operator.” Meantime, Brodeur's made good on a long-term goal of greater control of his life, with full control of his business. Read more about owner-operator Ken Brodeur in Matt Cole's feature attendant to his January honor: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15736267/trucker-of-the-month-throws-chains-tarps-after-decades-in-it Nominate your own business or that of another deserving owner you admire for Overdrive's 2025 Trucker of the Year award: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker
Beat the 'winner's curse' of auction-type negotiations for better freight rates
With this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, we pick up where longtime Overdrive contributor, former OTR owner and current business coach Gary Buchs left off on the Overdrive Extra blog last week: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15736116/ There, as regular readers will know, he penned and published notes on the "fine art" of rates negotiation, with a special emphasis on ways to counterbalance the pressure so many owner-operators feel to move fast on load opportunities, given the speed at which loads come and go on the boards in particular. Compared to just a short time ago in history, freight "information's moving so much faster" in this day and age, Buchs said. "The speed ... interferes often with solid negotiation. When you speed that up, things get missed." Move too fast to just outright accept an offer, and you might neglect to consider fully that the good-sound long-haul run to the West Coast starts out due well east of Atlanta, with a load pickup time of 2 in the afternoon. If you didn’t effectively build into your rate the added cost of traffic in Atlanta rush hours (or the time to wait it out, as it were), you’re behind the eight ball before you even get started on the run. Buchs offered a different example of one among many details you can miss if you don’t take the time to effectively negotiate. He's heard this one several times: An owner "got to a shipper and ... they wanted cash for the lumper and they didn't have cash," Buchs said, asking "How does that get missed if you do a lot of reefer work?" He advises owner-operators think about such scenarios: "What lessons do we learn when things don't go quite right? How do we apply the lesson we learn? Like when we overcommit or fail to anticipate travel times, drive times. ... Drivers and owner-operators feel the pressure of time squeezing them so much, and that interferes with our ability to tap that brake pedal, to pause for even just a moment. So we have to" be aware of that and "use our experience," he said, knowledge of routes and so much more. Today on the podcast, much more in the way of specific ideas built on Buchs’ wealth of personal experience in business and with owners operating in the freight world today. Getting better at negotiation in general certainly isn't easy. "If we're going to get better, we've got to stop thinking that everything is going to be easy," as Buchs put it. But with some of these ideas, hopefully more can avoid participating in what might otherwise feel like an auction, where the “winner’s curse” is almost always to be paying more than what an item is really worth, research has shown. In the freight world, that’s the opposite. Win the load after race-to-the-bottom ping-ponging with the competition or accepting a broker's lowball offer blindly, and you’ll certainly be getting compensated below the market value for the freight movement. In the podcast, Buchs also stresses starting with cost analysis, and recommends including salary needs on the cost side of the ledger when it comes to business profit analysis. It might help you in load-by-load profit analysis and negotiation, too. Overdrive’s Load Profit Analyzer, our fairly simple online calculator introduced late last year, is an assist to analyze individual and/or compare multiple loads. The calculator includes on its front end places to use the knowledge and analysis Buchs talks about to input not just cost per mile overall, but variable cost per mile, fixed cost per day worked, and, again considering it on the cost side, a salary per day worked figure. Profit-potential results then show results not only per-mile but per day -- with salary added back in, too -- for better appreciation of the impact of time and fixed costs. The Load Profit Analyzer is free to use with registration: https://overdriveonline.com/load-analyzer
How to build the 'Remarkable One Truck Company': NASTC, Kevin Rutherford on ROTC progress
"The goal of this program is to take one truck and figure out how to squeeze the maximum amount of profit out of that truck." --Kevin Rutherford on NASTC's ROTC joint effort with his business Kevin Rutherford's Let's Truck and other initiatives are likely well-known to Overdrive readers. We last heard his voice here in Overdrive Radio from the conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies at the 2023 event. He made a case to small fleets and owner-operators in attendance for just how they might get through, even thrive in, the down freight markets then ongoing: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15658960 He was back at the NASTC event in Nashville in November last year with some news of a joint venture with the association, bringing his focus through many years helping owner-operators in business with coaching, and with tools like his ProfitGauges software and more ... news about how that singular focus would be coming to a NASTC work in progress, according to association president Dave Owen. It goes by a nifty acronym, ROTC, or “Remarkable One Truck Company,” ROTC. (There's an alternate for that, too, Rutherford quipped during his and Owen's NASTC 2024 presentation: the "Rutherford Owen Training Curriculum.") It will be the end product of a closer relationship Rutherford and Owen have built over a couple years now. These two leaders in small trucking hope to be able to combine forces to help business owners with resources, tools and education. "The number 1 reason for failure in small trucking is growth," said Owen. "And the number 2 reason for not succeeding, after you make the decision to get a second truck, is not growing." It's a paradoxical reality the association sees many one-truck independents fall prety to when they move beyond the single unit, without the infrastructure in place to manage the biz when you’re no longer in complete control of the response to every single thing that can, and will, go wrong. NASTC exists to help provide that infrastructure, as Owen notes. These two men are hoping to fully launch the ROTC program as a training effort in some ways modeled on Rutherford’s long-running programs designed for one-truck owners to maximize efficiency and profitability. Those lessons then can be applied across any small fleet owner’s business as well, to enable better competition with peers -- the big boys, too. As you’ll hear on the podcast today sharing some of their freewheeling conversation with a roomful of NASTC conference attendees in November, owner-operators and nimble small fleets do in fact bring a cost advantage to trucking over their big-fleet counterparts in numerous individual cases. Minus diver pay and benefits, according to the American Transportation Research Institute’s 2024 cost analysis, it's costing the big fleets 1.30/mile. Meanwhile, one owner in attendance at the NASTC session with Rutherford and Owen noted his cost to operate, not considering his own compensation, was below a dollar a mile. We made a comparison using Overdrive’s new Load Profit Analyzer calculator: https://overdriveonline.com/load-analyzer The profit result on a hypothetical four-day, 2000-mile run offered at $2.25 per mile for the rate rate was about 30 cents a mile in profit to the Remarkable One Truck of that owner-operator’s business, plus nearly $2,000 worth in salary to himself for the four-day run. The average fleet’s truck, on the other hand, loses a couple $20 bills’ worth of cash -- the only one profiting there is the driver, earning that nearly $2,000 in salary. As mentioned in the podcast, Kevin Rutherford shared this form questionnaire designed to get you thinking about the areas where you want to improve when it comes to efficiency and business analysis, and signal your interest in the new NASTC ROTC curriculum: https://kevinonxm.wufoo.com/forms/welcome-to-the-rotc-breakout-session
Staying young, learning more: Master of the owner-operator craft Alan Kitzhaber, Trucker of the Year
"Constantly trying to learn new things just keeps you keeps your mind young. It keeps you going. When you stop learning, you kind of just stagnate and drift away." --Owner-operator Alan Kitzhaber Overdrive Radio listeners will recognize the voice at the top of the podcast this week as that of longtime owner-op Alan Kitzhaber of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, with his 1995 vintage aerodynamic, 4-million-mile Kenworth T600. Every single mile of that 4 million he's put down on the road himself, since it was new and he was a company driver for Millis Transfer. Kitzhaber was Overdrive’s Trucker of the Month back in August, when we told the tale of the Kenworth’s journey toward May '24, when it crossed the 4-million threshold, likewise detailing Kitzhaber’s long relationship with JR Truck Repair nearby to his home base for a meticulous maintenance approach that has been a big part of the truck’s longevity: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15681362 When we got our Trucker of the Year contenders together late in 2024 for a final talk, and we asked Kitzhaber and others to draw on their wealth of experience for the best single piece of advice for new and/or aspiring owner-operators, it got Kitzhaber to thinking. He had much more than just that single piece of advice. He set to work on a story that you can read today in two parts, starting here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15712314 Attendant to that in-depth tutorial of sorts into smart practices in business ownership, we’ve also got some big news about Kitzhaber to share that he's "certainly excited about," he said. For 2024, in what if current plans come to fruition will turn out to be his final full year trucking as an independent owner-operator with authority, Alan Kitzhaber with his Oak Ridge Transport business is Overdrive’s Trucker of the Year. "I'm going to be retiring the end of March/beginning of April, somewhere in there, and I guess I can't think of a better way to wrap up a career," he said. With the big win, he goes out on top after a career as an owner that stretches back to the day in 1998 he made the considered decision to buy the T600 from Millis Transfer, where he was then employed as a company driver. Since then, he's modified the truck forever with efficiency, comfort, and operating longevity in mind. Trucker of the Year judges ultimately lauded owner-operator Kitzhaber’s meticulous approach to both maintenance and efficiency throughout the operation. Said one: "Really a monument to the craft of trucking as an owner-operator." Kitzhaber contracts directly in the distribution network of shipper Menards, with retail stores for building supplies and more throughout the Midwest. Menards transportation manager John Schmidley threw plenty in the way of praise Kitzhaber’s way, too: "Everyone up here at Menards is pretty excited for him," Schmidley said. "He has a lot of respect for the industry, and does his homework." Overdrive's Trucker of the Year award "is going to a real good choice." Schmidley sees one of the best in Kitzhaber, and relies on him directly as a resource in their business, that’s sure, in addition to offering him as an example to other owners in the company’s big network of independents hauling freight for them. Schmidley was hopeful to convince Kitzhaber to stay in business on a part-time basis for the summer season uptick in transport needs for the shipper, yet the owner is intent on enjoying the fruits of his labor. "I'm in a position where I just simply don't need to work unless I want to," Kitzhabert said. He's building a house on a 40-acre piece of land he's enjoyed for a couple decades hunting, fishing and more for respite from the road. Meantime, here's our chance to learn from one of the best. Congrats to Kitzhaber from all of us, likewise from program sponsor Bostrom Seating: https://bostromseating.com Enter the 2025 Trucker of the Year field: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker
Hacked? How trucking owner-ops can contain the damage -- or better yet, avoid it in the first place
"Theft increased 1,445 percent from the first quarter in 2022 to the first quarter in 2024." --Kathleen Dasal, retired from the Ansonia commercial credit bureau Dasal presented at this past November’s annual conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies – and emphasized that huge increase in cargo theft over these last years, aided and abetted by organized crime rings’ increasingly sophisticated use of our digital communications tools to perpetuate all manner of frauds on carriers, brokers and increasingly shippers themselves. That’s as you’ll hear in today’s edition of Overdrive Radio, featuring Dasal's talk. She keeps her feet firmly planted in small fleet issues with NASTC, and her presentation featured slides you can download to follow along in full via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/document/15711911/protecting-your-fleet-from-fraud-download-the-nastc-2024-presentation We'd recommend it, given this episode is probably an appropriate way to continue to kick off 2025 here in a year where we’re expecting FMCSA’s big move to revamp its registration system to finally get off the ground, and the identity and double-brokering fraud issue continues to be one of the biggest difficulties to surmount in trucking, particularly for small carriers and owner-operators working spot markets. You'll catch hear a variety of tips and tricks, ways to spot fraud in phishing emails and on fradulent rate cons and in the very voice on the phone who might purport to be even someone you know, or at least to be from a company you know. For regular Overdrive readers, a lot of the anti-fraud measures Dasal speaks to might be refreshers, of a fashion, yet many share a central point that you can make part of your New Year’s Resolutions for the business this year. In Kathleen Dasal’s words, "You've got to just pay attention to who your customer is, and know who you're doing business with." There’s a lot owner-operators can do in that regard, if you’re not already working closely with central, trusted brokers; leased to a reputable motor carrier; or doing direct business with shipper customers. As mentioned in the podcast: **The WhatsmyDNS.net domain age lookup: https://www.whatsmydns.net/domain-age **The "Iluminati" hack of broker DAT accounts and carrier accounts on the Amazon Relay system: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15678337/norman-camamiles-iluminati-hack-weekend-four-amazon-runs-no-payment **Reporting on the trade in MC numbers: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15704468/your-authority-might-be-worth-30000-to-freight-fraudsters and https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15705499/fmcsa-guidance-on-buying-and-selling-mc-numbers **FMCSA's guidance on containing the damage after a hack: https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/mission/help/broker-and-carrier-fraud-and-identity-theft
Tour-haul 'special forces': Small fleet owner Josh Rickards building the team with owner-ops
For every story of difficulty expanding beyond a single truck with leased owner-operators, there's probably more than one tale of success. The latter's been the story the last several years for owner-operator Josh Rickards, whose Rickards Transportation Services business as of late November was up to a total of five owners leased on in addition to himself, still also behind the wheel much of the time. In something of a growth mode now for a time, Rickards has come to specialize in part in the entertainment industry, supporting concert tours and often enough working in tandem with larger entities for the larger tours. His owner-operator journey started back in his boyhood, with a particular mentor in an owner-operator he’s long been happy to call his Uncle in Michael Paul Visbeek, out of Northern California and since passed on. Rickards tells the tale of a kid’s inspiration grown in a Kenworth W9 with a Cat and an 18 speed, then a detour as a young man through hip-hop music promotion and marketing, and on to true trucking success. What’s Rickards looking forward to for the new year? He just bought a brand-new Western Star you’ll hear him talk about in this Overdrive Radio episode, and he’s bringing on two more owner-operators as he continues on the goal of sustainable growth. As he told me last week, asked about any "New Year's Resolutions" for the business in 2025, “it’s not just about growing in numbers,” he said. Anybody with good credit can buy a truck. For Rickards, his laser focus is on what he calls “the real challenge, … maintaining that growth while staying profitable.” Hear much more from him in the podcast episode, and find his fleet at the company website -- https://rickardsinc.com -- where he promotes values and goals of creating opportunity for leased owners through honesty and transparency in agreements, of sustainable growth and with a principal focus on entertainment hauling, of building a true team and, when he’s partnered with bigger entities on larger-scale tours, being that integral part of the team that is any touring production. "We put ourselves out there as the Navy Seals, the Marines, of touring," he said. "We're a smaller outfit, but when you call us in you're getting the special forces that are coming in." As mentioned in the podcast, a promotional video DAT made in which Rickards discusses load board use tactics, strategy, today a small part of his business but more sizable in past: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcEwxBarEbE
4 million miles toward optimism for a new year: Overdrive Radio's countdown to 2025
Happy New Year! This final Overdrive Radio podcast for 2024 -- or the first for 2025, whenever you happen to be catching it -- looks back on the year that has been, a certainly sluggish one when it comes to business for many, though with a degree of optimism heading into 2025 with a new administration incoming and hope for business-friendly policy yielding freight improvement all around. Here’s how this one is going to go: Earlier this month, we charted the top 10 podcasts of this year, including a few two-parters this time around featuring extended talks with working truckers, whether small fleet owners like Gill Freightlines’ Surinder Gill on the collapse of the Convoy brokerage, or some among our owner-operator Trucker of the Year contenders offering business advice gleaned from their wealth of experience. We’ve got a short concert-haul run in-cab, a guide to beating back predatory tow invoices, and much more among hot topics and business dissection throughout the year. So count down through the 10 most-listened-to podcasts of 2024, plus an extra three just outside that top 10 for a lucky 13, all the way to No. 1, to ring in the new year right. Find a playlist of all the episodes excerpted via this link: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/countdown-to-2025-the-top Or tune in for our latest via https://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio
Five decades of trucking, advocacy, 'swinging the bat' for small business: Joe Rajkovacz
"I just believe very passionately that if you're going to take your industry seriously, you need to be engaged, you need to be involved." --Joe Rajkovacz, Director of Government Affairs, Western States Trucking Association The quote above comes from this week's long talk with Rajkovacz, with a long history in trucking and with the last decade and a half or so with Western States, headquartered in California and among the most prominent actors nationally challenging the onerous parts of the California Air Resources Board’s ever-more-complicated emissions and equipment regulations. Rajkovacz was speaking to the value of association membership for business owners in whatever industry they participate in. Specifically for him, of course, that’s trucking, tracking back to his time as an owner-operator first in the 1980s and in trucking in other roles before that, as you’ll hear in today’s episode highlighting his career. In this final regular edition of Overdrive Radio for the year, track back through Rajkovacz's early years trucking, from a wash bay to behind the wheel as a Teamster for a brief time early on, then to truck ownership, decades over-the-road, and coming off the road for full-time association work with the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association in 2006. He wouldn't be there but for a few years, after which he joined Western States, then the California Construction Trucking Association, to devote more energy to challenging CARB's Truck and Bus Regulation, which would ultimate ban 2006 and older emissions-spec engines in-state. I’ts at Western States where he’s officially concluded his career, retiring earlier this month back near where he began his trucking career in Wisconsin with his wife, Joan. The two are proud parents of three grown children, grandparents of eight, and staying warm this winter season, we hope. This conversation was conducted in November during the long-running annual event where Overdrive editor Todd Dills got to know Rajkovacz well -- the annual conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies. Rajkovacz has been a perennial presenter there, and odds are will continue to be as his engagement with regulatory and legislative issues on the West Coast for trucking will also be continuing, as you’ll hear in today's episode. You’ll hear more of Joe Rajkovacz’s story, no doubt, but also plenty evidence of what his career represents – he’s among the best examples we have of a trucking industry participant who spent the time and did the work to act on something fundamental to the truly engaged in the business: a real love for it, and a desire to see conditions for its participants improve for the better. Find more about the Western States Trucking Association: https://westrk.org
'You can succeed': Truckers of the Month beat 2024's sluggish conditions with more than just will
In this week's Overdrive Radio podcast, drop into the second and final part of this series re-engaging with Overdrive's 2024 Trucker of the Year competitive field of owner-operators, with check-ins on how the year shaped up for each individual owner. Likewise, you'll hear plenty considered advice from each business owner for peers, particularly those with only short history in the trucking business or looking to get their start. Part 1, ICYMI: Words of encouragement, too, drawing on lessons learned from challenges overcome, and the plentiful nature of naysayers who will undoubtedly tell an aspiring truck owner just to "stay away." Play your cards right, and do the hard work early and often, noted owner-operator Greg Labosky, and you will be poised for profit. Use that "negative energy," as he put it, to "be willing to prove them worng to the best of your ability to show them that you can, indeed, succeed." Labosky's made strides in backstopping profit with cost reductions amid sluggish rates in Amazon's direct-contracting system, where he specializes. He's done that in part by maximizing reliability of his 2017 Cascadia with careful preventive maintenance, always learning more to do smaller repairs himself, and using close record-keeping to drive his efforts. "Keep extermely good, tight bookkeeping to keep track of your expenses that you can control," he advised other owners, to help spot when something is out of line. There's growth on the horizon within the goals for Labosky's GDL Enterprise business, something Alpha Drivers Transportation owner Alec Costerus is already acheiving, having started the year with just one truck. With fellow owner Joel Morrow in their Alpha Drivers Testing & Consulting side business, Costerus is building a dry van-pulling operation with growth this year and more to come, backed by tremendous efficiency gains to reduce costs. "Holding the steering wheel is the easy part," he advised any prospective owner to realize. "There is a great deal more to the trucking business," urging careful study of all of those aspects. Owner-operator Mike Nichols reported steady revenues through the year for his Wayne Transports-leased one-truck operation, with at once some unexpected downtime chipping a smidge away from that top line (including the results of a run-in with an unfortunate deer). Nichols offered considered advice for prospective owners about up-front saving as prep, building for a down payment but also reserves for unforeseen expenses that are inevitable. With respect to "start-up capital and down payment," he said, "you need to treat that like you would firewood. Save what you think you might need and triple it, if not quadruple it." As for Dayl and Nelson Zimmerman, owners of Minnesota-based Zimmerman Ag, the brothers are very close to making good on goals set out at the beginning of the year to erect a new shop at headquarters, which will deliver opportunity for outside maintenance work during slow winter periods. More importantly, it stands enhance their own in-house maintenance prowess to continue to get the job done for direct customers, the center of their ag-support two-truck business. Read more about all of these Trucker of the Year contenders, and others, via https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year Enter your own or another deserving business in the 2025 Trucker of the Year program now at this link: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker
Success through self-help, lane change: 2024 Trucker of the Year 'exit interviews,' part 1
Today on Overdrive Radio, after a year's worth of talks featuring Overdrive's Truckers of the Month, all of whom remain in the running for the top 2024 Trucker of the Year honor, the first of two final talks featuring a bevy of contenders. Call this and next week's podcast edition the “Exit Interviews” series, if you will, as judges work through the process of determining a set of three finalists we’ll announce later this month, then a winner in the new year. At once, the perseverance and excellence to drive profit in a time like the present shown by every single owner we wrote about in the program this year make all truly deserving of all the accolades that come their way, the margins between every single Trucker of the Year contender absolutely razor-thin, given unique strengths that all bring to their respective operations. Today on the podcast, you’re going to hear answers to two fairly simple questions. Namely: 1. How has 2024 gone for the business? And, 2. Each owner was asked to look back over their history and experience in the trucking business for lessons learned that could serve as their best piece of advice for peers, and particularly for those newer to the business or thinking about going into business. Hear here from four semi-finalists, including owner-operator Candace Marley, headquartered in Iowa and pulling dry van freight, now leased to Mercer after running under her own authority as Calliope, LLC, when we last spoke early in 2024. She continues to adjust to the realities of the system at Mercer, yet is enjoying a measure of stability compared to the difficulties she'd experienced in the current market. Speaking to her peers, she advised, "If something's not working out, don't be afraid to change lanes." Minnesota-headquartered Gary Schloo, leased to Long Haul Trucking, noted current interest-rate levels as high yet not especially high considering his long history. Yet for an owner-op looking to invest in the business with a truck purchase, saving for a big down payment and building a good relationship with a local bank are likely to save on interest, he said. Then: "Find a good company, with stable freight, and different kinds of freight" to build the most effective partnership long-term, in his view. Independent Rene Holguin emphasized taking control of your business, getting as much mechanical knowledge as possible to save on repairs and gain confidence in the equipment. And "be the boss," he added, as an owner. "Things start going south when you wait for somebody to give you direction," he said. Use your instincts and knowledge through self-education to "get on the horse and go." Independent Alan Kitzhaber made business education his central point of emphasis, particularly for those who've never before been in business for thesmelves. Yet his 4-million-mile 1995 Kenworth T600's longevity has hinged on preventive practices when it comes to maintenance. Like all of the owners, he places huge emphasis on regular check-ups and careful attention with an effective preventive maintenance schedule. "I get my truck in on a regular basis, at least once a month, to have it gone over," he said, at his longtime preferred shop partner in his area. They "grease the driveline and steering column," and he has "an automatic greaser that takes care of the rest," among plenty more he shares in what follows in the podcast. Listen on for plenty more all from these four in the Trucker of the Year field. Read more about all via this link to the central Trucker of the Year profile collection: https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year Put your own or another owner-operator's deserving business in the running for next year's award at this link: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker
What can owner-ops expect from Trump II? Outlook for speed limiters, transparency, parking, more
When Donald Trump first came into the White House back in 2017, an express deregulatory agenda yielded various moves most owner-operators could count as wins. Though the administration famously did not act to block implementation of the Congressional electronic logging device mandate later that year, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's then-pursuit of a speed-limiter mandate, for instance, soon disappeared from the Department of Transportation's regulatory calendar. With another Trump administration incoming, can we expect a similar fate for the current pursuit of speed limiters? That's but one of the questions today's Overdrive Radio guests, OOIDA President Todd Spencer and Executive VP Lewie Pugh, are hopeful to yield an emphatic "yes" answer, likewise as regards a lot of what we've seen from the Environmental Protection Agency this last year and more. But a "deregulatory" agenda could seal the fate of other federal agency moves for which there's no express Congressional authorization but that many owners favor, such as FMCSA's recent pursuit of potential changes to the broker transparency regulations. Fortunately for those owners, notes OOIDA's Spencer, there's history there when it comes to the first Trump administration. And Trump himself. "He heard the horns" of the group of protesting truckers in 2020, the genesis of the current effort around transparency, Spencer points out in the podcast. "Certainly this is going to be an issue that we're going to point out to the new administration that, 'Hey folks, this is old business that we need to get after and fix it this time." In the podcast, hear from Spencer and Pugh on these and other priority issues, and what potentially to expect from Congress and the administration moving ahead: Truck parking: The next infrastructure reauthorization is due up in 2026, they note, and including dedicated truck parking funding at very high levels for a very high, long-term need is perhaps the association's biggest priority. Safety rating change: Pugh noted the kind of "Fit/Unfit" two-tier system FMCSA has proposed is probably preferable to the current three-tier system, yet he's skeptical FMCSA will move forward with much anytime soon. Notably, when Trump first came into office in 2017, an effort to shift ratings to being based in part of roadside data then was tabled. Bedrock value placed on drivers' time: Currently, as Spencer's noted before, it's effectively valued at $0. OOIDA favors legislation introduced in the last two sessions of Congress to remove the exemption for motor carriers from paying overtime as a potential central cog in the effort to increase time's value. Trump Labor Secretary pick, Pugh felt, could well be an ally in that push, though it might be unlikely to move successfully through a Republican-controlled Congress. And plenty more. Following find links to related coverage mentioned throughout the podcast: **Overdrive's July 2024 Trucker of the Month Mike Nichols will be a candidate on OOIDA's upcoming/in-process board elections: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15680591/trucker-of-the-month-mike-nichols-knows-limits-hones-strengths **Overdrive readers' response to FMCSA's proposed changes to the ELD mandate regulations: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15297229/eldexempt-ownerops-say-no-to-any-pre2000-exemption-change **Trump's Labor Secretary nominee: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15709066/prounion-former-congresswoman-tapped-to-lead-dol **Trump DOT nominee: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15708579/sean-duffy-tapped-by-trump-as-secretary-of-transportation
Owner-op Garrett Steenblik's 200-lb. weight loss journey to Trucker's Body Shop program to give back
When truck owner Garrett Steenblik was in the throes his personal body-transformation journey toward losing, ultimately, 200 lbs. over-the-road, he was hauling with Boyle Transportation, it was his birthday, and he got a message over the Qualcomm from operations wishing him a happy birthday. Such was his commitment to working physical activity into his daily routine, then teaming with his wife, that he'd garnered a particular reputation with folks at the company, including its customers. "I was so dedicated," he said, that "if we were getting loaded I'd wake up, I'd hop out and do some push-ups, I'd run around the truck, I'd so some body-weigh exercises. ... The shippers would be like, 'What's that man doing?'" The message, immortalized with a picture you'll see as part of the cover image for this week's podcast and which he calls my "favorite picture in all of trucking," contained a simple message for him: "HAPPY BIRTHDAY GARRETT, CELEBRATE WITH A FEW LAPS AROUND THE TRUCK AND SOME KALE CAKE!" As of August this year, Steenblik had hired an operator to join his wife in their rig, a 2023 Kenworth T680 leased to Tri-State Motor Transit, as he's at the end of years of development of the Trucker's Body Shop business, a membership and support program for truckers seeking to lose weight or address some other conditions (smoking cessation, for instance, is a part of it). In this edition of Overdrive Radio, Steenblik details Trucker's Body Shop goals to help drivers deliver on their own aims of weight loss via diet and exercise, medical doctor network support through telehealth, convenient weight-loss prescription delivery, ongoing doctor consultation and more. Overdrive featured the Trucker's Body Shop MediReady travel kit covering common OTR needs recently here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/gear/product/15708444/truckers-body-shop-truckers-body-shop-intros-new-medical-kit-for-truck-drivers In the podcast, hear how Steenblik found not only greater physical health through the weight-loss journey but, ultimately, bedrock mental well-being as well. With Trucker's Body Shop, he hopes to deliver that to any fellow OTR hauler who needs it. Find more about Trucker's Body Shop via this link: https://truckersbodyshop.com/ More from Overdrive Radio: https://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio
Paying trucking knowledge forward: Growing pains and adjustment, more from four Small Fleet Champs
It’s one of our favorite opportunities covering the trucking world these last several years -- the annual conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies, for four years now the sponsor of Overdrive's annual Small Fleet Championship, recognizing and sharing the stories of business excellence for owner-operators who hit and/or cross that 3-truck threshold. On November 7 this year, Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills announced winners in two categories, recognizing four total finalists during NASTC’s Thursday-night conference-opening Transportation Trust Forum. You’ve likely seen the news – Paul Rissler Transportation and C.W. Express took home the Small Fleet Champ title belts this year in their respective categories: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15707739/rissler-transportation-cw-express-emerge-as-small-fleet-champs Yet that’s not the true highlight of the program for Dills. Rather, the chance for an in-person, roundtable sitdown with all four of our Small Fleet Champ finalists, to share their perspectives on business challenges overcome, on the makets in which they operate, and more. The talk you'll hear in this Overdrive Radio podcast edition offers plenty potential lessons for other truck owners similarly wrestling with various business difficulties of various stripes. Likewise a strong current that’s a bit different from past Small Fleet Champ roundtables we've conducted. All owners offered examples of how they pay their hard-earned trucking knowledge forward to leave behind capability when the end of the line comes squarely into view. For some, those efforts were front and center in the talk itself. Automotive and general dry van carrier C.W. Express owner Steve Wilson was joined in the talk by his son, Steven the second, in his early 20s and newly involved in the business, for instance. Hear also C.W. Express’ fellow finalist in the 11-30-truck division of the Small Fleet Championship – Brian Brewer and Jennifer Leasure of mostly local scrap and dump hauler Brian Brewer Trucking. Likewise, competing in the 3-10-truck division, Jamie Hagen of mostly dry van carrier Hell Bent Xpress and Paul and Michelle Rissler, of Paul Rissler Transportation, running reefer. It's a hallmark of a truly exceptional business owner that, though the day-to-day fires may mount, keeping eyes on the future is a necessity for the next generation. As Steve Wilson outlined his immediate and longer-term goals, invoking all that he'd been through over the last several years (including 8 months' worth of a hospital stay, near death at one point), "I've got grandbabies now," he said. "You know, what I want is to build a legacy for those kids. 'Hey, my granddad built that.' That's what I'm here for." Read Wilson's and others' stories via the Small Fleet Champ section of Overdrive's website: https://overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ
Veterans Day special: Coalition supporting vets in ag careers honored in Howes Hall of Fame
Here’s wishing all United States military veterans in the audience a happy Veterans Day with this edition of Overdrive Radio. To mark the day, we bring you this dive into the work of the Farmer Veteran Coalition, an organization that got its start back in 2009 with a goal of a then California/Mexico produce farmer to help support returning military servicemembers in bids to enter the business of feeding the nation. We’ll hear today Overdrive Radio's talk with Jeanette Lombardo, current Farmer Veteran Coalition CEO, about the FVC’s recent induction into the Howes company’s Hall of Fame, bringing another important support organization to the attention of trucking and ag industries: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15705903/vetssupport-group-now-in-howes-hall-of-fame-deadline-approaching-for-small-biz-reporting-to-fincen-alert FVC CEO Lombardo details a variety of new-farmer support and other programs that deliver on the org's mission, dovetailing in several ways with trucking and logistics businesses that support the nation's food supply chain. Lombardo sees plenty honor and value in the Howes Hall of Fame induction, enabling connections between the coalition and, not just new groups and people in the ag world, but also in trucking and logistics. "We're a nonprofit. We don't have much budget for advertising, ... yet we're seeing this huge increase in membership," she said, in part given word of mouth that occurs as a result of programs like the Howes Hall of Fame. "We were very humbled to receive the nod from Howes, and even more so when we went online to see previous awardees. ... I think it's the beginning of a wonderful partnership." The Hall of Fame launched during Howes' 100-year anniversary celebration five years back, said Howes Products' own Rich Guida. It's intended as an effort "to find the people, places, and things that make trucking and farming -- and diesel systems, really, of any kind -- so valuable. And for us to be able to give back to these people, and support them the way Jeanette was talking about, is where we find reward." Access the stories of all inductees in the Howes Hall of Fame, or nominate an organization or individual yourself, at this link: https://howesproducts.com/hof In the podcast, find much more detail about the FVC's many support programs for returning servicemembers and hear Lombardo's personal story of how, in the midst of the pandemic, she would come to be inspired by and, then, intimately involved in leading an organization with a worthy mission. More about the FVC: https://farmvetco.org/ Howes' induction video about FVC: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15705903/vetssupport-group-now-in-howes-hall-of-fame-deadline-approaching-for-small-biz-reporting-to-fincen-alert
'Good day to be out trucking': Overdrive October Trucker of the Month, two-truck Zimmerman Ag
In this Overdrive Radio, we catch up primarily with owner-operator Daryl Zimmerman of Belgrade, Minnesota, co-owner with his brother, Nelson (also featured in the podcast), of two-truck Zimmerman Ag. Daryl was looking out the windshield glass on a bright and sunny day running between Minneapolis-St. Paul and his area in Central Minnesota bound for a feed mill that has been a principal customer of his business for much of its nearly 10-year history. Since launching as one man, one truck in 2015, Daryl's was joined by Nelson when he got his own truck and leased it to the business, starting in 2020. They’ve since fully joined forces, extending a family base that stretches back to Daryl and Nelson’s father’s time as an owner-operator in the late 1990s. Zimmerman Ag is Overdrive’s Trucker of the Month for October, putting the brothers in the running for the 2024 Trucker of the Year award and marking the end of the run of our semi-finalists for this year. In the coming weeks, expert more from all of them as judges begin the evaluation process for our final 2024 Trucker of the Year winner. Today, the Zimmermans take us on a tour through their history in business, its entirety for both men as owner-operators working in support of farmers and other ag-support businesses, by and large, around their home base in Minnesota: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15706944/strength-in-numbers-zimmerman-ags-daryl-and-nelson-zimmerman Look for further coverage of all Trucker of the Year semi-finalists in the coming weeks and for announcement of three finalists in December. All have a chance to win a custom replica model of the truck of their choice plus a brand-new seat from Trucker of the Year sponsor Bostrom Seating. Big thanks to Commercial Vehicle Group and the fine folks at Bostrom Seating for continued support. To get in the running for next year’s program, get over to https://OverdriveOnline.com/toptrucker to start that process. Deadlines mentioned there have passed for the 2024 award, but note that any entries or nominations of deserving owners will be considered for the 2025 program.
The 'driver shortage' is dead? And: Inside the broker-carrier scrum at last week's summit
"The driver shortage is dead, long live the driver shortage." That’s sort of the message you might get digging into a recent truck driver compensation study and the "driver shortage" narrative’s longest proponent’s response to it. That compensation study was conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine at the request of FMCSA. FMCSA itself was tasked to commission the study by Congress in the 2021 Infrastrucutre Investment and Jobs Act, the early Biden-era highway infrastructure legislation. The report examined truck driver compensation and compensation methods and their impacts on retention and safety, and along the way called the American Trucking Associations’ and others’ long-posited notion of a driver shortage "spurious." Fundamental labor economics principles cast doubt on what the ATA has long held out as persistent shortages, as reported Friday by Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15706801/does-trucking-have-a-driver-shortage ATA, though, dug in its heels in response, noting in Cole's reporting that the NAS study report's authors “fail to account for several important points and distinctions that are critical to understanding the market for professional truck drivers.” Of course, plenty others around trucking, including Overdrive's own reporting back in early 2016, have cast doubts around persistent shortages similar to those in the National Academies' study. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association in particular has long-pointed to high turnover rates in truckload as a kind of bellwether statistic that belied any existence of a true "shortage." Today on the podcast, Cole’s conversation about the conclusions with OOIDA President Todd Spencer, who reiterated the association’s long-held view about persistent driver shortages now underscored. On the driver-retention front, Spencer felt putting real value on a driver’s time, furthermore, could well be the single biggest improvement truckload carriers could make to build a base of longer-tenured pros over-the-road where delay at shipper or receiver docks or via an on-highway emergency "certainly isn't predictable," he said. "You can't plan for it and again the common thread with detention time is that the prevailing rate for that is zero" dollars. Our own Executive Editor Alex Lockie, too, joins the podcast to break down last week's Broker-Carrier Summit conference in Texas, where fraud prevention in brokered-freight markets was front and center. Also, too, plenty subjects that played directly to carriers in attendance, offering insights into opportunities that just don’t exist for brokers, as it were. As Lockie quipped, "Carriers ... had this lab on how to land direct feright, which is essentially how to cut brokers out of your life. Of course, you could not have a panel on how brokers could cut out carriers." More of Lockie's dry sense of humor here, likewise a highlight moment near the end of a fraud-prevention panel discussion with with Anchor Reliable Transport’s Brian Woodring. As mentioned in the podcast: **Owner-operator Ilya Denisenko's thoughts on value in the BCS event: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15684505/sweetness-of-low-price-v-the-sour-of-bad-service **Lockie's reporting on changes to Carrier411's FreightGuard system: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15705912/carrier411-makes-big-changes-to-its-freightguard-carrier-reports **Email contact for the Truckstop load board's look into potentially building a broker-vetting service for carriers: Extensions@truckstop.com
$2 million Peterbilt 389X with a special mission, benefiting Wounded Warrior Project, other orgs
The expert singing voice of Marine veteran and Nashville-headquartered singer-songwriter Sal Gonzalez warms up and brings to fruition a special celebration event held last week by Rush Truck Centers in Nashville, Tennessee, in this edition of Overdrive Radio. Rush was announcing the big winner of the quite expensive, final, only 2025 build of a Peterbilt 389. A 389X, to be exact, that Rush Truck Centers won the final 389 build slot for, with Pete retiring the model for good. As Rush Enterprises CEO Rusty Rush explains in the podcast, the build slot was awarded after an auction among Pete dealers and was secured for 1.5 million dollars. Peterbilt and Rush donated those proceeds then to the well-known Wreaths Across America and Truckers Against Trafficking nonprofits, then held a sweepstakes delivering another half a million to the Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) org: https://www.overdriveonline.com/equipment/article/15705889/last-of-the-389s-goes-to-oklahoma-small-fleet-shane-best-trucking That’s where songwriter Gonzalez enters the picture. In the podcast, hear Gonzalez’s harrowing, moving story of losing part of his left leg in Iraq, then returning home to pursue a songwriter’s dream only to fall into an addictive pattern and seek out the support of WWP. Likewise, get ready for a moving song, "Heroes," Gonzalez wrote as a result of his subsequent work with the nonprofit, inspired by fellow veterans and his own experience. We’ll hear, too, from Rusty Rush, detailing the sweepstakes and its ultimate winners, Shane Best Trucking owners Jennifer and Shane Best, out of Pryor, Oklahoma. The win was fitting for the small fleet owners in more ways than one – the 379X will add to their fleet of 17 Peterbilts doing dump work around their region, yet don’t expect a lot of wear and tear on it. The Bests plan to keep the rig around for many years to come, working with Rush Truck Center hands in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to finish out the rig with back-end mods as a show unit. With any luck, work should conclude in time enough for September 2025 -- look for the Bests and the last of the 389s out at the Guilty by Association Truck Show in Joplin, Missouri, then. Also in the podcast, a window on the presentation Rush, Peterbilt’s Jason Skoog, and reps from the Wounded Warrior Project, with Sal Gonzalez rounding things out with that moving, terrific song we're happy to be able to share with you. More about Wounded Warrior Project: https://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/ Truckers Against Trafficking: https://overdriveonline.com/15680845 Wreaths Across America: https://overdriveonline.com/15304350
Rene Holguin, September Trucker of the Month, cementing a legacy with authority
"He's such a hard worker. He's always helping his family to help get their own authority. He'll let them lease on for a while ... until they get on their feet and get their own authority. ... He's just a good person all around." --Messina Holguin, speaking to reasons she nominated her husband, owner-operator Rene Holguin, for Overdrive's Trucker of the Year award Rene Holguin is well on his way toward cementing a legacy with his El Paso, Texas-headquartered R&M Transportation business, part of it caught up in what his wife and business partner, Messina, intimates in the quote above. R&M Transportation has also been a vehicle for various family members and friends to get their own businesses up and running toward their own names on their own doors, with authority, a dream Holguin himself made good on more than two decades ago: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15704492/thirdgen-ownerop-marshals-experience-to-thrive-in-business Overdrive's September Trucker of the Month harnesses that significant pay-it-forward goal after getting into business with tutelage of a family member himself, though he freely admits mixing family with business isn't always the easiest thing to do. This week on the Overdrive Radio podcast we're diving into Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole’s conversation with Holguin about his history in trucking, which stretches back to about the turn the century. You'll hear Messina's here, too. Though she works herself outside of trucking, she’s also intimately involved in back-office aspects of the business. They’ve learned a lot together through the decades in business, and Rene Holguin’s made big strides in DIY maintenance in recent times as expenses have mounted and rates have lagged to the truck he’s owned and kept in tip-top now for the entirety of his time with authority. His biggest piece of advice for new and aspiring owner-operators is of a piece with those maintenance strides. "Be ready to work," he said, and work hard. Learn as much about your equipment as you can. "Be ready to get your hands dirty, to keep your truck out of the shop as much as you can." He’s pulling a flatbed with the rig today, and it’s a looker for sure, as you can see in Cole’s feature about R&M Transportation, likewise the cover image for this week's podcast. Dive into September Trucker of the Month Rene Holguin's trucking origin story, which stretches all the way back to his childhood, in the podcast here. Find all of our features about Truckers of the Month through this year at https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year Holguin's nod for September puts him in the running for the 2024 Trucker of the Year award, this year sponsored by Commercial Vehicle Group and Bostrom Seating.
Owner-operator income/cost stability shows in 2024 ATBS update: When will rates rise?
"If you're doing the right things ... if you're looking at your numbers, figuring out your fixed cost per day, your variable cost per mile, and choosing the best loads for yourself, you're going to weather this winter just fine like you have the last two years. And then when freight turns around, you're going to be in really good shape." --ATBS Vice President Mike Hosted When freight turns around. What every owner-operator out there's been waiting for for quite some time, and it's like as not to be a while yet, with East Coast ports reviving from their stall and market prognosticators predicting that we’ll continue “bouncing along the bottom” all the way through the first quarter of next year, to use the words of ATBS VP Hosted himself. Yet there is at least some confluence of opinion on a potential market turn, given what you all heard on the Overdrive Radio podcast just last week, which suggested much the same, Q2 2025: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15704598/when-will-freight-markets-turn-to-the-positive-for-truckers Get through the election, through the winter period and typical sluggish Q1, and hopefully further interest rates cuts might deliver confidence for business investment and some freight improvement. For this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, our Partners in Business coproducers in owner-operator business services firm ATBS were kind enough to share the full audio and slides from their September 18 owner-operator income, revenue, cost and market update: https://www.overdriveonline.com/partners-in-business/article/15684315/ownerops-see-mixed-income-bag-but-wait-for-kickstart-on-rates. You can download a pdf of Mike Hosted’s full slides to follow along here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15704990 Know that over on our Youtube channel, too, there’s a video version of Hosted's full presentation, too: https://youtu.be/jbWFVqL5jtU Topline results from ATBS analysis, with trend lines derived from real-world performance of their thousands of owner-operator clients? Other than the market commentary you heard at the top, owner-operator income has been on average just slightly down for the 12 months ending June of 2024, compared to prior 12 months. It's down as an average because dry van owner-ops were down somewhat significantly. Yet leased reefer haulers and flatbedders, and independents too, posted gains. There’s a lot more detail within all that in the full presentation here, and plenty of potential insights around maintenance spend, fuel costs and efficiency, and much more. Benchmark your own business's performance against the average numbers, yet know enough to recognize every owner-operator business has its own revenue and income needs, relative to costs. Overdrive Radio is sponsored by Howes. Find more information about their full line of fuel treatments via https://howesproducts.com The Partners in Business program is sponsored by the Rush Truck Centers dealer network. Visit them via https://rushtrkctr.com/4bLxbR4
When will freight markets turn? Part 2: Building business for trucking's down cycles
In this week's Overdrive Radio edition, Part 2 of our "How to build business for trucking’s down cycles" online roundtable in late August. Among the questions flagged for panelists was just whether, and when, the long freight-rates slide of the last two years might turn the corner, or at least stabilize. Since the late-August time period, the march toward the presidential election and a modicum of certainty on that front continues, of course, but perhaps more importantly the Federal Reserve has cut benchmark interest rates by a half point, the first such cut in after a two years' worth of several hikes meant to help tamp down rapid inflation: https://www.overdriveonline.com/partners-in-business/article/15684315/ownerops-see-mixed-income-bag-but-wait-for-kickstart-on-rates Panelist and longtime Overdrive contributor Gary Buchs posted recently in his Truck Business Network group about expectations of further cuts when the fed meets again late in the year and early next year. Those cuts might spell not only good news for borrowing costs to, say, finance a truck purchase down the line, but also stimulate spending and moves in various sectors of the economy, generating freight. In essence, Buchs noted, get ready for potentially improved conditions, but not for a good while yet. Here’s how he put it: “Every trucker is waiting for the market to turn around, as so-called experts keep predicting These interest rate cuts are historically some of the things that will make this happen. But the increased opportunity for better rates doesn’t happen overnight. Go into your phone and set an alarm for four to six months out from the date these interest rates make dramatic moves. Odds are that is about the time business will change, as it takes time for companies to have confidence to place more orders, then the companies manufacturing have the confidence to ramp up production, and the cards begin to fall and make things move.” He went on to compare running an owner-operator business to an ultra-marathon, as it were. “The return on the investment of hundreds if not thousands of hours of intense commitment and training aimed at a goal is celebrated when, one day, we finally are able to cross that finish line,” he wrote. Today on the podcast we hope to give you further opportunity to learn from Buchs and two other panelists who were part of our roundtable, namely Silver Creek Transportation Founder and President Jason Cowan (Overdrive’s Small Fleet Champ for year 2021) and ICV Express owner-operator Ilya Denisenko. In the previous part of this two-part podcast, panelists ran through a variety of customer-management tactics aimed at preserving relationships, building new ones, and batting back those inevitable requests for a “discount” from even longtime customers. In part 2, they field a variety of live audience questions, from those about timing of a recovery to special considerations for flatbedders when it comes to customers, what owner-operators can do to combat brokers’ ever-increasing insistence on roadside inspections on the record as a condition of doing business, just how to compete when shipper customers are being solicited at cut rates by brokers, and more.
'The sweetness of low price' v. the 'sour of bad service': Trucking through the freight trough
"The sweetness of low price is really fast, even though the sour of bad service lasts a lot longer. The sweetness is really tempting to jump in and take." --Silver Creek Transportation founder and president Jason Cowan At the top of this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, you'll hear the sage words of Silver Creek Transportation Founder and President Jason Cowan, excerpted above. The past Overdrive Small Fleet Champ was speaking to the difficulties of managing freight contracts with customers in a time like the present, two years after what’s been a big filp-flop in demand for carriers of all shapes and sizes. The demand and subsequent freights-rates fall has impacted large and small, from flatbeds and lowboys to tour haulers, dry van pullers and reefer toters, all around the nation. Cowan was talking as part of Overdrive's roundtable on ways to build an owner-operator or small fleet business to weather inevitable down cycles: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15682400/location-location-how-to-find-that-extra-load-in-your-backyard We hosted the event back in August, sponsored by Bestpass and Fleetworthy Solutions, since rebranded fully under the Fleetworthy name and including the Drivewyze weigh station bypass solution: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15683690/diesel-hits-lowest-national-average-since-fall-2021 (The combined company aims to be a one-stop shop for bypass, toll collections management and discounts, and fleet-management solutions.) In this edition of the podcast, drop into the first portion of the roundtable that featured, in addition to Cowan, two other leading voices among owner-ops and seasoned veterans in Overdrive’s orbit (our own Gary Buchs, and ICV Express owner-operator Ilya Denisenko), all speaking to ways to set your trucking business up to stand out from the crowd, to beat that "sweetness of low price" when it inevitably comes to you from the customer’s mouth. As mentioned in the podcast: **Register to view the entire session here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15682393/catch-the-replay-how-to-build-business-for-truckings-down-cycles **Alex Lockie's first report from the session on roads through the dark economic clouds for owner-operators, and how to find that extra load right in your own backyard: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15682400/location-location-how-to-find-that-extra-load-in-your-backyard **Part 2 on salesmanship, effective communication and negotiation, more: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15682445/first-load-free-ownerops-get-creative-with-sales
No more detention half measures: The time is now to charge for it and actually collect from shippers
When we polled owner-operators about a year ago on recent-history improvement, or lack thereof, in detention time along their routes and at their customers, a huge majority noted the situation they'd seen at docks hadn’t improved to any noticeable degree in recent years. Forty percent of all poll respondents at the time in fact said detention had gotten worse for them: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15544369/how-to-calculate-detention-rate-for-owneroperator-business If the American Transportation Research Institute's new look at detention is correct, though, waits to load/unload are getting at least marginally better for the average driver out there, if not the majority of Overdrive’s largely independent owner-operator readers. In this week's Overdrive Radio edition, track back through Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole's reporting on ATRI's "Cost and consequences of truck driver detention" study: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15683714/how-detention-time-impacted-trucking-companies-drivers-in-2023 The ATRI study's topline finding estimated trucking writ large lost $15 billion to detention at shippers and receivers in 2023. Yes, $15 billion with a B. If you consider the American Trucking Associations' annual revenue figure for the entirety of the trucking industry at nearly a trillion (ATA's 2023 estimate was $987 billion), that $15 billion is worth a full 1.5% of the entire revenues generated by trucking companies. In the podcast, we break down the headline-grabbing numbers and how ATRI got to them with its 2023 detention-impacts estimate, likewise what owners and operators can do to put a dent in their own detention problems. Some of it’s obvious -- drop/hook situations, such as you can engineer them, will help -- but a lot is difficult, particularly the customer relations management that might truly make shippers and receivers feel the burden of their inefficiencies with detention fees charged. And then actually collected. As it stands today, trucking writ large tackles this issue by half measures, quite literally collecting invoiced detention fees only about half the time, ATRI found. More on the detention subject: **Recent OOIDA member survey: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15665203/ooida-member-surveys-on-detention-time-rates-deliver-ops-insight **FMCSA plans new study, quandary for owner-ops working with brokers: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15638339/ownerops-weigh-in-on-fmcsas-detentiontime-study-efforts
Investment diligence over nearly 35 years has Trucker of the Month on path to profitable retirement
In this week's Overdrive Radio podcast edition we’ll hear more of our talk with August Trucker of the Month Alan Kitzhaber, and a good bit about one particular subject near and dear to the 4-million-mile owner of a 1995 Kenworth T600 he's piloted since it was new. "I've been very religious about investing my money instead of spending it, and it's put me in a position where I can feel comfortable retiring." --Oakridge Transport owner-operator Alan Kitzhaber: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15681362/meticulous-maintenance-efficiency-trucker-of-the-month Part 1 of this two-part podcast: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/podcast/15679534/4-million-miles-in-a-kw-t600-trucker-of-the-month-alan-kitzhaber His long-term retirement investment strategy, suffice it to say, has owner-operator Kitzhaber well-positioned for an exit, making good on his view of his truck and the trucking business itself. As he notes in today's podcast, trucking's always been a vehicle, a tool to "get me somewhere else," he said. "I want to generate profit from it." After squandering retirement savings from his work in the 1980s, mostly in his 20s, running a Radio Shack store, he's managed multiple qualified retirement accounts and other investments soundly. Nearing the end of a nearly 35-year run of consistently putting aside 15%-20% of his income, he’s nearly gotten to that "somewhere else," where he truly wants to go -- that’s retirement, setting out on a variety of projects, including building a house on his property in Eau Claire, Wisconsin; pursuit of photography and videography hobbies; taxidermy; and more. As some of you heard in the podcast last week, Kitzhaber achieved a significant milestone in May this year -- he’s passed 4 million miles behind the wheel of a Cat-powered truck, his 1995 Oakridge Transport Kenworth T600, pulling since 2010 for a single shipper. As is sometimes the case in the profiles we write of our Trucker of the Year contenders, that shipper, the Midwest home-improvement chain Menards, headquartered nearby to Kitzhaber in Eau Claire, was a little slow to get back to us fully. Yet respond the company did, with a bit of a tribute to their long-running partner in Kitzhaber you can hear in this week's edition, too. **You can enter your own owner-operator business -- or that of another deserving owner -- in Overdrive's Trucker of the Year program, sponsored by Bostrom Seating, via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/TopTrucker Entries to the 2024 program are open through September.
Trucker of the Month Alan Kitzhaber: 4 million miles, ever greater efficiency for his '95 T600
"Some guys customize their truck via paint, chrome, lights, and things like that. I customize my truck to make it a more comfortable place to be, a more profitable truck, a more efficient truck." --Owner-operator Alan Kitzhaber It's another rewinder of sorts for this week in the Overdrive Radio podcast series. If you missed the news last week Tuesday, owner-operator Alan Kitzhaber out of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, was honored as our August Trucker of the Month, putting him in the running for Overdrive’s Trucker of the Year award with his three-plus decades trucking and 4 million miles logged behind the wheel of his long-running 1995 Kenworth T600: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15681362/meticulous-maintenance-efficiency-trucker-of-the-month Listeners have heard Kitzhaber in recent memory, of course, when he passed the 4-million-mile mark on the T600’s odometer in May we aired this talk originally in July: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15679534/4-million-miles-in-a-95-kw-t600-owneroperator-alan-kitzhaber For those who missed the talk, this week hear Kitzhaber on his approach to keeping that rig running right these past decades and so many miles. And: we’re at the final sprint for the Trucker of the Year award program for 2024. Nominations will close at the end of the month, and we’ve got just two semi-finalist slots left for a chance to win a brand-new seat, up to a $2,500 value, from Trucker of the Year award sponsor Bostrom Seating, a trip to and recognition at the Mid-America Trucking Show, various other prizes, and more. If you or another deserving owner want to put your business in the running, visit https://OverdriveOnline.com/toptrucker to do that. Kitzhaber's not the first owner Overdrive Radio listeners have heard who's done similar -- "Mustang" Mike Crawford crossed 4 million in his 1994 Freightliner (12.7 Detroit-powered) back in 2022: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15291488/mike-mustang-crawfords-1994-freightliner-4-million-safe-miles (Incidentally, Overdrive editor Todd Dills spoke with Crawford July 1 as he hitting the Prime yard in Springfield at the end of his final run before retirement with a grand total of 4,159,910 miles in the rear view of the Freightliner. More on Crawford’s final run in a future podcast.) Owner-operator Alan Kitzhaber’s career stretches back to 1990, his time as owner-operator some years on with Millis Transfer, where he first took the reins of the then-brand-new 1995 Kenworth T600 as a company driver. He bought the truck from the company itself, then, a few years later. Since then, he's been laser-focused on turning that truck into a profit-making machine, and meticulous with record-keeping in no small way. As suggested by the quote at the top, too, plenty modifications through the years have allowed him to excel to the point of achieving well more than 8 mpg for a fuel mileage average several years running this past decade. There’s a lot to those modifications he’s made, for certain, detailed in today’s episode. And 4 million miles is a very long way. More than 8 times to the moon and back. At roughly 60 miles per hour it’d take you well past the hard end of the 14-hour clock to do it at 66,666 hours. We’ll track back through Kitzhaber’s history a little more quickly than that today on the podcast, along the way learning plenty about just how the owner-operator kept that Cat-powered T600 humming efficiently for so very long. As mentioned in the podcast, Caterpillar's interview with Kitzhaber for its Million Mile Club when he crossed 3 million: https://www.cat.com/en_US/articles/cat-truck-engine-articles/million-miler-alan-kitzhaber.html Gordon Alkire's closed greasing system: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14877182/csa-proofing-part-two-closed-greasing-system
Brake inspection blitz this week: Roadside inspection system should be 'preventive,' not punitive
With the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s annual Brake Safety Week inspection initiative kicking off August 26 with stepped-up brake checks and inspections, generally, in jurisdictions across North America, we’re looking back at a podcast from earlier in the year – February 2024 to be exact. The episode featured Wisconsin-headquartered owner-operator Warren McCurdy and a central point of view about what he feels the roadside inspection system was designed for. Something that’s, well, gotten a little off track with how states, the FMCSA, and some fleets treat so-called “safey scores” derived from inspections and associated violations. As you’re hauling this week, if you get a quote unquote “assist” from an inspector out there, take note of the approach he or she takes. Is it “prevention” of accidents that is the ultimate goal? McCurdy, at the top of the podcast, made clear his bone to pick with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's CSA scoring program and all its ripple effects throughout trucking and roadside inspection systems. After a trailer tire lost air in transit sufficient to take the tire off the rim -- the trailer empty, the tire problem unnoticed by McCurdy before inspection -- the owner-operator's leasing carrier assessed points for the violation modeled on the FMCSA's internal Driver Safety Measurement System nearly enough to void McCurdy's lease. This sort of "accountability" isn't, the owner-operator felt, what roadside inspections were designed for. The inspector in this case in Washington State did his job to the letter, and caught the in-transit flattened tire in plenty time to save any real damaging outcome. For all that, McCurdy is thankful. "I think that these inspections are good. They should be preventative things," he said. "Nobody wants to go down the road with flat tires." Yet, he added, "I don't think we should be penalized for something that is not something that you did intentionally." That goes for the motor carrier as well. There's a reason carriers like his own assess those points -- because they are incurring the same level of severity weighting in the Carrier SMS. Potential changes to the Carrier SMS notwithstanding (FMCSA isn't looking at those same changes for the Driver SMS), the podcast this week dives back into what’s at issue in cases like these, in which carriers subject to the severity weighting system for violations pass that on, with their own systems to hold drivers and owner-operators to a degree of accountability themselves, relying on the federal points system to assess and prevent damage to their own scores. Susan McCurdy tried her hand at the DataQs system in a vain attempt to contain the damage in this case by challenging the violation. But given the inspector was doing what he should have done here -- alerting McCurdy to the problem tire on his trailer, conducting an inspection, then reporting the results into the federal system as required -- there was nothing DataQs was going to be able to help correct about the fundamental nature of the situation. More fundamentally, though, it’s the very nature of the CSA scoring system that makes accountability problematic for owner-operator McCurdy here. Nobody indeed intends to run around with flat tires. With respect to any violation, McCurdy urges regulators take a long hard look at what they’re holding carriers and drivers accountable for by scoring them as they do. More in Overdrive's long-running CSA's Data Trail series: http://overdriveonline.com/csas-data-trail Find plenty in the way of brakes-related maintenance and inspection resources at this page: https://www.overdriveonline.com/maintenance/article/14875428/tractor-trailer-maintenance-for-ownerops-to-outrun-inspectors
Owner-operators survive, thrive: Lightning round from the final Waupun Truck-N-Show
It was no doubt a bittersweet last weekend in Waupun, Wisconsin, at what could well be the final edition of the decades-running Waupun Truck-N-Show, where Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole was on hand talking to many among the owner-operators and other truckers in attendance: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15681420/final-waupun-trucknshow-kicks-off One such was Dane Wisniewski, owner of three-truck small fleet HDR, LLC, headquartered there in the state. Owner Wisniewski recalled fondly his time attending the show during every single one of his years in business from the time he started with just one truck. "I hope that somebody maybe takes it over," he said about prospects for the show to continue past this year, offering a challenge to those among his own younger generation of truck owners. "The younger generation such as I that's coming through the ranks needs to step up." This edition of Overdrive Radio podcast takes even more of the temperature among owners out at the Waupun show not only as it relates to the kind of wistfulness -- with a challenge to the next generation -- coming from owner-operator Wisniewski about the show's future prospects itself. August 22 is coming fast, and on that day we’re hosting an online session geared toward exchanging ideas around building trucking business to weather the inevitable ups and downs of the business cycles: https://fusable.zoom.us/webinar/register/7917212359500/WN_DKU8Uka_QVyvEVqCSBdAjA#/registration Given that, Cole asked five owners you’ll hear from today some of the same questions: What have they done in response to the current, long-ongoing freight slump? Is there any hope that this year’s presidential election’s conclusion might deliver certainty to the spenders out there such that freight might improve significantly in the years to come? In other words, is there a chance the prognosticators foreseeing growth in 2025, rather than full-blown economic recession, could be right, with the better political certainty delivering freight market improvements? Settle in for a lightning round on micro- and macro-trucking economics, as it were, from the point of an ag-heavy group of owner-operators at the Waupun show. We’ll hear along the way from: **Brett Buske, hauling in a custom 379 that's part of his and his father's seven-truck small fleet. **Owner-operator Brian Bucenell, leased to Drake Hauling pulling a hopper. **The father and son small fleet of Dan and Daniel Linn, Linn Acres Farms out of Bucyros, Ohio. **Wisconsin-headquartered HDR small fleet and HDL brokerage owner Dan Wiesniewski, who showed a 2007 Kenworth W900L at Waupun. And finally, one Nate Stone, who shares at least one trait in common with our August 22-set panelist owner-operator ilya Denisenko in that he’s started his owner-operator business at perhaps the most opportune of inopportune times, if that makes sense. That is, right at the bottom of the market. It’s kind of like that old Frank Sinatra song about New York City. If you can make there, at the bottom, with profit to show for it ... well, you might be able to make it anywhere. Read more about the August 22 panel discussion set for 1 p.m. Central time: **https://www.overdriveonline.com/15680141 **https://www.overdriveonline.com/15681671 Register to attend live and/or catch the replay: https://fusable.zoom.us/webinar/register/7917212359500/WN_DKU8Uka_QVyvEVqCSBdAjA#/registration
Fair shot at highway safety: Trucker of the Month Mike Nichols a voice for sharing the road
"As anti-automated driving as I am, I might almost rather see some robots. At least they're not going to be looking at screens" going down the road. --owner-operator and Overdrive July 2024 Trucker of the Month Mike Nichols: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15680591/trucker-of-the-month-mike-nichols-knows-limits-hones-strengths We're picking up where we left off in Part 1 of this talk with owner-operator Nichols -- https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15681077/trucker-of-the-month-steers-business-with-reliable-partnerships -- conducted by Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole and featuring Nichols' perspective on recent-history revenue and income. "I made more in '22 than I did in '23," NIchols said, calling the reality, though, mostly a revenue boost and "artifact of the high fuel prices" that unprecedented year. Fortunately, leased to Wayne Transports with his 2020 Freightliner Coronado glider pulling dry bulk, "we've got a good fuel surcharge," he said. "There isn't any Mickey Mouse games with detention," either, which couldn't be said in his days pulling a reefer around the turn of the century. He's come a long way since with a careful approach to business, including his maintenance plan, approach to health insurance and retirement planning and perhaps the biggest challenge for OTR owner-ops going: bedrock safety on highways where distraction has become something of a norm. "I'm a firm believer in 'loud pipes save lives,'" as Nichols put it, "because people aren't paying attention." Nichols' is a voice for change on that score, in word as in deed. You can enter your own owner-operator business -- or that of another deserving owner -- in Overdrive's Trucker of the Year program, sponsored by Bostrom Seating, via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/TopTrucker Also in the podcast: From the Large Cars & Guitars truck show in Tennessee this past May, a window on a stunning 2023 Peterbilt 389 in the small fleet West Lawrence Logistics of Town Creek, Alabama, piloted by three-year company hauler Jarad Mullinix.
Trucker of the Month Mike Nichols steers business with reliable freight, maintenance partners
This week on the podcast, we're diving in headfirst to the history of Wisconsin-headquartered owner-operator Mike Nichols, Overdrive's July Trucker of the Month and profiled recently in our Trucker of the Year semi-finalist series by Matt Cole: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15680591/trucker-of-the-month-mike-nichols-knows-limits-hones-strengths As Cole wrote about the owner, Nichols pulls leased to bulk carrier Wayne Transports, for most of the last six years running. And the owner well knows his strengths and weaknesses, and has built his business to hum with that in mind. His prioritization of effective partnerships (both on the freight side and with a trusted maintenance partner nearby his home, among other business areas) have his one-truck business plenty profitable even through the difficulties of these last years. Wayne Transports, where he’s specialized in the dry bulk division, is a big part of that. His was a long road to get to this point, though, and today we’ll run through the twists and turns of a career that stretches back to his first taste of truck ownership almost four decades ago. As mentioned in the podcast: **Nichols isn't the first owner-operator to benefit from Wisconsin's unique Lemon Law and its application to commercial trucks: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14875197/lemon-aid **You can enter your own owner-operator business -- or that of another deserving owner -- in Overdrive's Trucker of the Year program, sponsored by Bostrom Seating, via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/TopTrucker Entries to the 2024 program are open through October.
'Thank you to all drivers everywhere': Part 2 on the road with Alabama and tour hauler Josh Gentry
More, today, from Overdrive Editor Todd Dills's run with Josh Gentry. Gentry’s the son of country music titan Alabama’s founding member and bassist Teddy Gentry. Today, we dive into the history of the band with some of the hands at its headquarters in Ft. Payne, Alabama, around which all three founding members -- Gentry, lead vocalist Randy Owen, and the late guitarist Jeff Cook -- all grew up and kept ties to over all the years of chart-toppers, touring, and all the trucking involved with the operation. Part 1 of the podcast: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15680069/roll-on-alabama-ft-paynenashville-with-trucker-josh-gentry As noted in Part 1, the Kenworth company is sponsoring Alabama’s current tour -- the "Roll On II North America Tour," using the name of Alabama's trucking-song classic "Roll On (18 Wheeler)." Kenworth’s sponsorship rekindles an old relationship between the band and the truck company. Founding member Teddy Gentry called the original relationship a product of necessity back during the height of the band’s popularity, when he said the tour was supported by as many as five tractor-trailers full to the gills with equipment the band’s operation toted from place to place. He can’t recall just how it started, but “we needed trucks," he said, "and we were exploding on the scene as far as the music goes." Teddy Gentry called it certainly a “good promotion for them,” Kenworth, too, with Alabama trailers festooned with band insignia pulled across North America by Kenworth. It was good for the band, too, recalled Teddy Gentry, leading to Alabama featuring in the driver-tribute show year after year at the Mid-America Trucking Show through the late 1980s up through an official farewell tour in the early 2000s. This rekindled sponsorship, Gentry added, has been great to “reunite a relationship that works, and especially that my son’s involved,” he said. For Josh Gentry, his father felt, trucking with the band and family is like “a dream come true” in some ways. Josh’s own words underscore that, to an extent, reflecting during our run in the single 2021 Kenworth T680 that powers the Alabama-controlled portion of the tour today that, like so many an owner-operator and driver the nation over, he takes pride in doing what he does. If you missed last week’s podcast, you’re going to hear Josh Gentry today speaking on the Thursday ahead of Alabama’s Friday, July 19, show at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. The bulk of the talk was recorded in-cab with Gentry on the haul up to Nashville from band headquarters in Ft. Payne, where we also spoke with staff about their longevity working for the group and memories of the past supporting their relationship with their fans and the many, many tours. And we’ll drop in at the load site in Nashville where Alabama’s gear is housed, and where the Josh Gentry hauled into to fill the wrapped 48-foot Great Dane show trailer to stage that Thursday night at Bridgestone. Tour operations managers and crew there spoke to all manner of aspects of Josh Gentry’s and their own work for the band, and the tight relationship between father and son Gentry as well. Dive into this on-highway portrait of country music titans Alabama, with destination a show that would see something you don’t see every day, that’s sure. It opened with a Kenworth video that, in essence, is a tribute to the importance of American trucking. That video ended with a message, in this case sent out to 20,000 people all in one very, very big room: “Thank you to drivers everywhere,” it read. “Roll On.” Also as noted in the podcast. Find where you can register for our live August 22 roundtable session detailing how to survive, even thrive through trucking down cycles: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15680141/how-owneroperators-can-build-business-for-truckings-down-cycles
'Roll On, Alabama': On the road with tour hauler Josh Gentry for music titans' Roll On II tour
Thursday, July 18, would be a short day of work for operator Josh Gentry, starting at a leisurely 10 a.m. in Fort Payne, Alabama, outside the Quality Inn in town. There, Gentry met Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills to get rolling, the pair starting the day in Gentry's Chevrolet en route to the site of an old auto dealership in town that, since the mid-1980s, has been the home base of the fan club for longtime country-rock group Alabama. It's also home base for the group's tour truck, in which Gentry was about to set out on a run. Josh Gentry is son of one of the last two founding members in the band, bassist and harmony singer Teddy Gentry. Josh, after years pursuing music himself, then hauling grain around his home region (some of those years as an owner-operator), today serves as hauler of Alabama’s touring operation, moved in a single truck and 48-foot Great Dane show trailer emblazoned with the band’s insignia and the "Roll On II North America Tour" logo. That truck, a 2021 Kenworth T680 detailed in this week's podcast, rekindles an old partnership between the Alabama group and the Kenworth company, dormant after an official farewell tour in the early part of this century. As you’ll hear on this run to Nashville to load in for Alabama's July 19 show at Bridgestone arena, Kenworth’s relationship with the band tracks back to the 1980s, when the tour operation was as many as four trucks and trailers, and the band was at the height of its popularity with big hits like "Mountain Music," "Tennessee River" and, yes, the classic "Roll On (18 wheeler)," in past named by Overdrive readers in the top five for best trucking song of all time: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14875984/these-are-the-top-10-trucking-songs-of-all-time Gentry's come full circle with his growing involvement in the tour operation, after a childhood spent enamoured by all things trucking and immersed in his father's band's music. Despite that long history, though, there's still opportunity for new experiences. By 11 a.m. Thursday last week he and Dills were pulling out with a lightly loaded trailer toward the Soundcheck facility’s docks to pick up more gear situated a very-short haul across the river from downtown. As the truck and trailer merged onto I-59 toward Chattanooga from Ft. Payne that morning, just as Dills readying his audio recorder for the talk with Gentry, a voice came over the radio -- "Roll on, Alabama!" -- invoking the classic trucking song. Gentry called tour manager Jeff Davis to mark the moment and give him an update on progress toward Nashville for load and staging. Yet the over-the-air atta-boy wasn’t the very first bit of attention the wrapped truck and trailer have gotten over going on two years Gentry's been guiding the tour, taking him as far as, most recently, North Dakota and into Manitoba and elsewhere in Canada. Dive into Josh Gentry’s trucking history and otherwise in this first episode featuring Overdrive's talk with the operator, the principal interests of his life to date all coming together now in live entertainment hauling with the family business. Catch more views of the truck and trailer, and from the Friday, July 19, live show in Nashville here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15680069/roll-on-alabama-ft-paynenashville-with-trucker-josh-gentry Find all episodes of Overdrive Radio via https://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio
4 million miles, ever greater efficiency for owner-op Alan Kitzhaber and his 1995 Kenworth T600
"Some guys customize their truck via paint, chrome, lights, and things like that. I customize my truck to make it a more comfortable place to be, a more profitable truck, a more efficient truck." --Owner-operator Alan Kitzhaber May 2024 was a big month for owner-operator Alan Kitzhaber, running with his authority as Oakridge Transport out of a home base in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, now for getting on a decade and a half. That month, he celebrated with family the graduation of one of his brothers with a Master’s degree in counseling, that brother’s son’s completion of a PhD in chemistry, and graduation of the brother’s daughter from high school. Owner-operator Kitzhaber himself, treated for prostate cancer earlier in the year, was celebrating an undetectable blood test marking his freedom from that condition. He put a light blue ribbon in the icing on a brownie cake he made as they all got together at his brother’s house to celebrate. Just what else Kitzhaber put on that cake, which you can see in the cover image for this Overdrive Radio edition, is the reason you're hearing Alan today. Also in May, Alan Kitzhaber completed a remarkable feat in his 1995 Kenworth T600, Cat 3406E-powered. He crossed the 4-million-mile mark in that single truck alone, every one of the miles logged under his expert piloting. Kitzhaber's not the first owner Overdrive Radio listeners have heard who's done similar -- "Mustang" Mike Crawford crossed 4 million in his 1994 Freightliner (12.7 Detroit-powered) back in 2022: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15291488/mike-mustang-crawfords-1994-freightliner-4-million-safe-miles (Incidentally, Overdrive editor Todd Dills spoke with Crawford July 1 as he hitting the Prime yard in Springfield at the end of his final run before retirement with a grand total of 4,159,910 miles in the rear view of the Freightliner. More on Crawford’s final run in a future podcast.) Owner-operator Alan Kitzhaber’s career stretches back to 1990, his time as owner-operator some years on with Millis Transfer, where he first took the reins of the then-brand-new 1995 Kenworth T600 as a company driver. He bought the truck from the company itself, then, a few years later. Since then, he's been laser-focused on turning that truck into a profit-making machine, and meticulous with record-keeping in no small way. As suggested by the quote at the top, too, plenty modifications through the years have allowed him to excel to the point of achieving well more than 8 mpg for a fuel mileage average several years running this past decade. There’s a lot to those modifications he’s made, for certain, detailed in today’s episode. And 4 million miles is a very long way. More than 8 times to the moon and back. At roughly 60 miles per hour it’d take you well past the hard end of the 14-hour clock to do it at 66,666 hours. We’ll track back through Kitzhaber’s history a little more quickly than that today on the podcast, along the way learning plenty about just how the owner-operator kept that Cat-powered T600 humming efficiently for so very long. As mentioned in the podcast, Caterpillar's interview with Kitzhaber for its Million Mile Club when he crossed 3 million: https://www.cat.com/en_US/articles/cat-truck-engine-articles/million-miler-alan-kitzhaber.html Gordon Alkire's closed greasing system: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14877182/csa-proofing-part-two-closed-greasing-system
Man's mastery of the machine: Trucker of the Month's firm hand in the Amazon system
This week’s edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast drops into Overdrive editor Todd Dills' interview with Overdrive June Trucker of the Month Greg Labosky, the man who is master of the machine, in some respects, that is the Amazon loads platform Relay: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15678623/careful-prep-the-name-of-the-game-for-june-trucker-of-the-month Labosky’s operating with authority just a single truck in that system, which rewards those who maintain the highest percentile rankings for various service levels tracked therein. Labsoky’s consistently above 98 there, and that means he’s got early access to loads booked on time-based contracts to in essence guarantee revenue for extended periods in advance. That builds in plenty time for planning his schedule on runs mostly within a geographical orbit of his GDL Enterprise business's home base in New Haven, Connecticut. Owner-operator Labosky’s just a few years into the journey of operating with authority, but as noted his trucking experience started in the mid-1990s, before the rise of the machine-assisted freight procurement world so many owners wrestle with today. As you’ll hear, though, it’s Labosky’s old-school knowledge that give him the ability to adeptly tinker around the edges to take full control of the center of his business, his veritable mastery of the machine. As noted, he’s our Trucker of the Month for June, putting him in the running as a semifinalist for the 2024 Trucker of the Year award, sponsored by Bostrom Seating: https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year You can put your own business in the running, or that of another deserving owner you’ve learned from, via https://OverdriveOnline.com/toptrucker
FMCSA's safety rating revamp: Truckers urge caution if using roadside data
This week's Overdrive Radio episode opens a window onto the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's virtual listening session held last week to discuss the agency’s efforts to potentially improve the safety rating system it uses for determining carriers’ fitness to operate in interstate commerce. Sit in on virtually the entire session, featuring a bevy of views from trucking stakeholders in response to chief areas of inquiry agency reps outlined near the top of the session. Regular Overdrive readers will know the effort around the potential safety rating change has been a long time in coming. Since the CSA Safety Measurement System came into play a decade and a half ago, it's as if it's always been on the FMCSA's wish list to use roadside data, possibly even the SMS itself, to determine a safety rating. Yet past attempts to do so have faltered under scrutiny, with loads of pushback from carriers and owner-operators on the notion. This session was no outlier in that regard, it’s certain. Commenter Daniel Shelton pointed out inadequacies he saw in a myriad violations used in parts of the CSA SMS that have really nothing to do with the bedrock indicator of safety in his mind, crashes that can reliably be shown as the fault of the motor carrier. Shelton also questioned the agency’s Crash Preventability Determination Program and its efficacy in identifying nonpreventable crashes to exclude them from carriers’ records. Agency reps on the call noted that nonpreventable determinations would exclude those crashes from a safety rating, yet Shelton told a story about one such he’d seen up close and then attempted to use the DataQs system to remove from the record, only to find out it wasn't a crash type eligible for review in the preventability program. (Pending changes in that regard continue to be in limbo as the agency reviews comments on a 2023 proposal.) All such issues, Shelton noted, will be big problems for the agency if it plans to utilize roadside and/or other SMS data in a new safety rating system. Hear many more views and answers to questions about the effort in the podcast. The virtual session last week was but one of two that are planned. You can register for the next July 31 session at this link: https://events.gcc.teams.microsoft.com/event/6d8b1246-2138-4ba9-821c-e926441fd2e1@c4cd245b-44f0-4395-a1aa-3848d258f78b As also mentioned in the podcast, FMCSA changes to the CSA SMS methodology remain pending almost a year and a half since proposed: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15306821/fmcsa-launches-site-for-proposed-csa-carrier-sms-changes More about those pending changes: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15352537/proposed-csascores-change-a-mixed-bag-in-hos-category-others
Dark side of the road: Inside FBI's 'Highway Serial Killings' initiative, fight against trafficking
In this podcast, the voice of former FBI counterintelligence assistant director Frank Figliuzzi, in conversation with Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole about the new book, "Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers," a close look at the FBI's long investigation of almost 1,000 murders over decades collected and analyzed in its "Highway Serial Killings" database. As Cole writes in a story that will go live with the post containing this podcast on OverdriveOnline.com Monday, June 24, "This, for all of us, is a tough subject to broach. Why? The killings caught the attention of the FBI principally because they all had enough in common that investigators could confidently say they appeared to have been committed by truck drivers." Trucking professionals who pick up the book or listen to the podcast, furthemore, will have to get past the fact of Frank Figliuzzi’s frequent shorthand use the often honorific term "trucker" in reference to various perpetrators of violence in-cab and elsewhere out along the highways. Reading the first parts of the book, Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills couldn’t help but think, "over and over and over again, 'Man, Frank, did you ever consider calling these folks what they are? Killers, maybe.' Or: 'Quite disturbed steering wheel holders?' Deserving of the 'trucker' label they are not." At once, a big part ot Figliuzzi's engagement with the subject matter -- the book's dedicated in part to truckers generally -- is to emphasize on-highway pros' role combatting a central problem, namely sex trafficking, that leads to so many of the killings logged in the FBI’s HSK database, many of them unsolved. Speaking directly to truckers, too, Figliuzzi hopes to inspire many to continue to be eyes and ears OTR, noting during the talk the Truckers Against Trafficking organization and all that organization’s done to marshal working owner-operators and drivers against sex crimes and violence. The organization was in part instrumental in establishing and promoting to the industry the National Human Trafficking Hotline well more than a decade ago now -- a good point of contact to this day for reporting crimes in progress, things that just don’t look right out on the road as well. That’s 888-3737-888. More about Truckers Against Trafficking: https://tatnonprofit.org Also discussed in the podcast -- Overdrive's 2023 "Trucking's State of Surveillance" series: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15541635/truckings-state-of-surveillance-inside-the-costs-benefits
Marroquin brothers' journey from Guatemala to U.S. trucking, now as owner-operators
Walking the giant hallway in the South Wing every year at the Mid-America Trucking Show, you’ll find benches that line the route, where people stop to rest. It's nice and quiet out there in general, compared to the show floor. On one Gary Buchs' walks down the hallways to or from this or that meeting, he happened to glance over and see four gentlemen chatting and smiling. (Those smiles stood out at this year’s show, as so many in trucking are struggling to keep their hope up for the careers they have chosen.) Buchs, longtime Overdrive Extra blog contributor and business coach after a long career OTR as an owner-operator, then noticed one of the men was wearing a Landstar hat. “Are you BCOs?” he asked, well-knowing Landstar acronym for Business Capacity Owners, of course, given his past 17 years as an owner-operator leased to the company. Turned out, yes, three of the four men were active with Landstar, and each of those three brothers brought 30 years and more of driving experience to the table. The fourth, and interestingly oldest, brother, Carlos, is meanwhile in the process of becoming an owner himself, with the mentoring help of his three younger brothers. What a story they have to tell. The Marroquin brothers -- Ivar, Luis, Diego and Carlos -- immigrated from Guatemala beginning in 1989. The four are tightly woven together by experiences of hardship and challenges, including the death of their father when the oldest was only seven years old. They told me about their struggles to learn English effectively, something they strongly desired to accomplish, so much so they invested in college courses where lessons proved far superior than those they were initially steered to upon arrival in the United States with certainly less-than-perfect language skills. They shared stories of sometimes rough treatment from native English-speaking counterparts, name-calling so hurtful it brought at least one to tears. All they desired, throughout the long journey to truck and business ownership, was a fair shake, opportunity to work, earn a living, and help their families be an integral part of the communities where they lived. California’s AB 5 contractor law hasn't helped, it’s safe to say, as you'll hear in this podcast conversation with Buchs and the Marroquins. They all lived within 50 miles of Los Angeles when the law came into play. Life was good, all close enough to help each other and support family life. When AB 5 arrived, though, the three brothers decided to rent an apartment in Las Vegas, Nevada, where they established personal residency and their CDLs. That’s just to mention a couple disruptions the new contractor law brought to their businesses. What shines through in the conversation, ultimately: good-natured debate over the right tack to take in business. Best brand of truck, right sort of transmission, benefits of pre-planning/booking loads versus boosted rates that come with waiting for the last-minute high-demand need. ... All are up for debate, and clearly the Marroquins' long history with one another other gives them the ability to cajole yet, at the same time, learn from and lean on each other.
Trucker of the Month Alec Costerus' odyssey to 10+ mpg and two-truck Alpha Drivers Transportation
"The power demand, the power that's required to pull a truck down the highway ... the idea is to match the power that's produced by the engine to the power that's required." --Overdrive's May Trucker of the Month Alec Costerus on the bedrock principal behind achieving the best fuel economy Alpha Drivers Transportation two-truck fleet owner and operator Alec Costerus launched the company just a couple of years ago from his Denver, Colorado, home base following about eight years trucking as an owner-operator leased to Landstar. The ADT company runs with authority two trucks today, with cofounder Joel Morrow behind the wheel of one of them out of Ohio, the other piloted by Travis Lauer, an operator Morrow trained himself on driving for max efficiency. ADT's the result of Costerus and Morrow becoming fast friends after "geeking out" for years over how to achieve better trucking efficiency, both when it comes to the equipment and the business itself, for certain. Longtime Overdrive Radio listeners have heard Morrow on the podcast, when he was part of panel including past Trucker of the Year Henry Albert, among others, at the 2022 MATS, all about spec’ing and driver practice toward getting to 10 miles per gallon and beyond: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15383454/paths-to-10plus-mpg-in-a-class-8-diesel-truck Alec Costerus himself turned heads among those in Overdrive’s audience about a month ago, detailing how he and Morrow did just that, a big part of the success of what they’ve built with Alpha Drivers: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15670289/controlling-fuel-costs-for-small-trucking-businesses Principal reason for the head-turning? A 10.5-mpg average for their 2023 Volvo VNL760, spec’d to Morrow’s liking with what Volvo’s calling the i-Torque spec. Morrow had a lot to do with that spec, and today, we’ll hear more of that story from Costerus directly, and how Costerus’ efforts in concert with Morrow have resulted in what’s certainly one of the most efficient owner-operator businesses around. Costerus, with 15 years or so in trucking now himself, is certainly unique among Overdrive's Trucker of the Year monthly semi-finalists for plenty reasons. Another: He’s mostly managing the now-two-truck business outside the bounds of a truck cab, by and large, though he does jump back behind the wheel moving mostly power-only loads when Morrow is called away to trade shows or the fleet’s other principal operator is down, and in other situations. Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole, who you’ll hear asking the questions throughout the podcast, remarked early in his conversation with Costerus about the unique nature of the operation. "A lot of people can drive and 'be a trucker' that way," he noted. Alternately, stick around a while, grow and learn and "you can take that experience and leverage it for the greater good, so to speak." Costerus hopes to do that with Alpha Drivers, with a push to show just what can be done and bring the next generation up with him -- not to mention other owner-operators of his own generation who may not realize what can be achieved. His long experience over-the-road helps mightily. Critical for any trucking company owner, he believes: "that you actually know how the freight is moved, what the drivers endure, familiarity with hours of service, all of that. I think it makes us more efficient." It’s a fine balancing act whether you're behind the wheel or not most days, running a trucking business in pursuit of not only efficiency to contain costs but the demands of revenue, time, playing guardian of the bedrock safety of the motoring public around you. Costerus is managing it well with Alpha Drivers. Enter Overdrive's Trucker of the Year contest: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker
What marijuana as a Schedule III controlled substance could mean for truckers
The Department of Justice’s Drug Enforcement Administration on May 20 officially published its notice of proposed rulemaking that, if finalized, would reschedule marijuana from a Schedule I controlled substance to Schedule III: https://www.regulations.gov/document/DEA-2024-0059-0001 The Biden Administration signaled its intent to move forward with such a proposal earlier this month, and the NPRM’s publication formalized that effort. The DEA’s proposal said moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act would be “consistent with the view of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that marijuana has a currently accepted medical use, as well as HHS's views about marijuana's abuse potential and level of physical or psychological dependence.” That, ultimately, is the difference between the two scheduling levels, as previously reported. Schedule I drugs are defined in the Act as “drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” Those include heroin, LSD, ecstasy and, at least for now, marijuana. Schedule II drugs, in the terms of the legislation, show “high potential for abuse, with use potentially leading to severe psychological or physical dependence,” and are considered dangerous. These include combination products with less than 15 milligrams of hydrocodone per dosage unit (Vicodin), cocaine, methamphetamine, methadone, fentanyl and more. Drugs classified under Schedule III, how DEA is looking to classify marijuana, are those “with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence,” and have a lower abuse potential than Schedule I and Schedule II drugs. Currently, these include products containing less than 90 milligrams of codeine per dosage unit, like Tylenol with codeine, as well as ketamine, anabolic steroids, testosterone and more. Typically, according to Brandon Wiseman, attorney and president of Trucksafe Consulting and guest for this week's Overdrive Radio podcast, Schedule III drugs “are still controlled in the sense that they require a prescription.” As such, having a Schedule III drug in your system is not necessarily a disqualifying factor in DOT drug testing. The driver must have a valid medical prescription for that drug, and the medical review officer (MRO) that validates the results of the drug test has to be comfortable that the use of that drug won’t impact the driver’s ability to safely operate a truck. “Some prescription drugs will inhibit a driver's ability to safely operate a truck,” Wiseman said in the podcast. “And so we just weed those drivers out. Those drivers aren't going to be physically qualified. They're not going to be able to get a med card, for example, to be able to operate.” Hear much more from Wiseman in the podcast, and read Matt Cole and Alex Lockie's reporting on the rescheduling subject via these links: Cole: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15676307 Lockie's early two-part feature: **https://www.overdriveonline.com/15670141 **https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15670542/marijuana-legalization-trucking-and-the-future-of-drug-testing
A pair of custom 2024 Peterbilt 589s, and one standout owner's advice for the next generation
As promised two weeks back, here's Part 2 of our talk with May Trucker of the Month Gary Schloo, longtime owner-operator leased to Long Haul Trucking for the last three decades of a five-decade trucking career. Schloo here tells a can't-miss story about how he and his wife and business partner, Terri, met. It' the "classic trucker-and-the-waitress thing" at a late-night diner early in Schloo's time as an owner-operator. And as most listeners are well aware, a big part of the Trucker of the Year competition, featuring owner-operator semi-finalist candidates throughout the year (including Schloo), hopes to lend useful perspective to all of you, ways to sharpen the operation, button up the business for long-term success. Owner-operator Schloo’s answer to a question I’ve asked most of our Trucker of the Month candidates – namely what their advice to any new or prospective truck owner might be – in many ways comes back to insurance. Build the nest egg early for the down cycles. Put a disability/income-replacement insurance policy in your back pocket for the things that happen to all of us -- whether illness or injury, a crash... The list could well go on. It's saved him over 50 years over-the-road more times than he can count. Hear much more on that score in this episode, likewise a special treat: A rundown with the Semi Casual custom shop's Brian Bourke detailing the work put into two custom-built 2024 Peterbilt Model 589s the shop showed at MATS and on the scene of the Large Cars & Guitars truck show in Tennessee, where we caught up with Bourke. Catch the Semi Casual video mentioned in the podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOrbebJWQsI Also mentioned -- enter yourself or another deserving owner-operator (up to three trucks) in the Bostrom Seating-sponsored Overdrive's Trucker of the Year program via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker Finally, a big happy birthday to Gary Schloo on May 26! We hope it's a great one.
Roadcheck chicken-house wrap with the Mustang | Running the High Road with tour-haul small fleet
After years of scheduling needed preventive maintenance and sitting out the Roadcheck blitz, last year Mike "Mustang" Crawford hauled through his first Roadcheck in years. As we did after last year's 72-hour inspection blitz, we’ll be riding along again in this Overdrive Radio edition through three days’ worth of scale reports from our friendly on-highway chicken-house correspondent. Regular listeners may well recall that last year on runs from the Midwest all the way down to Florida, Mustang didn’t cross a single open scale. Can’t say that’s the case this year, though. And, for the balance of the episode, shift into high gear with our talk with Sharon Lee, owner of the High Road small fleet headquartered between Nashville, Tennessee, and Boston, and making a name for themselves in the concert tour-trucking world. Lee jumped on our radar after her involvement with the Academy of Country Music’s "ACM Lifting Lives" program, through which she partnered with the Mechanics on a Mission organization as well to surprise a touring professional with the gift of an automobile at a TCW event early this year -- TCW's the Touring Career Workshop, and small fleet owner Lee serves as a board member for the organization. Since founding High Road in 2016, she’s made big inroads with customers in the music industry here in Nashville, but it turns out her trucking history is just as deep, stretching all the way back to childhood, when her father was an owner-operator in New York State and involved in tour trucking himself. Working with one-man, one-truck operations holds a special place in her approach to this day. More about High Road: https://highroadusa.com More about concert/show tour trucking in Overdrive: **Mobile TV production: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15634571/a-unique-beast-behind-the-scenes-in-mobile-tv-production-trucking **Events-haul in general: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14894405/how-event-hauling-stands-out-in-the-trucking-industry **Clark Transfer's Broadway show hauling: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15294151/guaranteed-revenue-for-owneroperators-clark-transfer-commits
What is your time worth? Re-engage with owner-operator business fundamentals to know the answer
"Time is money," as the old saying goes, and as such "time management is money management." That was how the great Red Eye Radio host Eric Harley put it near the beginning of this our last in a series of Partners in Business short podcasts on Overdrive Radio, talks excerpted from a long roundtable conducted at the Mid-America Trucking Show this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khKP2WHZjfg&list=PLc1lg9rs1dUBRbJKjvc7UUcJRRd4iI2v3 Time should be a factor in your analysis of any load to truly assess the potential for profit. Overdrive released a bit of a tool to help in that process -- it's a custom spreadsheet that was made available for download around the time of MATS and the big update to this year's Partners in Business owner-operator handbook: https://www.overdriveonline.com/partners-in-business/document/15666632/evaluate-any-loads-cost-in-relation-to-time-not-just-miles The tool clearly illustrates how added time within any load's schedule dilutes revenue and adds costs per mile as fixed costs continue to mount with any delay. It offers a way for you to calculate that impact more or less at a glance, with the input of just a few of your own numbers. The tool was developed by Overdrive contributor Gary Buchs in his efforts coaching individual owner-operators through business decisions large and small. In this episode, voices you’ll hear, in order of appearance, are that of our moderator Eric Harley, setting us up for discussion of time management, followed by myself, then ATBS Vice President Mike Hosted expanding with some market timing insight, and Overdrive contributor and now longtime business coach Gary Buchs, previously mentioned. Through to the end, all stress, too, the fundamental value of re-engagement with business fundamentals possible with the PIB program. Here’s hope the talk and broader program both give you plenty to chew as you assess prospects and performance of your own business throughout the remainder of the year. The educational program this year is sponsored by the great folks at the Rush Truck Centers dealer network, who share our vision for your success: https://rushtrkctr.com/4bLxbR4 As mentioned in the talk, Matthew Mickenberg's story of valuable timing: he saved $50K on the price of a new truck purchase on account of it: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15659622/its-a-deal-50k-saved-on-a-new-truck
A short leash on long-term success: Trucker of the Month Gary Schloo
This week's Overdrive Radio podcast edition features primarily the voice of Overdrive April Trucker of the Month, owner-operator Gary Schloo. The three-decade-plus owner's headquartered in Austin, Minnesota, leased to Long Haul Trucking out of relatively nearby Albertville. Today, Schloo runs dedicated to a particular customer in Long Haul Trucking’s network and can make a regular round in a day’s time, keeping him not far from his two-acre property throughout his week. It’s been his bread and butter now for nearly two decades, hauled since 2014 behind a Peterbilt 386 glider powered by a 12.7 Detroit Series 60 he bought new at the time. Ever with an eye on ways to save, the owner-operator adjusted his physical damage insurance shortly after the purchase, limiting the radius of his coverage to 500 miles with Great West Casualty, outside the policy he'd previously purchased through LHT. That's just one example of moves made and routines built through the years that have delivered long-term stability and profits for Schloo. Current LHT CEO Jason Michels, in Overdrive's prior story about the owner-operator, told of meeting Schloo early in his own trucking career, when he was just getting started with LHT as an owner-operator himself: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15669324/effective-insurance-exacting-analysis-deliver-gary-schloos-success Schloo and Michels met in West Virginia as both owners loaded there for a run back to Minnesota, then talking along the way. Schloo's generous with his time with young owners, Michels noted, and certainly was on that run where the pair met. Schloo schooled him on the importance of paying taxes so as not to get behind the eight ball with penalties and other wasted money, tracking and analyzing cost and revenue performance closely, and saving plenty as insurance against the rainy days. A lot of Schloo’s success comes back to insurance, in fact, building the business nest egg and other practices to guard against the unexpected: https://www.overdriveonline.com/partners-in-business/video/15667833/stock-your-trucking-pantry-against-famine-before-any-feast-ends That extends to health and disability. He’s carried a disability insurance policy for decades, and it’s proven plenty effective, particularly when 15 years ago now he had a heart attack that threw everything he’d built into question. Take a run through Schloo's story for more in this week's podcast. Owner-operator Gary Schloo is in the running for Overdrive's 2024 Trucker of the Year award, sponsor by Bostrom Seating. You can enter your own or another worthy owner-operator business for a chance at a new Bostrom seat among other prizes and recognitions, via https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker
Trucker Josh Giesbrecht building a legacy for family, fellow truckers, people all around the world
Today on the podcast, a brief look back into a little bit of Overdrive’s recent history, as you'll hear Canada-headquartered owner-operator Josh Giesbrecht intimate up top. Giesbrecht notes Overdrive gave him his "first big break" on the road to expanded influence around the world for his daily/near-daily series of video blogs he's hosted for nigh on a decade and a half at this point. His "Trucker Josh" Youtube channel to this day continues to bring the bedrock in-cab reality of Canadian and U.S. hauling to the masses all around the world: https://www.youtube.com/@Trucker_Josh Turns out Overdrive was among the first outlets to cover what he was doing way back near the start of it, as he tells it, and set the video blog off on a run toward a much bigger audience. The "Trucker Josh" channel's history is certainly a living one, though, as it continues to be a repository of everything to landscapes and tarping tutorials, to mini rants and safety outreach, and so much more. Josh Giesbrecht is the latest well-deserving honoree in a Hall of Fame hosted by a company regular listeners will no doubt be well aware of. You can find the fine folks behind the Howes Hall of Fame at https://howesproducts.com/hof -- and find our initial reporting on Giesbrecht's induction via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15666875/trucker-josh-giesbrecht-new-howes-hall-of-fame-member Overdrive Editor Todd Dills sat down with owner-operator Giesbrecht and Howes Executive Vice President Rob Howes II at the Mid-America Trucking Show, where the Howes company announced the Hall of Fame induction. In the podcast today, the results of that talk, in which Giesbrecht ultimately centers on this central reason for his continued, dogged pursuit of sharing the life of the over-the-road driver and truck owner day-in, day-out: "I want this to go throughout my life," he said of his daily chronicling, to be "the thing that I leave behind to my kids, my grandkids. Hopefully it's something that can earn their respect. 'He started from here, he ended here, and he did good.'" For the trucking community, then, Giesbrecht's will be a legacy of improvement in public appreciation of the brass-tacks work of hauling. Said Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills, "It’s somewhat easy to underestimate the impact video blogs like Trucker Josh’s have had on the better appreciation of the work of trucking by the general public. Geisbrecht’s was certainly among the first, and now with a subscription base in the six figures, it’s continuing to strike a nerve, or strike a chord, as it were, with a worldwide audience." Other talks with Howes Hall of Fame inductee owner-operators: Kate Whiting: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15542803/cherry-pie-owners-road-to-trucking-with-a-custom-1973-w900a Angelique Temple: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15304180/hazmattank-veteran-driver-now-on-her-own-meet-angelique-temple
How to transform OTR 'work/life' division into real balance, unity with customers
Here find 2024's third mid-week special edition in Overdrive Radio's series of Partners in Business shorts culled from a long owner-operator business-focused talk at the Mid-America Trucking Show last month with Eric Harley of Red Eye Radio. This episode extends from the first couple, expanding on the necessity of close business analysis in near-real-time to keep tabs on costs and profits, the start-up necessity of stocking that pantry and doubling down on saving when markets are hot for the lean times. We’ve been in one of those, by some estimates, going on two years at this point. Voices we'll hear: **The great Eric Harley of Red Eye Radio. Find the full talk in an episode of Red Eye's Extra Mile podcast here: https://www.redeyeradioshow.com/the-extra-mile-podcast/ **Overdrive Editor Todd Dills **ATBS Vice President Mike Hosted **Overdrive contributor and now longtime business coach Gary Buchs The subject here is "work-life balance," of a fashion, though that term doesn’t do a whole lot for a small business owner, for whom those two elements – work, life – are virtually inseparable. Nonetheless, there’s plenty owners can do to set themselves up for life at home with the work, particularly as it relates to building long-term business with solid customer relationships. For more on that subject, catch Part 2 of Overdrive Radio's talk with Surinder Gill: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15669640/small-fleet-owner-determined-to-sharpen-value-to-direct-customers Likewise, Jason Cowan's MATS talk about nurturing and maintaining relationships: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15668024/how-to-leave-trucking-better-than-you-found-it-with-jason-cowan Garnering respect from customers over time, solidifying those relationships so that you don’t have to turn to dime-a-dozen brokered loads on the boards so often: It’s the little things described in this episode, pursued day-in, day-out, that serve the best chance of getting you there. Track back the Partners in Business series from the Red Eye Radio roundtables this year at MATS, and last, via this Youtube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcMsOnx-zFs&list=PLc1lg9rs1dUBRbJKjvc7UUcJRRd4iI2v3 This special edition in the long-running Partners in Business program is sponsored by Rush Truck Centers, the 140-plus dealer location network for sales service and so much more. Find them via this link: https://rushtrkctr.com/4bLxbR4 You can visit https://OverdriveOnline.com/pib to download the 2024 updated Partners in Business book and learn plenty more from our online series there, too, about so many topics germane to trucking as an owner-operator.
Hey shippers, we're out here: Small fleet resolved to sharpen biz on long haul for change
Last week we heard Part 1 of a long talk with Gill Freightlines small fleet owner Surinder Gill, with four trucks owned and headquartered out of Manteca, California, where Gill’s following in the draft of his owner-operator father’s 60-year trucking legacy. (As you can see in the cover image for this week's Part 2 of that talk, the long legacy is honored on the back of Gill Freightlines’ dry vans.) The Convoy brokerage's quick collapse last Fall nearly spelled out a death sentence for the small fleet, as it was mostly built around dedicated hauling for Convoy's shipper customers. Gill’s still owed around $35,000 for loads hauled just prior to the collapse, and the collapse of his fleet's work soured relationships with a small group of owner-operators whom he previously worked with. The difficulties, in part at least, extend from what he acknowledges as a classic mistake in business. "I guess it goes back to the age-old saying of 'don't put all your eggs into one basket,'" as he put it. Yet as detailed in Part 1 of the talk, he profferred the notion that, given how many carriers' work went unpaid in the Convoy collapse and the company’s tech platform’s quick sale to another brokerage/forwarder, bigger brokerages ought to be required to have larger bonds in place based on the amount of business they do: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15669109/should-freight-brokers-bond-vary-according-to-company-size In Part 2 here, you'll get a window into what Gill’s doing in the aftermath, pivots he’s making toward more direct business, and his hope that so many shippers’ attitudes toward working with small carriers in their immediate physical vicinity, regardless of size, might change for the better. He's got a distribution center he can physically lay eyes on with nothing more than a step out the door to his office, for instance. "I can see them, phyiscally, they can see me physically," he said, "yet where it confuses me is they would rather give work to these kids right out of college who work for [INSERT BIG BROKER NAME HERE] in Chicago or Atlanta or wherever their office is and trust these kids to go vet these carriers who might be carriers or chameleon carriers. ... But they won't give it to me," with just a few trucks. That's even though, of course, Gill's "right down the street." Though load boards and brokers themselves rose out of the need of owner-operators and small carriers to connect to freight they otherwise might not have access to, Gill feels the entire culture around brokerage has devolved with Wolf of Wall Street-type tactics now so dominant that independents become essentially "bottom feeders" in a market like the current one. Volumes have been down in a big post-pandemic readjustment, and demand has sunk back to pre-2020 levels and below, some would say, for an extended period. Yet he's in it for the long run. He's fully invested in driving change in his own approach to customers. He recognizes his and other independents’ shortcomings, and is committed to being part of a change to re-engage direct customers, really put in the work on building relationships toward better long-term opportunity outside of this or that fancy new brokerage network’s app. "It's going to drive a change" around trucking, he feels, "and I want to be there for it." Mentioned in the podcast: Past Overdrive Small Fleet Champ Jason Cowan's recent talk on building relationships, with customers or otherwise: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15668024/how-to-leave-trucking-better-than-you-found-it-with-jason-cowan Enter the 2024 Small Fleet Championship via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/2024SFC
Should freight brokers' required bond amount vary according to company size?
Manteca, California, Gill Freightlines small fleet owner Surinder Gill's family's trucking lineage traces back through 60 years of OTR work done by his father, Gurmail Singh Gill, over more than one continent. The elder Gill hauled first in his native India, some in the Middle East, and finished out his career in the United States. Surinder Gill had dipped his feet in trucking as a dispatcher by the time his father passed in 2018. "I wanted to do something to honor my father," Gill said. "How do I honor my father and his legacy? So we purchased a truck and got a trailer, and I put his photo on the back." His trailers to this day feature that photo and the "In loving memory" text for Gurmail Singh Gill. "He'll always be on the road, in a way," as his son puts it in this edition of Overdrive Radio, telling that story but much else besides. Small fleet owner Gill was in part the subject of Overdrive Executive Editor Alex Lockie's reporting on the now-infamous collapse of the Convoy company as a going brokerage concern this past Fall. That reporting told the tale of a variety of owner-operators and small fleet owners just like 28-year-old Surinder Gill who, months following the abrupt shuttering of Convoy in October, remained unpaid for in some cases thousands’ worth of work hauling: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15666087/convoys-unpaid-carriers-signing-back-up-to-haul-loads In Gill’s case, unpaid invoices were to the tune of around $35,000 in dedicated contract loads his several company drivers and a larger number of owner-operators pulled for big names in canning and food generally, like the Post company. Convoy's debt to Gill alone is nearly half of the worth of the required $75,000 bond any broker is required to have to cover claims. As you'll hear in the podcast, Gill believes that bond amount shouldn't but a static number but rather dependent on the amount of business a broker handles. Larger the broker, larger the bond. Convoy, readers will recall, had a valuation in the billions, according to pre-collapse reports. Given the volume of freight -- and money -- that flowed through the broker, Gill asks, shouldn't they be required to hold a bond much, much higher than $75,000? By the time he got to the bond company with his own claim, the full amount in the surety had already been kicked to court deliberation on just who would get paid, and how much. As of this past week, Gill remained entirely unpaid for those final loads, though the small fleet owner offered up a bit of information he'd learned since the conversation featured in this podcast. Contact made with the Hercules Capital company, responsible for business debt incurred by Convoy, yielded a name there for everything having to do with the shuttered brokerage. “I have reached out to Hercules Capital,” Gill said, “and was given the contact of a Greg Peterson” for everything Convoy-related with the company, a venture funding company that took control of all of the imploded company but for the technology platform. That platform, also previously reported, was sold to Flexport and rebooted for freight brokered through them, a fact that frustrates Gill and others among the unpaid carriers who’d worked with Convoy for years, as you'll hear.
Staying choosy about brokers -- 'too many scammers out there': Trucker of the Month Candace Marley
In today’s world, the kind of choosiness with brokers owner-operator Candace Marley practices is an absolute must for many independents. "I don't jump in with just any broker out there," she said. "There's too many scammers out there, too many double brokers, too many frauds." In this edition of Overdrive Radio, Marley details the relationship-building strategy for freight in her Iowa-based one-truck business -- Calliope, LLC. The independent business takes its name from a muse in Greek Mythology and a species of hummingbird well-known for its nimble nature in flight, a quality that owner-operator Marley herself has shown in spades over the course of her time with authority, even just a few years in after being leased to Don Hummer Trucking. Today we’re running through Marley’s conversation with Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole, whose feature about the owner-operator also detailed her tenacity to thrive under the most challenging of circumstances: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15667438/independent-owneroperator-candace-marley-thrives-on-challenge Overdrive’s Trucker of the Month for March, owner-operator Marley’s in the running for the 2024 Trucker of the Year honor, this year sponsored by Bostrom Seating with a new seat the ultimate prize for whoever comes out on top among 10 semi-finalists we’ll profile this year. Put your own business in the running via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/page/toptrucker For Candace Marley, it all comes after a year that's been a tough one, it's sure. As was the case for so many owner-operators, lower rates and high fuel (along with generally soft freight markets) had her trucking along fairly flat compared to the previous year. Then, six months out from finishing the note on her 2017 Kenworth T680, a major mechanical failure took the truck out from under her, necessitating a two-month transition to a 2020 Peterbilt 579 late in the year. She’s inherently optimistic, though, and it was just the kind of challenge maybe she even needed, as you’ll hear, to keep her on her toes and motivated to sharpen all aspects of the business. Just about six months after that big mechanical failure, she’s working her way back with the 579 delivering better fuel mileage than her previous unit. She’s closely monitoring costs and what she needs to meet profitability targets, and looking ahead to better freight markets where she’ll really make hay. The owner’s journey through trucking behind the wheel starts in 2009, when her then-husband had to come off the road due to an illness, and it’s a story she tells in full in the podcast. Nominate your own business or that of another owner-operator for Overdrive's Trucker of the Year award: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker As mentioned in the podcast, 2023 Trucker of the Year Jay Hosty's acceptance of prizes at MATS with the award, including a custom model replica of his 2006 Western Star 4900EX: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15666987/new-seat-custom-replica-trucker-of-the-year-jay-hosty-recognized
'You're the business owner, so be the boss': Engage your own trucking numbers to take control
Here find 2024's second mid-week special edition in Overdrive Radio's series of Partners in Business shorts culled from a long owner-operator business-focused talk at the Mid-America Trucking Show last month with Eric Harley of Red Eye Radio. This one digs into more of the routine business analysis practice participants in the discussion began to touch on in the last edition, about the importance of stocking the pantry when markets are hot to weather inevitable soft-freight downturns like what we’ve been experiencing nigh on, if not more than, a year now: https://www.overdriveonline.com/partners-in-business/video/15667833/stock-your-trucking-pantry-against-famine-before-any-feast-ends Eric Harley teeing the topics up with a question about profit and loss statements and any owner-operator's necessary routine engagement with their own numbers. For ATBS clients, that's aided by the online hub where those owners can access monthly P&Ls with the simple push of a button. The P&L itself, though it can be voluminous in its detail, Harley noted, is “less intimidating” as a document “when you develop those good habits [and] those routines” and you’re “watching it at every step.” The best owner-operators take it farther, noted ATBS Vice President Mike Hosted. “At least a few times a year, they look at their budget next to their P&L and say, ‘I’ve a roadmap in this budget. Now I’ve got a scorecard’” with real results in a P&L. The best assess performance in relation to achievement of profit goals that way. “Are my costs per mile changing?” Hosted asked. “Are my fixed costs changing? Are my home costs changing, and what do I need to do to make adjustments” in service of meeting/exceeding the goals and enabling the ability to save in the war chest for the next down cycle. Overdrive contributor Gary Buchs invoked the "Crucial Conversations" book and its subtitle: “Tools for Talking when Stakes are High” Take control of what you can control and "decide to decide" to get better at touching your own numbers regularly, Buchs paraphrased a central message of the book. It can be primary in wresting control of the business from market whims. Need help in that regard? Track back through our series of Partners in Business shorts form the Red Eye Radio roundtables this year and last at MATS: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc1lg9rs1dUBRbJKjvc7UUcJRRd4iI2v3 Keep tuned, too, for the next one wherever you’re listening: https://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio This special edition in the long-running Partners in Business program is sponsored by Rush Truck Centers, the 140-plus dealer network for sales, service and so much more. Find them at https://rushtrkctr.com/4bLxbR4 Visit https://OverdriveOnline.com/pib to download the 2024 updated Partners in Business book and learn plenty more from our online series there, too, about so many topics germane to trucking as an owner-operator.
How to leave trucking better than you found it, with Small Fleet Champ Jason Cowan
“Like a lot of young boys, I grew up in a farming and trucking environment, and as I stood on the stage a couple of years ago as our company accepted the 2021 Small Fleet Champion of the year award, it hit me that I had hit a pinnacle in my career. Because all I had ever wanted as a young boy was to get my own truck into Overdrive magazine.” --Silver Creek Transportation owner Jason Cowan Yet Silver Creek Transportation owner and Overdrive 2021 Small Fleet Champ Jason Cowan’s story doesn’t end there, of course. Flanked by images of two 1970s Overdrive covers on the Mid-America Trucking Show's East Hall stage March 22 this year, Cowan invoked a new appreciation for all that had come before, which he grabbed hold of that night in Nashville as he and his tight-knit Silver Creek office staff accepted the National Association of Small Trucking Companies-sponsored Small Fleet Champ award. “What I began to learn that night was that wasn’t just the end,” he said. “That was the beginning.” What followed was a rousing talk we're sharing in full here in today's edition of Overdrive Radio. It's guaranteed to make you think, part tale of his early-years fascination with all things trucks and trucking as a young boy, part homily on how to approach life and business to leave those around you, and the trucking business itself, better than you found them. "I'm going to ask you, 'Who are you bringing along behind you?'', Cowan said to the assembled, "so that when they get to be in their career they can say, 'That person invested time in me.'" Cowan shared pictures of two idols from his boyhood on the MATS stage. Owner-operator John Baker, who ran to "California and back" from Kentucky, "every week," he said. Likewise Donald Stone, another owner Cowan who gave his time to the young man. Cowan probably no substantive introduction here. His Henderson, Kentucky, Silver Creek Transportation serves as a bulwark to many an aspiring small fleet owner and is a pillar of his community. Take a long listen to Cowan’s veritable sermon on the importance of relationships. With customers, sure. But also, and most importantly, the biggest relationship you have -- the one with that person you see looking back at you in the mirror every morning. Here's hoping it takes you off to a great weekend. For the rest of you this coming Monday, here’s hoping the solar eclipse traffic doesn’t waylay you on the road to deliver. As noted in the podcast, here's Overdrive’s News Editor Matt Cole’s report on the eclipse’s path from Texas to Maine: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15667515/total-solar-eclipse-safety-travel-advisories-in-the-path-more More from Silver Creek owner Jason Cowan: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15291067/a-vision-for-growth-jason-cowan-silver-creek-transportation
Trucking's feast-or-famine cycles: Stock the pantry against 'panic mode' as an owner-operator
In this special-edition Overdrive Radio short, Red Eye Radio host Eric Harley relays an anecdote from a family relation, an owner-operator who lamented the difficulty coping with the hunger-sticken parts of the feast-or-famine business cycles in trucking. That's most certainly where the business has been for at least the last year -- some would say close to two years at this point in the game -- after post-pandemic highs. "Dollars and cents matter right now," said ATBS Vice President Mike Hosted, underscoring the point. "Decisions matter." It's been a year where fixed costs are up 8%, variable costs are down 10%, and freight rates have continued their fall in the broader markets. Without clear insight to truly understand your costs, "you're running in the dark" on what you need to be profitable, Hosted said. And while a seasoned owner-operator may have a gut feeling about their business performance -- and they may be right 8 to 9 times out of 10 -- prevention practices with finances (not just mechanical prevention) will pay off when the famine is on, noted Gary Buchs, Overdrive contributor and longtime owner-operator business coach. With a good backstop of money in a reserve account, or a line of credit opened during one of the feast cycles, you can avoid falling into "panic mode" when cycles turn, Buchs said -- a recipe for "unwise decisions" you can't take back like one too many unprofitable loads. "In a time like we're dealing with now, if you run into the necessity of a large repair bill, and if you don't have the cash on hand to pay that, it can be a killer," said Overdrive Editor Todd Dills, rounding out the four-person panel discussion featured here. It's the first in a special midweek series of short excerpts from a special talk Overdrive and ATBS had with Harley at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Kentucky. The talk was attendant to the March 22 release of the 2024-updated edition of our Partners in Business handbook for owner-operator business, start to finish, with our seminar at the big show: https://www.overdriveonline.com/partners-in-business/article/15667166/poor-ratesdemand-outweigh-lower-trucking-costs-this-cycle This year sponsored by the Rush Truck Centers national dealer network, the new PIB book is available for download via this link: https://register.overdriveonline.com/pib-manual/ This short introduces the PIB program and digs further into perspective on building your owner-operator business pantry to insure against those feast-or-famine dynamics and the whims of the business cycles. The talk is aired in full also via Red Eye Radio's Extra Mile podcast at this link: https://www.redeyeradioshow.com/the-extra-mile-podcast/ Visit Partners in Business sponsor Rush Truck Centers, the premier solutions provider to the commercial vehicle industry with 150-plus full-service dealership locations in the United States and Canada, via https://rushtrkctr.com/4bLxbR4
FMCSA moves on carrier/broker-registration overhaul to tamp down fraud: Detail, potential problems
"We're going to clean up the bad actors that are in our system now." FMCSA registration office director Ken Riddle. Ken Riddle's office handles applications for authority, updates to carrier and other entity data, third-party access to the system, BOC3 filers’ access, and more. In this podcast for April Fool’s Day, we’re not fooling around -- big changes to how carriers interact with the FMCSA’s registration system are on the way, aimed at rooting out bad actors FMCSA now at the least fully acknowledges are registered in the system today: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15666936/fmcsa-to-overhaul-registration-system-to-stamp-out-fraud We’re talking all those organized double brokers and affiliated carrier entities, identity fraudsters and others. Today hear Riddle’s full talk from the Mid-America Trucking Show with an eye to give you at least some clarity on what to expect, particularly when identity and business verification tools come into play for what Rddle described as a clean-up of the entire population of currently registered carriers, brokers, forwarders and others. Part of what he had to say at MATS caught the ear of more than one Overdrive reader, too, with potential problems for sole-proprietor owner-operators. To wit, as Alex Lockie's report on the session summed up what Riddle had to say: "FMCSA plans, in short order, to implement identification and business verification tools into the registration system, not allowing registrants to proceed until they've proven their identity and that their business exists and is registered with the IRS or the state." It's not 100% the case that every state requires sole proprietors in self-employed situations (such as many owners) to formally register, as noted W. Joel Baker, longtime owner-operator and insurance agent and a regular contributor to our Overdrive Extra series. As sole proprietors, formal registrations outside the payment of self-employment taxes and/or other business taxes, whether with the state or IRS, aren’t always in play, Baker pointed. “We 'sole proprietors,'" he said, often “do not have, nor are we required to have, a business that is 'registered' with the IRS" for an EIN or with the state in some cases. If business verification procedures within FMCSA’s registrations aren't implemented with a consideration made for such businesses, Baker added, “it will have a massive negative impact on the industry,” not to mention for any individual owner “cleaned up” through the process with authority revocation or other outcome. Riddle had more to add about business verification, too, though, noting that the agency is looking for a third-party contractor to help with the verifications and that it’s fairly early days for the process. Overdrive also queried FMCSA directly about the situation Baker brought up. A rep there stressed the agency is still researching what data is available to validate businesses against, and hopes "all business scenarios can be accommodated. ... We believe the data is available, but we are still gathering details.” Keep tuned on that front. And mark your calendars for May 29 for the agency’s next public engagement session, too, where you can bring your own ideas for ways to root out double brokers and other fraudsters who’ve been taking advantage of gaps in the system for many years now. Find information about the session via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15667504/fmcsa-planning-stakeholder-day-on-registration-changes Also mentioned in the podcast, Lockie's report from attorney Hank Seaton and Dale Prax's presentation centered around registered-entity fraud: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15667297/fighting-the-trucking-fraud-networks-in-fmcsas-registration-system
Long legacy, good humor of LNL Trucking owner Larry Limp: From a '79 White COE to fleet of 12
"As I get older, I like electronic logbooks a lot better than I would have in my 20s. Now that I'm 63, I like that 10 hours off. My work ethic really started to wane when I found out that feed mills are open at noon. You didn't have to be there at 7 o'clock in the morning. You can get there at noon and still unload." --LNL Trucking small fleet owner Larry Limp, reflecting on big changes in trucking over his four-plus decades in the business Good humor? Yep, LNL Trucking small fleet owner Larry Limp’s got plenty of that. Overdrive’s 2023 Small Fleet Champ in the 11-30-truck division, LNL’s built a solid direct customer business specializing mostly in animal fats pulled in 6,800- and 7,000-gallon stainless tanks to supply businesses in various production chains -- gear lubes, cutting oils, you name it. Based on Bedford, Indiana, Larry Limp’s sense of humor’s probably served him well in decidedly less humorous endeavors than contemplating his own psychology and the shift to electronic logs in 2017, that’s sure. He’s served as Chairman of the Indiana Motor Truck Association, participates annually in the IMTA’s trips to Washington to visit with reps and Senators, and generally keeps his nose to the grindstone building business -- "hanging on" to business might be the better phrase in the current environment -- with a strong do-it-yourself ethic borne of 40-some years trucking. Almost all of that has been as an owner-operator and, now, small fleet owner. Ahead of the Mid-America Trucking Shown in Louisville, Overdrive ventured about an hour and a half’s drive north and west of the Kentucky town to Bedford, Indiana, to LNL's shop and world headquarters on a beautiful parcel of land on U.S. 50 east of the center of town. Limp, who still runs one of the rigs in the fleet of mostly Peterbilt 579s, was headed back from St. Louis after a delivery Tuesday morning pulled behind the longest-serving Pete in the fleet. It’s not a 579, but rather a 2000 Peterbilt 379 Limp’s partial to for a variety of reasons we’ll hear about in this Overdrive Radio edition. He’d picked up Monday evening, hauled out to St. Louis the same night to stage for morning unload. We sat down for a talk through the history of that 2000 379 – ELD-exempt, it turns out, though he’s running an e-log in it as in the rest of the fleet. Likewise: His history trucking, marking time by major engine work, by truck model years and big moves, and more besides. Keep tuned for more from Limp in future podcasts, and read more about his business via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15637786/butterfly-xpress-lnl-trucking-overdrives-2023-small-fleet-champs
On-highway toward MATS with the 'Sisters of the Road' book tour and its pilot, Debbie Desiderato
Independent owner-operator Debbie Desiderato, long hauling with her authority as Walkabout Transport, probably needs no introduction to regular Overdrive readers. Her insight around customer relationships and so much more has featured in Overdrive multiple times through the years, and last year she was one of our Truckers of the Month in the Trucker of the Year program: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15541324 At the top of the podcast, Desiderato describes the seven years that have elapsed since she first met photographer/author Anne-Marie Michel. The owner-operator's one of 40 female truck drivers and owner-operators in America interviewed for the Britain-based Michel’s “Sisters of the Road” book. Long in the making, as owner-operator Desiderato made clear, yet it’s been out a couple of years now, and making something of a splash around the country right now with a photo-exhibit trailer being pulled behind Desiderato’s Western Star. She's run with the exhibit clear across the country from an origin point in San Francisco to start Women’s History Month on the way to the Mid-American Trucking Show, coming up here shortly, March 21-23 in Louisville, Kentucky. Preview MATS happenings, and access coverage in the aftermath, via this collection: https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4372607 Overdrive Radio spoke with Debbie about the experience thus far on the tour, which to date has offered up no shortage of opportunity to school the uninitiated on the ins and outs, the struggles and triumphs, of truck drivers of all stripes. Plenty share-the-road talk, too. "The blind spots," Desiderato offered. "and how I've got a hood on this truck. They can see now if they're by my passenger steer tire how I couldn't see them if they're driving a small car. They got a big education." She was referring mostly to 100s of international and otherwise trucking-uninitiated attendees of FotoFest in Houston, where her Western Star was parked up with the exhibit trailer for plenty public interaction through Wednesday, March 13, this week. She's due to arrive in Louisville March 18 for MATS, with stops along the way in Arkansas at Uber Freight headquarters and Saturday, March 16, at the Idella Hansen Petro in Little Rock. All in all, she notes, the tour and her inclusion in the "Sisters of the Road" book has been an opportunity to sit right at the intersection between the business and work of trucking, and the wider U.S. and world cultures. Read more about "Sisters of the Road" via Long Haul Paul's 2022 review of the book: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15296897/iconographic-fiercely-resilient-portraits-sisters-of-the-road Also in the podcast: Owner-operators Lee and Lisa Schmitt detail recent similar share-the-road opportunities the pair of founding members of CDL Drivers Unlimited got with the entire Mudflap app staff. Revisit recent talks with the Schmitts about CDLDU's Driver Advocacy Network at this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15665521/truckers-new-chance-at-affordable-health-insurance
How owner-operator Doug Viaille persevered through 30-plus years trucking: 'Expensive wisdom'
In this edition of Overdrive Radio highlighting February Trucker of the Month Doug Viaille, listeners get a clear sense for the understated, homespun sense of humor of the owner-operator today hauling as Goat’s Transport. Viaille’s been in business for himself as an owner-operator for most of his 30-plus years in trucking thus far, and was nominated for the Trucker of the Year award by a fellow owner who calls him "Mr. Overdrive," in fact, after we called on Viaille’s experience in years past in a couple of different features. Owner-operator Viaille’s seen success particularly these last years leased to Oakley Trucking -- that’d be the Bruce Oakley bulk hauler based in Arkansas, where Viaille pulls a company hopper on a back-and-forth dedicated run loaded with industrial product for healthy profits. He's banked plenty in the way of wisdom, too, enough to recognize his own shortcomings and lean into the areas where he’s top-notch, as was illustrated to an extent in the feature about him published last week: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15665049/trucker-of-the-month-banks-expensive-wisdom-profits-in-bulk It can be "expensive wisdom," as he notes, learning from mistakes made, yet it's a hallmark of the best among owner-operators. Doug’s bounced back and learned plenty from more than a few, yet always with that dry sense of humor at the ready. Join us for this run through Viaille’s history going back to his pre-CDL Texas commercial license test in the late 1970s/early 1980s behind the wheel of a one-ton Chevrolet. And: here’s welcome to a new sponsor for our Trucker of the Year award for 2024. It’s Commercial Vehicle Group, well-known amongst owner-operators for the Bostrom Seating brand, among many others. Contenders this year are in the running for a variety of prizes, including one of those seats to go to the winner. Put your own owner-operator business in the running via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker
A shot at health insurance, and the new Driver Advocacy Network, with CDLDU grassroots group
Indiana-headquartered owner-operator, and father of five, Dan Koors invokes a big number at the top of the podcast this week -- 27%, the approximate percentage of drivers running without health insurance. That's inclusive of company drivers, many with ready access to carrier benefits packages. Among owner-operators, the percentage is certainly higher than 27%. Overdrive’s most recent estimate with polling of the owner-operator audience this past month put the number at 40%. While that’s not the absolute highest percentage we’ve ever seen, it’s a good measure above the rough third that was once a reliable poll result for the question of whether an owner was running with health insurance a decade ago: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14885028/tough-health-care-choices This week on Overdrive Radio, we dive into a new resource for health insurance that is something of a new variation on an old theme. Like groups such as the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and the National Association of Independent Truckers, both of whom have health-insurance resources for members of varying types, the young CDL Drivers Unlimited group has dipped its toe, or sunk a whole foot into, the area with a new partnership with the Benefits Management Team, or BMT. They’re a health insurance consultant and broker who can work with a potential insured in any state and with knowledge of what’s available in the health insurance exchanges under the Affordable Care Act, how available premium subsidies work for individuals, and much more. The company does quite a lot to really vet health-care bills, too, to be an advocate for patients through its MediShield service, examining itemized invoices for unnecessary charges in further efforts to save on costs. And it’s the long rising cost of health care, of course, that is a primary reason for the increasing numbers of those opting out of the health insurance system entirely, and a critical reason among small-business owner-operators. Yet owner-operator Dan Koors is not one of them. He views the necessity of insurance as a business decision, ultimately, and crucial to protect the business from catastrophe. So with a family of seven, including himself, to insure, how’s he done it? In this edition of Overdrive Radio we’ll hear that story, and another one. How the BMT company’s knowledge of the insurance markets and the Affordable Care Act exchanges, and how they work in tandem with available subsidies, led Koors to a strange realization. He’s now paying a little more in taxes than he might otherwise as a result, but he’s netting nearly $7,000 with a dramatic reduction in insurance premiums. CDL Drivers Unlimited is making other strides, too, with what they’re calling the Driver Advocacy Network, aimed to, as Koors sees it, boost the efforts of men and women behind the wheel to make headway influencing local, state and national policy and law to the benefit of truckers. We’ll also hear from CDL Drivers Unlimited founding members Lee and Lisa Schmitt, headquartered in Wisconsin, on that score, and the group's plans for MATS. Other health-related resources from past coverage: **Biz risk of failing health: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15302424/owneroperators-who-recognize-the-risk-of-failing-health **Medicare: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15302142/nows-the-time-to-understand-medicare-if-getting-close-to-65 **Owner-op health-insurance gain in COVID-relief law: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15064881/health-insurance-savings-via-aca-exchanges-expanded **Health-share plans: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/14972980/healthshare-plans-offer-insurance-alternative-for-ownerops As mentioned in the podcast, Rudy Yakym Jr.'s reckoning with time pressures post-ELD mandate: https://www.overdriveonline.com/electronic-logging-devices/article/14895603/operational-challenges-to-ownerops-after-the-eld-mandate
(Don't) inspect me! With Roadcheck on the horizon, ways to avoid trouble at the scale house
"So we're going down the road, we've got a mudflap missing, and we've got an ABS lamp on the trailer lit up. What does that mean?" This edition of Overdrive Radio starts with that question, leading to just a small bit of the wisdom of the many years of experience of former truck operator and longtime compliance consultant Jeff Davis. With his Fleet Safety Services business, operating out of a home base in Ohio, Davis has been a regular presenter at the National Association of Small Trucking Companies' annual conference now for years. At the NASTC show this past November he addressed a packed house of owner-operators and other small fleet owners on the topic of practical steps to take to avoid inspections. The answer to his question, as duly, immediately noted by one of the owners in attendance: "Inspect me." Regular listeners will recall those trailer malfunction indicators were a focus of the Roadcheck 2023 inspection blitz, and leading into the event Overdrive found that warning-light systems on trailers accounted for well more than half of all air-brake-related ABS violations: https://www.overdriveonline.com/csas-data-trail/article/15447541/toughest-states-for-securement-violations-get-roadcheck-ready There’s a reason for that, as Davis noted. When something’s awry, that light comes on, giving an easy visual cue for an officer to inspect. And if you’re inspected, well, there’s a likelihood of violations, and issues then can compound for you or your small fleet. The downstream ramifications of any individual inspection were well evident in Warren McCurdy’s story from a couple weeks back here on the podcast: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15663474/truck-inspections-safety-scores-should-be-preventive-not-punitive Any adverse roadside inspection will negatively impact all manner of things as it flows through the federal CSA Safety Measurement System and into the federal compliance review program and owner-operators and small fleets’ insurance rates, prospects for business and more. Davis further emphasizes all kinds of ways you can minimize the likelihood of getting sideways with auditors and roadside officers, without just bypassing the scale houses altogether. More on getting Roadcheck-ready (the annual inspection blitz is upcoming in mid-May), and generally ready for any inspection that might come your way: **Roadcheck 2024: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15664708/roadcheck-2024-inspectors-guidance-on-drugs-and-alcohol **Roadcheck 2023 -- how to avoid/ace inspections: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15383460/how-ownerops-can-avoid-or-ace-inspections-at-roadcheck **Overdrive long-running CSA's Data Trail series: https://overdriveonline.com/csas-data-trail
Peterbilt trucks, and a living history with three owners of a 359, 379 and 389
The mood among truck owner participants in Peterbilt's sixth-ever, invite-only Pride & Class parade event and truck show in Denton, Texas, this past October might have been marred by the freight demand situation. As Texas fleet owner and custom-truck builder Troy Massey of Massey Motor Freight put it, "If you're not struggling in trucking, you better be real quiet about it." Certainly don’t tell anyone just how you're achieving your success, Massey went on from there to say. If you do, chances are they’ll be coming for your business soon enough. Yet the mood at the Pride & Class event for truck owners was upbeat, for Massey too. "This is a pretty prestigious event" for Peterbilt owners and enthusiasts, he said, and represented his first invite. "I'm pretty excited." The same was true for two other owners featured in this edition of Overdrive Radio. Settle in for a tour through history via three models in a long lineage of Petes, from a 1984 vintage Peterbilt 359 custom restored by owner-operator Greg Crispell: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/video/15661158/ownerop-greg-crispells-finely-tuned-flattop-1984-peterbilt-359 To oil and gas pipeline professional Jarrett Landry’s “oversize dually,” as he quipped about the single-drive-axle former daycab 1988 379: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15636541/peterbilts-sixth-annual-pride-class-parade-kicks-off And, finally, Troy Massey’s latest custom creation, moving well forward to model year 2022 of the 389. With the 589 taking that model’s place in the long-hood genre for Pete this year, consider this edition something of a tribute to all that’s come before, and all that remains well-entrenched in the present through the work of these owner-operators. Stay tuned for video looks at both Landry's and Massey's rigs, and catch a few more views of each via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15636541/peterbilts-sixth-annual-pride-class-parade-kicks-off Owner-operator Crispell's rigs is featured in full here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/video/15661158/ownerop-greg-crispells-finely-tuned-flattop-1984-peterbilt-359
Family affair: Owner-operator Leslie Bitterman claws back from near-death for success
With this week’s installment of Overdrive Radio, hear the story of Overdrive's first Trucker of the Month for 2024. That’d be owner-operator Leslie Bitterman, who’s remade the independent Bitterman Trucking in her own image since the passing of her business partner and husband, Dale Bitterman, in 2010. Voices you’ll hear telling just a small part of Leslie Bitterman’s story are her own, but also that of Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole, who’s detailed the Bitterman history in more depth in the recent profile of the owner-operator at OverdriveOnline.com: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15663104/bitterman-trucking-back-to-building-on-long-trucking-legacy Owner-operator Bitterman was nominated to contend for the 2024 Trucker of the Year award by her daughter, Ashley, who’s long been inspired by the toughness and strong no-frills handle on business that the owner puts into action. With the nomination, Ashley noted some of her own involvement in the business today, likewise her diesel mechanic brother, Dale Jr., who takes charge of maintenance. Yet it’s Leslie that is the "Spirit of Bitterman Trucking,” as Ashley put it. “Her grit and determination to take care of business makes her a success. She is our hero!” We want you to get involved in this year’s Trucker of the Year award program, too. Nominate your own owner-operator business, or that of another exceptional owner, via the quick entry form at https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker Leslie Bitterman hasn't always been a truck operator. She's got off-and-on large-vehicle driving experience in a school bus for special-needs children, a history unique among Trucker of the Year contenders of the last year or so that she's carried forward into the business of owning and operating trucks. Pulling for direct customers during Washington State fruit harvests out of her native Wenatchee in the central part of the state, and the occasional broker, Bitterman’s overcome quite a lot in recent years, including a near-death experience with COVID-19 in early 2022. Yet she keeps trucking. It's another aspect of her story that led her daughter to nominate, and all of us here at Overdrive to recognize, her as January Trucker of the Month. Grit? yes. Determination? Indeed, as you’ll hear. Nominate yourself or another owner (up to three trucks) for Overdrive's 2024 Trucker of the Year award: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker
Alert! Roadside inspection system should be 'preventive,' not punitive as is with 'safety' scoring
Owner-operator Warren McCurdy, headquartered with his wife and business partner, Susan, in La Crosse, Wisconsin, has a bone to pick with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's CSA scoring program and all its ripple effects throughout trucking and roadside inspection systems. After a trailer tire lost air in transit sufficient to take the tire off the rim -- the trailer empty, the tire problem unnoticed by McCurdy before inspection -- the owner-operator's leasing carrier assessed points for the violation modeled on the FMCSA's internal Driver Safety Measurement System nearly enough to void McCurdy's lease. This sort of "accountability" isn't, the owner-operator felt, what roadside inspections were designed for. The inspector in this case in Washington State did his job to the letter, and caught the in-transit flattened tire in plenty time to save any real damaging outcome. For all that, McCurdy is thankful. "I think that these inspections are good. They should be preventative things," he said. "Nobody wants to go down the road with flat tires." Yet, he added, "I don't think we should be penalized for something that is not something that you did intentionally." That goes for the motor carrier as well. There's a reason carriers like his own assess those points -- because they are incurring the same level of severity weighting in the Carrier SMS. Potential changes to the Carrier SMS notwithstanding (FMCSA isn't looking at those same changes for the Driver SMS), the podcast this week dives back into what’s at issue in cases like these, in which carriers subject to the severity weighting system for violations pass that on, with their own systems to hold drivers and owner-operators to a degree of accountability themselves, relying on the federal points system to assess and prevent damage to their own scores. Susan McCurdy tried her hand at the DataQs system in a vain attempt to contain the damage in this case by challenging the violation. But given the inspector was doing what he should have done here -- alerting McCurdy to the problem tire on his trailer, conducting an inspection, then reporting the results into the federal system as required -- there was nothing DataQs was going to be able to help correct about the fundamental nature of the situation. More fundamentally, though, it’s the very nature of the CSA scoring system that makes accountability problematic for owner-operator McCurdy here. Nobody indeed intends to run around with flat tires. With respect to any violation, McCurdy urges regulators take a long hard look at what they’re holding carriers and drivers accountable for by scoring them as they do. More in Overdrive's long-running CSA's Data Trail series: http://overdriveonline.com/csas-data-trail
Parking-lot-trap tows, roadside tows: Truckers' defense against predatory billing, other practices
In this episode, dive into the nitty gritty around the notion of "predatory towing," whether after a crash or disabling event at the roadside or in a parking-lot trap. The episode continues the conversation following the relatively new trucking resource you heard about a few weeks ago – the American Transportation Research Institute’s big report on the commonality of outsize tow bills and unethical practices, including ways to combat them: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15660783/predatory-tows-bigdollar-trucking-impact-postcrash-or-parking The Truckload Carriers Association held an online seminar earlier this week in an effort to raise awareness among carrier members there but also highlight some recent-history legislative victories, particularly in Maryland. You'll hear today from Dave H:eller, a Senior Vice President at TCA, about that event and ways anyone can engage and inform themselves on the issues to potentially effect change for the better. Yet also: Dive into the work of Overdrive’s own Alex Lockie, who’s been covering the rise particularly of parking-lot-trap-type situations since early last year, all of which has brought a big response from readers, as he details in the podcast. Likewise, owner-operators have delivered plenty advice to glean about tackling problematic tows, as did the ATRI report, underpinning a new step-by-step guide Lockie authored on how to play defense against predatory practices, published here a few weeks back: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15660104/how-truckers-can-fight-predatory-towing-bills That’s not the end of the story, by any means, though. Stay tuned for further reporting suggested in some of the conversations throughout the podcast. Other towing resources/stories mentioned: **How one small fleet owner marshalled local laws against a parking-lot trap: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14894396/truck-booting-and-towing-traps-in-light-of-eld-mandate **Detail on Maryland towing legislation: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15542568/maryland-mtas-predatory-towing-bill-explained **Detail on Colorado booting/towing legislation: https://www.overdriveonline.com/parking/article/14897263/parking-perils-the-increasing-cost-and-risk-of-booting-and-towing
Crash-review DataQs: Why owner-ops, small fleets should file for 'nonpreventable' determinations
If you're not filing to FMCSA's DataQs system for crash preventability reviews, says compliance consultant Rick Gobbell in this edition of Overdrive Radio, you're "playing badminton in the dark" when it comes to the compliance game. Proprietor today of his Gobbell Transportation Safety compliance consulting business, Gobbell draws on long experience around trucks and trucking, first on the road as an enforcement officer, then in government directly. He's a past "head fed," as he put it, division lead in Tennessee for federal motor carrier enforcement, yet now represents carriers during audits and files a whole lot of DataQs. His business website: https://rgobbell.com/ This episode features his talk from the conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies this past November, where he emphasized the importance of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s DataQs system for the smallest fleets, particularly when it comes to the agency’s several-years-old Crash Preventability Determination Program. Regular readers will know Overdrive’s and our sister publication CCJ’s “Preventable or not?” series of videos illustrating crash scenarios that in past have been judged either preventable or nonpreventable for the truck’s driver by the National Safety Council: https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4381538 That same preventability standard underpins FMCSA’s crash program. For any carrier who submits a crash in the DataQs system and has it judged nonpreventable, the crash then is excluded from calculations of the carrier's scores in the CSA Safety Measurement System. If you never request a crash review in cases that might be nonpreventable, as Rick Gobbell sees it, though the system is not set up to designate every crash that happens as "preventable," reality is that the crash might be de facto assumed to have been preventable by anyone using the SMS there. That includes federal and state safety auditors, insurers, brokers and shippers. "You just made the audit list," he said. His talk aimed to drill home the importance of the crash review system for the small fleets in attendance, lending the benefit of his own experience assisting others in DataQs filings. Also: To emphasize proposed improvements to the program to potentially include many more crash types, including any crash with solid video evidence. FMCSA’s in the process of making those improvements in part to address core complaints about the review system, potentially doubling the number of crashes that could be reviewed: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15382943/fmcsa-eyes-changes-to-crash-preventability-determination-program With the agency also eyeing a safety rating change that might hinge on data quality in the SMS, DataQ-ing nonpreventable crashes could assume far greater importance for carriers large and small in the future, as Gobbell suggests here. Find Rick Gobbell's comment, one of just 62 filed in response to FMCSA's notice last year about the potential changes, by searching the notice docket here: https://www.regulations.gov/document/FMCSA-2022-0233-0001 DataQs resources at OverdriveOnline.com: **How to request a data review for an eligible crash: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14897753/how-to-dataq-a-crash-in-new-fmcsa-preventability-program **Overdrive's 2021 series exploring inequities in the DataQs system and ideas for improvement also includes plenty in the way of DataQs advice/tips: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15063803/criticism-of-dataqs-review-system-continues-to-rise **How to mount an effective DataQs challenge: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15063812/how-to-dataq-to-challenge-a-violation
They said he'd fail, but he proved them wrong: Overdrive's Trucker of the Year Jay Hosty
By the mid-late 1980s, when Jay Hosty was in his mid-20s, he'd been through three trucks -- a 1971 gas-powered International and then two cabovers bought used -- hauling containers for Brown Transport in and around New Orleans. He then made a move his elder container-pulling owner-operators in the Southeast told him was going to be a career killer in the out-and-back niche. It was 1987. "I never thought I'd own a new truck that soon," said Hosty, yet it was working out right -- the trade-in value on the old cabover he was pulling with, the cost of the 1987 International 9300 he was about to replace it with... "Associates Finance -- they were famous for doing commercial vehicles, they took me on in the very beginning" for the financing, he said, much to his surprise. His rate for revenue at the time, as he told: "72 cents a mile, loaded and empty." He was working with Brown and related companies with a lot of older men. They called him a kid. Owner-operators who've been around a long time may remember Brown for a kind of mascot that was the company's emblem. "They called him 'the Brownie,'" said Hosty. "He looked like a little Robin Hood or something, a little character." Those seasoned experts amongst the prior generations at Brown got one look at the kid's sharp new 9300 and "started asking me what my payments were," Hosty added -- $1,400 every month, for five years. "They said, 'You are never going to make it pulling these containers for 72 cents a mile. You're going to have to go over-the-road.'" What they meant: The young upstart owner-operator Jay Hosty would have to make that truck his life -- "to go out [OTR] and stay out," he said. His young wife wouldn't go for that, he knew, and for as much as he loved the work, he didn't want that sort of life, either. Besides, owner-operator Hosty had done the math, knew his costs back and forth, and was confident he could in fact make it work. "I can make it, and I will make it," he told himself. "And I did," he says today, telling the story as part of this week's special edition of Overdrive Radio, and proving wrong the naysayers in process. The tale showcases a quality held by many a successful owner -- willingness to think outside the box, to push the envelope to find just what's possible, for themselves. It's a quality Hosty made good on time and again throughout his 40-plus-year career at the helm of the Jaybyrd Express business he pilots behind the wheel of a Detroit Series 60-powered 2006 Western Star. That's among many reasons Hosty, we're happy to announce, is Overdrive''s Trucker of the Year and will sit at that pinnacle for the next 12 months. With a big congrats due to Hosty, we'll also invite you to put your business in the running for the 2024 award, which you can do via the form at this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/page/toptrucker Owner-operators with up to three trucks are eligible, and if you've controlled costs and maintained revenues amidst inflation and freight-market difficulties in the last years, you’re no doubt a worthy contender. Also read Matt Cole's April 2023 Trucker of the Month profile of Jay Hosty: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15383689/frugality-focus-on-costs-pays-off-for-owneroperator-jay-hosty The 2023 Trucker of the Year field was crowded and the gap between most of the contenders extremely small, even tighter between the top three finalists highlighted again earlier this week in Hosty’s Jaybyrd Express, Veterans Transportation Services of John and Sarah Schiltz, and Tim and Shelley Pulli's Pulli Express. Read about them, and the remaining contenders profiles throughout the last year, via the Trucker of the Year section of the website: https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year Other voices featured in the podcast: **Hosty's longtime friend from his time on OOIDA's board, current OOIDA VP Lewie Pugh **Vice President of BCO Retention at Landstar, where Hosty's leased, Gregg Nelson
The owner-operator's trucking New Year's Resolutions: Back to basics in a down market
Looking out at the year ahead, there's quite a bit more market pessimism among owner-operators in Overdrive’s audience than optimism, that’s sure, at the start of the new year here. Welcome to 2024: https://www.overdriveonline.com/voices/article/15660801/poll-ownerops-whats-your-business-outlook-for-2024 This Overdrive Radio episode features the voice of longtime former owner-operator and current biz coach Gary Buchs with what amounts to a series of potential New Year's Resolutions for you, whether you’re among the rough quarter of recent poll respondents who think the year’s going to be worse than the tough one we just ended. Or: If you’re one of the just 16% who are optimistic for improvement. The plurality of voters in that same business-conditions polling, by contrast, expected more of the same transitioning from 2023 to 2024. Depending on whether you’re in one or the other of those categories Buchs delineates at top of the podcast -- the haves or the have-nots -- could well be the difference between your own optimism or pessimism. In any case, the new year offers opportunity to reassess, and Buchs urged first and foremost an awareness of your own psychology, particularly when it comes to unusually dire or, otherwise, rosy prognostications over the airwaves and bytes hammering away at the brain day in and day out. Talking to our finalists in the Trucker of the Year competition this week yielded something of a theme of resignation -- of banking on a slower year -- among some, indeed. But also some bright spots in new customers -- or, rather, at least one example of the use of tactics similar to what Buchs recommends on the customer engagement front, learning to really sell oneself in every interaction you have. Doing that yielded a new contract for Veterans Transportation Services owner-operator John Schiltz that should cover his and his wife Sarah's operation through much of this year’s first half. With it, they make good on a goal to avoid reliance for that half-year on spot freight -- there’s little indication we’ll see much improvement in demand in truckers’ favor there anytime soon. So, for the owner-operator’s New Year's Resolutions this year, for Buchs it’s back to basics in his work coaching a variety of business owners to better performance. Listen on for more. Past stories and podcasts mentioned throughout the broadcast: **Overdrive's split-sleeper tutorial: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14897907/how-to-log-the-new-73-splitsleeper-in-the-hours-of-service **Owner-operators' best negotiations tool: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/14897683/best-freight-negotiations-tool-for-owneroperators **Matt Mickenberg's successful truck-purchase negotiation: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15659622/its-a-deal-50k-saved-on-a-new-truck **Parasitic costs: 15 ways to save: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15540906/15-ways-to-eliminate-truckings-parasitic-costs-and-build-value **A plan to thrive through the bottom of freight markets: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15658960/how-to-thrive-through-the-bottom-of-the-trucking-freight-markets **Red Eye Radio Partners in Business roundtable: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15448522/owneroperator-business-evolution-roundtable-on-overdrive-radio
Closed coops, worst roads, weathering the storm toward value: Owner-operators' countdown to 2024
This week, a toast to the year that was (and still is for a couple more days, anyway). We’re counting down through 14 of the most-listened-to podcasts of the year, and to start off, part of a strong current of tactics aimed at building value for the business with customers, host Todd Dills shared an anecdote from a past Trucker of the Year, owner-operator Henry Albert. Looking to cement your value with a direct customer? (Or broker or your leasing carrier, for that matter ...) "Ask them what their toughest load to cover is. Ask them what nobody in their right mind ever wants to do for them? And, you know, there's a chance that you can. And if you can, you're going to have that guy for life." It was just a small part of No. 5 among the most-listened-to Overdrive Radio episodes of the year, our Partners in Business program roundtable moderated by Red Eye Radio’s Eric Harley at the Mid-America Trucking Show: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15448522/owneroperator-business-evolution-roundtable-on-overdrive-radio That anecdote, a little piece of advice acted upon years ago by owner-operator Albert to success, slotted into a discussion of building value in a year that has been most certainly a struggle for many. The year will likely go down as one most can be proud simply to have survived with some profit to show for it, as my colleague Alex Lockie suggested in his own Year in Review look at some of the biggest stories of the year: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15660631/if-you-survived-2023-give-em-hell-in-24-truckers-year-in-review There's more here in the highlight reel, too: **How one owner-operator set himself up to weather the storm of declining rates in 2023 with years, even decades of preparation, cost control, bedrock frugality in business and life and a rig well-maintained, long paid off: https://overdriveonline.com/15447251 **A little whip cream of reality on top of the May week that this year was the Roadcheck inspection blitz, with longtime independent “Mustang” Mike Crawford, when you fully expect the chicken houses not to be "locked up, nobody home"... Sometimes, luck is on your side: https://overdriveonline.com/15448049 **No small amount of music, including the modern trucking classics of one Tony Justice, as regular listeners also recently got another taste of: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15660911/2023-retread-tony-justices-best-of-the-best-with-greatest-shifts-record **Tales of learning the OTR work-life balance mismatch and building an operation to improve it long-term with direct customers on both ends of preferred freight lanes out of the home area to effectively achieve growth goals: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15540815/owneroperators-can-master-worklife-balance-in-trucking And plenty more. Note that there’s a playlist that features the top 10 most-listened episodes as well as four honorable mentions just outside the top 10. Find it via this link: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/2023-in-review-the-top-10 Happy New Year! Here's wishing you a profitable 2024. And stay warm out there. ...
'Predatory' tows' big dollar impact in trucking at roadside, or as blunt end of the parking shortage
Overdrive Editor Todd Dills was at the conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies in Nashville, Tennessee, in November, in conversation with a small fleet owner there for the event, when the owner's phone rang. He glanced down at it, and tried to ignore it as the pair talked on. Then it rang again. “I've got to take this,” he said after glancing down, and wandered off to the side. Turns out, one of his drivers, pulling a big liquid tanker, non-hazmat, had been in an accident. Luckily, all parties were OK, but the equipment, not so much. In the aftermath, the owner was presented with a huge tow bill for the nonconsensual, police-ordered tow, occurring in Indiana. It just so happens the state of Indiana ranked No. 1 for the intensity of reported “predatory towing” events motor carriers shared with the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) as the organization researched the extent of outsize bills and other egregious practices -- and their impact on trucking around the nation. ATRI's new, about-as-comprehensive-as-you-can-get report on predatory towing is out now. Find a link to it in Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole’s reporting on ATRI’s work here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15659826/predatory-towing-how-common-is-it-and-how-can-truckers-avoid-it In this podcast, sit in on Matt Cole’s attendant conversation with ATRI Research Associate Alex Leslie, who brought a variety of additional insights to the questions of just what owner-operators and small fleet owners can do to combat so-called predatory behavior when they feel like they’re seeing it. It can be difficult to know just how to approach unfair practices, given towing rules and regulations are a patchwork of local laws, by and large, when not covered by statewide rules. Those statewide rules, where they exist, furthermore, often apply only on state highways and when the state highway patrol is involved, as Leslie explains. Dive into the details, too, of the small fleet owner’s tow. He questioned some of the charges on the itemized invoice he received in the aftermath -- totaling well upward of $9,000 with just a single night of storage. Charges for use of the tow company’s expensive heavy-duty rotator were billed for a four-hour minimum at a whopping $1,500 an hour, for instance. The small fleet owner questioned the need for charges for not one but two service trucks on the scene, both charged at $350/hour for that minimum four hours for a grand total of $1,400 each. Attempts to transfer the liquid load to another trailer were met with resistance and demands of overnighted payment to release the load. Access to the yard where the tractor-trailer and load both sat was denied after 5 p.m. the day of the early-day crash itself. The tow operator claimed that, since it was a police impound lot, rules in the locale prohibited outside access after hours. The owner, though, remains unsure just whether the tow company may have simply made that one up, or not. In his view, they simply “held the load captive until a check was overnighted to them.” There's more where that came from, including measures trucking companies and operators can take to protect themselves on-scene, or seek redress when wronged, too. Towing coverage in Overdrive through the year: State legislation to rein in: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15542568/maryland-mtas-predatory-towing-bill-explained Tow company perspective: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15540918/towings-predatory-pricing-a-tow-company-owners-perspective Owner-operator experience: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15540095/truck-drivers-share-predatory-towing-fee-stories A particularly over-the-top example: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15635856/truckers-carjacked-roughed-up-by-a1-towing-in-memphis-report
2023 retread: Tony Justice's best of the best with 'Greatest Shifts' record
As we work toward counting down to the new year with our most-listened-to episodes of 2023, this special edition of Overdrive Radio episode separates one that stood out from the rest, our long talk with Tony Justice, who took listeners on a tour of his new record in August. Next week: A closer look with the American Transportation Research Institute at their big study on the prevalence of -- and countermeasures against -- predatory nonconsensual tow practices, whether after an accident or on the hook of one of the growing number of Parking Pirates. Justice has been a leading light amongst trucker-songwriters, and "Greatest Shifts" record features six new tracks, five originals plus a fantastic rendition of Jerry Reed's classic "Eastbound and Down," and 14 previously released highlights from four records -- "Apple Pie Moonshine," "Brothers of the Highway," "Stars Stripes and White Lines," and "18 Gears to Life." Those records comprise a decades' worth of music from Justice, excluding unfortunately his first trucking-themed record, "On the Road," for reasons he explains in this Overdrive Radio edition. Herein, Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills' recent conversation with Justice about the new material on the album and the background behind the production is interspersed with plenty opportunity to hear some of the music. ("On the Road" you can hear via this link: https://open.spotify.com/album/5gsluBHAVUqMjotVyxbvli?si=VJklYb17TVWsm9KFMnjt-A ) Among previously released material is a "dance remix" of Justice's “Last of the Cowboys” tune, first featured a couple of albums and a few years ago now. It’s arguably his absolute greatest shift in terms of its general popularity out there, as he notes in the podcast. But in other ways, as he also notes, all of these tracks have a special meaning for him. Listen on for more of the previously released material, all of it remastered and sweetened in various ways, and plenty discussion of the new material. Find links to conversations with Justice about most of his prior records, too, via the links below: "18 Gears to Life": https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15066892/tony-justices-18-gears-to-life-record-inside-the-music "Stars, Stripes and White Lines": https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/14892637/audio-tour-through-tony-justices-new-stars-stripes-and-white-lines-album "Brothers of the Highway": https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/14890756/podcast-tony-justices-brothers-of-the-highway-the-trucking-brotherhood-reinforced "Apple Pie Moonshine": https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/14885429/podcast-behind-the-new-tony-justice-record-more-song-samples-too
'Never give up' in drive to trucking success: New owners' pitfalls, best advice for the long term
"Don't be afraid to ask questions." --Owner-operator Steve Massat: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15546000/ownerop-overcomes-physical-challenge-for-successful-career This Overdrive Radio podcast features Part 2 of our “exit interviews” with 2023 Trucker of the Year contenders. All put a special emphasis on short-term tactics, on proven long-term strategies, others might also adopt on the drive toward success with healthy profits. This exemplary group, too, delivered a strong current of advice for aspiring owners. Owner-operator Chris Smith operates Dreamline Trucking, our February Trucker of the Month with his wife and team owner, Ruth, leased to Southern Pride. Smith, as with Massat, advised not to get too starry-eyed out custom equipment with a big price tag associated starting out. "That's not what's going to make you money," he said, noting decades of hard work led to where he and Ruth Smith are today, pulling in veritable custom showpiece, a move made after considerable research and deliberation: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15307364/how-this-owneroperator-team-earned-success Massat, who pulls with a vintage 1989 Marmon tractor, does as much work on his rig as he can himself, stocking parts he knows he'll need when he sees deals on them. He reduces both his cash outlay and, given ready availability in his truck and/or at his home shop (he's home every weekend), costly downtime, too. Massat was Trucker of the Month in September. Rita and Roger Wilson preside over the two-truck Rita’s Absolute Trucking, Truckers of the Month for October: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15635072/lifes-a-lot-easier-ownerops-find-sweet-spot-with-two-trucks The pair have downsized considerably from early parts of this century when they were consolidating LTL freight from a Chicago-area warehouse with a much more sizable small fleet. Though we caught up with them on Sunday, what Rita called the Wilsons' "no-truck day" in efforts to build in the work-life balance that eludes so many over-the-road, she was also quick to note the necessity of giving it 110% for new owners to get past rough early days. South Mississippi-based Jay Hosty kept his eye on the finsh line, with a tip particularly for younger starting owners to set up a retirement investment account and contribute as much as you can to it from the get-go. The Roth IRA, in particular, he finds attractive given it's not taxed when you pull the money out in retirement. " Hosty pulls dry vans leased to Landstar, and pulled in the monthly nod in April: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15383689/frugality-focus-on-costs-pays-off-for-owneroperator-jay-hosty Finally, with advice to simply “never give up” on the mission for those choosing the owner-operator route in trucking, Walkabout Transport independent Debbie Desiderato, based in Virginia today, was our Trucker of the Month for June: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15544055/direct-freight-can-provide-consistency-in-topsyturvy-market As with others in this roundtable, she noted owners are best served when they devise ways to make themselves more valuable to whoever happens to be their customer. In her case, that's lately come in the form of trailer purchases to better serve one in particular on some new lanes out of her area. The story of how Desiderato came to that direct customer as an independent might be a veritable testament to the "never give up" mantra. Read more of that story in this feature from early in the year: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15541324/independent-debbie-desideratos-keys-to-trucking-success Those were but a small sample, a few little bites out of the apple of advice from this brain trust, though. Find more in the podcast and via all 10 of the 2023 Trucker of the Year profiles: http://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year
Overdrive 2023 Truckers of the Year: The 'exit interviews' toward the finale, Part 1
This edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast features a roundtable of sorts with four small trucking businesses among 2023 Trucker of the Year contenders. We’re in the process of wrapping up judging of 10 semi-finalists for the final award, with a huge amount of operational diversity among them -- from food-grade and hazmat tanker to car-haul, flatbed and step deck, reefer, hopper, dry van and more. Here, owner-operators John and Sarah Schiltz with their independent Veteran Transportation Services business were joined by fellow independents and now-four-truck Tim and Shelley Pulli of Pulli Express, owner-operator Matthew Karr of K-Mac Trucking, and Texas-based car-haul owner-operator Crystal Rives. It’s been been a tough year on the customer front for Rives’ car-haul operation, yet as with many an owner-operator, a stick-to-it-iveness, hustle and quick-on-her-feet nimble quality as a business owner yielded new opportunities, even in this market. The same can be said for others in the roundtable, including Karr, who when he was featured as our Trucker of the Month in May was playing the waiting game on final registrations, insurance and more to go back out under his own authority after a big profit year leased in 2022. The conversation amongst the four businesses was centered on the year just passed -- the challenges faced, and just how they chose to overcome (or at least start the process of overcoming) the worst of them throughout 2023. Stay tuned next week for the remainder of the 2023 Trucker of the Year contenders. Read about all of them via http://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year Catch a playlist, too, featuring all 10 of the contending operations via https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/overdrives-2023-trucker-of-the
A plan to not just survive -- but thrive -- through the bottom of the freight market
"If you do what you've always done, you will only get what you've always gotten." --Kevin Rutherford Reticence to change has been the downfall of many a life, and many a business. Small fleets and owner-operators aren’t exempt, of course. If you recognize the name after the quote here, you’re probably not alone among Overdrive Radio listeners and Overdrive readers who’ve taken motivation from Rutherford in the past. The longtime radio host is a past contributor to Overdrive who found his particular, singular talent for motivating and helping owner-operators in part through decades-past appearances in early installments of Partners in Business seminar series at the Mid-America Trucking Show. Since, Rutherford’s been a lot: in addition to a radio host a fitness and wellness coach, writer, owner-operator business advice man and group leader and more. But he started back in the 1980s just like so many here. One man, with one truck, and an ability to learn from mistakes made. This Overdrive Radio podcast drops into Rutherford’s story as he told it several weeks back now to attendees of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies’ annual conference here in Nashville. His mission that evening was to walk attendees through a plan to solidify the business base to take advantage of opportunities at the market's bottom to excel for long-term trucking at the top. Rutherford’s plan may be simple-sounding, but it's plenty complicated and variable in the execution. And he's a real pro at delivering it and making any trucking business owner think hard about how, and why, you do what you do.
Homer Hogg's top 5 diesel fault codes: At No. 1, emissions issues that you can do something about
At the annual conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies a couple weeks back in Nashville, TA Petro Truck Service VP Homer Hogg presented results from his analysis of recent-history fault codes seen by the three leading all-model diagnostic equipment providers. He analyzed codes data to determine the five biggest parts of the trucks those codes were related to. At No. 1, probably no surprise, were aftertreatment-related codes, and his talk featured here then provided an informative look at persnickety emissions systems in 2010 and later trucks -- with actionable steps owner-operators and small fleets can take to guard against some of the most common issues seen. Among the recommendations he makes: **When the dashboard lights up, don’t clear those codes. Techs need them to properly diagnose any issue. **Clean the DEF doser once a year, at least. **Change your DEF filter according to manufacturer-recommended intervals. **Keep a “clean room” approach around the DEF tank, particularly when you’re pumping the fluid. **Keep SCR-system efficiency tests in mind to periodically examine it to prevent NOx sensor failures. **Most importantly, perhaps, don’t fall for the "delete kit" trap, if you want qualified mechanics to be able to help you work issues out. Other helpful emissions-related coverage: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15066117/emissions-maintenance-how-to-get-the-correct-diagnosis-repair https://www.overdriveonline.com/equipment/article/15290372/how-to-delete-emissions-issues-without-breaking-the-bank https://www.overdriveonline.com/maintenance/article/15540134/fuel-treatments-becoming-part-of-owneroperators-pm-routine
Small fleets find a way: 2023 challenges, from slowdown to recruiting, equipment devaluation, more
This edition of Overdrive Radio features a special spotlight of sorts on what a wild and wooly year it’s been -- for everyone is some way, that's sure, yet no less for Overdrive’s 2023 Small Fleet Champs. As was noted up top of our previous podcast, last week at the National Association of Small Trucking Companies’ annual conference we recognized four finalists as well as several other past semi-finalists, finalists and champs in attendance. Ahead of the presentation Thursday, November 2, Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills sat down with this year’s four contenders with a particular topic of discussion in mind. That's the biggest challenges each fleet had faced throughout the year so far, and just what steps they'd taken to address the difficulties, from freight slowdowns from lynchpin customers in some instances to pressure on rates from customers, too, and recruiting struggles, equipment devaluation concerns and more. Featured herein are: Champs in the 3-10-truck division: **Bill Barhite, owner of Silt, Colorado-based Butterfly Xpress: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15546088/butterfly-xpress-offers-big-benefits-as-a-small-fleet **Larry Wallace, owner of Henrico, Virginia-headquartered Wallace and Sons Transport: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15544008/wallace-sons-transports-bakery-residuals-trucking-niche And in the 11-30-truck division: **Adam Johnson, K&D Transport owner out of Spring Valley, Wisconsin: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15544771/kd-transport-owner-in-the-groove-with-thirdgen-flatbed-fleet **Larry Limp, owner of LNL Trucking of Bedford, Indiana: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15546199/lnl-trucking-stands-on-strong-financial-foundation-to-thrive More profiles of Overdrive's Small Fleet Champ semi-finalists in addition to the final four: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ
Owner-operator John Schiltz's top-notch team with business and life partner: Trucker of the Month
Today on the podcast we’re featuring Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole’s talk with October Trucker of the Month John Schiltz, nominated for the Overdrive 2023 Trucker of the Year award by his wife and now fully-minted, CDL-holding business partner, Sarah Schiltz: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15637523/owneroperator-john-schiltz-a-keen-eye-on-maintenance The pair run a two-truck fleet as a team and pull alongside each other in a pair of Kenworths (a 1999 W9 and a 2013 T660) running fresh vegetables to canning operations in the Midwest during harvest season, flatbed and RGN platform freight much of the rest of the year. You can probably guess just what they’ve been up to in recent times out of their Wisconsin home base as vegetable harvests wrap up. What emerges from this talk with both John and Sarah, though John officially gets the Trucker of the Month nod, is a spotlight on the teamwork it truly takes to excel as an owner-operator business. John’s quick to credit Sarah with a large part of his recent-years’ success, buttoning up the biz to where it is today. More from the Trucker of the Year program this past year: http://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year Find all Overdrive Radio episodes featuring 10 Truckers of the Month for 2023 via this playlist: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/overdrives-2023-trucker-of-the
Without accessible power, battery-electric Class 8 trucks don't stand a chance, even in drayage
That's the message in a certain way of the very existence of companies like Forum Mobility, around for just a couple years as a vehicle-charging-services and equipment leasing company. Company regional director Ron Hunt leads the podcast with that very notion, sounding like many an owner-operator in wait-and-see mode around electric-drive tech and battery-charging-infrastructure development. Hunt’s a veteran of the trucking world who got involved with electric-truck start-up Xos Trucks some time back. Yet what he learned led him to the charging-infrastructure side, in part given absolutely huge barriers that exist to any widespread adoption of electric Class 8s. On October 25 we published the anchor story in a series around electric-drive-power realities, in which Alex Lockie unveiled and contextualized Overdrive readers’ views on the current state of electrification as it relates the specific needs of their mostly OTR businesses: https://www.overdriveonline.com/equipment/article/15544337/teslas-semi-may-blow-past-diesels-uphill-but-truckers-see-limits Putting it quite succinctly, here’s how one owner-operator commenter in some ways summed up current views on the nature of quite literally all battery-electric Class 8 technology as it relates to bedrock operational feasibility OTR: "It's not going to work, the power grid can't handle it, and the trucks don't go far enough on a charge." Hunt and his colleagues at the Forum Mobility company aim to help on the grid front, and well realize any “electric revolution” will be a good long time in coming to trucking, even port drayage where they're specializing. It is certainly growing fast if electric Class 8 tractors running in California still only number in the low three digits, Ron Hunt emphasized. Port drayage in the state is where those units are most prominent, for good reason. The California Air Resources Board has done everything it can to really make the market there, with an end-of-year deadline for dray haulers to register their diesels within CARB’s system. And as of the first of the year, if lawsuits don’t derail this particular deadline (a little more on that in the podcast, and here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15636769/california-trucking-association-seeks-injunction-of-diesel-truck-ban ), any truck registered to work California ports must be a “zero emissions vehicle” – we’ll use that ZEV shorthand a bit, though no manufactured product in today’s world is truly “zero emissions." Forum Mobility is aiming nonetheless to be a power provider with subscription-based charging access to sites in both Southern and Northern California specifically built with drayage trucks in mind. They’re also combining electric truck-lease services with those charging-power subscriptions for those who want to pursue that kind of model, as they build a planned six facilities over the next couple years. Today on the podcast, excerpts from a talk with Ron Hunt and two other Forum reps about how the business got its start and just where it’s planning to go to serve drayage haulers in California, and beyond. Another related element of the series is this feature about Hight Logistics, Forum Mobility's partner small fleet now running five electric trucks in SoCal ports leased through Forum: https://www.overdriveonline.com/equipment/article/15546421/small-fleet-owner-predicts-longterm-roi-with-batteryelectric
'Trucking Legends': New podcast charts 70-year career of Ken Greff
Nashville, Tennessee-based Ken Greff in this edition of Overdrive Radio tells the tale of the early years of his 70-year trucking career in and around trucking, much of it spent in truck sales in Tennessee. Yet Greff got his start behind the wheel far away from the U.S. Southeast in Western Canada, driving and owning trucks in a variety of operations. The podcast excerpts the first edition of a new effort by host and McMahon Truck Centers sales rep Corey Price, who lives due East of Nashville near Cookeville, Tennessee. Price interviewed Greff for the first episode of what he’s calling, simply, “Trucking Legends,” an old-school-trucking podcast he envisions as a repository for preserving the stories of those who’ve been in the business going way back. Spotify link to the show is here, but you can find it via most podcast platforms: https://open.spotify.com/show/03I3nAD4uLhcCPAMSpdqmZ Corey Price has known Greff since his days as lead man in the Music City chapter of the American Truck Historical Society, and Greff served as a sales mentor to him when he took his first truck-sales job at an International dealer in Cookeville. Along the way, Price, a truck and trucking history enthusiast since he was a kid, got to know Greff’s past a good bit better -- it stretches all the way back to World War II times when, shortly thereafter, as a teenager, he got his start trucking via a little bit of a subterfuge on the part of his mother, as you’ll hear in the episode. (It included his first part-owned truck, the early-1950s White Western Star pictured in the thumbnail image for this episode.) As noted, Greff's story is excerpted from the first edition of what Corey Price hopes will eventually be a monthly podcast. Along the way, as we run through Ken Greff’s early days trucking toward how he got from driving and owning rigs in Western Canada to sales in Middle Tennessee, we’ll hear more from Price, too, on his motivation for creating the podcast. If you've got a tip on a veritable trucking legend you feel like Price ought to feature, he asks that you let him know via his email: cbprice@benlomand.net
Speed limiter mandate: Safety, congestion concerns high among truckers opposed
Misplaced priorities, too, according to K&D Transport's Andrew Axelson in this edition of Overdrive Radio: "Instead of limiting the speed on trucks, they should really limit the speed on cars," he said. That where he contends most of the outlandish speed issues on American highways today sits. This round of viewpoints on the FMCSA's move toward a speed limiter device mandate for in-use trucks follows September news picked up via the Department of Transportation’s regulatory calendar update that month that seemed to suggest FMCSA had settled on a 68-mph speed setting for its planned proposal of a mandate. When he got that news, Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills was immediately reminded of the time in 2012 when the federal agency appeared to be proposing to adopt fairly stringent sleep apnea screening restrictions as official regulatory guidance, only to almost immediately retract that, citing a “clerical error” after the restrictions were published in the Federal Register for comment: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14877502/sleep-apnea-reg-recommendations-comments-closed Among other things, those apnea-screening restrictions would have required any trucker with a body-mass-index measure of just 35 to undergo apnea testing as a condition of getting a medical card. The notion that this could be bona fide guidance set off shockwaves around trucking. Congress soon after forbade the agency to change official sleep apnea guidance or regulation through any process other than formal rulemaking. When it comes to a speed-limiter mandate today, somewhat similar dynamics are play. As with changes to the sleep apnea approach back then, it’s clear FMCSA wants to move on a mandate for speed-limiter use, yet what speed setting is to be adopted remains the big question. FMCSA quickly retracted the language suggesting the 68 mph setting reported, among other details, from the DOT regs calendar: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15635000/68-mph-dot-report-sheds-light-fmcsas-speed-limiter-intent But also as with the apnea “leak” in 2012, the shockwaves have continued to ripple out. In this podcast, we drop into the scene around the Mayberry Truck Show in Mt. Airy, North Carolina, at the end of last month just after the latest speed-limiter news emerged. Overdrive video editor Lawson Rudisill found that the 68-mph news traveled fast, and gathered a bevy of views from owner-operators and other truckers in attendance at the truck show. Dive in here for a round of views from six owners and operators. More from Rudisill's video work at the Mayberry Truck Show: **Benefit truck convoy: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/video/15635690/watch-the-rigs-roll-through-at-mayberry-truck-show **Full show walkthrough: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/video/15635538/a-long-walk-through-the-2023-mayberry-truck-show
Super-sweet spot hauling chocolate for Roger and Rita Wilson's two-truck operation
In this edition of Overdrive Radio, the clarion voices of the spectacular pair of owner-operators behind Chicago-area-based, two-truck Rita’s Absolute Trucking. That’d be Roger and Rita Wilson, who made a match with marriage in 1998 after separate histories trucking, Rita toting butter up and down the Eastern seaboard, Roger with an OTR history that stretches back to hauling swinging meat in 1970 his first time out over-the-road. Through the 1980s, he worked with a friend in LTL consolidation out of the Chicago area, growing to 50 trucks there before venturing out on his own with five. Then Rita brought two of her own to the operation, becoming Rita's Absolute early this century and growing to 15 units. They’ve had big ups and downs managing fleets both, but after a slow period of downsizing over more than decade are now settled squarely into a super-sweet niche moving reefer trailers full of finished chocolate mostly between Chicago and Pennsylvania, for a single customer. The pair were our Truckers of the Month for September, and regular Overdrive readers may recall their story recently published at OverdriveOnline.com: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15635072/lifes-a-lot-easier-ownerops-find-sweet-spot-with-two-trucks In that story, we heard from a Ryder System rep directly about the Wilsons’ work with their warehousing customer in Blommer Chocolate Company, who've been the Wilson's customer for two decades now. Ryder had nothing but praise for Rita’s Absolute Trucking, for sure. Yet after the story published, we also heard back finally from a rep from Blommer. Janie Moore called Rita and Roger Wilson’s Absolute Trucking the “Absolute best. If I could have more carriers like them it would be a joy!” Moore has worked with the pair for eight years, she said, and they’ve “helped simplify managing" and now totally dominate "the Illinois to Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania to Illinois lanes. Locally,” too, Rita has been a godsend, she added. “There were times we had more loads to move than they could manage legally in a day. Rita would go out of her way and rent a trailer for preloading purposes. This was not a Blommer request, but instead a decision she made to assist. And for that we are forever grateful.” In eight years, Moore said, “I can count on one hand the times where they were late or delayed. While we know things happen beyond the carrier’s control, they have been more than proactive and giving us advance notification on mishaps, transportation delays, breakdowns, and etc.” A worthy pair to honor, no doubt. And, clearly, they’ve found a sweet spot hauling chocolate.
Has your trucking income taken a beating this down cycle? You're not alone
Owner-operator business services firm ATBS' midyear owner-operator update session September 19 revealed a few different ways the average ATBS client might make up the income loss we’ve seen over the last year and a half -- on average, it’s been an almost 10% decline. In real terms, though, as ATBS VP Mike Hosted notes at the top of this edition, a 1% increase in fuel mileage would get all of that back for the average owner-operator. In short, there are tangible things that can be done to combat what's been tough times of late, particularly in the spot markets for freight. For this edition, know that there’s also a Youtube version that is airing the same day that includes Mike Hosted’s presentation in full, if you want to follow along with all his slides presenting market and operating analysis data: https://youtu.be/toHRRbwi1Pc Podcast listeners can download the slides, too. Follow along via the link you'll find here: http://overdriveonline.com/15634919 The audio comes from ATBS’ annual midyear temperature taking of the trucking market for owner-operators, offering a variety of insights. Things have changed mightily since this time a year ago. Rates are down big-time in the spot market, a little less so but also down in the contract market. That’s come with some positives. With declining demand, used-truck prices are way down, too, and parts and other maintenance difficulties, though not entirely resolved, seem to be getting better. Hosted here runs through a bevy of the data for a market update, but also dives into real numbers averaged among clients who are independents with authority and/or small fleet operators and leased flatbed, reefer and dry van owners, to present bellwether industry averages against which to benchmark your own business performance. A couple things definitely have not changed for the better since last year. Fuel’s recent moves have taken it back to the highest of highs, ever more reason to focus on fuel mileage improvement. And in addition to the long rates tumble, there’s another market-impacting element that’s decidedly worse coming out of the freight highs of the post-COVID period -- the cost of borrowing. Yet there are a variety of indicators that have the folks at ATBS, Hosted included, feeling like we’ve hit the bottom of this market – quite some time ago, in fact. And though we’re probably going to stay here a while when it comes to rates, for owners who can weather the storm, the bottom line could look considerably better this time next year. Owners looking for additional business-planning and other management tips, among a myriad of other topics, can find more in the Overdrive/ATBS-coproduced "Partners in Business" manual for new and established owner-operators, a comprehensive guide to running a small trucking business: http://overdriveonline.com/pib
Meet Tommy Marshall: Lead hauler with ESPN College Gameday tour team truckers
Also in the podcast: Matt Cole live from the Guilty by Association Truck Show in Joplin Missouri in the area around 4 State Trucks there: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/article/15634903/guilty-by-association-truck-show-starts-strong-in-joplin Cole reports from Day 1 at GBATS -- How many owner-operators were at the show? What’s the mood in what’s certainly been a challenging year for so many small-business truckers? Cole spoke as owner-operators were getting parked up at 4 State Trucks and the surrounding area in Joplin, Missouri, for a bit of an update on how things were looking on-site at one of the absolutely biggest gatherings of the trucking community the nation over. Cole also directed traffic with Game Creek Video entertainment-biz hauler Tommy Marshall out along University Avenue at the Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa. Marshall is lead driver every fall for a crew of seven rigs and operators that make up quite a unique trucking niche. If you’ve been to OverdriveOnline.com this past week you’ll likely know that Marshall is the lead man for the mobile-television production of ESPN’s College Gameday broadcast, which airs every Saturday throughout the Fall ahead of the day’s football games, live from a different university site each week: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15634571/a-unique-beast-behind-the-scenes-on-mobile-tv-production-trucking Drop into some of Cole’s detailed reporting around the operation, with Marshall in the production studio truck for Game Creek Video and several operators from a few different companies dedicated to the production. That includes West River Light and Sound, and longtime trucker Gerry Glass. It’s Glass’s initial contact that led to the opportunity Cole got to spend with Tommy Marshall and the rest of the crew in Tuscaloosa two weeks back. Glass got in touch with Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills on Labor Day Monday, as the crew was prepping to head to Tuscaloosa to stage on the campus for Alabama v. Texas. Would we be interested in seeing what they do firsthand? Gerry Glass asked. Overdrive is headquartered in Tuscaloosa, of course, but Dills live in Nashville, Tennessee. However; Cole was the perfect man for the job, a U. of A. Crimson Tide fan, no less. He was on-hand for their initial unloading two days later, on Wednesday, and parts of the set-up the following days, too, with Tommy Marshall as a guide. Marshall and crew do a great deal more than just drive in such a production, of course -- in fact, driving might be the least time-consuming part of the whole affair, depending on whatever university location Gameday chooses week to week. Cole ultimately delivered with a detailed look at the mobile-TV trucking niche. Find that and other reports from a wide array of freight niche operations via our occasional Niche Hauls series, collected via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4378936
Grabbing history's reins with 1978 W900A on '96 Dodge chassis, '46 Brockway, more: Adam Johnson
K&D Transport third-generation owner/manager Adam Johnson in this Overdrive Radio edition narrates the beginnings of his grandfather’s time trucking with a 1946 Brockway he purchased without the seats to save a little on the price. – It was a different time, and Johnson’s grandfather was back from World War II, where he was a POW for 18 months, Johnson said, a story he told in part attendant to our recent profile of K&D Transport recognition their semi-finalist status in Overdrive's Small Fleet Championship this year: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15544771/kd-transport-owner-in-the-groove-with-thirdgen-flatbed-fleet In the podcast, we pick up around the edges of the parts of Adam Johnson and the K&D Transport fleet’s story that we didn’t much cover in that business feature. The 14-truck fleet has quite a story, particularly with regard to recent-history moves that have cemented its current mix of flatbed freight. Yet there’s more to Johnson particularly than just straight-up business. Or rather there are other aspects to the breadth and depth of his businesses that are well worthy of attention beyond the story we told at Overdrive. Johnson’s increasingly established himself in the custom-truck world with Johnson Hill Customs, also offering general maintenance and repair services to local operators, in addition to maintaining the K&D fleet and everything else that comes with managing a trucking business. In this portion of our recent conversation, too, you’ll hear a man with a sharp eye for details to help build pride and dedication among the team, saving and making money all the while. Along the way, details about his seven-year-old son's rig, a 1978 Kenworth W900A body Johnson used to build what amounts to a Frankensteined pickup on a 1990s Dodge chassis. His and other custom KW owners' sons had a quite a blast with it before, during and after Kenworth's big 100th-anniversary truck parade earlier this year, in which it and other among K&D trucks ran.
Beating the odds, from Chicago construction dump to OTR: Trucker of the Month Steve Massat
Owner-operator Steven Massat is today headquartered in Addison, Illinois, and leased to nearby small fleet T Max Transportation with quite a special truck. Regular Overdrive readers may well have seen his story at OverdriveOnline.com a couple weeks back now: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15546000/ownerop-overcomes-physical-challenge-for-successful-career There, owner-operator Massat was named August Trucker of the Month, putting him in the running for Overdrive's 2023 Trucker of the Year award: http://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year We’ve been counting down the months this year with profiles of and podcasts with each of the individual monthly semi-finalist owners -- or teams of owners, as it were. In this week's edition, Massat describes the teamwork he and his wife make of the business -- she handles much of the back office work while he runs the roads and, on the weekend, utilizes a purpose-built shop to maintain the late 1980s-built B-model Cat engine in that special rig, a beautiful 1989 Marmon. Back-office and other family support proves critical for the owner. When he was just 18 years old he was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis -- his life since that has been one of managing pain and complications day after day. He’s 53 now, though, and after decades of dump work with various Chicago construction outfits as an owner-operator, what used to be his winter time home at T Max is now a year-round affair. Outbound from the region, he serves T Max direct customers, often running spot market loads back, however slim pickings have been for those returns of late. His success sits on a foundation of conversative maintenance intervals, a laser focus on efficiency, and other smart business basics.
Inside an explosion of cyber crime in brokered-freight networks, with DAT's Jeff Hopper
For this edition of Overdrive Radio, DAT Freight and Analytics' Chief Marketing Officer Jeff Hopper, who’s been with the company now for decades, notes the undeniable spike in double brokering, in identity theft and hop-in, hop-out "take the money and run" and other schemes that has led to a doubling of staff in DAT’s compliance department as well as a host of other in-process security enhancements there: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15542218/dat-steps-up-fight-against-freight-fraud-but-is-it-enough DAT's not alone, of course -- competitors at Truckstop.com have been doing similar things when it comes ID’ing the various types of “bad behavior” and working with the good guys out there to put a stop to it where possible, in no small part thanks to the efforts of a myriad of small business truckers to raise the temperature around the issue of double brokering and other fraud: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15541639/the-third-parties-following-truckers-around-freight-networks Among those is Matthew Patrick, with GMH Transportation. Regular readers may recall his two-part "The double-brokering slow burn" at OverdriveOnline.com a couple weeks back: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15543642/double-brokering-scourge-how-it-works-how-to-fight-back The stories outlined a year and more’s worth of efforts undertaken to identify some of the bad actors and take action to get them removed from the platforms where they ply their “trade.’ DAT’s Jeff Hopper in today’s episode of Overdrive Radio called it all organized cyber crime, really. Before our talk with Hopper featured in this episode, we share a particular case that Patrick sent along earlier this week at about the same time we were getting ready to talk to Hopper. The case involved two different examples in which two different brokers’ loads were double-brokered by a single entity, the “Cheetah Import and Export” broker, MC# 1477261. What stood out to Patrick was that in each double-brokered load case, Cheetah offered considerably more to move the load than what the original brokers offered a carrier, suggestive of a company in what Patrick calls the “take the money run” phase of a double broker’s evolution. You know the story if you’ve read Overdrive over years now -- run up as much in revenue as you can, stiff all the carriers, and disappear into the ether when the bond is cashed and canceled: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14897461/broker-scams-owneroperators-and-fleets-need-to-be-aware-of Over the course of the last few days, it looks like that particular broker’s bond company has notified the feds of impending cancelation -- a bond that was effective starting in early August this year is now set to cancel September 29, flagged in FMCSA’s Licensing and Insurance public portal as such. We called the bond company the morning of Friday, September 1, and they noted five claims for nonpayment already, the largest of the claims for $5,000. Attempts to contact the broker by phone for comment yielded only a day’s-long busy signal. Email then sent to the entity's primary contact laid out all of these details and asked if the company planned to respond to claims on the bond. That gleaned only a short response in an unsigned return email from a rep with the display name "Gevork Sulian": “What are you talking about? What happened? We are 1 year in this industry and never had a problem with our carriers.” As far as Matt Patrick knows, despite having filed complaints against this particular company, they were still able to post loads on DAT as of Friday. DAT reps assured that that they are investigating the complaints, but be forewarned if this company comes calling, or you run across any company’s overly high rates on the boards. Scams abound, as Jeff Hopper further emphasizes in today’s edition of Overdrive Radio.
After Yellow ceased operations, trucker Chris Dowdy's picking up the pieces
Chris Dowdy counts he and his wife, Paula, and their family among the lucky ones. The subject of this edition of Overdrive Radio is one ripped right from the last month or so of a myriad headlines -- the bankruptcy and ceasing operations of Yellow, The LTL giant finally shut after being propped up by an astounding amount of loaned money straight from the U.S. taxpayer in recent years. That followed the business generally struggling financially for many more. The largely union workforce there was a home for many, many people, though, and that included Dowdy for a substantial part of the last decade or so. If his name sounds familiar, longtime Overdrive readers among you may well recall his time driving for Wooten Transports with a home base in Memphis, when he spearheaded an initiative he called Truckers for Hope years ago: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14885626/new-truckers-for-hope-initiative-to-benefit-st-jude Through the philanthropic effort, Dowdy staged visits to St. Jude’s and Ronald MacDonad House in Memphis with other drivers to deliver a message of trucking goodwill for children and their families there: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14887082/truckers-for-hopes-round-two-at-st-jude-close-brush-with-60-below The Truckers for Hope effort’s still in the back of his mind for a restart post-COVID, but he’s had bigger fish to fry this past month with the loss of work since Yellow shut down. As noted, though, he’s one of the lucky ones, soon to start a regional gig doing what he’s done for most of the past quarter-century -- "harassing traffic," as he puts it, joking. Yeah, that means "driving." Others laid off with Yellow shutting down haven’t been so lucky, and as with any such company implosion, though business press charts the financial missteps: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15543136/a-yellow-bankruptcy-would-influence-freight-used-trucks **The ensuing lawsuits: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15543677/former-yellow-employee-files-suit-over-layoff-notice-i96-i75-closures **The reorganizations with creditors and the like: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15542702/yellow-looming-teamster-strike-breaches-labor-agreement ... what’s often lost in coverage is the toll it all takes on the individual people who are cast off to scramble for their future. Hear Dowdy's story and worry particularly for non-CDL former Yellow employees here.
The best of the best from trucker-songwriter Tony Justice: The story behind 'Greatest Shifts'
Trucker-songwriter leading light Tony Justice's new "Greatest Shifts" record features six new tracks, five originals plus a fantastic rendition of Jerry Reed's classic "Eastbound and Down," and 14 previously released highlights from four records -- "Apple Pie Moonshine," "Brothers of the Highway," "Stars Stripes and White Lines," and "18 Gears to Life." Those records comprise a decades' worth of music from Justice, excluding unfortunately his first trucking-themed record, "On the Road," for reasons he explains in this Overdrive Radio edition. Herein, Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills' recent conversation with Justice about the new material on the album and the background behind the production is interspersed with plenty opportunity to hear some of the new music. ("On the Road" you can hear via this link: https://open.spotify.com/album/5gsluBHAVUqMjotVyxbvli?si=VJklYb17TVWsm9KFMnjt-A ) Among previously released material is a "dance remix" of Justice's “Last of the Cowboys” tune, first featured a couple of albums and a few years ago now. It’s arguably his greatest shift in terms of its general popularity out there, as he notes in the podcast. But in other ways, as he also notes, all of these tracks have a special meaning for him. Listen on for more, all of it remastered and sweetened in various ways. Find links to conversation with Justice about most of his prior records, too, via the links below: "18 Gears to Life": https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15066892/tony-justices-18-gears-to-life-record-inside-the-music "Stars, Stripes and White Lines": https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/14892637/audio-tour-through-tony-justices-new-stars-stripes-and-white-lines-album "Brothers of the Highway": https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/14890756/podcast-tony-justices-brothers-of-the-highway-the-trucking-brotherhood-reinforced "Apple Pie Moonshine": https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/14885429/podcast-behind-the-new-tony-justice-record-more-song-samples-too
Introducing Freight Fest, host-to-host with Truck N' Hustle podcast's Rahmel Wattley
Today we’re peeking through a window onto a conference in its second year and coming up down in Houston, building on a thus-far-four-year journey of one New Jersey-based Rahmel Wattley, host of the 2019-founded Truck N' Hustle podcast. That's right, for this edition of Overdrive Radio, it’s host-to-host, as it were. Truck N’ Hustle, well-known among entrepreneurs of a variety of stripes all around trucking and transportation, pitches to owner-operators and small fleets in a variety of trucking niches, among other transport pros. Freight Fest, then, is Wattley and company’s conference upcoming next month in Houston, building on the success of his podcast in bringing together disparate communities around the business. Among presenters there are anyone from reps at freight-factoring company OTR Capital, a sponsor of the event, and voices many of you will be familiar with from Overdrive Radio, too, like Innovative Logistics Group founder Adam Wingfield, whose tale of his start trucking as an owner-operator and subsequent growth featured on the podcast earlier in the year: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15540815/owneroperators-can-master-worklife-balance-in-trucking Rahmel Wattley hopes Freight Fest is a place where small fleets and owner-operators, specifically, can lay the groundwork for a fundamental goal of many -- growth. Along the way, we’ll also hear his own story in trucking, from his first experience getting a CDL in the early part of this century to dispatching for, then managing a small fleet and opening his own businesses aimed at putting CDL drivers in a position to garner longer-term employment with fleets, and more. With all of his endeavors, he’s always got growth in his own mind, but also other concerns, too. One trucking media talking to another, the subject came up of Overdrive’s 60-plus-year history, reaching way back to times well before your friendly neighborhood Overdrive Radio host’s birth. Wattley's, too. For longevity in any business, Wattley noted, the desire for growth is necessarily tempered by greater needs. He hopes Truck N' Hustle is laying a steady, solid foundation such that it, too, will be around come 2079. Find a list of presenters scheduled to speak at Freight Fest via the event website: http://freightfest.com Listen on for more detail on how Wattley envisions the event, in part inspired by the SHE Trucking expo back in 2021 in Chattanooga: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15279870/growing-trucking-influence-of-minorityowned-business Find Truck N' Hustle wherever you listen to podcasts.
Making car-haul look easy with owner-op Crystal Rives: 'Couldn't imagine doing anything else'
She does just about all of it, Crystal Rives, when it comes to the maintenance of her one-truck Texas-intrastate car-haul business. She's put a big emphasis on solid partnerships through the years, whether with a trusted engine/major mechnical shop or a growing stable of customers. That's particularly so since she went out on her own with authority to haul cars in 2016. The move followed almost a decade and a half hauling cars for other companies, work in the Texas oilfield, end dump, side dump, pneumatic and liquid-bulk tank. This Overdrive Radio tour through Rives’ business and history in trucking is part of our monthly series of podcasts and feature profiles of contenders for the 2023 Trucker of the Year award: http://overdrieonline.com/trucker-of-the-year Rives is our July Trucker of the Month, in part recognized for a can-do approach to the work, a real do-it-yourself spirit in trucking and in life. She’s out of Cleburne Texas, south of Fort Worth, where she’s built a steady base of customers among used dealers, restoration specialists and others, hauling in a 2006 Peterbilt 379 she calls "Ruby." Yeah, the Pete's red, and powered by a 550 Caterpillar the previous owner overhauled right before she bought it in 2019. Find some pictures of the unit hauling a load of classic autos to Mecum collectors’ auction in Houston this past April, via this link to the feature profile that announced her contention for Trucker of the Year: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15543167/trucker-of-the-month-crystal-rives-makes-hay-of-carhaul-work She’s no doubt got the bull by the horns, so to speak, with the car-haul business today, though it hasn’t been without it's difficulty, particularly before she went out on her own to serve customers directly. At previous employers as a company driver, she was always the only woman behind the wheel, she said, and added, certainly unnecessary pressure was on in some ways. Since putting out her own shingle, though, her customers believe in her, that’s sure, as she follows through on lessons learned from her grandfather and father about doing more than just talking the talk. As Overdrive Editor Todd Dills wrote in the profile of her business, “Just show them you can do it,” her grandfather always told her, “and that you can do it better than them." The chips fall where you want them, then, more times than not. You can enter the 2023 Trucker of the Year competition via the form at this ink: https://www.overdriveonline.com/page/toptrucker
Lightning round: Owner-operators' worst roads in America, take two
We ask again: What's the worst stretch of road on your routes? Let's keep a spotlight on where state DOTs should put all those tax dollars -- dial 615-852-8530 to weigh in. Here,something of a lightning round of owner-operator responses to our prior call, put out attendant to the podcast several weeks back about the terrible toll I-40 in Arizona is taking from owner-ops' pocketbooks in repairs. Rougher than a corncob? You bet: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15540092/arizona-i40-rougher-than-a-corncob-you-bet Several viewpoints here from listeners who dialed into our podcast message line with their recommendations for places in the U.S. that especially need work, from more worst-roads "accolades" for I-40 to sections of I-10, I-20, I-74, U.S. 491 and others. As noted in the podcast, some detail on one of those stretches with a big project ongoing in Ohio: https://www.transportation.ohio.gov/projects/projects/104668
Owner-operator Kate Whiting's journey to trucking by way of 1973 W900A custom resto
Today on the podcast, the captivating story of a truck -- and its owner-operator, Kate Whiting of Wisconsin. The rig, a 1973 Kenworth W900A, turned a half-century old this year of the Kenworth company's centennial. Whiting piloted the rig, "Cherry Pie," in the 100th-anniversary parade in Chillicothe, Ohio, back in June: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/article/15541257/kenworth-celebrates-100th-anniversary-with-kenworth-truck-parade That's not its only recent accolade, following the truck's first bit of national notoriety around the time of the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville last year. Overdrive's video from that show of the Cherry Pie 1973 Kenworth W900A has since been viewed tens of thousands of times: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/video/15291440/owneroperator-kate-whitings-1973-kenworth-w900a And with more show participation since the debut of Whiting and her team's immaculate custom-restoration, the accolades have just continued to pile up and pile up. On the podcast, we're joined by Rich Guida of the Howes company, Overdrive Radio’s sponsor, who describes the most recent such accolade. Howes inducted Cherry Pie and owner-operator Kate Whiting into the Howes Hall of Fame: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/article/15542307/cherry-pie-1973-w900a-owner-get-hall-of-fame-nod-from-howes The truck features an old-school, reclaimed Double Eagle sleeper with heart-shaped windows on the sides, a Cat 3408 motor (just the second engine in its long history), and much more that you’ll hear about in today’s edition. Kate Whiting herself tells the story of how she became a part of a tight-knit custom truck restoration community in her immediate Wisconsin environs but also spread across the nation. It's that community, broadly speaking, that is represented by induction of the W900A into the Hall of Fame, Rich Guida said, a testament to the pride and camaraderie that just flows from the community like water. All in the service of preservation, of a fashion, of the many histories tied up in any piece of truck equipment. Kate Whiting's story in trucking is a growing part of that, wrapped in passion for this and other trucks. Today she’s running in a different W900 for Jerry Linander's small fleet hauling mostly furniture in an operation that gets her back home most days to the farm on which she lives. She’s done plenty more OTR work, too, though, as Linander early on urged her to learn the business for herself before she found her way back to his operation. Hear her story in her own words in today's podcast. Visit Howes' virtual Hall of Fame and make your own nominations for it via this link: https://howesproducts.com/hof
FMCSA offering 'kinder, gentler' approach to safety scoring? Not if automated inspections go live
In today’s early special edition of Overdrive Radio for podcast subscribers, another installment in the Trucking’s State of Surveillance multipart series: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15541635 If you missed Long Haul Paul Marhoefer’s talk with Karen Levy in the previous edition of the podcast, track back to it -- it dropped Friday, July 7, to the Overdrive Radio feed. Levy’s "Data Driven" book, about how the ELD mandate changed the face of trucking in so many ways (magnified longstanding issues in others), really sets the stage for this talk with attorney Hank Seaton: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15541633 The final piece of the State of Surveillance special reports, too, is particularly germane. It's the story about the rather slow, though quickening, moves toward automation of roadside inspections: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15541828 This long talk with Nashville-headquartered transportation attorney Seaton connects some dots in his thinking about the roadside and investigatory enforcement programs of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration -- likewise its safety rating program. Several related advance notices of rulemaking lead him to a feeling that agency could be moving toward a new rating regime that relies heavily on motor carrier data and could, in some ways, just reinforce current issues for independent owner-operators and other very-small fleets. The first that caught Hank Seaton’s eye: those proposed CSA Safety Measurement System changes put up for review early this year, which many felt offered a bit of a "kinder, gentler" approach with CSA SMS, in Seaton's words, with more of the smallest fleets likely to fly under the radar of the SMS's scoring metrics. Yet if automated inspections become a compulsory part of truckers' travels past scale houses and/or other mobile checkpoints nationwide, voluminous inspection/violation data collected could mean quite the opposite of "kinder" and "gentler." Find full results of our State of Surveillance survey of Overdrive's owner-operator readers via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/home/document/15541779/state-of-surveillance
Regulators 'miss the boat' on trucking and the ELD mandate, rise of 'new workplace surveillance'
For this Overdrive Radio edition, a bit of a special preview of a special report dropping this coming Monday, July 10. It’s called “Trucking’s State of Surveillance” and follows Overdrive’s surveying of our owner-operator, small fleet and company driver readers about remote monitoring- and/or tracking-capable technologies used in the business. We asked readers assess the techs they use -- from smartphones and ELDs to truck and trailer telematics and various permutations of monitoring video cameras -- and rate what’s being given up in costs and/or being gained in benefits. Reporting around those results yielded plenty in the way of how working owner-ops and other truckers view how techs are changing the trucking business and culture, as monitoring goes well beyond just fleets today and sits squarely in other business-to-business relationships with brokers and others. But all of that reporting also followed attorney and academic Karen Levy’s book "Data Driven: Truckers, technology, and the new workplace surveillance," in which Levy tells the story of trucking during a time of transition, before and after federally mandated electronic logging devices came into play in late 2017. The book leans heavily on in-depth interviews with working drivers, and boatloads of other research besides, including leaning in part on Overdrive’s own chronicling of the ELD transition over the last decade and more. Our own Long Haul Paul Marhoefer early on in 2023 suggested interviewing Karen Levy. That was well before we began work on the special series of features you’ll find Monday on the state of surveillance in the trucking business (the link to the anchor story will be live Monday July 10): https://www.overdriveonline.com/15541635 Full results of our State of Surveillance survey of Overdrive's owner-operator readers: https://www.overdriveonline.com/home/document/15541779/state-of-surveillance That interview with Karen Levy eventually did happen, and is certainly integral to what’s a big report in seven parts. Marhoefer and Levy, in this episode, take us back to the initial inspiration for the book with FMCSA’s first feints toward an e-log mandate more than a decade ago. The talk touches on added stress around hours accounting, added pressure on drivers of all stripes from supply chain parties, and dovetails with Overdrive’s reporting from late last year on crash-statistics since the mandate, too: https://www.overdriveonline.com/csas-data-trail/article/15301876/crashes-injuries-and-fatalities-up-posteld-mandate At a fundamental level, Levy noted, truckers know the problems they face -- detention and parking, how they’re entertwined with making the hours of service regulations as onerous as they can be for many -- and that they’re all fundamentally problems of economy, of finances, of just compensation for the time put in. All of the time put in. For all the rancor that the ELD mandate engenders, and all the technological intrusiveness it’s in some ways enabled, ELDs can play a role in that just-compensation fix. But as Levy has it, they’re certainly no panacea, much less any kind of magic safety tool.
Writing the book on trucking as an independent: June Trucker of the Month Debbie Desiderato
This week on Overdrive Radio, we reintroduce June’s Trucker of the Month, Debbie Desiderato, in conversation with our own Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole. Cole’s story about Desiderato’s long trucking career is live as of earlier this week at the website: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15541324/independent-debbie-desideratos-keys-to-trucking-success Today, we’ll hear parts of that in Desiderato’s own words. She’s built considerable value with the do-it-yourself approach to business throughout her well more than two decades as an independent owner-operator. If Debbie’s name sounds familiar, that’s because she’s been here on the podcast before – likewise in our coproduction with PRX’s Radiotopia network of the Over the Road series, which originally aired in 2020: https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4405867 Active with the Make a Wish foundation’s Mother’s Day convoy events, the Real Women in Trucking advocacy group and other organizations, too, she’s made a name for herself as an independent not afraid to tell it like it is -- nor to give back in the form of advice for those coming up. Tools and business processes she’s built for herself through the years she readily shares with others as a familiar face at truck shows around the nation, online and elsewhere. Her designation as Trucker of the Month for June, though, is as much a testament to her perseverance through the tumult of the last two decades as an independent with authority -- she attributes a lot of her success to that do-it-yourself spirit, particularly in the mechanical realm. Her growth as owner hasn’t always been easy, though, as she described the early years learning by trial and error that, depending on the destination, sometimes you’ve got to take your backhaul with you in the headhaul rate, as it were, among many other things of course. Through it all, you really get the sense that there's another title in Debbie Desiderato’s future. Listen on to drop right in with owner-operator, mechanic, salesperson, app developer, Overdrive June Trucker of the Month and veritable author Debbie Desiderato, writing the book on trucking as an independent. As mentioned in the podcast, the story of Debbie Desiderato’s return to car hauling, of a fashion, in 2020 in a hotshot as pandemic refuge: http://overdriveonline.com/14897956 Her 2017 Western Star interior's custom reno as part of the Tranfix digital brokerage’s Transfix My Rig sweepstakes in 2021, conducted by "Secret Celebrity Renovations" star Jason Cameron: http://overdriveonline.com/15115013 Nominations remain open for Overdrive's 2023 Trucker of the Year award, open to owner-operators with up to three trucks via the form at this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/page/toptrucker
Trucking owner-operators call out the worst road in America
Asked by Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole for the stretch of road they felt could be described as the absolute worst in the nation, all but one owner-operator at Shell Rotella's SuperRigs show two weeks back in Wyoming didn’t flinch in singling out I-40 in Arizona. Others are calling it the absolute worst they’ve ever seen. Danville, Virginia-based owner-operator Joey Slaughter, who runs the route routinely on cross-country step deck hauls, was the man who brought this subject to our attention this Spring. Clearly, it’s not hard to find similar viewpoint on the stretch between Kingman and Flagstaff. The road’s condition has translated to hard dollars and lost time with equipment repairs. Slaughter's hopeful for movement on new pavement soon, but questions why the road was allowed to get so bad in the first place. Rough nature of the freeze-thaw cycles this past winter has something to do with, but that can’t be all, he feels. Other owners you'll hear in this edition: Cody Davis, coast-to-coast independent livestock hauler based in Cokeville, Wyoming, with three trucks in Davis Trucking Jake Bast, Shoshone, Idaho, leased to RAM Transportation pulling a flatbed Nichole “Nikki” Cheek, hopper hauler based in Rozet, Wyoming, leased to North Country Logistics out of Wyndmere, North Dakota What gets your vote for the worst stretch of road in the nation? Tell us via the podcast message line at 615-852-8530. As mentioned in the podcast, there is at least some good news for the stretch of road in question. Here's a link to Arizona DOT's State Critical Pavement Repair projects, including some in the problem area: https://azdot.gov/statewide-critical-pavement-repair-projects More I-40 projects are shown in the works in the recently released five-year project plan for improvements statewide: https://azdot.gov/sites/default/files/2023-06/2024-2028-Final-Five-Year-Transportation-Program.pdf
Work-life balance as an owner-operator, small fleet owner: You have to build it
With this Overdrive Radio edition for June 16, 2023, points of view on the absolute necessity of respecting the needs for work-life balance for your personal sanity, and for the success of your business. That balance can be particularly elusive for independent owner-operators, as Silver Creek Transportation owner Jason Cowan well knows -- he spent much of his early career in those shoes with just a single truck himself, and in some ways balance might elude those of you who fit that bill more than anyone in trucking. In this edition, we’ll walk through a variety of strategies to achieve it, with a goal of healthy success. The podcast features the bulk of a late-May-held webcast presentation and discussion Overdrive hosted with Cowan, our big 2021 Small Fleet Champ winner, and Adam Wingfield, who’s head of the Innovative Logistics Group consultancy, also a past independent owner-operator himself: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15448347/worklife-balance-as-an-owneroperator-you-have-to-build-it Work-life balance isn’t all about home time and other personal-life concerns, though -- in part of the Q&A at the end of the webinar, sponsored initially by the Bestpass company for toll-collections management and 2290 tax solutions, among other services, Wingfield responded to a question about how to cope with the stress a down market puts on everyone, with the pressure to run. Direct that stress toward the right spot, he advised. Small fleet owner Cowan, throughout, offers plenty perspective on ways to build business with driver employees and owner-operator contractors in mind. He invoked the difficulties so many have attracting younger folks willing to stay in trucking as drivers. All trucking companies – from those who pay the most to those who pay the least, seem to need drivers 24/7/365. “Maybe this isn’t all about the money,” he said. While getting drivers home more often and/or on regular timetables is part of his mission as Silver Creek Transportation owner, that’s certainly not all there is to it. Overdrive radio podcast subscribers should note that a full, unedited video version of this podcast features the original May webcast on our Youtube and Facebook playlists for Overdrive Radio. Those video versions will be available starting Monday, June 18, when the podcast goes live on the world-famous OverdriveOnline.com. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc1lg9rs1dUAhK7CqgY23njy75EnGlqIU Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/watch/201594073189/366175185612296 You can register and watch the webinar on-demand at this link, too: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15448190/catch-the-replay-worklife-balance-for-owneroperators-in-a-down-market Adam Wingfield’s Innovative Logistics Group: https://www.innovativelogisticsgroupllc.com/ Jason Cowan and Silver Creek Transportation: https://silvercreektrans.com/
Trucking with authority, take 2: Trucker of the Month Matthew Karr reboots after banner year leased
'Strike when the market's cold' -- it might be a maxim for the outlook on small business for Overdrive May Trucker of the Month Matthew Karr, coming off an excellent profit year hauling fuel leased to Quality Transportation out of Halltown, Missouri: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15448529/owneroperator-matthew-karrs-fuel-hauling-hustle-pays-off Now's the ideal time, as he details in this podcast, to go back out on his own to do things entirely his way, keeping a past small-fleet failure high in his mind. During the height of the COVID market when Karr sold most of his small fleet equipment at a premium and went back to leasing, a friend was "wanting to buy a truck" and get in on the spot freight boom, "when the market was stupid," Karr said -- stupid high, that is, for equipment. "Luckily, he listened to me" and didn't do it. "I said, 'Robert, I've been through these ups and downs and swings for 25 years. ... If you want to buy a truck and you want to get started" as an owner-operator, "do it when times are bad.' Now, things have slowed down a little bit, interest rates are going up. ... If you can make it in slow times, you will really flourish" when business cycles turn upward. He’s banking on the wisdom in the maxim he’s shared with others about trucking as an owner-operator, with the new venture, working direct with fuel wholesalers. In today's Overdrive Radio edition, hear much more about Karr's history of ups and down and his recent success, including views from his wife, Koren, who nominated the owner in Overdrive's Trucker of the Year award program for 2023. Nominations remain open via the form at this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/page/toptrucker
Another reason to fight traffic tickets: Convictions can now impact independents' safety ratings
This edition of Overdrive Radio touches on a area of long-well-founded concern for owner-operators. That’s the importance of, when possible, fighting the stains on the motor vehicle record that can come in the form of tickets for moving violations of all types. Pay the fine, and it’s like pleading guilty and doing the proverbial time. A "conviction” will be paid for in a myriad ways beyond just the cash fine: higher insurance rates, marks on your company’s CSA SMS profile and its scoring, possible audit hassles given more violations on the record mean greater likelihood of prioritization by federal or state investigators for an audit. Yet there's another, relatively new way anyone with motor carrier authority could pay, too –- Jeff Davis, longtime Fleet Safety Services compliance consultant, who supports mostly small carriers in the event of an audit, outlines it here. Last year, FMCSA modified its safety rating methodology, Davis said. For the first time auditors will be able to include traffic-ticket convictions in a carrier's overall safety rating. That’d be the Satisfactory, Conditional, or Unsatisfactory system long in place and which the agency is set to put up for ideas for improving this year: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15382419/fmcsa-to-key-in-on-problems-with-conditional-safety-rating-limbo A public affairs spokesperson again confirmed that with me just this week, in fact, noting an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking requesting industry and public input on the safety rating remains for this year as a possibility. With traffic-law convictions on the table during audits, Davis notes in the podcast, that’s even more for owner-operators and small fleet owners and managers to keep in mind in case an audit is likely. And: Further incentive to manage those convictions, too, for any violation for which you or one of your drivers receive a citation – recall, too, that citations successfully adjudicated by a court can be removed from the data profile in the CSA SMS and the broader MCMIS database itself –- you use the DataQs system to do that: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15063812/how-to-dataq-to-challenge-a-violation More resources on fighting tickets: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14891468/fighting-tickets-how-owneroperators-succeed Jeff Davis at Fleet Safety Services: https://www.fleetsafetyservices.com/
Owner-operator evolution: 'Partners in Business' on Red Eye Radio's 'Extra Mile'
'Owner-op business, start to finish' -- it could be the motto to describe Overdrive's annual coproduction with business services firm ATBS of the Partners in Business manual: http://overdriveonline.com/pib And it was the broader topic of this talk with the great Red Eye Radio host Eric Harley at the Mid-America Trucking Show, on the occasion of the 2023 PIB book's release, now available for download via the previous link. The talk includes Overdrive Editor Todd Dills and longtime contributor and owner-operator coach Gary Buchs, along with PIB collaborator Mike Hosted from ATBS. It originally aired in its full form as part of the Red Eye Radio “Extra Mile” podcast extra series, available via https://www.redeyeradioshow.com/the-extra-mile-podcast/ Overdrive’s also released a series of short video excerpts of the talk via the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc1lg9rs1dUBRbJKjvc7UUcJRRd4iI2v3 It’s a wide-ranging talk focused on vital aspects of owner-operator business practice, from basic task management from Harley, spinning out the metaphors to put things in perspective; Mike Hosted letting you know what you might well be giving up if you’re not paying close attention to the tax code; and Gary Buchs ever mindful of the absolute necessity of cost/revenue awareness, and real engagement with the numbers in as close to real-time as possible. Hopefully it's an engaging back and forth for some new ideas for the long haul this weekend, this coming week, whatever the case may be. Here's wishing a great Memorial Day upcoming for you -- take time to honor, to remember.
A wrap on Roadcheck with the 'Mustang' | Introducing Mother Trucker Yoga proprietor Hope Zvara
Truck show platform personalities come and go, but Hope Zvara's mission to improve truckers' quality of life with a program that leans on small, incremental changes in their daily routines continues to gain traction. Founder and CEO of Mother Trucker Yoga, Zvara's the author of "Trucking Yoga: Simple Fitness for fhe Long Haul," a book in which Zvara gives us an unvarnished account of how her own struggles with addiction and depression drove a personal need to get healthy. "I've struggled with depression and anxiety on catastrophic levels," she said. "Yoga, and movement, saved my life." Included in the book, too, is a regimen of down to earth, practical yoga exercises adapted to the ergonomics of a semi-tractor. At the Mid-America Trucking Show, as you can see in the thumbnail image for today's edition of Overdrive Radio above, she led our own Long Haul Paul through a few of them. And in Paul and Zvara's talk here, she offers answers to these questions relative to notions of a mental-health crisis all around the nation. "What if it's not a mental health crisis?" she said." What if it's a movement crisis?" Find more about Zvara's tools for OTR drivers via her website: https://www.mothertruckeryoga.com/ Also in the podcast: An audio diary from owner-operator Mike "Mustang" Crawford, who poses his own answers to what was a pressing question no doubt for some during this week of the CVSA's annual Roadcheck inspection event: Is it possible to get through the entire blitz week without passing an open scale? After Overdrive editor Todd Dills talked to the longtime flatbedder last week, his plans to spend much of the May 16-18 event at home in Long Lane, Missouri, changed. He finished what he needed to do at home early and the freight called him out. After he passed two closed scales early Tuesday, the first day of the blitz, on his way toward Chicago from the Springfield, Missouri, area, he started calling in with reports from the road. Three days later in Florida, then .... And: On the diet side of the health/quality-of-life equation, at MATS the CDL Drivers Unlimited group hosted family-practice physician Ken Berry, who spoke to principles of what he sees as the PHD, or “Proper Human Diet,” akin in some ways to a Keto high-fat, very-low-carb diet. Trucker and CDLDU founding driver council member Scott Reed introduced Berry at MATS with some detail of his own experience with the diet. Reed's dropped well more than 100 pounds over the course of a year into it. Find CDL Drivers Unlimited via this link: https://www.cdldu.com/ More from Overdrive Radio on the world-famous http://OverdriveOnline.com
Double brokering a 'cancer' requiring whole-of-trucking battle plan | New Pete 589: Go inside
This week on the Overdrive Radio podcast, a bit of a double feature. We'll hear from General Transportation and ART Trucking's Jason Decker. Regular Overdrive readers will recall reporting on some of Decker’s talk at the Mid-America Trucking Show back in March that was something of a rallying cry for a “whole of trucking” battle approach to the fight against double brokering, leaching money from the freight markets through fraud as it is: Rates are bad enough already, it’s sure, as Decker emphasized. Fraudulent actors insert themselves into a freight transaction, disappear with a fuel advance or the entire load’s payment. If the trucker’s paid at all, then, it’s a double payment on the part of whoever was the original broker and/or shipper on the load. That's but one double-brokering scenario. Perhaps worse than that, in Decker’s and I know many owner-operators’ views, legit brokers who knowingly "give the load to another brokerage," Decker said. "They are double-dipping. Rates are tight enough as it is that one hand in the pot is one too many." Two? Three? Market distortion is all the worse for it, with the trucker on the short end of the stick. Listen for ways owner-operators can recover payment after getting involved in a scam, but more importantly, ways to be fundamentally proactive to avoid and shut out the fraudsters, and those double-dippers, to begin with. Also: Peterbilt’s sunsetting of the iconic Model 389 and introduction of the new 589. Our colleague with CCJ, editor Jason Cannon, took a test drive of the unit out in Texas and offers up a walkaround talk with Peterbilt’s Jacob White, detailing some of the unique features of the 589. Find Cannon's test-drive story via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/equipment/article/15382918/test-drive-of-the-peterbilt-model-589 Deron Salmon's Truck'N "Trucker Networking" app for broker look-ups and reviews you can read/hear about via this past podcast: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15383844/closer-look-at-new-truckn-broker-review-nav-and-accounting-app
Frugality only goes so far after getting used to $4/mile freight, but Jay Hosty's staying choosy
A natural inclination for frugality is a winning quality for most anybody in the world today, and no doubt for an owner-operator. That's one of the central qualities Jay Hosty, our Trucker of the Month for April, put dead center of his now 41-year-long history of success as an owner-operator in trucking. As Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole wrote in our profile of owner-operator Hosty last week, he got his start in trucking as an owner pulling containers around New Orleans, Louisiana, at the young age of 19 in 1981: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15383689/frugality-focus-on-costs-pays-off-for-owneroperator-jay-hosty Frugality's certainly served him well during the last year and a half’s rising costs, yet it only goes so far after a couple of years' worth of getting used to $4/mile freight. The squeeze is on, coming from both sides of the profit equation. "it's hard to come back to the reality of $2/mile freight," Hosty said, and thus far in 2023 he's a bit behind in net income where he was this time last year. In part, it's the luxury of being freight-choosy at work there. He's spent more time sitting at the house in Diamondhead, Mississippi, this year, waiting on profitable loads from one of couple of nearby Landstar agents he works with regularly to take him outbound. Hosty’s been leased to Landstar now for most of the last two decades, pulling today in a 2006 Western Star that replaced a 2000 model, after the truck was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina, when he and wife, Katt, were living in Gulfport, Mississippi. They lost their house there, too, with the direct hit, and the comeback from that disaster is made all the more remarkable by the family the Hostys have fostered throughout their entire four decades together. We’ll hear much more about that in today’s edition, likewise a 2022 Western Star daycab Hosty’s been sitting on for a year with plans to outfit the rig with a custom sleeper built to his needs, as he’d done with the 2000 that Katrina sent to the graveyard. That frugal nature he mentioned has kept him from moving forward with it to date, given pricing he’s gotten from some of the big sleeper manufacturers. For the builders in the audience, he put out a call, too: "If there's anybody out there who can point me in a good direction of getting a custom sleeper built" without sacrificing an '"arm and a leg" on the build, as it were, he said. "I'm looking to find somebody." Hosty's Trucker of the Month designation puts him in the running or Overdrive's 2023 Trucker of the Year award. You can enter your own business or put forward another 1-3-truck owner-operator via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/page/toptrucker Also in the podcast: Heads-up on an online seminar upcoming on Tuesday, May 23, part of a series sponsored by the Bestpass company — it will dive into the topic of work-life balance over the road as an owner-operator, particularly in a down market like the present, and features two men who’ve been in those shoes over the decades. You can register to attend it live at 1 p.m. Central, May 23, via this link.. What we aim to deliver are tactics, strategies to gauge and achieve balance to improve quality of life for yourself -- and/or your operators if you’re managing a small fleet. That's whether you’re a one-truck owner leased to a carrier or with authority, or a small fleet owner hoping to deliver better balance to drivers and, ultimately, to yourself. The two presenters regular Overdrive Radio listeners have heard here on the podcast before: Innovative Logistics Group founder and managing director Adam Wingfield and Overdrive's 2021 Small Fleet Champ Jason Cowan, founder and leader of Silver Creek Transportation out of Henderson, Kentucky. Join us: https://randallreilly.zoom.us/webinar/register/2716820986241/WN_h9CP6dZ0QOq-bkpG1spTOw#/registration
New app for broker-lookup/review, navigation, IFTA and other accounting -- designed by an owner-op
This Overdrive Radio podcast edition drops into our talk with Charlotte, N.C.-based owner-operator Deron Salmon about his brand-new Truck Networking application for iPhone and Android devices -- Truck’N for short. It's available now for a 14-day free trial with monthly subscription thereafter. Iphone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/truck-networking/id1606433569 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.semnexus.apps.truckn.truckn The app’s origin story stems from a void Salmon felt like he saw in broker-lookup and review tools for owner-operators. There are some out there, for sure -- the big load boards are principal there -- yet Salmon wanted to take the concept further to allow for quicker, more inclusive ways to rate and review experiences. His thoughts on the matter stemmed from a brokered run some years ago with an appointment time that, nonetheless, had him facing the prospect of waiting quite literally all day for the pickup. The broker offered nothing in the way of support in that regard, and after he canceled the load, driving back north toward home he wondered which of the southbound truckers across the median was about to get themselves into a situation on this load and with this broker they might do best to avoid. What's the first thing a broker does when you call on a load? "They ask for your MC number," he said. "Why aren't we doing the same thing" for them. They’re asking for your MC, of course, to validate that you have authority -- but also to access via third-party vendors other brokers' reviews and ratings of your service. With enough owner-operator uptake of Salmon’s Truck Networking app, owner-ops will be able to read such reviews about brokers as well, he envisions, and share their own experiences, as you’ll hear in the podcast. That’s not all there is to the app, though. It’s got robust accounting and IFTA functionality, premium truck-specific navigation, and is all in all significantly aided by the reality that owner-operator Salmon has been behind the development of a lot of the tools himself. With its release last month, owner-operator Salmon’s slowly transitioning away from the road himself, also training in aviation as a commercial pilot, but he’s still the proud owner of his last rig after a couple decades in the business -- a 2000 Kenworth W900 he told us more about as we spoke at MATS. Read more about Truck Networking via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15382605/new-broker-authority-lookupreview-tool-two-trucknav-platforms
Paths to 10-plus mpg in a Class 8 diesel tractor with aero, downspeeding, more
In this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, drop in with three operators for a panel discussion held at the Mid-America Trucking Show last month. The discussion was aimed at showing all the ways these three have done what once might have been unthinkable -- get to, and pass, the 10-miles-per-gallon mark in a Class 8 tractor-trailer hauling freight. They included a man longtime Overdrive readers will well be familiar with -- 2007 Overdrive Trucker of the Year Henry Albert, running independent and as a longtime participant in Freightliner’s Run Smart program real-world-testing new truck and diesel technologies built toward boosting efficiencies. Albert was joined by owner-operator Joel Morrow and driver Clark Reed, the latter also part of the longtime Freightliner initiative. The trio fielded questions from Mike Roeth, a leader with the North American Council for Freight Efficiency: http://nacfe.org (As Roeth notes in the podcast, Albert, Morrow and Reed were all part of NACFE's initial Run on Less campaign in 2017 -- find more about that and subsequent Run on Less efforts via https://runonless.com/ ) Questions centered on 10 different areas of fuel-economy improvement possibility, all to show how they add up to hitting that 10-mpg mark. Among what you'll hear about: Aerodynamics, of course, at which owner-operator Henry Albert has certainly excelled. Manufacturers' big strides in engine downspeeding, which yields maintenance dividends in the end for those persnickety emissions systems. Automated manual transmissions to help in the cruise RPM adjustments that come with significant downspeeding. 6x2 configurations, mechanical drag reduction generally, idling, speed, route planning, and much more. Think you can’t get there? Think again -- with the right practices, and the right equipment, as these and other operators have shown, it's certainly possible. How owner-operator Steve Kron got there, for instance: in a 2001 International no less: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15295717/how-steve-kron-took-his-2001-international-above-10-mpg
Making it work, and then some: Illinois-headquartered food-grade tank haulers Pulli Express
Happy Friday before Tax Day! Got those filings done? One suspects the answer is yes for our guests on today's edition of Overdrive Radio, Tim Pulli and his wife, Shelley Puzek-Pulli, our March Truckers of the Month: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15380625/path-to-profits-through-continual-adjustment-pulli-express The Chicago-area-headquartered owner-operators today run two trucks of their own and with another owner-operator leased on. They’re in the competition for Overdrive's 2023 Trucker of the Year award, and as a husband-wife team of a business, it’s close collaboration in their drive to success that sets them apart. Though since their marriage in 2005, it hasn’t always been that way, exactly. Shelley herself wasn’t so involved in the business before Tim flipped the switch to get his authority around 2012 and the pair, together, moved toward a contract with the Sweetener Supply liquid-sugar manufacturer in their area, a contract that more than sustains the business to this day with good rates, a healthy fuel surcharge built into everything they do, and in general a real appreciation for their work. That includes Shelley, today, too, behind the wheel. While Tim’s been driving in various roles since the turn of the century, Shelley made moves to get her CDL for the first time in 2018, after the pair’s fourth and youngest child entered kindergarten. Growth in revenues, and profits, for the business have proceeded since then, with plans for more on the way. With three trucks running full-time now, they do own four big Walker food-grade tanker trailers, after all. You can enter your own owner-operator business or nominate another for Overdrive's 2023 Trucker of the Year competition via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/page/toptrucker Nominations will be accepted throughout the first half of 2023.
‘The extra load' to boost profitability in tough times -- Overdrive's Partners in Business at MATS
If you haven’t checked in at OverdriveOnline.com lately, get over to the Partners in Business section for our newly-updated, 2023 edition of the owner-operator business guide of the same name: http://overdriveonline.com/pib Weighing in at a grand total of 140 and more pages this year, the Partners in Business manual covers owner-operator business from start to finish, all the way from the basics of business planning before start-up to going independent, growing a small fleet and prepping adequately for a comfortable retirement. New this year: **A brief primer on avoiding -- and combating -- the huge rise in double-brokering of the past few years **Further resources on saving taxes and gaining business management dividends via the S Corp tax filing structure for LLCs. **Updates on lending markets given the rise in borrowing costs for new and used equipment purchases of the last year **New strategies for how to approach fuel surcharges as an independent, and maximize efficiency whatever your operation, given 2022's historic fuel-price inflation **New ways to protect your business and personal data from wholesale identity theft running rampant **Updates on planning -- and saving -- for retirement. And more. Today, sit back and listen in on our live seminar from the Mid-America Trucking Show’s Pro Talks stage that was held Friday, March 31. There’s a full video of session available at OverdriveOnline.com, but we wanted to make sure the podcast listeners had a window on it. Here's a link to the video and News Editor Matt Cole's report from the session: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15382511/how-to-boost-profitability-in-challenging-times-the-extra-load And here's a link to where you can download the slide deck to follow along with the audio in the podcast: https://www.overdriveonline.com/partners-in-business/document/15382515/partners-in-business-presentation-at-mats-2023 Those slides feature huge amounts of data from business services firm ATBS on cost, revenue and income performance on average for owner-operators clients in the last year. ATBS is Overdrive's longtime partner on the Partners in Business project, and a Vice President there, Mike Hosted, presented at the seminar with our own contributor and longtime owner-operator, now retired from the road, Gary Buchs. Buchs also serves as mentor to aspiring and current owner-operators with an eye toward helping them sharpen their business performance.
'The spot market is not for you': On building steady trucking business with authority
The freight spot markets are undeniably tough right now, that's sure, with rates continuing their slide for vans and reefers nationally in the last week, and profitability strained for all manner of independent owner-operators and small carriers with authority. Yet Adam Wingfield, whose talk early on the last day of the Mid-America Trucking Show Saturday, April 1, makes up the bulk of today's Overdrive Radio edition, wanted to make clear to all the owners in the audience a central message: "You're going to be OK," Wingfield said early in his "Weathering the storm" talk. OK, that is, if you do the work to solidify your relationships with the brokers, shippers and others who take care of you as you take care of them. If you truly own your backyard, so to speak, and take the time to connect with freight customers in your area. You'll be OK if you predict maintenance needs with well-timed interval tracking and stay compliant to enhance competitiveness in negotiations -- the difference between good and terrible safety scores will translate to dollars on the bottom line, in the end. And, perhaps most importantly, know your numbers inside and out, Wingfield emphasized early and often, echoing a central message of Overdrive's own Partners in Business seminar with ATBS the day before and throughout the PIB program's two-decade-plus history: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15382511/how-to-boost-profitability-in-challenging-times-the-extra-load (Click through that link for video of our full session, if you missed it. Podcast listeners, stay tuned for an audio-only special edition in the coming week.) Ultimately, though there's much more to it all, Wingfield urged owners to ignore the noise, to truly take full control of what you can control, double down on all of it, and keep your eye on the finish line. Also in the podcast: More from my talk at MATS with Overdrive Radio sponsor Howes' President and Chief Testing Officer Rob Howes about issues of fuel quality rearing their heads more and more as the company hears of new issues from customers. Howes details results, too, of a survey in which the company asked its customers a series of questions about their fuel-treatment habits. Overdrive's 2023 Trucker of the Year central nominating form: https://www.overdriveonline.com/page/toptrucker Do you know a worthy owner-operator contender? Nominate them -- or your own business -- today. Much more from MATS at http://overdriveonline.com
Fit or Unfit? FMCSA keying in on problems with 'Conditional' safety rating limbo
With an FMCSA regulatory update session just concluded at MATS, one thing that stood out was that the agency didn't mention a plan to advance a rulemaking around its safety rating system for motor carriers. FMCSA Associate Administrator Larry Minor, however, speaking to the specialized carriers' Specialized Transportation Symposium just a month ago, revealed potential to begin a rulemaking process to possibly change the system as early as this year. Should the three-tiered Satisfactory, Unsatisfactory, and Conditional rating system remain? Minor asked SCRA attendees, characterizing the fundamental early question any move toward a change would ask. Or: Should a two-tiered, "Fit or Unfit" system be adopted? That’s what some small fleets and associated advocates have been calling for for years, as so very many have sat in that Conditional limbo -- some even for decades -- after an adverse review, despite efforts to improve. It's only gotten increasingly difficult to then get FMCSA out to any carrier's site to do the only thing that can result in a Satisfactory rating in today’s system -- a fully comprehensive on-site audit, generally, though there have been limited exceptions to that rule, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15064263/dotissued-safety-ratings-more-scarce-in-2020 In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, we'll hear more from Larry Minor in his talk at the symposium early this month to specialized carrier attendees. As it concerns FMCSA's failure to mention the safety rating issue here at MATS, ongoing through Saturday, April 1, maybe regulators believe owner-operators really could care less about ratings and how they’re conducted. It's safe to assure them they’re off the mark, there. While few one-truck owners with authority are likely to ever be rated, the same business issues that arise for small carriers from a Conditional rating -- difficulty doing business with many brokers, to name one -- hits them equally. The smallest of small carriers, too, like holds less capability to get the feds back out to their place of business for a follow-up audit to potentially move them back to the Satisfactory category. We’ll hear from Minor also on the DOT’s National Roadway Safety Strategy and FMCSA’s place within it, about how the Entry Level Driver Training program is going, about getting that program more effectively interoperable with state licensing agencies, about the late-fall ELD regs questions asked, about the notion of Universal Electronic ID for every truck (asked for by CVSA). And speed limiters, of course, and changes to Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse reporting requirements of states. Also in the podcast: Drop for a bit of fun, too, with Rob Howes, executive vice president and chief testing officer of the company that bears his name, Overdrive Radio sponsor Howes. A bit more lengthy talk over interesting results of a Howes company survey we’ll visit in a later podcast, but Rob filled us in for this one on just what’s happening for the company here at MATS, likewise plans for the next Howes Hall of Fame announcement. Hear Overdrive Radio's interview with owner-operator Angelique Temple, the last member inducted, in the December 9, 2022 edition: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15304180/hazmattank-veteran-driver-now-on-her-own-meet-angelique-temple
Tales from a trainer's truck: Good, bad, ugly with reefer operator Bill Douglas
With truck-show season fast upon us, Long Haul Paul Marhoefer takes the mic for this week's Overdrive Radio edition as the Mid America Trucking show's set to commence on Thursday, March 30th. There will be the pageantry and the pomp, the polish and the shine. Influencers, thought leaders, and micro-celebrities. (Oh my!) But you know what Marhoefer looks forward to the most? It's the war stories. It's the accounts you hear while you're waiting on a table to open up at a steakhouse, or maybe while tipping back a cool beverage or two. It's the unguarded things people tell you about their lives and work when they've had a few days to step away and decompress. This episode features one such conversation. Owner-operator Bill Douglas is an old truck show friend. Marhoefer met him at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas back around 2016. Back then, Bill was just thinking about becoming a trucker. These days, he's a six-year veteran of the super slab, hauling with a mission, too, to be a mentor to new drivers he's training for Prime. This time last year, the pair went out for that steak, and along the way Bill gave Paul the lowdown on big fleet training -- the good, the bad and the ugly. Also in the podcast: Join ATBS VP Mike Hosted and Overdrive's own Gary Buchs 1:45 p.m. local time Friday, March 31, for the annual Partners in Business seminar. Stay tuned for the updated version of Overdrive's Partners in Business manual, too, to be released next week. Read more about the session via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15352892/new-owneroperator-business-manual-updated-for-release-at-mats And for a full schedule of a bevy of MATS business-related programming, visit the show site here: https://truckingshow.com/education/ Hope to see you there.
One oversize hauler's mobile shower solution | Dispatch from I-80 Wyo.'s 'winter from hell'
Owner-operator Andy Freeman, headquartered in Richland Center, Wisconsin, hauls in a 2014 Freightliner 122SD pulling a much newer Trail King RGN mini-deck, outfitted for what are mostly oversize loads on the hook. Overdrive Radio caught up with Freeman in Orlando, Florida, on the site of the Specialized Carriers and Rigging Association’s annual Specialized Transportation Symposium. Freeman, leased to Landstar now for many years and hauling most aviation-related freight -- “airport to airport,” as he puts it -- had his rig empty and set up in the conference hotel parking lot where Florida Highway Patrol inspectors demonstrated a walkaround Level 2 inspection of it for conference attendees. The trailer was empty, that is, unless you looked a little more closely: About dead center lengthwise on the minideck was an itty-bitty chained-down toy loader. Turned out it wasn’t just Freeman's attempt at good humor for conference attendees -- and those inspectors -- but rather a long-used tool for cheering up fellow travelers along the road, among other things. There’s more to it in the conversation with Freeman in this week's Overdrive Radio podcast, likewise the owner-operator's fortuitous find delivering a solution to a long-suffered problem of many a heavy-specialized and/or other open-deck hauler. "Sometimes you just want to have a shower," he said, doing this kind of work, particularly after solving the securement puzzle on hot days. For those of you with no more than your standard sort of 70-inch sleeper, as is the case for Freeman's 122SD, listen on for an off-the-shelf (mostly) solution to that issue he's carried with him since this past December. Also in the podcast: Long Haul Paul Marhoefer's "The estimated opening is unknown" read by the author, detailing a rough week spent partially along I-80 in Wyoming shut down in Laramie with extreme winter weather. This year, it's been a "winter from hell" for all on the road in that state. Read the original story via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15352433/winter-from-hell-on-i80-in-wyoming
Plan for success designed, executed for a long-term home: Truckers of the Month Ruth and Chris Smith
Owner-operator Chris Smith, one half of the team that is Dreamline Trucking, is today headquartered in Crossville, Tennessee. His trucking career follows a beginning far from U.S. shores across the pond in continental Europe, the Middle East and where his family's originally from, Britain. As regular readers will know, he and the other half of the Dreamline team -- Ruth, his wife and business partner -- were Overdrive’s Truckers of the Month for February. Follow this link if you missed Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole’s feature report about the business: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15307364/how-this-owneroperator-team-earned-success After meeting and marrying during those early UK days, the Smiths’ Dreamline business is now anchored by their long relationship and team operation leased to Southern Pride Trucking, hauling jet engines and other aviation-related freight. They’ve got almost 10 years behind them as business owners, hauling today in a big-bunk 2020 Peterbilt 389 that is their second unit, outfitted a 192-inch ARI sleeper with the creature comforts of a home on the road. In addition to their history, in the podcast you'll hear about general maintenance practices -- a regular 15,000-mile oil change interval, coordination with a preferred shop in their home area even with long stretches of time out -- as well as some bigger work upcoming. The beautiful yellow Pete took damage down the driver's side and to the Herd bumper on the front end in an accident. A "perfect storm," as Chris put it, of distraction factors and rash lane-change decisions saw two four-wheelers collide in the lane right in front of Beverly II in Arkansas. Hear Chris narrate the disaster and much more in today's podcast. Catch plenty more views of the Peterbilt in this story, written after the Smiths bagged first place in a category of Overdrive's 2021 virtual Pride & Polish custom-truck competition: https://www.overdriveonline.com/pride-polish/article/15114201/the-bigbunk-389-of-ruth-and-chris-smith-beverly-ii As February's Trucker of the Month, Ruth and Chris Smith's Dreamline Trucking is in the running as a semi-finalist for Overdrive's 2023 Trucker of the Year award. If you’ve thrived even through the tough conditions of the last year, or if you know of a deserving owner-operator who fits that description, get over to our nomination page for the Trucker of the Year award and get in the running. It’s open to owner-operators leased or with authority, operating up to a maximum of three trucks as part of the business: https://www.overdriveonline.com/page/toptrucker
Hear AM/FM CB difference -- the story behind the FCC petition that launched dual-mode radios in U.S.
For this edition of the podcast, Mark Karnes tells the story of the petition that the Cobra company put to the Federal Communications Commission some years back to allow the use of FM rather than just standard AM in CB Radios. With the petition granted in 2021, Cobra is now out with AM/FM dual-mode versions of all of its most-commonly-used models. Karnes, a vice president with Cedar Electronics, Cobra's parent company, notes the transition from AM-only radios to dual modes won't happen overnight, yet notes when more FM-capable radios are in play, owner-operators will find better voice clarity over the radio when used in FM mode on both ends. Hear a measure of that improved clarity here, as Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills recorded transmissions between two dual-mode versions of Cobra's Mini 19 radio, while running the same route in one vehicle as the other vehicle remained stationary. But for slight adjustments to squelch on both units, each radio remained at standard out-of-the-box settings other than dialing up Channel 15, otherwise quiet the night of the test. Drop into a little bit of the squawk between Ghostwriter and T-Bone in today's podcast, and get a feel for the principle difference in AM and FM modes –- sound quality and clarity when you're nearing the edges of range, or in situations with plenty interference that sometimes plague AM transmission. More about what's currently available from a variety of makers of AM/FM radios: https://www.overdriveonline.com/equipment/article/15114521/fcc-approves-fm-mode-for-cb-radios More about Cobra's line of dual-mode radios: https://www.overdriveonline.com/gear/product/15306989/cobra-electronics-cobra-unveils-first-dualmode-amfm-cb-radios And as mentioned in the podcast, track back through our 2021 60th-anniversary special-edition episode exploring the CB's role in trucking culture as the "original social media," as many truckers have called it through the years: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15064061/the-cb-radios-historic-role-in-trucking-culture
Running the lease roads to well sites with tank operator Edward Jackson of John McGee Trucking
Louisiana-born-and-raised longtime operator Edward Jackson has been running for Overdrive's 2022 Small Fleet Champ John McGee Trucking since the operation was but a project of owner-operator McGee and a just a couple other employed haulers. These days, McGee "has a whole lot more on his plate," Jackson told me, testament to the small fleet's strong growth to around 20 trucks the last several years. Jackson and I were bumping and jostling about in the cab of one of McGee's late-model Macks on our way down a narrow lease road to an oil/gas well site not far from the fleet's Simsboro headquarters, there in the northern part of the Pelican state. What we were after? A load of John McGee Trucking's bread and butter, production water that comes up from the ground with oil and gas and separates into one of two tanks down in a bottom at the end of this road. The big tanks flanked an area just big enough to turn that rig around, quite muddy in ruts from the big trucks that visit the site regularly at the behest of pumpers working the wells. The salty concoction of groundwater that Jackson pumps into the specially-lined Dragon tanker trailers he pulls, then, is destined for offload at a saltwater disposal pipeline, or in some cases blown back into the ground at an idle well site. It's short work, the single round I accompanied Jackson on, but with time enough to get a feel for the operation, Jackson's work particularly, and all the potential dangers inherent in working around oil and gas wells, to say nothing of the occasionally harrowing difficulty on those sometimes quite slippery and/or remote lease roads. In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, drop into the run with us to hear, too, more from and about the man behind the wheel. Jackson's is lucrative work, in the end, and McGee lauds his steady-eddy nature. He and other top operators at McGee are well-rewarded for their on-the-job consistency, pulling in anywhere from about $70,000 on the low end to well into the six figures at the top, where Jackson sits. He works hard for it, of course, starting at 4 a.m. and hauling multiple rounds through 4 p.m. most workdays, in and out of oil and gas well sites and saltwater disposal intakes. McGee pays operators hourly, with weekly time-and-a-half for anything over 40 hours. Find plenty images from the run at this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15307317 Read more about 2022 Small Fleet Champ John McGee Trucking via this 2022 profile of the business: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15295593/john-mcgee-trucking-embraces-golden-rule-toward-steady-growth
Bust up the stigma around mental health for a chance at a better trucking life
The last couple weeks have been a bit heavy for several of us here at Overdrive, since learning of the passing of an operator we knew who took his own life. It's a difficult subject to know how to approach, to communicate, and one Overdrive Extra contributor/longtime hauler Clifford Petersen notes still comes with a stigma attached to it that make it all the more difficult. Namely, and more broadly, we're talking about mental health, and just how to be an effective means of support for all with whom we come into contact. On this special-edition Monday podcast -- apologies for all who were expecting our usual Friday drop -- dive in with Petersen to talk through his own journey to where he is today, with a mission to be a lifeline of support specifically to those who, like him, work over-the-road and struggle with anxiety, depression, in his case PTSD, and/or a myriad other issues. Petersen's trained in substance-abuse counseling and life coaching broadly, likewise a variety of psychological diagnoses and techniques. Though as he emphasizes, he's not a licensed practicing psychologist himself. As he's written in varying degrees of detail in Overdrive before, his journey to realizing the mission has been a long one, and to anyone who's ever felt like they were truly at the end of the the rope, as it were, as he's said many times before, "you are not alone ... Truckers need to know they're not alone. ... We are your community, and we are here, willing to help. You can always call me at 573-730-2370. I still truck, and I still work with truckers -- and I’ll never charge you a dime. I’m here to help.” Catch Petersen's stories from the last several years for Overdrive here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/authors/contact/14865336/clifford-petersen He’s written about a lot of topics, but most often on the techniques he himself uses in ongoing efforts to battle his own demons since the PTSD diagnosis sent him down the path of mental health education almost two decades ago now. A lot of what he’s written around the subject he thinks of as "tools that a person can put in their toolbox to help them out. ... The trucker knows what it means to have the right tool for the right job. If you're having an issue, get the right tool and use it. Life is the same thing. Get the right tool, and use it." Petersen's story is one we hope anyone listening will see as, yes, though the road might well be a tough one looking ahead, there is hope, if we all do our best to truly support each other. Petersen’s still here, still trucking, and his mission is clear evidence of that. In the podcast, Petersen also notes road chaplain organizations, staffed by people with willing ears and free of judgment, including Truckstop Ministries: https://www.truckstopministries.org/ And the organization he's a part of himself, Channel 21 Ministries: https://www.lonesomeroad.org/channel-21-ministries-home.html You can also call or text the 988 national crisis hotline, 24/7.
Owner-operator Kelvin Schmidt: 'You've got to be an accountant' to ensure long-term biz success
Owner-operator Kelvin Schmidt, Trucker of the Month for January in Overdrive's 2023 Trucker of the Year program, didn't come to a formula for enduring success without a tour through the proverbial school of hard knocks, as it were. In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, hear his own account of his start as a flatbed-pulling hotshotter in a one-ton dually, his stumbles through other trucks and growing "as bad as an accountant" focus on costs, revenue and profit per-trip to keep a guiding hand on the business. "You've got to know what your costs are, and I do that for absolutely every trip I do," he said. "Every trip." Diligence in tracking costs enabled some of the big early shifts in his approach to equipment. After bad experiences with a variety of used trucks -- then with a newer yet no-less-problematic glider, he changed tack and began purchasing new, realizing full well the costs not just of repairs of accompanying downtime. His end-of-year profit-and-loss statement for 2022 showed the above-average results of all of it, even with massive cost inflation and an ungodly-looking fuel bill for year. In this podcast, he tells his trucking story, which follows a childhood and decades as an adult in Canada. His move to U.S. citizenship set him on the course he's charting today trucking, likewise as a proud father of six young children with their mother and his wife, Jennifer. As January Trucker of the Month, Kelvin Schmidt in the running as a semifinalist for the Trucker of the Year award. If you, too, have thrived even through the tough conditions of the last year, or if you know of a deserving owner-operator who fits that description, get over to our nomination page for the Trucker of the Year award and get in the running. It’s open to owner-operators leased or with authority, operating up to a maximum of three trucks as part of the business: https://www.overdriveonline.com/page/toptrucker Read more about Kelvin Schmidt's journey via our January in-depth profile of his one-truck business, today pulling power-only for T Bros. Logistics out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15306211/how-this-owner-built-a-trucking-business-to-deliver-consistently
John McCormick's long road to steady dry-bulk freight, for the whole family
In this week's Overdrive Radio, drop back into more from host Todd Dills' November run with Oakley Trucking-leased owner-operator John McCormick out of Robards, Kentucky, near Henderson. Regular readers and listeners will recall the prior podcast, where we dug into McCormick's Pride & Polish-winning 2021 Kenworth, christened "Bandit" given its paint scheme’s resemblance to the Snowman’s rig in the 1970s classic movie Smokey & the Bandit. There, we heard plenty about just how that rig got its name, McCormick’s approach to financing -- in this case direct through the finance arm of MHC Kenworth, the dealer group from which he bought the W900L late in 2020 -- and more. Today we pick up with more about the two rounds he makes daily, between Cresline Plastic Pipe in Henderson, where he unloads PVC powder picked down in Calvert City, Kentucky, from the manufacturer there. Dills spoke with McCormick this morning and, after a few OTR runs farther afield over the holidays, when the plant he hauls from was shut down for annual maintenance as usual, he’s back in gear on this his bread-and-butter run, no sign of business slowing down. Hear more about just how the owner-operator got to where he is today -- and the other McCormicks he's managed to bring along for the ride. His "little brother" Bill and his father, Charlie, are part of the team working the PVC runs, both also now leased to Oakley. While John McCormick's been leased there going on 15 years, that's not the case for the rest of the family. Follow this link for pictures of Charlie McCormick's 2020 Peterbilt 567, likewise video and more with the 2021 "Bandit" W900L: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15306419 Overdrive profiled John's truck more in-depth at this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/pride-polish/podcast/15303882/custom-champs-a-run-in-the-bandit-21-w900l
Diesel-electric innovation in a 1969 KW: Chace Barber on 'Voice of GO(r)D' podcast
We’ve got a bit of a special edition of Overdrive Radio for you this week. There’s a guest host of sorts, who’s going to walk us through a conversation with Chace Barber, cofounder of Edison Motors. If Barber's name sounds familiar, you may have read Overdrive Executive Editor Alex Lockie’s reporting of some of what Barber’s been doing with a diesel-electric concept that’s similar to the way locomotive work. The system features effectively an on-board diesel generator serving only to charge in this case a lithium ion battery powering an electric motor capable of monster loads of both horsepower and torque. In the case of Barber and company's prototype, that's all inside a beautiful and beautifully tough old 1969 Kenworth they call, simply, Old Blue. Log hauler, writer, and podcaster Gord Magill recently drew out more of Chace Barber’s company’s origin story and plenty about just where his electric-drive trucks stand to be best applied in his Voice of GO(R)D podcast. Gord’s roots, like Chache Barber’s, are in Canada, though Magill now calls the United States home, as our own "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer wrote in his Faces of the Road series talk with Magill: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15289327/faces-of-the-road-gord-magill As noted, Barber’s Edison Motors has been making a name for itself by taking advantage of big strides in battery technology to repurpose something of an old general concept for new application, with big potential. It’s not exactly a hybrid diesel-electric in the manner of much of the hybrid technology in cars today, as he told Magill, and over-the-road trucking benefits are decidedly less than more intense applications like log hauling. Yet OTR could benefit in form of fuel savings to the tune of a potential 5-10 percent or more. There’s some perhaps non-obvious benefits, too -- think things that might fall into the "weird government" classification Magill mentions in the podcast (electric-drive trucks ELD/road tax-exempt?) -- spelled out the podcast. Find the full two-hour conversation in the Voice of GO(R)D podcast via this link to Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/01IBVRZ1pokC94ZXvguJfR Here on Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/voice-of-go-r-d/episode/old-trucks-new-tech-how-a-b-c-logger-is-making-electric-trucks-less-cringe-211086897 Here on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/voice-of-go-r-d/id1663362014 Magill's writing, featured elsewhere in outlets like Newsweek among many others, is also accessible via his Substack page at this link: https://autonomoustruckers.substack.com/ Alex Lockie's reporting on Barber and his Edison Motors cofounder Eric Little: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15301066/loghauling-truckings-toughest-niche
Keep Trucking with small fleet owner Mike Nelms, integrating biz-education goals into operations
With today's edition of Overdrive Radio we’re going to drop into conversation with a man who’s been making a name for himself around the Atlanta-area trucking community the last decade or so while building a small fleet -- Mike Nelms, owner of Keep Trucking Transportation. The 20-or-so-truck fleet pulls reefers and dry vans with a mix of brokered and direct business, made up mostly of owners leased on, including many owner-operators. Mike Nelms has just a few trucks of his own. Nelms has brought instincts for raising up those around him with an interest in the trucking business, incorporating distinctly educational efforts directly into operations. All employed there approach relationships with contracted owners with an educational mission in mind, hoping to set up all owners for future success as they remain leased on or, eventually, go out on their own with authority. And last year Nelms debuted a first-time event in Atlanta to connect owner-operators and others with newer trucking businesses with potential funding sources, whether truck loans or other needed lending, in the form of a mixer on a downtown rooftop. The second such event is coming up March 4, 2023, on top of the Ascent building, from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. There’s more to it than just funding, ultimately, too -- a chance to network with stakeholders in trucking with a wide range of experience. Hear all about Nelms' now-almost-decade-long journey into and through trucking in the podcast. More about Keep Trucking Transportation and the Atlanta event: https://www.keeptruckingtransportation.com/ Also in the podcast, hear about one of Nelms leased-on invested truck owners and how she approaches her driver, the "quarterback" of the whole operation, as such puts it, with a healthy flat pay package and more: http://overdriveonline.com/15305792 **And a discussion of FMCSA's interim dispatch provider guidance, relevant to just when any independent dispatch operation needs broker authority at present, and when it doesn't. Find details on that guidance via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15303162/fmcsa-guidance-on-when-dispatch-services-need-broker-authority
Battery-electric's trucking reality -- parking shortage will 'look a whole lot worse'
In a previous edition of Overdrive Radio, News Editor Matt Cole dug into the American Transportation Research Institute's close look at the life-cycle emissions associated with the production and operation of diesel, battery-electric and hydrogen-powered trucks. As noted in the very title of that past episode, the research in some ways cut through the politics and PR that surrounds electric-vehicle technology, showing such vehicles would be no true "zero emissions" panacea when production-associated demands are considered, particularly for battery-electric trucks: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15292003/how-politics-and-pr-cloud-zero-emissions-trucks-reality In today's edition, Cole talks with Jeff Short, ATRI VP, about follow-up research that poses something of a counterfactual on the way toward throwing more cold-hard reality on top of the politics and PR around vehicle electrification. If the entirety of the U.S. vehicle fleet, from owner-operators' heavy tractor-trailers on down to passengers cars, were to suddenly be transitioned to battery-electric, what level of electric power generation would it take? What new materials demands would be required to make all those batteries? What, fundamentally, would the implications be for truckers’ operational realities (including the hours of service) and the infrastructure needs to support them? As Cole notes at the top of the edition, that infrastructure would necessarily include a whole lot of new electrified parking spaces. "If every truck has to stop and charge," he said, "obviously you've got to have a charger pretty much at every parking spot across the country, and there's already a parking shortage." Further, if every tractor out there had to stop to charge on the regular for hours at a time, "that parking shortage is only going to look a whole lot worse." Find ATRI's full "Charging infrastructure challenges for the U.S. electric vehicle fleet" report via this link: https://truckingresearch.org/2022/12/06/new-atri-research-evaluates-charging-infrastructure-challenges-for-the-u-s-electric-vehicle-fleet/
Re-air: Get ready for the downturn, it's right around the corner
This time a year ago, well before the extent of the coming year's cost-inflationary pressures were fully known, owner-operators delivered mixed signals for the coming year of 2022, though 65% predicted income to be better or about the same as prior year 2021. This year, the script has most certainly flipped on the 2023 outlook, with 61% looking out and seeing worse or level conditions to come. Among commenters reflecting the near-majority fearing worse conditions ahead was one who, though fuel prices have moderated a bit in the last month or so, expected more hikes in the future: "With no end in sight on fuel prices going up, taking away from the bottom line, then '23 is definitely going to be worse than '22." Today on Overdrive Radio, we're re-airing a September talk with Glen and Karla Horack, Glen named Owner-Operator of the Year in March of 2022. Horack's diligent approach to reserve-account savings is instructive for anybody looking to hedge against the chance of a big downturn. As Richard Davis noted in comments under the poll, reflecting on the spot-market boom year of 2021, "What goes up must come down."
Survive a heart attack, fight freight fraud, button up the business: 2022 on Overdrive Radio
Another day, another year nearly in the books -- here's our annual Overdrive Radio year-in-review. Thanks for hanging in with us through yet another big year for trucking as an owner-operator, one with absolutely huge challenges, for sure. We’ll hear about a lot of them again today. But hopefully, by the end, there’s something that sparks a new idea, or urges you on to completion of an old goal with new rigor, with new vigor. 2022 was a big one for Overdrive Radio, too -- thanks to longtime contributor and trucker-songwriter Long Haul Paul Marhoefer and the pros at Muscle Shoals Music Marketing we got an updated theme in Marhoefer's "Legend of the Snakeman," for one, an ode to the legendary guitarist who featured on Marhoefer's cut of the track, Travis "The Snakeman" Wammack. The podcast also got the nod for Best Podcast from the business journalism folks behind the Jesse H. Neal Awards early in the year: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15291438/fmcsa-updating-household-goods-regs-with-new-recommendations That wouldn’t be possible of course but for the very fact of you -– the listeners, the stories so many among you entrusted to us to air through the course of the year. In this edition of Overdrive Radio, we count down to 2023 with 10 episodes that garnered the most ears throughout the year, with an extra five too that got quite close to the top-10 cut -– honorable mentions, as it were. Themes emerge in cost challenges with fuel-market insanity and ongoing other inflation. We’ll hear about double brokering and other freight fraud, and how lax enforcement to combat it de facto enables it. We’ll hear a variety of perhaps unpopular opinions about regulations, and plenty and plenty in the way of brass-tacks owner-operator business advice gleaned from long experience, and in-depth analysis too. It was a wild year, as Alex Lockie’s year-in-brief Wednesday this week made plenty clear: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15304914/fmcsas-new-agenda-wild-inflation-owners-who-braved-a-bloodbath-2022-in-review For all the guests on the podcast, 2022 was perhaps no more both difficult as well as fortunate than it was for 2022 Small Fleet Champ contender Bryon Stoll of Surprise Trucking. Stoll suffered a heart attack even as Overdrive was in the midst of putting together a profile of the 10-truck fleet: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15115044/suprise-truckings-long-road-to-resurrection A couple of quick-thinking professionals saved his life, a story he told in a September edition of Overdrive Radio: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15297166/hindsights-2020-after-nearfatal-heart-attack-for-bryon-stoll We're happy to report Stoll’s recovery has gone well but is ongoing, he says. At once, he’s feeling hopeful about the prospects for full recovery. Our hope’s right there with his. Hear part of his story as well as 15 others revisiting recent history in today's podcast. Full versions of each featured episode you can find via this link: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/2022-in-review-the-top-10-plus
Owner-op Steven Meyer's vets-tribute FLD and Kentucky trailer, delivering Wreaths Across America
And so much more, no doubt. Here’s a big Merry Christmas to everybody to start off this week’s edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast. We drop in on quite an experience Overdrive Executive Editor Alex Lockie had just a little more than a week ago at the Danbury, Connecticut, stop on the Wreaths Across America convoy tour from Maine down to Arlington National Cemetery for the big central wreath-laying event. It's but one among thousands around the country at veterans’ cemeteries designed to pay respect to those who’ve served the nation. Lockie there met Hampton Roads Moving and Storage owner-operator Steven Meyer and his 1998 Freightliner FLD, pulling a custom wrapped Kentucky trailer of his own design and dedicated to honoring distinct individuals. Together, through Meyer's narration their histories chart a story of achievement, of sacrifice, and ultimately of elemental things about human nature. For both men in the moment, the story delivers a measure of hope for the future of humanity. Read Lockie's reporting from the event via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15304350/what-wreaths-across-america-means-to-trucking-and-all-of-us
Semi Sam delivers: Three new children's books shed light on trucking for young minds
When 11 years ago Overdrive first talked with Jared Flinn, operating partner of the BulkLoads.com load board specializing in bulk freight, that business was at the two-guys-in-basement stage, following Flinn’s work trucking himself a little, then managing logistics for a big commodities outfit. He comes to the BulkLoads.com project with a passion to serve small fleets and owner-operators, the 1-5-truck carriers that he notes in today’s Overdrive Radio podcast are the board’s primary customers (in addition to the brokers and shippers posting freight there). Today, the company employs 45 people, hosting tens of thousands of load posts daily for freight moving in hoppers, pneumatic tanks, liquid bulk tanks, end dumps and more. The growth of BulkLoads isn't the instigating reason we spoke to Flinn recently, however. He's also the author of a brand-new series of children’s books, featuring the hauling exploits of one Semi Sam, a freight-hauling tractor personified in the manner of, say, the "Thomas the Train" series many of you will be familiar with. There are now three books in the series: **"Semi Sam Helps With the Harvest": https://www.amazon.com/Semi-Helps-Harvest-Trucking-Adventures/dp/B0BKP8FWPH/ **"Semi Sam Delivers a Tractor": https://www.amazon.com/Semi-Delivers-Tractor-Jared-Flinn/dp/B0BMJS18Y1/ **And most recently "Semi Sam: Christmas at the White House": https://www.amazon.com/Semi-Sam-Christmas-Trucking-Adventures/dp/B0BMJGXVS1/ Flinn was driven to create the series after the experience reading books to his three children as they grew, drawing on his own interest in visual art and a recognition that there seemed to be a dearth of kids' literature involving the trucking industry. There’s some out there, and we've written about the occasional kids’ book that involves the business over the years. But generally, Flinn’s right. There’s not much, and response to the three "Semi Sam" books out as of now is testament to that. He couldn't have realized "how good of an impact this would have. I've had so many people reach out," he said, noting "there needs to be more books like this." If that describes your thoughts on the matter, stay tuned. For the series, it's three and counting, as it were. Also in the podcast: Flinn notes that inflated commodities prices have delivered generally a pretty good year for a lot of the ag-related bulk haulers, among others who utilize BulkLoads.com, and the freight niche generally. He also details in brief the board's expansion with a new factoring arm, likewise an insurance agency for small carriers and owner-operators (commercial auto liability and cargo, primarily), a bulk-freight-specific TMS and more.
Why a hazmat-tank veteran driver went out on her own pulling dry vans: Meet Angelique Temple
Owner-operator Angelique “Tornado” Temple's one-truck Tornado Transport business, based out of Beaverdam, Virginia, follows a two-decade-plus career as a company driver hauling bulk liquid hazmat, much of it spent with Atlantic Bulk Carrier. If her name sounds familiar, it could be for a couple reasons. She sits on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's 2021-established Driver Advisory Subcommittee, for one. For two, she's the latest inductee in the Howes Hall of Fame recognizing worthy participants in the Trucking and Farming industries that have supported that company now for more than a century. Owner-operator Temple's story will no doubt strike a chord with anyone in the audience who’s tried to balance a true love of work on the road with pursuits back home, and the frustrations that come with that work, for that matter. One of those was well evident when Temple picked up the phone for our talk -- behind 25 other rigs in a line to get unloaded at a distribution facility. That’s right, she’s not hauling bulk hazmat any longer. In 2021, she made good on a long-held aspiration to own and operate her own trucking business, purchasing a 2018 International LT and leasing to the CloudTrucks "virtual carrier," whose platform is geared toward maximum owner control of all aspects of the business's operation. (Regular listeners may recall Overdrive's talk with reps from CloudTrucks as well as owner-operator Jason Hurley, who’d moved to lease there after years with Schneider: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15066489/ownerops-real-success-with-a-virtual-carrier ) There’s more to her plans for the future in addition to eventually getting her authority, too. Her youngest son, one among six children Temple raised through the course of those 20-plus years hauling hazmat tank, plans to get his CDL and join her on the road and in business. Dive in with Temple’s trucking history, her training, mentoring, membership on the federal advisory board, charity work and so much more in today's edition.
On-highway with the 'Bandit': Owner-operator John McCormick's 2021 Kenworth W900L
In this edition of Overdrive Radio, drop into a dry-bulk run in the Working Bobtail, 2015 & Newer category-winning rig in Overdrive's 2022 Pride & Polish competition, owner-operator John McCormick's 'Bandit' 2021 Kenworth W900L. It's the Oakley-leased owner-operator's bread-and-butter haul back and forth between Cresline Plastic Pipe in Henderson, Kentucky, near the McCormick home in Robards, and Westlake Chemical’s PVC complex in Calvert City. Hooked to one of two Mac pneumatic tank trailers owned by all-owner-operator Oakley Trucking out of North Little Rock, Arkansas, McCormick’s Bandit Kenworth cuts a fine picture, whether offloading PVC powder into one of the silos at Cresline, where they turn that powder into pipe, or hauling along I-69 or 24 or elsewhere between the two principal points for most of his runs. The 280-inch wheelbase KW features a 565-hp Cummins X15, an 18 speed transmission and 3.36 rears. Utilizing principal supplier Chrome Dome out of Haubstadt, Indiana, on I-64 north of Evansville, McCormick's added bright parts and more over the two years he's owned the truck -- including throughout the interior. He's added 8 cab lights, breather lights and plenty throughout the interior. Amber underglow lights are by Shift Products, Drive fenders are from WTI, and custom-painted by a semi-retired artist in Robards McCormick knows only as "Chop." Chop's next project is already under way -- he's painting a Rockwood floor for the interior that McCormick gave the artist plenty of rope to produce. When asked what it was going to look like, "I'm not real sure," McCormick said. Basically I just give him free rein of it. He said he had a friend who does airbrushing. ... I told him, 'you know the truck, the theme of the truck, you can go from there.' ... Everything I've seen from him looks great." It's that kind of trust in long-term business relationships that guide 48-year-old McCormick, whether in his choice of leasing partner (he's worked with Oakley for 15 years now) or his approach to general maintenance. Over the time he owned Western Stars prior to the Kenworth purchase in 2020, he established a solid partnership for basic preventive maintenance with a Detroit dealer right next to the Cresline facility, Clarke Power Services. "I'm sure people would wonder why I take a Cummins to a Detroit dealer to get the oil changed," he said. "It's one of those deals where you get a good working relationship with somebody and you want to stick with them." Find plenty pictures from the run of the rig and the equipment in McCormick's history via https://www.overdriveonline.com/15303882 Read about all Pride & Polish winners via http://overdriveonline.com/pride-polish
ELD mandate and crashes -- cause or correlation? Owner-operators weigh safety, training, more
This edition of Overdrive Radio picks up where Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole left on in his reporting from mid-late October around truck-involved crash statistics in the four years prior to, and the four years after, implementation of the FMCSA's electronic logging device mandate, which began in earnest right at the end of 2017: https://www.overdriveonline.com/csas-data-trail/article/15301876/crashes-injuries-and-fatalities-up-posteld-mandate As many listeners and Overdrive readers have likely seen, Cole’s reporting illustrated clearly the generally higher rates of crashes post-mandate, even considering the 2020 year when statistics were way down with the big decline in motorist highway traffic amid the fear and uncertainty of the early COVID pandemic. So there’s a definite correlation between regulatory change in the ELD mandate and those negative safety impacts, but can we really determine there’s a cause there? Hard to say, given so many factors go into the cause of any crash, not least among those causal factors the “unprofessional” driving behavior of our four-wheeled friends. Just refer back to the 2020 year noted just earlier for evidence of that. The question of cause and effect around the ELD mandate, though, is certainly a conversation starter for Overdrive’s owner-operator audience. Attendant to Cole’s reporting, we surveyed owner-operators, and the overwhelming majority feel the mandate has at least contributed to safety-negative effects. In this podcast, hear a variety of viewpoints on the cause-and-effect question, both from contributing reporting from video editor Lawson Rudisll surveying owners about the ELD mandate and any safety connection, or lack thereof, and Matt Cole’s own interviews for the broader picture. We can’t count Michigan-headquartered small fleet owner Bud Davenport among the majority who see some safety impact from the mandate, exactly. Yet Cole’s talk with Davenport is instructive when it comes to the state of play for driver training that other owners feel has been exacerbated by the mandate. As referenced in the podcast, for some relief from the ticking-clock pressures of the 14-hour rule, the 2020-changed split sleeper allows for some mid-duty-period rest without losing duty time. Find something of a tutorial via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14897907/how-to-log-the-new-73-splitsleeper-in-the-hours-of-service PRIZE PACK OFFER FROM OVERDRIVE RADIO SPONSOR HOWES: Leave a message on Overdrive Radio's podcast line at 615-852-8530 with your name and location, and we'll get back in touch for your shipping information for a Howes prize pack featuring both Diesel Treat and Lifeline anti-gel fuel treatments, the Howes Multipurpose penetrating oil, and more swag from the company. Again, that’s 615-852-8530.
Back in the saddle, on a mission -- Toby Bogard's journey home, to the road
Now Lansing, Michigan-based operator Toby Bogard is on a mission. That mission is multifold, as you’ll hear in today’s edition of Overdrive Radio, where we catch back up with the driver, now hauling for Heartland Express after about a year and a half away from the road. Bogard’s return to the road follows a million-plus-mile career prior, and he's newly involved in efforts to push along an idea for something of a feel-good movie narrative about the life and times of a trucker, framed by his last ride home, with the goal of improving the public image of trucking. At least that's among Bogard's principal goals for involvement. This isn’t Bogard’s first such foray. Regular Overdrive readers may have caught a mention earlier in the week of his Semi-Aware book, designed for teens setting out to get their driver’s license for the first time. It's all about education and appreciation for the work trucking does, and even more specifically just how to maneuver around tractor-trailers on the road (more emphasis on which is sorely needed in driver’s ed programs around the nation): https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14874190/con-way-truckload-driver-pens-semi-aware-book-for-teen-drivers It had been quite a time since we'd spoken to Bogard, and a whole lot had happened to him in the interim, including the move north from his former home in East Tennessee, the tragic passing of a loved one, and a big re-evaluation of goals during his time off the road caring for two young daughters. Hear his story in today's podcast.
Car-haul fleet's back-office backbone got his start as so many do -- behind the wheel
In this edition of Overdrive Radio on Veterans Day, we’re going to get a bit of look at how the nation, and the trucking business, remains a bulwark for opportunity no doubt in part attributable to servicemembers’ many sacrifices through the decades gone by. We’ll hear from Slava Sobetki, co-owner of the Chicago-area-based Taurus Auto Group car-haul fleet, and who Overdrive profiled as well just yesterday as part of a package of stories that digs into a few relative newcomers to the Transportation Management System platform space: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15302588/tms-platforms-not-just-for-large-fleets Specifically, such systems -- commonly known by the TMS acronym -- that are increasingly geared toward owner-operators and other small fleets. As the TMS market has matured through the years, such technology is no longer just the province of large motor carriers, as the stories make clear. They feature: **One-truck TB Trucking and its owners Troy and Hather Baumgartner utilizing the Lynks TMS: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15302486/independent-owners-find-money-time-with-new-tms **Three-truck Shipping Teleporters with the new Command system from Trucker Path: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15303003/smallfleet-owner-finds-organization-growth-with-tms **And the Ship.Cars platform, where now almost 100-truck Taurus Auto Group has found greater back-office and in-the-field efficiency with the car-haul-specific, and free-to-use, Carrier TMS Ship.Cars offers: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15302575/taurus-auto-groups-experience-with-shipcars-tms Taurus owner Slava Sobetki didn’t just hop right into trucking in the back office, though. He got his start in trucking like so many do -– behind the wheel. After a childhood in Moldova, he came to the United States on a student exchange program in the early part of the century. That experience led to a determination to stay, to join what he calls "the greatest country in the world." Most of the trucks in the Taurus Auto Group fleet today are owner-operated, Sobetki noted, too, sending 10% of the load back to the company, he said. Likewise, most are hotshots, but some owners run stingers or other car-haul-capable trailers with larger trucks.
Fighting double-brokering fraud: Attorney Hank Seaton on prevention, ways to elevate the issue
Hank Seaton, with the Seaton & Husk law firm, spoke at the National Association of Small Trucking Companies’ annual conference a couple weeks back about what he called Fraud Prevention and Supply Chain Protocol. He offered what he feels is a possible preventive fix to the crime of double brokering when misrepresentation is involved. In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, drop into a long talk with Seaton about somewhat simple steps carriers, brokers and shippers working together can take to stop these schemes in their tracks, whether involving carrier and broker identity theft or the insidious and perhaps more widespread presence of authorized carriers and brokerages set up seemingly for the purpose of simply double-brokering loads: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15302246/fmcsa-and-dot-prioritizing-doublebrokering-schemes The honest players in trucking simply must work together both to prevent this kind of thing from ever happening, as he sees it, and elevate the issue. "I'd like to see this raised to the level of attention that, if the FMCSA doesn't have the manpower, that the Department's Inspector General just set up an enforcement group," he said. "Other regulated industries, like particularly the Federal Maritime Commission, they're much more proactive in terms of protecting business practices, ensuring fair play in business practices. Fraud is hardly fair play in business practices." Indeed part of U.S. transportation policy as outlined in U.S. code is in part to ensure "fair competition." Those interested in joining with Seaton to help build a coalition around these issues can find him via the website of his firm: http://www.transportationlaw.net/ His preventive ideas in some ways double down on previous practices that have gone by the wayside for a variety of reasons, most having to do with the speed at which spot market transactions have to occur these days in the rush to compete, to book, to deliver. Brokers, carriers, shippers all have become "sloppy," in his view, in the rush to get freight moved. You might think of his message as a re-emphasis of what Michigan-based broker Jon Asiala shared in this editorial just yesterday: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15302460/know-your-brokercarrier-to-axe-doublebrokering-schemes Asiala detailed his own experience of a double-brokered load that ultimately cost him when the real carrier didn’t get paid. Asiala’s message: Get back those old ways, as much as is humanly possible in this day and age, and take the time to know definitively who you’re dealing with, whether broker or carrier. Also in the podcast: Meet Dominic Gonzalez of his family's now-28=truck Antonio and Sons Trucking fleet, and a very sharp custom 2016 Peterbilt 579 we saw out at the A.J. Soza Memorial Truck Show in June 2022. Run through some of the fleet's history, likewise that of this particular rig, in the podcast. Find views on the rig via https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/video/15302676/small-fleets-firstever-aero-rig-a-beauty-of-a-2016-pete-579
Small Fleet Champs on managing equipment procurement, insurance hikes, diesel volatility, more
In this Overdrive Radio edition, dive into parts of the awards ceremony for Overdrive's Small Fleet Championship, held Thursday, November 20. From a tribute to the great boxing and wrestling ring announcer Michael Buffer to announcement of the competition's winners, the podcast drops most importantly into a roundtable discussion with all four competition finalists. Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills teed it up with a question: What's been your biggest business challenge of the past year or two, and what have you done to combat it/mitigate effects? We hear here from: **11-30-truck division Small Fleet Champ John McGee Trucking, hauling mostly out of the oilfield regionally in Simsboro, Lousiana **11-30-truck division final round contender Holtkamp Transportation, pulling dry vans coast to coast out of West Point, Iowa. **3-10-truck division Small Fleet Champ CAP Trucking, hauling LTL reefer out of Sanford, Florida -- regular listeners have heard owner Chris Porricelli before: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15296432/stolen-truck-freight-scam-lead-big-reevaluation-for-small-fleet **3-10-truck division final round contender Creech Trucking, serving dairy farmers with belt trailers regionally around the Comanche, Texas home base From equipment procurement issues to managing trade cycles and warranty work, insurance rating (including captive models), diesel prices, fuel surcharge management and more, these excellent business owners lend the benefit of their experience here. The Small Fleet Championship recognizes excellence in small fleet businesses who’ve exhibited growth and stability after getting the start as so many fleets do, as one truck and an owner-operator with a plan for success. As last year, the program was sponsored by the National Association of Small Trucking Companies: http://nastc.com Congrats to all the finalists. Read more about them and 6 other semi-finalists in individual profiles of each business via http://overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ
Faces of the Road: Betting on the highest common denominator with Road Dog radio's Jimmy Mac
With customary Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills out at the conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies' annual conference today in Nashville, he turns the mic over to contributor, trucker and songwriter Long Haul Paul Marhoefer, who will introduce a trucking-radio personality you may or may not have heard of before who Paul feels is bringing something of a sense of wonder back to trucking radio That’d be none other than Jimmy Mac, host of Dave Nemo Weekends on the Sirius XM Road Dog channel 146. If you’ve never heard Mac, his show aims to truck drivers in the manner of, as Marhoefer put it, talk radio of say "the mid-20th century," long before the "rock-throwing contest began," as it were. "WGN's Milt Rosenberg from Chicago comes to mind, or maybe Barry Farber of WOR, in New York." Jimmy Mac, for Long Haul Paul tuning in from the truck operator's seat from a highway somewhere, "was was speaking with us, and he was speaking as if we were actual adults." That’s a pretty good description of the kind of truly engrossing, entertaining and enlightening talk Jimmy Mac’s doing. Listeners are sure to get something out of Long Haul Paul’s talk with Mac here. Consider it part of Marhoefer’s Faces of the Road series of oral histories he’s been chronicling now for years, featuring individual truck owners and drivers, personalities associated with trucking in music and much more. Find all Faces of the Road installments via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4404196 Also in the podcast. Here's a big congrats to the final four among Overdrive's Small Fleet Champ contenders who competed last night in two categories. Coming out on top were, in the 11-30-truck division, 19-truck Louisiana-headquartered John McGee Trucking, hauling mostly tankers and serving oilfield customers in the wide oil-rich region around the home base: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15295593/john-mcgee-trucking-embraces-golden-rule-toward-steady-growth Then in the 3-10 truck category, hailing from Sanford, Florida, was 5-truck CAP Trucking, the small fleet of LTL Reefer specialist Chris Porricelli, who brought home the title belt there: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15296127/cap-trucking-refocuses-asset-business-in-ltl-reefer
Trucking in a recession? Owner-operators sound off, messages mixed depending on niche
In this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, we drop back two weeks in time to the site of the Mayberry Truck Show in Mt. Airy, North Carolina, where despite rain threatening from remnants of Hurricane Ian, scads of owners and operators showed out in force for the second annual event at the home location of Bottomley Enterprises. Our own video editor Lawson Rudisill was out at the show, and, given fairly recent news of negative GDP growth in both the first and second quarters -- one favored rule of thumb for some when it comes to declaring a recession -- and a stock market on a wild ride, mostly down, Rudisill surveyed a variety of owners he caught up with on what they were seeing in their operations. Answers to the question of just whether owners and operators were seeing indicators in their businesses of a bona fide recession at that moment in time ran the gamut from definitive "yes" to more positive outlooks, based on individual experiences. One common theme: For those staked in trucking for the long-term who can keep close rein on costs, hang on tight and, whatever happens in the wider economy, odds are the tight grip will sustain you. Operator Austin Kiser, who hauls with a pristine 2018 Peterbilt 389 glider for his father's Rosedale, Virginia-based Greg Kiser Trucking, emphasized a have/have-not dynamic for freight lately, trucking along well in his bulk business, still commanding higher rates given the rise in the cost of operations. Stay tuned for an update on Kiser's rig – there’s been quite a lot of work put in, particularly on the 6nz Cat, since we last saw in in spring of 2021 at the East Coast Truckers Jamboree at Kenly 95 in North Carolina: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/article/15065658/austin-kisers-2018-peterbilt-389-at-kenly-95-east-coast-jamboree For others, noted Kiser, rates were just not keeping up with rising costs, and he worried that if the wider economy continues to generally slow or falls off a cliff, equipment/parts costs stood a good chance of overwhelming those who've gotten into the business buying equipment during recent-years price highs. "I wouldn't really call it a recession," he said of the current environment, but considering inflationary pressures, "when it does go down, it's not going to be good." Said Massey Motor Freight fleet owner Troy Massey, also showing at Mayberry, about those inflationary pressures: "Times are about as tough as what you can get right now in trucking" when it comes to costs for fuel, insurance, equipment, and more. Yet: "I may be wrong because I'm optimistic," but "I don't think it's going to get any worse." Here's hoping he's right. Also featured in the podcast: Owner-operators Mel Williams, John Highley and Brent Hall, like operators Brandon Burroughs and John Rooney.
FMCSA's electronic-ID qs, Level 8 wireless inspections, autonomous trucks: Connecting the dots
Former CVSA president Steve Vaughn, currently vice president of field operations for PrePass, stressed asking the tough questions about technology and all the infrastructure put in place to support it when it comes to roadside inspections and over-the-air communication from the truck to law enforcement. Getting answers to those questions, some of which he details in today's edition of Overdrive Radio, will be absolutely key to making any possible rulemakings around electronic ID something industry and enforcement can agree on and benefit from where the rubber meets the road. And hopefully without the unintended consequences that often arise in the rush toward federal implementation of new programs. Overdrive's Alex Lockie wrote about the electronic-ID comment period currently open in this story from Thursday, October 6, 2022: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15301028/electronic-ids-for-trucks-fact-vs-fiction PrePass' Vaughn was speaking long before the FMCSA's current request for comment on the topic, but drew connecting lines between electronic ID (sometimes referred to as "UID") and the agency's long pursuit of so-called "Wireless Roadside Inspections," or WRI, a program to automate both vehicle and driver inspections with communications technology. That's now become a more limited version of what the old WRI program envisioned, in the form of CVSA's Level 8 electronic inspection standard. Study and technology development around WRI go back to at least 2006, when the agency was provided funding for a four-year study that morphed into at least nine years of funded research. "Congress in 2018 told them you’re no longer to spend money on it," Vaughn said, speaking in March at the Truckload 2022 conference in Las Vegas. "You’ve been looking at it for 10 years, that’s enough." Around that same time, though, he added, "we saw it move over to CVSA in the form of a Level 8 inspection." Though the new standard for electronic inspections has been official in CVSA's inspection program since June 2017, "not a single Level 8 inspection [has been] conducted to date," Vaughn said in March. FMCSA's September ANPRM around electronic IDs did note that the agency has been testing Level 8 inspections as a means essentially to do what CVSA Executive Director Collin Mooney described in Alex Lockie's story yesterday, assess basic safety at highway speeds and thus target only trucks, operators and carriers that truly need it. The Level 8 electronic inspection standard itself, as Vaughn noted in his March talk, requires the capture of where the truck is via "GPS coordinates, information about the driver. ... Are they licensed to drive the class of vehicle they’re in, do they have their medical? Hours of service information -- are they current, is it up to date? Skill Performance Evaluation Certificate -- does it meet the requirements? On the vehicle -- DOT number, registration. UCR: is it current? What is the operating authority, and does [the carrier] currently have federal out of service violations?" Vaughn noted an established electronic ID/UID system he viewed as a stepping stone to get there, and the Level 8 as another step toward what CVSA adopted at its most recent meeting, reported on just two days ago, a standard for inspections of automated vehicles. Citing his past with the California Highway Patrol and with CVSA, Vaughn noted that during his 40 years of experience around trucking and government, he's seen the tendency particularly for governments to want to "get a program forward so quickly that they don’t properly vet it all the way through." **Where to comment on FMCSA's electronic-ID ANPRM: https://www.regulations.gov/document/FMCSA-2022-0062-0008 **A tutorial around challenging preventable crashes in FMCSA's fairly new program conducted through the DataQs system: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14897753/how-to-dataq-a-crash-in-new-fmcsa-preventability-program
The spot market slide: Mid-year owner-op numbers illustrate a turn back to leasing, much more
With some of the signs flashing red, as it were, on the prospects of bona fide economic recession, the indicators remained mixed for owner-operator business performance as of a couple weeks ago, the time of ATBS Vice President Mike Hosted's year benchmarking presentation Overdrive originally reported on at this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/partners-in-business/article/15296973/ownerop-revenue-up-big-this-year-but-completely-offset-by-fuel Hosted will be familiar to regular readers from his earlier-year presentation with Overdrive and our own Gary Buchs at the Mid-America Trucking Show, part of our Partners in Business program: http://overdriveonline.com/partners-in-business This edition of Overdrive Radio dives in with Hosted for the bulk of his recent distillation of what ATBS has seen throughout year since. Listeners can glean plenty from this audio-only version, but know that a video version is available that includes most of the charts and graphs illustrating year-over-year comparisons of average revenue, costs and bedrock income that Hosted shared throughout. Find it via this link to Overdrive's Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/Tl6AzI8aJo4 Hosted's insights include plenty in the way broader economic and freight trends data. As rates on the spot markets for freight have continued to slide, ATBS, he said, is starting to see a shift for many owners who went out and got authority during the last couple of spot market boom years -- a move back to leasing as a refuge from declining rates and rising costs. Thanks to our friends at Overdrive sister publication CCJ, we can quantify that anecdotal trend to an extent. Every year, CCJ compiles the Top 250, ranking the most sizable freight carrying trucking fleets in the nation. The rankings are the result in part of surveying those carriers directly, with the survey running typically in the June and July months of the year. This year, 97 out of the top 250 carriers reported numbers of leased-on independent contractors among operators working with them. Comparing that group for this year to what was reported in 2021, there’s been a rise in leased-on independents -- in spite of political and regulatory pressures like California's AB 5 contractor making some carriers skittish about leasing, particularly out West. It's not a big number -- yet. Considered in the aggregate, those 97 major fleets were contracting with 2% more independents in 2022, at the height of the fuel-price shock in those early summer months, than in 2021. Whatever your situation, there's plenty to glean in this week's episode, as Hosted compares the performance of leased dry van, reefer and flatbed owners, likewise independents with motor carrier authority, among ATBS clientele.
Bryon Stoll, survivor: Hindsight's 20/20 after the small fleet owner's heart attack
it’s been a tough few weeks for small fleet owner Bryon Stoll of New London, Wisconsin. In today's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, Stoll recounts the myriad things that went just right on his evening trip to the hospital for what turned out to be emergency surgery to clear a near total blockage of a coronary artery, the reason for the heart attack the 48-year-old longtime truck owner and operator was experiencing. Stoll, with his wife, Holly, heads up reefer carrier Surprise Trucking, who we reported on at length earlier this week attendant to Suprise's semifinalist recognition as part of Overdrive 2022 Small Fleet Championship: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15115044/suprise-truckings-long-road-to-resurrection It’s a more dead-serious topic that dominates Stoll’s story today, though. If you don’t have your life, of course, the day-to-day concerns of a trucking business are but a luxury you’ll never afford. The Stolls know that in a very intimate way after Bryon's experience. A lot went wrong the fateful evening of his heart attack, as he tells it. (His past time as a firefighter and emergency medical technician himself led him to recognize a breakdown in communication between initial emergency dispatch and the ambulance crew that showed up at his home after his wife’s call, for instance.) Yet for everything that went wrong, there was something else that came off just perfectly -- the team of EMTs that did arrive knew just what they were dealing with, and went the extra mile for his life. The Stolls are thankful on that score, no doubt, as are we. Bryon told his story as something of a cautionary tale for any of us listening, particularly those with heart attack risk factors, including a family history of heart ailments.
Used-truck warranty evolution, coverage improvements, and what to consider when evaluating
Wade Bontrager, CEO of National Truck Protection, came to the now more than four-decade provider of used-truck warranties to owner-operators and small fleets owners around the time of NTP's 2018 purchase of Premium 2000, a fellow used-warranty provider. The following years have seen a systematic improvement process for the company, which still offers both NTP and Premium 2000 warranty brands but with a close focus on transparent contracts and more customer-beneficial practices that Bontrager lays out in this podcast. We dig in here, too, with some of the themes unearthed by Overdrive’s own News Editor Matt Cole in a three-part feature about the evolution of the used-truck warranty market. That feature wrapped up yesterday, September 15, at OverdriveOnline.com: https://www.overdriveonline.com/equipment/article/15296811/usedtruck-warranty-dynamics-on-the-move-in-response-to-criticism We hear a lot more from Wade Bontrager, too. His arrival at National Truck Protection in 2018 ushered in a variety of changes in the company’s product offerings that have improved owner-operators’ experience of their used-truck warranties. The changes responded to criticisms that were pretty common among the owner-operator community when it comes to used warranties. Michigan-based small fleet owner Bud Davenport summed up the very bedrock of some of those points of view when he noted that, before he in some ways lucked into used-warranty coverage, his basic thought about any such purchased protection was that it wasn't worth the cost. Yet after he leased a 2016 Cascadia that came with an NTP warranty already on the truck, it proved valuable when he quickly encountered emissions-system issues, an experience echoed by other owner-operators. Since the lease of that Cascadia, small fleet owner-operator Davenport’s been a regular customer of NTP’s with a bevy of purchased used trucks. In short, the evolution of the used-truck warranty market has been generally toward better service, toward more complete coverage of so-called “progressive damages” and, as you’ll hear in this podcast, easier to understand, transparent contracts. Given the high cost of labor and parts in today’s world, not to mention the high cost of used equipment as well, such warranties have taken on new value for used buyers in other ways, too. Read more about the used-truck warranty market in Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole's three-part series on it starting here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/equipment/article/15295619/with-market-strain-owners-find-value-in-usedtruck-warranties
A stolen truck, a freight scam and a big re-evaluation on the road to small fleet success
When Florida-based small fleet owner Chris Porricelli started his CAP Trucking company as a one-truck business, he was still in his 20s, and struggled for the first six months. But 11 years into it today, the five-truck fleet has excelled in North-South LTL reefer lanes with mostly direct customers for produce headed north from Florida and South Georgia, and a bevy of commodities headed south. In this edition of Overdrive Radio, hear Porricelli's story in his own words, with part of our conversation with the owner attendant to his company’s semi-finalist recognition in Overdrive’s 2022 Small Fleet Championship: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15296127/cap-trucking-refocuses-asset-business-in-ltl-reefer CAP Trucking is one of five semi-finalists in the 3-10-truck category for the program this year, with five more contenders also in the 11-30-truck category. Last week, Overdrive started running stories about all 10 of the fleets (with four live so far) and will continue that through the end of the month. Finalists will be announced in early October, with the winner named in a ceremony at the annual conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies October 20-22 in Nashville, Tennessee. (NASTC is the Small Fleet Champ awards' principal sponsor): http://overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ Whether or not you missed the story earlier this week about CAP Trucking, you'll hear in this week's podcast a man in clear control of his business. He's got a real acumen for all the planning and thinking that goes into consolidation of LTL loads, with his family’s lineage extending back four generations in the wholesale produce business at Hunts Point Market in New York City. There, Porricelli cut his teeth as a night receiving foreman before venturing into over-the-road trucking on his own in the early part of the last decade. Getting to where he is today was in no way an easy path for the young man, though. Recent years presented a trifecta of difficulties with a stolen truck, an expensive brush with scam artists, and no shortage of self-reflection after taking on a little too much. It all led him to stark choices that have allowed the business to re-emerge all the better for it. Also in the podcast: Porricelli explains his rationale for moving the business, now in its 12th year, into a S Corp structure for the tax savings and simplification enjoyed there. If you're unfamiliar with the structure, generally it makes sense for an owner-operator when net income exceeds a certain level (the $70,000 annual net figure is often offered as a rule of thumb). Read much more about it in this how-to coverings the questions of why, when and how to make the switch: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15282000/how-to-set-up-an-owneroperator-llc-to-file-as-an-s-corp Hear also about how the owner's refocusing moves in recent years have allowed him to reduce debt loads considerably, and much more.
Get ready for the downturn -- it's always right around the corner
In this Part 2 edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast featuring conversations with Owner-Operator of the Year Glen Horack, the Missouri-based hauler elaborates on themes of preparation broached in Part 1 last week. Asked for his most salient advice for any new or aspiring owner in this day and age, he made reference to the grand cyclical nature of the economy -- and trucking specifically of course. What goes up must come down. The owner-operator, leased with his 2022 Peterbilt 579 to Springfield, Missouri-headquartered Prime Inc., was speaking in June and noted market dynamics then evident that suggested to him the turn was either at hand or right around the corner. Through Prime's driver app, "They send us a message every day ... as to what fuel's going to do at midnight," he said, advance notice of pending price changes for effective foresight for purchase decisions. At that time in June when we talked, he noted diesel had been occasionally going "down for one or two days. Then it'll go up the next five days or so in a row. And it'll go up much quicker than it'll go down." With that he laughed at the end of it, one of those kinds of chuckles you might have to let fly to keep from crying. Get ready, build your cash reserves, however you do it -- and before you get in business, he emphasized for those new to trucking. "Don't try to operate on a shoestring," Horack said. Sooner or later, he added, with a big downturn typical for freight markets about every 10 years, if not more frequently, you're definitely going to need that nest egg. Also in the podcast: Owner-operator Horack today teams with his wife, Karla, whose acumen for cooking on the truck has enabled the pair run a lean operation, not just in the financial sense. Karla’s cooking methods and recipes are diverse, yet her in-cab cooking equipment is just a single, quite versatile piece. The Horacks are no doubt looking forward to enjoying some time at home with family and friends next weekend as the 9th Annual Sam Biggs Memorial Bike Show and Poker Run, a benefit to research into childhood cancers, is set for Sept. 10, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. at American Legion Post 639, 2660 S. Scenic Ave. in Springfield, Missouri. Glen is a cofounder of the event, with its brainchild owner-operator Thomas Miller. Miller's a fellow past Owner-Operator of the Year. (The event today, with a subsequent effort in Illinois, is more than just the two owner-operators’ baby, though. It’s a big-tent effort involving family, friends and the community at large.) Find more about it via this link: https://bikeweekevents.com/motorcycle-events/sam-biggs-memorial-bike-show-and-poker-run/ Read more about Glen Horack's history in business: https://www.overdriveonline.com/owner-operator-of-the-year/article/15294600/top-ownerop-in-good-shape-for-run-toward-the-finish-line Read more about Thomas Miller: https://www.overdriveonline.com/owner-operator-of-the-year/article/14887997/prime-owner-operator-thomas-miller-named-overdrives-2014-owner-operator-of-the-year-wins-25k-cash
'Knock on wood,' owner-op of the year Glen Horack's money-making ways set to grow
This edition of Overdrive Radio features Owner-Operator of the Year Glen Horack, based in Elkland, Missouri, and so named in Overdrive’s coproduction of the awards program with the Truckload Carriers Association at the TCA annual conference in March in Las Vegas. Horack teams with his wife, Karla, a hauling partnership whose in-cab portion at least started after the one year -- 'knock on wood," Horack said -- his one-truck business truly struggled, 2008. The depths of the Great Recession. Running team in the aftermath, as you’ll hear in this part 1 of 2 featuring Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills' June 2022 conversations the Horacks, the pair came out from under debt taken on as freight fell off quickly. It's a testament to the owners’ ability to adjust their reefer-hauling operation alongside three-decade partners in Prime, Inc., out of Springfield, Missouri, where they're still leased. Hear both speak to the business, the experience of training each other (of a fashion) when Karla got her CDL, and so much more about their partnership growth in-cab. You'll hear some of Glen’s history trucking alongside his family life; a a per-mile set-aside strategy developed over the years to guard against the potential for unforeseen repairs; white-out, white-knuckle blizzard conditions in Nebraska … And so much from their lives in business. Read more about Glen and Karla in this feature profile published in early in August 2022: https://www.overdriveonline.com/owner-operator-of-the-year/article/15294600/top-ownerop-in-good-shape-for-run-toward-the-finish-line
Listen back: The 20% rule -- how brake adjustment violations can put your truck out of service
Ahead of Brake Safety Week 2022, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance weeklong outreach and inspection initiative focused on braking systems and starting this Sunday, Aug. 21, we're listening back to the 2021 Overdrive Radio podcast talk with Pennsylvania-based former local-department officer and long-certified DOT inspector Andy Blair. Looking at the landscape for commercial truck inspections generally, Blair sees plenty missed opportunities when it comes to troopers helping truckers to understand out-of-service violations. All too frequently, violations that put an owner-op or other driver out of service simply aren't explained at the point of inspection. Too many trucking companies large and small don't invest in the CVSA out-of-service criteria handbook, the only place you'll find those criteria in all their minutiae, according to Blair. The equipment category that takes up the largest number of pages therein? Brakes, of course, and specifically clamp-type drum brakes. In this edition of Overdrive Radio, Blair runs through the specifics of the "20% rule" when it comes to clamp-type brake adjustment, among the most common of brake violations. Fundamentally, as he outlined in a document that's excerpted here below, if 20% or greater percentage of a truck's brakes are defective, that unit is out of service. With the Brake Safety Week inspection blitz kicking off nationwide Sunday, listen back to my full discussion with Blair, and find distilled information from him via the post that houses the podcast: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15114023 In addition to Blair's considered thoughts, in the wake of the podcast's original airing in August of 2021, Kansas Highway Patrol Public Information Officer and trooper/inspector Nick Wright offered some points of clarity about roadside realities when it comes to out-of-service brake adjustment, with a real-world example to illustrate it, you can read via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15114162/outofservice-adjustment-more-on-roadside-brake-violations
The expert songwriting of Ky.-based hauler Coby Langham -- and a special truck, on a special day
Today we hand it off again to "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer to walk us through the moving, sometimes hilarious, writing of trucker-songwriter Coby Langham & the Citizen Band, whose 2019 “Years on the Road” record made plenty waves around his native Kentucky and beyond. Langham drives for likewise Kentucky-headquartered Downey & Sons, a pallet supplier out of Springfield, and he’s a proud father of three. Hear more of Langham's music via this link: https://open.spotify.com/album/3c5Vvtgk1sEhmGYgRxOaN0?si=FUHOKkIjRG-lBsnruRh4-g&nd=1 Also in the podcast, Overdrive Executive Editor Alex Lockie's interview of Arien Ruell around his beautiful 800-horsepower, 1993 vintage Peterbilt 379, with a spectacular 80s-built sleeper and custom stretch that hauls mostly overweight, sometimes oversize, loads out of Pennsylvania to points west and South. Lockie caught up with owner-operator Ruell at the GearJammer show two weeks back in New Hampshire. It's a special truck, for Ruell something of a monument to relationships forged through history in and around and under the machine. Catch more views of it in Lockie's story about it here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/article/15295340/800horse-93-peterbilt-ten-dimes-with-ownerop-arien-ruell As you'll hear in the episode, it turned out to be a special day for Ruell, too.
Remembering owner-operators Mark Mills, Jeff Seales on tough week for show hauler Clark Transfer
This edition of Overdrive Radio features a talk with Charlie Deull, third generation in the family behind longtime Broadway show hauler (among other touring acts) Clark Transfer, based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Today, the company is principal in touring work all around the nation hauled by owner-operators leased on to the company, in addition to a network of outside agents, including many owner-ops and small fleets with authority among them, too. Deull we spoke to initially this Spring, and some since, about the company’s efforts to bounce back from the big hit the COVID-19 pandemic put on the business. Coming out of it in the last year or so as big touring acts have returned in earnest, the company’s changed up parts of its contractor compensation package in unique ways. Clark is among the very, very few carriers out there offering a minimum guaranteed revenue to owners who lease there, for one, and for two, guaranteeing their fuel surcharge as a backstop for the less-fuel-efficient amid rising prices. Overdrive Editor and podcast host Todd Dills wrote a feature about the company that regular Overdrive readers among you may have seen last month, too, detailing some of the changes: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15294151/guaranteed-revenue-for-owneroperators-clark-transfer-commits In the course of Dills' research for the story, Charlie Deull sent along a contact for owner-operator Jeff Seales, among the company’s longest-tenured contracting owner-operators at upward of three decades. This week, planning to revisit Deull's talk for the podcast audience, we learned that Seales had passed unexpectedly. It’s been a tough week for everyone at Clark Transfer on account of it, as well as the reality that another owner, working with the company since 2018, also passed within days of Seales. His name was Mark Mills. In the tribute to owner-operator Mills posted earlier this week to Clark Transfer’s Facebook page, the company noted he leaves behind his wife, Kelly, and a young daughter, McKenna, among other family. His first run for Clark Transfer in 2018 was hauled between Harrisburg and York in Pennsylvania, the company noted -– a relatively short drive that ended up under difficult circumstances taking 12 long hours of blizzard-battling. But he got there. The show went on. Mills had worked on a variety of productions, but had consistenly been with the band Chicago off and on since 2019. The Chicago crew set up a GiveSendGo page to help his family: http://givesendgo.com/morethanlifemark Both owner-operators Mills and Seales, it’s certain, will be missed. Condolences to the families. Hear much more about both men, as well as Clark's lease program, in the podcast.
Independents/private fleets connection engine, a haul for breast cancer, and a legend remembered
In this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, we'll drop into an interview Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole conducted with Arrive Logistics Chief Strategy Officer J-Ann Tio, about the broker-3PL’s “We Deliver Flexibility” program. The trial run for the program is getting its footing as a connection engine between independent owner-operators and small fleets in Arrive’s network and larger private fleets the company also does business with. The Arrive program, as Tio notes, hopes to alleviate issues on both sides of the coin, for owner-operators enduring the deflationary rates environment in the spot market and for private fleets needing safe and professional capacity. It could well be a way into new opportunities for owners both inside and out of Arrive’s network, as Tio describes it, in fact -- a chance to develop new contracts for freight with large clients that might typically not have much of an interest doing direct business with smaller fleets. There’s more in today’s episode, though, too. If you've missed it as yet, hear our own "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer’s moving eulogy for Ken “Shoestring” Waugh, part of Overdrive's "Over the Road" collaboration with PRX’s Radiotopia podcast network. And: Catch the latest from trucker-songwriter extraordinaire Tony Justice. Justice delivered a $33,000-plus check to the Susan G. Komen Foundation for breast cancer awareness and research this Monday in Nashville. After that presentation out front of the Country Music Hall of Fame, we sat with Justice and his wife, Misty, to hear about the haul raised by the well more than 100 owner-operators, small fleet owners, show vendors and more who participated in the first-ever Large Cars and Guitars truck show in Kodak, Tennessee, back in May. And there’s a bonus in that conversation, too: Team Justice has big things planned for the new year, with a newly-custom-wrapped 2002 Prevost they've started using for their music work. And, no, contrary to any road rumors you may have heard, Justice hasn't yet hung up the keys the rig he pilots for Everhart Transportation out of Greeneville, Tennessee. Explore the Arrive Logistics "We Deliver Flexibility" effort via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15294095/new-program-connecting-ownerops-private-fleets Hear more from past episodes in the Over the Road podcast series: https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4405867
Tank operator Guy Archer on the roll, trucking with new music
Dayton, Ohio-based Airgas tank-truck operator Guy Archer has come out of his big win in 2021's Overdrive-Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search with renewed energy around his songwriting efforts -- he’s been much more than tinkering around the edges of those efforts with some recording activity this year we’ll hear him detail in this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, dropping in on Archer’s tour of a variety of songwriter stages at the Mid-America Trucking Show this past March. There, Archer delighted crowds who showed out to see our own "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer, among others, and Archer enjoyed a featured performance at the big Red Eye Radio stage in the main lobby, where he opened with, what else, his Talent Search-winning "Heavy Load" original. The tour around MATS followed an invite to the RoadPro Brands dinner there, which spurred him to make the decision to trek to Louisville for his first time at the show in more than 20 years. In the podcast, hear a talk with him through his recent recordings of originals "The Long Way Around" and "In the Dust," as well as his four-song effort on the Red Eye stage at MATS. Hope you enjoy. Hear more from his Nashville recording session last year, part of the prize for his Talent-Search win: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15286237/trucker-talent-search-winner-guy-archer-live-from-studio-session At Archer's Youtube channel you can hear ongoing recording efforts: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvYtaTEfE-wcfgHYNm2nj7A
Drive to small-biz trucking success -- living and learning, pride of ownership on offer at Walcott
Gary Buchs -- longtime Overdrive contributor, former owner-operator now turned business coach for a myriad of both new and more experienced owners -- knows well of what he speaks with regard to the notion that first-time small business owners are like as not to fail that first time out. There's a reason he's where he is today after a successful owner-operator career, after all -- his first foray as a young man in agriculture didn't go quite so well. Initial failure doesn't mean, of course, that the drive to success stops in its tracks, and what he’s finding this week in that regard on-site at the Walcott Truckers Jamboree in Iowa is the principal subject for this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast. "In this country, I don't see us ever losing that drive to become that small owner of a business," Buchs said. "It's our culture." Buchs spoke to several recently former owners who'd "gotten a truck, had an accident" or other mishap that put them out of business "because of the hardship." But there they were, back out at the truck show, "with the personal instinct and drive to pursue that path again, acknowledging the mistakes they made." Going to annual gatherings all around the nation just like the long-running Walcott Truckers Jamboree at the Iowa 80 Truck Stop, Buchs added, can "give you the motivation to get better, and we learn so much."
Two show-ready rigs -- and owners -- moving toward retirement in style: Meet Bruce and Kellie Cone
The subject of retirement is always a hot topic among owner-ops -- the diligence it requires to set yourself up well to leave the road is such that it's not exactly easily achievable. Yet this well-matched pair of owner-operators -- Bruce and Kellie Cone of Redding, California -- have set themselves up well as they start to run out their last half-decade in business. That's the long-range plan, anyway, for the proud of owners of a pristine pair of Peterbilt 389s you'll hear all about in this edition of Overdrive Radio. It jumps off with the sound of the antique train bell that’s mounted under the deck of owner-operator Kellie Cone’s 2022 Peterbilt 389. The bell’s activated by the in-cab switch that formerly controlled the sliding fifth wheel – which slides no longer, as you’ll hear her tell. Kellie comes from an education background career-wise, originally, but several years back met Bruce and took to trucking in an outsize way originally on ridealong trips in-cab with the third-generation owner-operator. Bruce has hauled longtime for direct customers in California and Oregon, today mostly home every night after a 30-year career that took him all over the Western States and occasionally farther afield. Bruce and Kellie aren’t team operators, though. Bruce’s own 2020 389 replaced a 2010 that Kellie got her start in as an owner-operator before upgrading to the 2022. Both rigs we caught a close look at out at the A.J. Soza Memorial Truck Show two weeks ago in Merced, in "sunny" California, as they say. The old adage didn’t disappoint -- there wasn’t a drop of rain in sight for the show, and temps rose in the afternoon above 100 on the mercury. The heat, the then-specter of the AB 5 contractor law coming into play, $7-plus diesel and everything else the state has thrown at the trucking world in recent memory didn’t tamp down the spirits of the owner-ops we’ll hear from today. Also in the podcast: we’ll hear from another owner, one in his very early days trucking – Tony Gonzalez. Like the Cones, it's clear Gonzalez has the bull by the horns, so to speak. Get a closer look at Gonzalez' rig, leased to his father's San Miguel Transportation under-10-truck small fleet, via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/video/15293971/owneroperator-tony-gonzalez-and-his-2015-peterbilt-379
OTR to home: Making local trucking work with Mike 'The Boston Trucker' Gaffin, Terry Shelton
It was 2017 when Mike Gaffin, aka "The Boston Trucker," received an email from Shell Rotella SuperRigs inviting him to join their team. Over the past several years, Gaffin, a second-generation operator with more than 30 years of experience behind the wheel, had been converting his lifetime love of trucking, and a decades long photographic curation of the business, into one of the largest followings on social media. His likes and views run into the tens of millions, driven largely by his huge Youtube collection: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheBostonTrucker Still, Gaffin initially dismissed Rotella's proposal as a crank email. But after a phone call, it turned out the offer was legitimate. Gaffin, who still trucks full-time doing local work for A. Cardillo and Sons in Waltham, Massachusetts, has joined the Rotella SuperRigs team at select shows throughout the country ever since. Overdrive contributor Long Haul Paul Marhoefer caught up with Gaffin at the Mid-America Trucking Show back in March. Also on the podcast: Another local hauler whose first love was OTR hauling -- and who, like Gaffin, well understands the pressures on, and the difficulties of, life back home for those over the road. Terry Shelton’s road to hauling in a dump truck in the region around Sevierville, Tennessee, flowed through his trucking family growing up farther east in Martinsville, Virginia, and a personal tragedy that befell his family back home that, though long ago, haunts his time on-highway to this day.
What if you didn't need 10 after 11 or 14 in the hours of service? Lee Schmitt aims to find out
For this edition of Overdrive Radio, host Todd Dills is joined by Lee and Lisa Schmitt of Wisconsin. As regular readers may well be aware, Lee's requested as exemption from parts of the hours of service for himself -- it’s the first such exemption request for an individual owner we’ve seen hit the Federal Register and go up for comment, in quite some time, a testament perhaps to the methodical nature of the Schmitts' pursuit of it. It’s not like it's particularly difficult, though, to break through the dam, as it were, of the federal regulatory system, as Lisa notes in the podcast. Exemption requests and what's required of them are laid in the regs themselves, in 49 CFR 381.310. Having essentially followed the instructions laid out there, the Schmitts' request was posted to the Federal Register and put up for comment last week, and since then 600 comments have been filed. But there’s been some confusion among some in the Overdrive audience about just what Lee Schmitt is asking for here. In a word, flexibility -- to use a daily 11 hours’ worth of driving however he sees fit. He asks for exemption from the requirement to take a 10-hour break, from the 14-hour rule daily duty maximum, from the cumulative 60 in 7 days and/or 70 in 8 days duty limitations. But, crucially, not from the 11-hour maximum daily drive time limits, a fact lost on some readers who didn’t fully engage with the hours of service exemption request’s summary, as Lee notes in the podcast today. Comments on the exemption request are open through July 11: https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FMCSA-2022-0099 Also in today's podcast: We pause to remember owner-operator Troy Huddleston of Illinois, who passed away unexpectedly June 7. He was just 54 years old, and at the Shell Rotella SuperRigs competition this past weekend, owner-operators there who knew him memorialized Huddleston in a few ways, including by placing a signature of Huddleston's, a black Roadworks ball cap, over their hood ornaments. On the podcast we air for listeners recollections of and tributes to owner-operator Huddleston, with several owners Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole caught up with at the event. Catch a video version of the recollections via this link, if you missed it as yet: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15293098/owneroperators-pay-tribute-to-fellow-owner-friend-troy-huddleston Our sincerest condolences to Huddleston's family.
California trucking crossroads: $7 fuel, AB 5 and a special truck show in the offing
Small fleet car-haul owner-operator C.G. Soza of California's Central Valley has quite a lot on his plate these days, not the least of which is the $7-plus diesel sign he saw early this week in Madera, California, a first for the owner. He's also keeping a close eye on the Supreme Court, which is set to conference June 23 and possibly make its decision as to whether it will take up federal pre-emption questions in the California Trucking Association's appeal of its case again the AB 5 state contractor law's application to trucking. If the Supreme Court doesn’t take up the case, that day could be quite eventuful for Soza and scads of other small fleet owners who, like Soza, contract with leased owner-operators -- and plenty California-based leased owner-operators themselves, of course. As if they didn’t already have enough to contend with when it comes to business difficulties in the now extremely-high-fuel state. June 23 also happens to be a set-up day for Soza's A.J. Soza Memorial Truck Show, kicking off the following day at the Merced County Fairgrounds and featuring an old-school truck rodeo, likely well upward of 100 rigs showing out, and much more, as you'll hear in this edition of Overdrive Radio. Also in the podcast: Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole sets the scene at the Shell Rotella SuperRigs event ongoing at a unique location in Branson, Missouri, and lays out recent AB 5 developments he's reported on this week. Read more about the A.J. Soza Memorial Truck Show, benefiting a foundation C.G. Soza has established for dyslexic youth in his area: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15279541/aj-soza-memorial-truck-show-2022-dates-set
What a three-year expediter and 2021 Small Fleet Champ Jason Cowan have in common
The question begged in the title here points us down the road to the subject of this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, a notion voiced quite well also in last week's edition by Breon Thomas when he noted that entrepreneurship, broadly, is about creating systems of support for your efforts at success in business. Systems, indeed, of support to ensure you negotiate the next load at a level of profit commensurate to keep the business afloat, feed and clothe and shelter the family back home, and leave plenty to invest in the future. If it’s growth that you’re after, beyond a single truck -- or cargo van, the case is in Thomas's world -- you won't get a much better example of systems-focused pursuit of success than the 2021 Small Fleet Champ, Silver Creek Transportation and its leader, Jason Cowan. Cowan's investment in people and data-engagement systems underpins a company culture that’s about well more than operating at a profit. His example speaks to the value of the right team, and a clear vision. As recently as 2019, as regular readers and Overdrive Radio listeners will know, the business sat at jut 9 trucks after a couple decades and more in existence. Cowan assembled a brain trust made up of sons Zane and Zebb Cowan, already involved in the family business, and many others, with a goal of figuring out how to reach a growth goal of 30 trucks. COVID set them back a bit, particularly when it comes to new equipment purchases, but by this spring the company was just about there. Maintaining a culture that emphasizes personal growth for all involved, to the ultimate benefit of the entire company, is a challenge that’s always top of mind and that has helped drive growth, too. None of it has been easy to do or maintain when fuel is $5 or $6 a gallon and demand is sliding, but Silver Creek’s well poised to ride the waves with a diversified mix of freight running on dry bulk and liquid tankers, flatbeds, dry vans and more. Cowan’s systems-focused approach to safety, compliance, maintenance and the rest of it ultimately makes for what is a great example of trucking excellence. Talk a walk down Silver Creek's "safety lane" between the side entrance and the shop with Cowan, Safety Director Amber Jenkins, and shop manager Zane Cowan in today's podcast. Read more about Jason Cowan and 2021 Small Fleet Champ Silver Creek Transportation: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15291067/a-vision-for-growth-jason-cowan-silver-creek-transportation Enter your small fleet in the 2022 Small Fleet Championship: http://overdriveonline.com/2022SFC
Limits to the cargo-van hustle: Bre the Xpediter stresses business-systems value to break through
The nimble nature of businesses working the expediting niche of the trucking world, particularly those powered by smaller pieces of equipment like cargo vans, is well-known to longtime industry participants. Atlanta-based Breon Thomas was initially attracted to cargo van expediting for that very reason, yet he quickly learned there was more to successful business ownership than working hard and running miles. Today, after telling his story and sharing with others frequently on social media, "Bre the Xpediter" Thomas is driven by a passion to give a hand up to the next generation of owners from his community coming up behind him. In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, the Chattanooga, Tennessee-born cargo van hauler recounts his journey from early battles with dyslexia to a military career and the tough transition back to civilian life. It's there, though, that he located a significant aptitude for serving as a kind of translator of the language of business/entrepreneurship to the aspirational among all sorts of folks who’ve gotten a glimpse of the cargo van expediting niche and the business ownership potential within it. Part of his source material? Near the end of our last conversation, one of two leading up to this podcast, he noted that, among other resources, he’d found Overdrive’s Partners in Business manual and online series to be particularly useful for aspiring business owners. You can download the updated 2022 edition of the book via this linke: http://OverdriveOnline.com/pib Read more about the cargo van expediting niche via this link to a feature series originally published in 2019: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14896131/the-lowdown-on-downsizing-hauling-in-the-cargo-van-ownerop-niche Find Breon Thomas via his Youtube channel -- https://www.youtube.com/brethexpediter -- and Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SEEHimEnterprise/
How politics/PR cloud 'zero emissions trucks' reality -- digging into recent ATRI analysis
Does a truly "zero-emissions" truck exist? Is it even possible in today's petroleum-powered world? Will it ever be? If you’ve counted yourself among skeptics when it comes to the notion that trucking might one day be an industry built on the foundation of big lithium-ion batteries powering electric motors, Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole's report this week on new analysis from the American Transportation Research Instituate, or ATRI, probably raised your eyebrows a little higher, let’s say: https://www.overdriveonline.com/equipment/article/15291919/environmental-impact-of-batteryelectric-class-8-trucks ATRI compared estimated life-cycle CO2 greenhouse gas emissions associated with battery electric trucks, diesel trucks, and hydrogen fuel cell trucks from production through to operation and ultimate disposal and found skeptics might well be justifiably skeptical. Life-cycle emissions were highest over time for diesels, as Cole reported, but ultimately not by an amount implied by the hype that proselytizers of electric-drive technology bring to the discussion with the "zero emissions" terminology. In this edition of Overdrive Radio, drop into an in-depth discussion Cole had with ATRI Vice President Dan Murray. Beyond the emissions analysis, which we’ll hear a lot about throughout the podcast, early on in the conversation Cole raised brass-tacks issues ATRI’s report touches on -- practical considerations for trucking companies of any size when considering current/future investment potential in a battery-electric vehicle, particularly. Cutting through the hype around electric trucks, the fundamental, practical picture is not a pretty one, today often enough wrapped in a shiny package that obscures the reality. Also in the podcast: For listeners, an introduction to the Danville, Kentucky-based operation of owner-operator Darrell Estes, whose pristine pair of 1980s Peterbilt 359s we got a close look at during last week’s Large Cars and Guitars truck show in Kodak, Tennessee. Regular Overdrive readers may have seen those rigs in the video we shared earlier this week featuring both, a 1987 and a fully custom-restored 1984 showpiece. Estes’ story extends back to when the latter rig was but a young pup, and he worked around it with its then owner, hauling long-distance coal north from the mines of Eastern Kentucky. Follow this link to the video, if you missed it: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/video/15291930/darrell-estes-pair-of-custom-1984-87-peterbilt-359s
Fuel-market insanity: A tale of two loads, bedrock cost control, rates-management tactics
It’s official –- well, it’s been official for a good while now -– fuel is absolutely out of hand. Spot market rates for vans and reefers have been sinking, and big carriers nonetheless seem bullish on long-term prospects, for once in the last couple of years. These years have been a boon by and large for the small, even with COVID-inspired difficulties: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15115093/how-small-fleets-might-benefit-from-a-covid-vaxtest-mandate Market-to-market, though, there are plenty of freight and rate have-and-have-not dynamics to go around. An object lesson came via a conversation this week with owner-operator Mike “Mustang” Crawford. The owner-operator, whose Mustang’s Trucking business reached the 4 million safe miles mark above the frame of a single truck last week, told the story of a roundtrip with intracompany picks and drops at the same facilities on either end of the lane between Harvey, Illinois, and Phoenix. From Harvey, the all-in rate (with a fuel surcharge on a contract load) was more than $6,000, on 1,700 miles of hauling, with a flatbed. The next run, coming straight back to Harvey from the same place he'd just delivered to in Phoenix, was priced just a couple hundred dollars more than $3,000 for the same 1700-some loaded miles. The difference? The market the freight's coming out of, foregrounding the importance of freight choosiness for owner-operators as markets loosen up from historically high levels of tightness experienced in the last year. Phoenix is a place Crawford notes has always been problematic for good rates on flatbed loads -- flatbed spot rate averages, according to DAT analytics, outbound from Phoenix to markets in Missouri and Indiana in the last week were well less than even the van averages, for instance, at around about $2.30 and a $1.90 respectively. Crawford got close to the average outbound with a healthy 79-cent-a-mile fuel surcharge built into the rate both inbound and outbound from Phoenix and covering $4.70 worth of every gallon burned. Flatbed’s generally held up well when it comes to spot rates through the recent oil-market turmoil, but the same can’t be said for vans and reefers. Overdrive 2021 Small Fleet Champ Jason Cowan, of Silver Creek Transportation, told of his efforts to negotiate a spot van load coming out of Utah a few weeks ago where the broker offered a paltry $1.70/mile, which he noted might barely cover the operating cost and driver pay for the long run back to the Midwest. Today on Overdrive Radio, it bears repeating that there’s a strong negotiating tool any truck owner has in the arsenal -– the right of refusal: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/14897683/best-freight-negotiations-tool-for-owneroperators A smart broker might try to get what he/she can out of the rate, but should also know well what transport providers are paying for fuel and everything else. Consider your own pay as an expense pre-negotiation, and feeling "lucky to break even," as a truck owner relatively new to the business told National Public Radio in a segment that aired just yesterday, isn't going to cut it. As a wise man once said, speaking at the depths of the pandemic, ‘You will never, ever, come out ahead running at a loss.’ Find more on the fuel market in today's Overdrive Radio from David Owen, manager of the largest OTR diesel account in the nation -- the Quality Plus Network fuel program of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies. More, too, from Jason Cowan of Silver Creek about his dual bulk-delivery and fuel-card strategy for pump price discounts. Read Cowan's story with Silver Creek: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15291067/a-vision-for-growth-jason-cowan-silver-creek-transportation Also as noted in the podcast, entries are open for small fleet owners for the 2022 Small Fleet Champ award. Enter here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/page/2022SFC
'All drivers': Support, recruiting inclusivity highlight mission of LGBTQ+ Truck Driver Network
Cliffside Transportation Services operator Bobby Coffey-Loy hauls in a team with his husband, Ricky, and in one of a couple dozen or so rigs Cliffside has dedicated to XPO Logistics freight in the network. In this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, Coffey-Loy speaks to the mission of his and cofounders’ LGBTQ+ Truck Driver Network, established within the last year and engaged in a variety of support efforts for operators all around the nation: https://lgbtqtruckdrivernetwork.com/ Ricky and Bobby Coffey-Loy haul pharmaceuticals in a 2020 Volvo VNL outfitted with a 156-inch big-bunk ARI sleeper, not the only one in the fleet at Cliffside Transportation Services. Since getting acclimated to big-bunk trucking, Bobby's found the rig to be something of a literal life-changer. He's gone from 300-plus pounds down to around 240 in a fairly short time, with a focus on cooking for himself, as also detailed in the podcast. Here, sit on a conversation Overdrive had with Coffey-Loy at the 50th anniversary edition of the Mid-America Trucking Show last month, where the LGBTQ network made its truck-show debut to the delight of plenty at the Kentucky Exposition Center there. The West Wing booth's Mardi Gras beads were a hit – scads of folks were present on the show floor wearing them, likewise network lanyards for attendee badges you’ll hear Coffey-Loy talk about. It's all part of a mission in part to increase LGBTQ+ visibility among the trucking community, but also to make good on its "All Drivers Means All" motto. To that end, too, Coffey-Loy details a program the network has embarked upon to honor drivers lost on the road with messages and other tokens of support delivered to their families. Since the MATS show, he said this morning, the network has been getting quite a number of people "wanting a loved one honored and recognized by the Driver Memorial Program. ... We honor all drivers with this program, LGBTQ or not." Also, more companies have stepped up to "become a part of the network we are creating and vetting ... as LGBTQ+-friendly places to work." The organization adds such companies to this page: https://lgbtqvetted.com/ Also in the podcast, we pause to remember an owner-operator lost. My own interaction with Randy Cunha through recent years wasn’t extensive, by any means, but I’ll say that when we spoke attendant to my reporting on heavy-specialized hauling in the Spring of 2020, just as Cunha was winding down his own business toward retirement, the man I spoke to then was clearly an incarnation of the very best in the business of trucking as an owner-operator. He’d become that after a career that spanned five decades and ended on a nice high note -- with a run of very good years under his own authority, heavy and oversize permits and all. In the podcast, catch much more about that directly from a man who knew him much better than me, our own "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15291259/remembering-heavyspecialized-owneroperator-randy-cunha
How this hauler for some of the biggest names in popular music survived COVID
In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, trucker-songwriter and Overdrive Extra contributing writer "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer takes us through his interview at the Mid-America Trucking Show last month with longtime entertainment-industry-specialized trucker Chip Warterfield, now in a safety and operations role with Upstaging, Inc. Warterfield tells the story of what happened to the company when COVID in 2020 essentially brought every single one of its touring clients to an abrupt and complete halt. Warterfield also speaks of his own trucking beginnings back in the 1980s. If Warterfield’s name sounds familiar, you may have caught his story of an early trucking mentor, Kenny Jones, the father of Barbara Mandrell’s then steel guitar player, Mike Jones. Kenny spent his entire career trucking in some form or another and taught Warterfield perhaps more than he knew back at that time: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15290773/a-trucking-tribute-to-kenny-jones-invaluable-driving-mentor Read more from Marhoefer here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/authors/contact/14865330/long-haul-paul
Meet your regulator -- FMCSA chief Robin Hutcheson -- and post-PIB biz talk, part 2
It’s "meet your regulator" day on Overdrive Radio -- there’s plenty to gain, particularly for those of you in the audience who engage with regulatory processes, in getting to know, of a fashion, FMCSA Acting Administrator Robin Hutcheson. For this edition of the podcast, we’ll hear Hutcheson speak at length to the notion of dwindling pride in trucking and investment in its restoration, plenty about her background, FMCSA's regulatory programs, and the agency's parking advocacy role, among other topics. It's all part of a talk she gave with reporters from trucking media to answer pre-submitted questions at the Mid-American Trucking Show last month. While there wasn’t much in the way of hard news that emerged from the session, hear it in full today. Find a previously-published report from the session at this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15290156/fmcsas-new-boss-emphasizes-compensation-detention-issues Then, perhaps more importantly, we’ll pick up where we left off in the last podcast from Overdrive's post-Partners in Business seminar discussion at MATS with a cross section of owners about business preparation and planning, about cost and revenue strategies, about income, difficulty and success with owner-operators Raeshawn Lucas and David Nihart, budding small fleet owner Pete Anderson, and others. If you missed Part 1 of that discussion, find it here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15290751/why-do-truck-drivers-get-into-business-as-owneroperators Access more information about participating in the Truck Leasing Task Force Administrator Hutcheson discusses in the podcast via: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15290608/fmcsa-accepting-nominations-for-truck-leasing-task-force Overdrive's 2021 reporting on Florida DOT's parking-funding successes, also mentioned, you can find here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15064912/the-truck-parking-impact-of-jasons-law-after-nearly-a-decade
Why truck drivers get into business as owner-operators
As Georgia-headquartered owner-operator Raeshawn Lucas has it, higher earning potential as an owner-operator is certainly a prime motivating factor for the decision to strike out on one's own as a business in trucking. Yet that's certainly not all when it comes bedrock goals. Respect, freedom of choice in so many aspects of how you do business... Truth is, owner-operators go into business for themselves for all sorts of reasons, and that was well evident in the discussion we had at the Mid-America Trucking Show with owner-operator Lucas, leased under a longtime friend and associate's authority; Landstar-leased David Nihart, who's worn a variety of trucking hats over a long career so far; and Pete Anderson of Georgetown, Texas, a vocational fleet manager with plans to move into over-the-road as a small fleet owner. That conversation followed Overdrive’s Partners in Business seminar at MATS with ATBS Vice President Mike Hosted and Overdrive’s own Gary Buchs, both of whom you'll also hear in today's Overdrive Radio episode, in addition to the three owners. If you missed the PIB session, find a full video of it here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/partners-in-business/video/15290282/record-owneroperator-income-could-be-longerterm-trucking-trend Sit in on the first part of a wide-ranging discussion for insights on: **The benefits and tradeoffs of filing taxes as an S Corp. **Why independents' quality-of-life goals can explain an outsize drop in miles for year 2021. **The value of a large leasing partner in a high-fuel-cost environment. **Fuel-purchasing strategy to make sure you're getting the best price (minus state taxes). And more. Part 2 of the conversation will follow in the next Overdrive Radio edition. If you haven't as yet, you can download the Partners in Business manual, coproduced with ATBS, via this link: https://register.overdriveonline.com/pib-manual/
Out on 'The Big Road' with a new podcast, small fleet TMS for back-office/operator management
It's been quite a while since the Overdrive Radio podcast has attempted to capture the vast dynamism of a trucking show quite like the one that took place for the first time in three years in Kentucky last week -- that's the Mid-America Trucking Show, MATS for short, of course. It'll be quite some time before we convey the full breadth of everything encountered there, but for today on this April Fool's Day edition of the Overdrive Radio we'll get to two aspects: first with the voice of a brand-new podcast, none other than a longtime operator now operating a custom trucking video company, James "Tex" Crowley, out now with the intro episode of 'The Big Road' you can hear in full in today's edition. The show is inspired in part by his career behind the wheel, and a real passion for trucking, generally, as you'll hear. Before we get there, though, a look at one among scads of new Transportation Management Systems geared toward the smallest of carriers popping up around the trucking technology landscape: the Lynks TMS is targeted not only to small carriers but to shippers and brokers as well as a way to grease the skids for dispatch management, invoicing for collections, management of supporting documents out on the road for drivers utilizing the associated Lynks app, and more. It's live commercially as of today, April 1, and it joins a growing subset of the big TMS software market, including the recent Command system from the Trucker Path company, among many others that are geared toward speeding up the digital handoff between carriers and their customers, and operators in the field. There’s utility there, as Lynks' George Thellman explains, for one-truck independents, and particularly those who want to set themselves up with back-office tools as they grow beyond that one truck. The Lynks TMS: https://lynks2go.com/ James Crowley's Texas Media Foundry website: https://www.thetexasmediafoundry.com/
Meet the Owner-Operator of the Year -- a window on the Las Vegas awards banquet
While we're busy covering the various comings and goings at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Kentucky, this week, find in this week's podcast a window on the big awards banquet out in Las Vegas earlier in the week with the Truckload 2022 conference of the Truckload Carriers Association. There, Prime-leased Glen Horack took home the Owner-Operator of the Year award, making good on his fourth time as an award finalist. Robert Howell, driver for Doug Andrus Distributing, took home the Company Driver of the Year award. You can find plenty more in terms of scenes from the event via the Wednesday report at https://www.overdriveonline.com/owner-operator-of-the-year/article/15290016/owneroperator-takes-home-25k-with-top-honor But for this edition of Overdrive Radio, sit back and take it all in as we run through the stories of six finalists, three each in owner-operator and company driver categories. How it works is, after an introduction by new TCA president Jim Ward, the candidates’ stories are told in brief, followed by a video interview conducted in Las Vegas with each finalist that was broadcast on two massive screens flanking the stage. The Owner-Operator and Company Driver of the Year programs are sponsored by Cummins, Inc., and Love's Travel Stops.
'Unpopular opinions' on the Entry Level Training regs newly in effect last month
In this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, Trucker Nation's Andrea Marks voices what she says might be "unpopular" opinions about some operators' views around the new Entry Level Driver Training regulations, in effect since early February. Marks, also involved in the small fleet operations of her parents' and husband’s small trucking companies pulling livestock from a Colorado home base, calls herself a "huge proponent" of the new training regs, and though much of the trucking world, including owner-operators, was with her there. Yet there’s at once a strong undercurrent of antipathy to the regs among some drivers and owner-operators –- of a couple of different flavors. One argument says the training regs don’t go far enough. They don’t mandate on trainers and trainees a specific amount of behind the wheel instruction in the form of a number of hours to meet, for instance. Rather, the regs base assessment on proficiency, on a trainee’s ability to perform the tasks required. The regs do mandate that behind the wheel training be a part of any trainer/trainee’s curriculum, though the time required can vary by program or, necessarily, by student. The second argument is something of the opposite -- that the new regs put too much formalization on a process that has traditionally been a more informal, learn-on-the-job apprenticeship type of training, particularly for many in the small-trucking community across the nation. Those who criticize the Entry Level training regimen this way worry that apprenticeships are on their way out the door, though regular listeners will recall the Overdrive Radio interview with Harry Smith of Ralph Smith Company of Utah, several weeks ago: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15287916/training-regs-might-miss-the-mark-but-some-are-doing-it-right That small fleet fully intends to continue its own private, in-house apprenticeship training effort, very much of the sort of old-school variety, with new procedures in place to button up efforts to conform with the new rules. At the same time, with a couple trainees in progress as of late January, the folks at Ralph Smith Co. were moving rather quickly with hopes of getting those trainees through the entire process before the early-February training rule deadline, after which the company would have to comply with numerous new reporting and documentation requirements, per the rule. Avoiding added processes and paperwork is certainly understandable, but it also feels like a bit of acknowledgement that, hey, there are some aspects of the old-school apprenticeship training model that just don’t fit the new rule, at least not exactly, anyway. In the push and pull over regulatory influence, Marks emphasizes, more engagement in regulatory processes, including comment-period participation, is needed to best to ensure influence on the evolution of trucking -- the training rule provides a case in point. Read more on the rules via these links: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15287602/fmcsas-entry-level-driver-training-rule-is-here-for-new-truckers
A truckin' start: Owner-Op of the Year finalists Glen Horack, Gene Houchin, Allen & Sandy Smith
Every owner-op out there has an origin story for his or her entry into the trucking business, whether simple or windingly complicated ... or embellished for effect, as it were. That's no less true of this year's Owner-Operator of the Year award finalists, one of whom will take home $25,000 as this year's winner after the March 22 awards banquet at the Truckload Carriers Association's Truckload 2022 conference in Las Vegas. In this edition of Overdrive Radio, we’ll hear such tales and much more from all three of the competing nominees, including award finalist five-timer Glen Horack, leased to Prime: https://www.overdriveonline.com/owner-operator-of-the-year/article/15288620/teamwork-helps-drive-owneroperator-glen-horacks-success Iowa-based owner-operator Gene Houchin, leased to Midwest Express: https://www.overdriveonline.com/owner-operator-of-the-year/article/15289162/owneroperator-award-finalist-gene-houchin And National Carriers-leased, West Virginia-based Allen and Sandy Smith: https://www.overdriveonline.com/owner-operator-of-the-year/article/15288873/ownerop-award-finalist-team-builds-success-with-smart-business Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole spoke with all of the finalists for the profiles linked above, but hear their stories in their own words here. Good luck to all three on March 22 in Vegas!
Will the national emergency declaration's COVID hours of service waiver extend again?
The “People’s Convoy” continues to roll toward the area of the nation’s capital, at upward of 100 trucks as of yesterday, with multiple hundreds more personal vehicles as of Thursday, March 3, on a route to Ohio before a final trip into the D.C. area planned for Saturday this weekend. The convoy, as we’ve noted at Overdrive, has a stated aim of ending the national emergency footing on which the U.S. government has found itself the last two years as it relates to COVID: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15288864/us-convoy-aims-to-end-national-emergency-covid-declaration Those kinds of emergency declarations bring with them new discretionary funding opportunities for federal agencies to direct to states, the ability to impose restrictions in some instances -– in the U.S. that’s primary been seen at the local and state levels when comes to restrictions on travel and gatherings, particularly early on in the pandemic but continuing in some measures today. At the federal level, we’ve got the cross-border vaccination requirement for non-U.S. citizens coming in, and Canada has imposed that measure for border crossings on U.S. haulers, too. Yet there’s more that can come along with an emergency declaration – we see it routinely in the event of a hurricane or other weather-related disaster for relief haulers. Namely, regulatory flexibility. The supply-chain challenges that have continued to shift and in some cases intensify since the beginning of the pandemic prompted the FMCSA to waive certain parts of the hours of service for haulers of a big list of commodities that were being moved in direct-assistance efforts. Those have included the emergency restocking of items as uncommon as emergency medical treatments or as common as basic groceries. With the waiver’s extension earlier this week through the end of May, on today's edition of Overdrive Radio we talk with the Trucker Nation group’s regulatory affairs lead Andrea Marks about progress on her organization’s data-collection effort around independent carriers' use of the hours of service waiver. That collection effort is aimed at providing a base from which to study its connection to bedrock safety metrics. That is, what’s the safety record, what’s the crash record say about all manner of haulers who’ve effectively been "self-regulating" lo these two years? The end result might go some way toward further enhancing hours of service flexibility, a subject we take up again in more detail in today’s podcast. Listen back to this prior episode for more from Marks on the subject before her independent data-collection started: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15114806/how-the-covid-hours-waiver-could-disentangle-hos-rigidity Further, with People's Convoy growing and the U.S. government in more ways than one signaling a slow return to normalcy as the latest COVID wave subsides, what's the likelihood of a further extension beyond May of parts of this waiver? Take a listen to find out.
'Advanced ELD auditing': How small fleets, independents can work to prevent adverse safety ratings
As was noted in reporting last week, compliance consultants Jeff Davis (Fleet Safety Services) and Adam Wingfield (Innovative Logistics Group each pointed out that, despite the hopes of some, electronic logging devices have emphatically not delivered carriers from hours-related enforcement, particularly at the investigatory level when federal and state auditors come calling. A small fleet's own audits of drivers’ e-logs for unassigned miles and much, much more are still necessary tasks for the back office, even for one-truck independents with more direct on-highway control of their own e-logging destiny. If you missed it last week, after you get through today’s edition of Overdrive Radio featuring a talk from Davis on this very subject, take a run through our report about carrier audit activity: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15288352/the-conditional-safety-rating-the-most-common-in-2021 With stats pulled early this month, it’s clear the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has not done what then-enforcement chief Joe DeLorenzo hoped for late in 2020 when he predicted a footing for enforcement getting back to some sense of normalcy after the pandemic emergency that year. In plenty ways, an emergency continues, and the relative fall-off in audit activity obscures what plenty of carriers hope will not be some kind of new normal. That’s the reality that more than half of all safety ratings issued in 2021 were the adverse Conditional rating. While not exactly death sentence for a carrier, such a rating presents plenty issues, including difficulty with some shipper customers and brokers’ willingness to do business with you. In today's podcast, hear Davis break down some of what he's seeing in remote audits, particularly as it relates to the man v. machine dynamics of ELD-enabled hours enforcement, and what you can do to head off the auditors and inspectors. Hear another selection of Davis's talk detailing low-hanging fruit for small fleets to avoid drug/alcohol Clearinghouse-related violations during audits: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15281144/lowhanging-fruit-to-avoid-fmcsa-clearinghouse-violations
The 'Freedom Convoy' protest, with Canadian cross-border owner-op Mike Murchison
If you’ve been seeing news this week and last from North of the border and wondering just what’s happening there with the so-called “Freedom Convoy” protests, soon entering their third week in Canada, hear a long take on it all in today's edition of Overdrive Radio. Alberta, Canada-headquartered owner-operator Mike Murchison is not a direct participant in those protests but a clear-eyed watcher of what’s going on in Canadian trucking and society, generally speaking. He narrates his hauls and so much more via the Road Warrior News publication, out of Toronto, and operates principally in the Western parts of both Canada and the United States, wholly dependent on cross-border freight for his business' success. Read some of his stories, and hear a song he wrote inspired by the early parts of the protests via this link: https://roadwarriornews.com/category/mike-murchison-rwn/ Much of today's podcast derives from a conversation with Murchison early this week on Tuesday, February 8, yet when we spoke briefly with Murchison this morning, he noted further efforts to attempt to end the protests by Canadian national and provincial governments. Ontario leadership had declared a state of emergency in part aimed at the shutdown of the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, by some estimates accounting for as much as 40% of all U.S.-Canada trade. The emergency declaration came with threats of fines, license suspensions and more for those impeding that bridge’s traffic, and out in Alberta similar ramp-ups in enforcement activity were under way, he said, at the blockaded Coutts border crossing. The podcast touches on much more, though, tracing the protests' roots back to a U.S./Canadian cross-border vaccination requirements for essential travelers, implemented last month; the outsize importance of being able to cross that border to Canadian owner-operators and drivers; and the more sweeping and enforced pandemic-related restrictions in Canada, compared to what those of us in the U.S. have seen. Read Long Haul Paul Marhoefer's "Faces of the Road" series installment about Murchison, his owner-operator business, and his music: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15286651/truckersongwriter-mike-murchison-faces-of-the-road
The FBI needs your help solving this cold-case murder, and: Inside FMCSA's under-21 interstate pilot
Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Ann Alexander in today's edition of Overdrive Radio talks about her Little Rock office's push this week in hopes of gathering leads into the 2006 murder of 19-year-old Tracy Owana Jones, who disappeared in November that year from a Little Rock area truck stop where she’d been a somewhat regular at the time attempting to collect magazine subscriptions. Jones was last seen on November 15, 2006, a Wednesday, at the Pilot Travel Center at the Galloway exit off I-40 east of Little Rock. Her body was found more than a week later on Sunday, November 26, in a field off I-40 in Memphis, Tennessee. Alexander and others in the FBI team indicate here just how you might be able to help if details of the case jog your memory of her from that time. There’s a new $25,000 dollar reward for information that leads to a conviction. Those with tips can contact Ann Alexander via the FBI Little Rock field office at 501-221-9100 or dial 800-CALL-FBI. Find more information and a download of the information-wanted poster via this link: https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/seeking-info/tracy-owana-jones Also in today's edition: A conversation with Overdrive’s intrepid reporter Matt Cole about his story from earlier this week with a look at the trucking associations’ engagement with the first bit of detail we’ve seen on FMCSA’s plans to implement the Congressional requirement of a pilot program for under-21 interstate drivers. There’s a lot to it, including significant required training, a proposal to require any pilot program participants to work within the Department of Labor’s registered apprenticeship program, and more. Read more about the program and reaction to it via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15288076/trucking-groups-disagree-on-under21-apprenticeship-pilot-program By the end, we might also just get closer to an answer to an age-old question: Is it right to call 18, 19 and 20-year-old adults “teens”? Take a listen here.
'Not really what we need': Training regs may miss the mark, but this small fleet's doing it right
Pre-CDL prospective truck drivers as of February 7 will have to use either a private or for-hire training provider registered in FMCSA's new Training Provider Registry to receive likewise newly required training before taking the skills test to get their CDL. The implementation of the so-called Entry Level Driver Training regs follows nearly a decade of development, following rulemaking by committee years ago now with a wide array of trucking and training stakeholders with a seat at the table. Conversations then were often skeptical of old apprenticeship-training ways truly surviving implementation, yet companies like Bountiful, Utah-based small fleet Ralph Smith Co. have prepped for the new reg by putting themselves into the nearly-ready-to-go-live Provider Registry in order to fit their longstanding programs with the new rules. Longtime hauler Harry Smith, now in operations and training at Ralph Smith Co., is this Overdrive Radio episode's guest. The company hauls sand and gravel as well as a variety of other materials in dumps, heavy equipment and other oversize loads on RGNs, and more. The organization was founded by his grandfather, and taken over by his father and mother decades ago. Harry, now 33 years old, has made great strides and gained notoriety in recent years as the kind of old-school, hands-on apprenticeship trainer that was once the holy grail of any young and unschooled prospective owner-operator. Many is the story of the young man now fully formed and on his own in business as a truck owner who started just that way –- by finding a more-seasoned hand to take him or her along for the ride to really learn not just the basics of operating a truck but all aspects of the business. Overdrive editor Todd Dills talked with Smith on the occasion of the upcoming implementation date for the training regs. Smith's confident his own extensive training efforts will survive the regs implementation, even with new reporting and documentation requirements put on any training provider, including so-called private, not-for-hire apprenticeship trainers like his company. Yet he’s also skeptical that it’s exactly the right way to go, more broadly speaking, as you'll hear. Read more about the regs' implementation, and Ralph Smith Co., in this January 20 report: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15287602/fmcsas-entry-level-driver-training-rule-is-here-for-new-truckers Harry Smith's father, owner-operator Doug Smith, is a member of the FMCSA's fairly new driver-advisory subcommittee of the influential MCSAC. Read more about him via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15113673/is-it-overtime-for-companytruck-driver-overtime-pay
Marine Corps to trucking, martial arts, music, family: Meet Owner-Op of the Year Bryan Smith
The Overdrive 2021 Owner-Operator of the Year, chosen among finalists in the program we partner with the Truckload Carriers Association to produce, is nothing if nothing multifaceted in his pursuits both inside and out of the cab of his 2016 Freightliner Coronado, the fifth tractor owned in his three-decade history behind the wheel. In this special edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, talk a long walk with owner-operator Bryan Smith through his trucking beginnings after operating heavy equipment in the Marine Corps, his solid net income performance these last two topsy-turvy years, his musical talents and martial arts instruction back at home in the Dubuque, Iowa, area, and so much more. What emerges is clarity of just why he was chosen for the award. It's well-rounded men and women like him who drive the trucking business forward by example, with bedrock expertise, innovation and true commitment to those in their orbits. Read more about Smith via this feature profile: https://www.overdriveonline.com/owner-operator-of-the-year/article/15287252/2021-owneroperator-of-the-year-bryan-smith
Trucking exit strategies, 'The Great Resignation' and a 'Face of the Road' with author Michael Perry
Serious question: How do you know when it's time to hang it up? I'm Paul Marhoefer, and I'll be your host for today's special edition of Overdrive Radio. I'm 62 now, and I keep catching myself devising an exit strategy from the life of a full-time trucker. After all, there's $1,500/month in rocking-chair money just waiting for me downtown at the Social Security office. There have been phone conferences with our CPA, as well as just a little too much screen time gawking over Youtube videos with titles like "Retire Early / $800 a Month / Boquete, Panama." Truth is, I never planned on getting this old this soon. Watching my own dad continue to work well into his 70s had me shooting for octogenarian-trucker status. But lately? Not so much. Two of my closest friends in this business died in recent months, and they weren't that much older than me. And there have been a couple significant medical setbacks of my own, one of which was life-threatening. In the new dystopia of closed restrooms and eateries, the slow-burning angst and malaise of operating in the midst of a seemingly endless pandemic, grinding away all week at an OTR job, going home for a day and a half, and doing it all over again has, in truth, made Paul a very dull boy. So once again, I shamelessly parlayed the platform lent to me by Overdrive to speak with someone I admire -- someone who may be able to point me in the right direction. This week's victim is bestselling author, playwright, humorist, radio show host, singer-songwriter, newspaper columnist, and intermittent pig farmer Michael Perry. If anyone could tell me how to possibly cut out a livelihood out on part-time trucking and potentially other income streams, it might just be him. Raised in a family of farmers, loggers and truckers, Perry left a good-paying job in the medical field to chronicle the lives of working people as a freelance writer, becoming a latter-day Garrison Kiellor of sorts, hosting the nationally syndicated public radio program, "Tent Show Radio," which has featured acts in its tenure like Merle Haggard, Kathy Mattea and John Prine. In many ways, Perry embodies the creative equivalent of a small farmer or independent trucker, working the gigs that work for him, shedding the ones that don't. Not bad for a g uy who got his start writing for a trucking publication. He's our guest on today's Overdrive Radio edition. Catch more in my Faces of the Road series via https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4404196
With whorls of history: Paul Marhoefer's new record, 'Corn Belt Cafe'
Early on in this Overdrive Radio edition showcasing trucker-songwriter "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer's new "Corn Belt Cafe" long-player, the Overdrive Extra contributor describes standing at the register of a roadside diner somewhere in Illinois on Labor Day in the early 1980s. "Right in front of the counter there was a worn spot in the linoleum," Marhoefer said, and "standing in the blackness of that worn spot in the linoleum ... was one of those moments where you’re surprised by a sense of bliss." It was as if Marhoefer "had entered the portal of some one-ness," he said, a sense of being a part of a living history, of a fashion. "That’s something you don’t talk about if you’re a straight-truck driver from Indiana," as Marhoefer was at the time, though the memory stuck with him through the years. So many of those old roadside diners are gone, as is so much else, and you get the sense listening to "Corn Belt Cafe" that Marhoefer feels keenly the loss, a pervasive sense that permeates much of the record. The disc was recorded almost entirely in live takes in-studio with a principal partner in Michael Ronstadt, on the cello. The pair were able to evoke an appropriately earthy feel throughout, and the record features contributions from songwriters other than Marhoefer, and a couple co-writes with trucking fellow travelers Ken “Shoestring” Waugh, who sadly passed away last year, and Alabama-based J.D. Haynes. All in all, "Corn Belt Cafe" is something of a first for Marhoefer, in that the record and it’s 12 tracks have a cohesiveness that’s maybe less apparent on some of his prior efforts, a throwback to an era in which the album was the ultimate product for any musical act. Take a run through several stand-out tracks, many informed by Marhoefer's long trucking past, in today's edition of Overdrive Radio. Find an embed of the full album in the post that houses this podcast at https://www.overdriveonline.com/15286999
A final 14 -- plus a 3-hour pause -- to count down to 2022: HOS, in-cab cooks, roadside trends...
Happy New Year to all of you! For this final day of 2021, we've got a special edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast to count down to 2022 with a run back through our most-listened-to episodes of the year. That'd be a final 14 -- plus a 3-hour pause, say -- for a lucky 17 of our 2021 editions of the podcast. We’re going to hear about the hours of service – particularly in the context of the COVID-19 emergency declaration and its hours waiver, now in place in some form for almost two years. We’ll hear about custom project rigs and restorations, about California’s AB 5 contractor law, now headed to the Supreme Court, about COVID and in-sourcing and cooking in-cab and on the road, as we count down the hours. The year-in-review Overdrive Radio episode here works out to a reality-rules/sometimes-bites window on what truck owners were most concerned about over the course of the year. We've grouped Nos. 1-17 of the most-listened episodes excerpted there in reverse order in a playlist you can access in the post that houses this podcast: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15286794 Alternately, run back through them all via Overdrive Radio's SoundCloud profile: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/2021-in-review-the-top Here's a wish for safe and profitable trucking to you, for 2022. See you on the other side. ...
A tale of two loads of Kentucky tornado relief collected, distributed, with owner-op Daniel Koors
The night of Friday, December 10, was a stressful one for legions of Americans across the mid-South as tornado sirens blared, with everybody and their brother no doubt gathered around whatever mess they might have, or not have, in their basements. Owner-operator Daniel Koors of Indiana was up late monitoring storms’ progress himself that night – as you’ll hear in today’s edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast. Though the destruction to his South in Kentucky was readily apparent that night, the next morning owner-operator Koors felt motivated even further to help when daylight shone on just how devastating it was. Koors got a call from a fellow operator based in Lexington, and, some calls later, was on his way there with a dry van in tow to collect relief supplies and cash to distribute wherever it was needed. The operation continued for a full week, ultimately, as Koors told it. The friend who’d put out the call to Koors for potential use of the truck was Lexington-based James Toller, but he wasn’t the only one involved in their effort. Greg Anderson, owner of small fleet AK Trucking, helped out, as did another trucking associate, Patricia Smith, in addition to the legions of folks donating to the effort on-site and from afar, of course. Two dry boxes’ worth of supplies were gathered in parking lots around Lexington and then distributed to Kentucky families, ultimately, in addition to around $12,000 donated in person and online. Supplies were pulled behind Koors’ 05 International. Today on the podcast, we’re going to hear much more about the individual relief effort, yet another testament to how, when the going gets tough in the face of disaster, the tough get trucking for their fellow man.
'Power only' as a springboard for owner-operator growth: Tim DeWitt's 34-truck fleet
Tim DeWitt is no short-term-minded person, as he says in this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, charting how the small fleet owner’s begun to make good on on long-term goals of improving the conditions under which his now more than 30 driver employees operate. And: to continue to achieve solid profitability. He's doing it with his authority as DeWitt Transportation, based in Southern Illinois, and without owning a single trailer. In the podcast, lean more closely into DeWitt’s operation, detailed in part in Overdrive's recent three-part feature series covering the wild growth in power-only opportunities for owners with motor carrier authority. You can find that series in full at this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15286059/how-covid-fasttracked-poweronly-opportunity-growth-in-trucking There are many reasons for opportunity growth in that operating segment, where a truck owner runs a carrier business with authority but doesn’t bring an owned trailer to the freight arrangement. Growth in demand for large carriers’ services and limitations on fleets' growth is one, as he's seen at his principal freight partner, the brokerage side of Prime Inc.'s business. Hauling exclusively there, however, DeWitt’s own company’s growth has been explosive over the roughly two year’s he’s been an employer of anyone other than himself. With steady and rising contract-type rates in Prime’s system, he’s made hay of long-term focus in a very short period of time, going from one to more than 30 trucks and drivers, and climbing. So how is it that he's been able to recruit all those drivers when so many of his large-carrier counterparts sound like they’re facing the greatest shortage in history when they talk about the men and women behind the wheel? There's a guaranteed-pay structure involved, but a lot more to it. Here more in the podcast. DeWitt was among Overdrive’s 2021 Small Fleet Champ semi-finalists back in the Fall: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15279711/how-to-approach-guaranteed-driver-pay-in-a-poweronly-system
Trucker-songwriter Guy Archer's journeys with heavy loads, right back to Nashville
From a songwriting session in early 2019 with Nashville-based John Allan Miller, Airgas company driver Guy Archer, based in Dayton, Ohio, determined to get back to Music City to continue work in songwriting later that same year. Yet a back injury derailed that plan, then COVID happened in 2020, and getting back into his truck after unloading one night Archer happened to hear an advertisement early in 2021 for the Overdrive-Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search. As many regular listeners will know, Archer went on to win the competition, and early in November, he was back in Nashville at the Jay’s Place recording studio with producer-engineer Jay Vernali laying down five of his original tracks, all of which you can listen to via this playlist he was kind enough to share with us: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/2021-trucker-talent-search-winner-guy-archers-prize-recording-session For this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, we’ll take a tour through some of those results as well, likewise a long talk with Archer about his life in music, and trucking but of course. He got his start in 1992 with J.B. Hunt and has done a little bit of everything, including driving massive articulated dump trucks off-highway, on up to his current work for Airgas. His wife, Linda, joined him on the trip the Nashville for the session, where Vernali brought in Tony Graci on percussion and, on guitar, a player with a little trucking-music lineage behind him. Guitarist Chris Leuzinger’s pretty famous for his long and exhaustive work with country music leading light Garth Brooks, but he also played on one of the most famous trucking songs of all time, “18 wheels & a dozen roses” by Kathy Mattea. Results from the session are spectacular. Catch Archer's winning Talent Search performance on video here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-talent-search/article/15114790/guy-archer-named-trucker-talent-search-winner
Small fleet roundtable: Co-opetition, balancing personal/business pursuits, tech challenges, more
Small Fleet Champ Silver Creek Transportation’s leader Jason Cowan speaks earlier on in this edition of Overdrive Radio to what he sees as an essential challenge in the highly competitive trucking industry for small fleet owners looking to lead by example and balance that competition with a rising-tide-floats-all-boats kind of mentality. Trucking companies can do more, he said, do embrace cooperation amongst their kind, where it makes sense, to get the job done without hampering future opportunities for all around trucking. In a nutshell: "I'd rather have your friendship than have your freight," he said, though such a spirit of 'co-opetition' is of course more complicated than that. Cowan and his wife and business partner, Penny, were joined for this roundtable discussion around owner-op and small fleet issues by fellow Small Fleet Champ finalists Robert and Karen Hallahan of Hallahan Transport and Nick Hewitt of Professional Transportation Services, Inc. All spelled out examples -- resistance to rate undercutting, referrals to carriers better equipped to haul certain products than your own -- that can pay off long-term when it comes to customer management, and growing the business. The roundtable discussion took places earlier in November at the annual meeting of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies in Nashville, Tennessee. It touched on a variety of trucking business best practices and challenges -- from the rise technological complication with ELDs and more to changes in the brokerage world all three of these finalists have spent efforts grappling with over the last decade and more. As noted, direct customer relations is a substantial part of it -- among the biggest areas of education any one-truck owner-op is likely to benefit from before jumping into the game with a second truck. Key in the long-term future benefit is avoiding self-inflicted wounds all panelists identified. Hear more in the podcast, and read about each of the finalists in profiles you can find at the following links. Silver Creek Transportation: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15115043/diversification-silver-creek-transportations-growth-secret Hallahan Transport: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15280238/hallahan-transport-thriving-on-lessons-learned-from-the-past PTSI: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15280537/trucking-legacy-of-nick-hewitt-and-platform-hauler-ptsi Hear the announcement of the Small Fleet Champ winner at the NASTC even via this podcast from earlier in November 2021: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15281144/lowhanging-fruit-to-avoid-fmcsa-clearinghouse-violations
The promise -- and challenges -- of the car-haul trucking niche
In this edition of Overdrive Radio ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, we're taking time to engage with two independent car haulers – Indiana-based owner-operator David Bunting and Ellenwood, Georgia's Eric Turner, owner of small fleet Turner Transport, both of whom have mastered the niche in spite of current auto-market challenges. Those challenges were discussed in-depth with them and others in Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole's three-part deep dive into car hauling, which you can read via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15280473/automarket-turmoil-is-putting-squeeze-on-car-haulers There are plenty other car-haul challenges in a normal time, too, including per-vehicle-moved rates that don't always fluctuate with fuel the way a truck owner might want them to. There's varying heights of trailers loaded on two levels with differing types of vehicles, presenting bridge-strike danger around different parts of the country. Yet for the self-starting, self-reliant among owner-operators, there’s a reason so many are attracted to the hauling niche -- most car haulers report cumbersome loading processes but with a chief benefit in that you're reliant on yourself to do the work most often. Dock personnel do not hold you at their mercy, as it were. Hear the stories of both men and how they got into the niche, and plenty more, in today's edition. Also in today's podcast: A run through "Virginia Red," a new single written about a driver and his truck. The tune was penned by Overdrive's Music to Truck By streaming radio host Big Al Weekley and his wife, Sandy Shortridge, who sings the bluegrass ballad. Read more about it via https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15280309/music-to-truck-by-back-in-overdrive-with-a-third-hour
Inside the veterans-support mission of MSR Transport with active duty servicemember Rob Ahlers
In this Veterans Day 2021 special edition of Overdrive Radio, we sat down with active-duty servicemember and small fleet owner Rob Ahlers, currently serving under the Chief of Logistics for the Pentagon out of D.C. With two military vets as partners, Ahlers launched the private MSR Transport Services with an intention to help fellow vets transition to civilian careers in trucking, and since the start in 2014 MSR's up to more than 30 power units, some owner-operated, hauling mostly expedited and Department of Defense freight with the fleet. MSR is the latest recipient of Daimler Trucks' Cleveland, North Carolina plant's Ride of Pride series of patriotically decorated rigs, a 2022 Western Star 5700 XE pictured in the thumbnail with this podcast -- find more pictures from MSR via the post that houses this podcast: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15281342 What's Veterans Day mean to you? For Ahlers, in part it’s opportunity to continue to provide gainful employment to a bevy of military vets hauling for the company. Hear much more about Ahlers and company’s bedrock business here, but also his reflections on the bedrock importance of Veterans Day. The 2014 story about MSR just as Ahlers was getting started: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14887370/more-from-former-driver-military-logistics-pro-on-small-fleet-for-driving-vets As mentioned in the podcast, here's former servicemember and owner-operator W. Joel Baker's recollection on how military service led him to trucking: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15281175/how-trucking-changed-this-military-veterans-life
'Fun' with safety/compliance: Low-hanging fruit to avoid drug/alcohol Clearinghouse violations
Helping carriers dealing with the 'fun' that can come with safety and compliance during federal or state audits is at least a good part of the life of Fleet Safety Services consultant Jeff Davis, the principal voice in this edition of Overdrive Radio. After starting in trucking as a driver, Davis eventually made a career helping mostly small motor carriers through those compliance reviews. At the annual conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies this past week in Nashville, Davis offered information into new audit activity related to the relatively new drug and alcohol testing results Clearinghouse maintained by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration -- and common slip-ups carriers are making with required pre-employment and other checks there. Too many, he said, are getting dinged by auditors for violations that are ultimately easily prevented, as he tells it. There’s a lot happening in terms of the Clearinghouse, too, that Davis rounds up in what follows here, certainly germane to those of you in the audience who employ or lease with one or more drivers or owner-operators. Also in the podcast: We'll dive into the Small Fleet Champ awards presentation Thursday night to the record-setting group of NASTC attendees at its annual conference – according to President David Owen, attendance at the event nearly doubled prior years’ registrations, truly something to behold. Congrats again to finalists Hallahan Transport and Professional Transportation Services Inc. – and the ultimate Small Fleet Champ in Silver Creek Transportation. This isn't the last we'll hear from owners Rob Hallahan, Nick Hewitt and Jason Cowan, be assured. Read more about each of the finalist fleets: Hallahan -- https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15280238/hallahan-transport-thriving-on-lessons-learned-from-the-past PTSI: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15280537/trucking-legacy-of-nick-hewitt-and-platform-hauler-ptsi Silver Creek Transportation: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15115043/diversification-silver-creek-transportations-growth-secret
Behind the wheel with automated-driving start-up safety driver Ruben Cardenas
Ruben Cardenas is one of the haulers involved with the Plus company, among the scads of tech companies dipping their toes into freight hauling as they work on ever-more-technically-capable advanced driver assist systems. And Plus isn't shy about using marketing terminology like "self-driving" and "autonomous driving" to describe their systems. Cardenas speaks to his day-to-day on-highway testing of the Plus systems, helping refine system capabilities. The interview with Cardenas was conducted by my colleague over at fleet magazine CCJ, Editor Jason Cannon, for CCJ’s weekly video-centric 10-44 series of talks. Cardenas is no stranger to the owner-operator world, with 11 years of truck ownership in his rearview before he joined up with Plus in his current role in 2018. His long experience begs the question, of course: Why would a career hauler get involved with a company that seems bent on the eventual removal of drivers from the steering wheel, maybe even the seat? It's complicated. Hear more from Overdrive Radio: http://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio Catch our final episode in the "Over the Road" series coproduction with PRX's Radiotopia, all about the hype around, and reality of, increasingly autonomous driving systems: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15064842/over-the-road-reality-creeps-toward-automated-future Find CCJ's 10-44 series via the magazine's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPNPtn8aKWxAu-_f5e2zVsA3dmo5Yq8P4
Why California ports are overwhelmed: Intermodal perspective from out East
Consider today's Overdrive Radio edition in the context of Overdrive Executive Editor Alex Lockie’s reporting on the intermodal niche released a week and a half back, and the system-wide backlogs being experienced all around the container-moving supply chains, particularly evident at the nation’s West Coast ports. The feature was another entry in our "Niche Hauls" series of features on freight segments where owner-ops are in high demand: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15279445/intermodal-haulers-fight-off-a-system-collapse-at-ports What we didn’t get in that three-part report was a perspective from among the top volume ports on the East Coast – for that, Overdrive Editor Todd Dills reached back to small fleet owner-operator George Berry, working out of the Port of Virginia principally. He’s a uniquely qualified source to voice owner-operators’ views on just where congestion issues at the ports originate. For years now he’s been a voice in a group called “For Truckers By Truckers” on social media around port and other intermodal drivers’ issues, and his small fleet leases with five owner-operators now out of Virginia. For Truckers By Truckers continues today as principally an intermodal informational source for drivers and owner-operators of all types: https://www.facebook.com/ForTruckersbyTruckers Since the President of the United States raised port issues as a national concern almost two weeks ago, there’s been no small amount of finger-pointing to just who’s to blame among supply chain parties. Yet as George Berry tells it, the backlog issue is multifaceted, stressed by mismanaged sorting, pressure on intermodal haulers to pickup on the "last free day," a generalized, widespread shortage of chassis as they're tied up by various parties, and much, much more. Undue detention issues arise then at the warehouse receiving end more often than not if the hauler’s lucky enough to get an open chassis. Yet among it all, there's good news for that common problem even in intermodal work, where "free" detention time is dwindling at receivers, and commonly low intermodal owner-operator revenue levels annually are rising. Berry estimates the current high-demand/relatively-shorter-supply situation could yield as much as a $50K revenue boost annually (or around 50%) for such operators. Berry describes himself as a "California kid," and while his intermodal career has been centered in Virginia since early this century, he feels California's emissions regs and other restrictions have exacerbated ports' overload out West. That traces straight back to the California Air Resources Board’s Drayage and wider Truck & Bus rule restricting port operators and then the wider trucking community to running only newer-model-year vehicles. Those restrictions were put in place on pre-2007-emissions-spec engines serving the ports well before trucks running in the rest of the state, furthermore. "They’ve kind of created this conundrum, in my opinion, on their own," he says in this podcast. "And when they say, 'You make it, you’re going to sit in it and stew," and that's basically what’s going to happen with Los Angeles/Long Beach."
Empowerment, education, innovation: Growing minority-owned-business community, trucking influence
In this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, a window on the narratives that emerged from the SHE Trucking Expo, where Overdrive Radio host and editor Todd Dills spent Day One of the conference speaking to attendees and organizers about goals of network-building within and outside of the minority-owned business community. Founded and spearheaded by Chattanooga-based longtime driver/owner-operator/SHE Trucking Facebook group founder Sharae Moore, the expo was not only diverse in terms of the backgrounds of people in attendance and participating. As Adam Wingfield, former owner-operator and current head of the Innovative Logistics Group consultancy, put it, Moore excelled in bring together a "diversity of thought" as well, no doubt. The bulk of the podcast features an end-of-day discussion with these stakeholders, in addition to Wingfield, and all directly connected to Moore's efforts to build the Expo: **Professional driver and trainer Shanna Sellers, Charlotte, North Carolina **Pierre Laguerre, founder of Fleeting, Inc., Atlanta **Tristen Simmons and Tawana Randall of the Leading Ladies of Logistix group, South Carolina, Atlanta **Alix Burton of small fleet Good Energy Worldwide, Atlanta **Sunny Vraitch, CFO of PrimeLink Express, Stockton, California **Melanie Patterson, small fleet owner and proprietor at Team Integrity Knowledge Center, Chicago Presentations by Wingfield and former NFL player and fleet/brokerage owner Thomas Johnson, of Memphis, are also featured. What emerges ultimately is the importance to potential success of harnessing the power of community, of numbers, of basic teamwork of a kind. Catch more scenes from the SHE Trucking Expo via this contemporaneous coverage of the September event: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15114880/scenes-from-the-first-annual-she-trucking-expo
Meet the owner-ops of the year -- and hear talent-search finalists' performances
Heading up this Overdrive Radio special edition are the words and guitar of none other than Guy Archer, a professional driver with Airgas who’s on his way to Nashville early next month for the recording session that was the prize for his big win last month in the 2021 Overdrive/Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search. In this edition of the podcast we give the podcast listeners the pleasure of running through the three Talent Search finalists’ excellent entries into that competition, this year having wrapped up its 8th year in existence. Before that, though, catch a window on a special program -- the gala awards presentation at the Truckload Carriers Association’s Truckload 2021 conference out in Las Vegas last week. It features introductions to the Company Driver of the Year with Overdrive sister magazine Truckers News, and our own Owner-Operator of the Year. The convention center ballroom setting -- with a festive stage flanked by giant screens -- saw each contender telling parts of their stories, in their own words, reflecting on the difficulties imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic over the past year plus, and much more. It’s a special program, ultimately, and one you're encouraged to take part in this year – the nomination period for owner-operator and company driver of the year is open now through October 25: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15114873/nomination-period-open-for-owneroperator-of-the-year-contest Here's a big congrats to driver Betty Aragon and owner-operator Bryan Smith for their winning recognitions, and fellow finalists Dennis Cravener and owner-operators Glen Horack and Doug Schildgen. Read more about them all via http://overdriveonline.com/owner-operator-of-the-year
Introducing the trucking-focused TNC Radio online network with driver Tom Kyrk
This week's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast features an expansive discussion I had with longtime professional trucker Tom Kyrk about his involvement in the relatively new TNC Radio streaming station, gearing itself to speak directly to drivers -- predominantly but not entirely in trucking, as it were. As Kyrk tells, a sizable portion of the content tries to hit the intersection between pro four-wheeled drivers and all of you, Class 8 owners and drivers: https://tncradio.live/ Kyrk’s gotten involved interviewing guests and contributing in various ways after a decade and a half-plus trucking career, all of it as a company driver. As he tells in the beginning portion of today’s podcast, he spent 14 years with Stevens Transport before in recent years moving over in a team operation to IBI Secured Transport. Also in the podcast: A bit of a public service announcement from Overdrive and the readership that’s directed to everybody’s four-wheeled friends about sharing the road -- at the very end. Here's a link to where that PSA originally aired: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/14897719/channel-onenine-special-from-over-the-road-drivers-ed
The big reveal: From a truck to a home, with owner-op Debbie Desiderato and 'celebrity renovator'
This edition of Overdrive Radio features the voice of an owner-operator you may well recognize – Debbie Desiderato, now principally out of Virginia, and sometimes Long Island, New York. She's had quite a year a half or so, moving to sell her long-running and quite recognizable Kenworth in 2020 in a turn back to hotshot car hauling for a time, before she capitalized on opportunity hauling in support of logging operations around her Virginia base with a used purchase of a 2017 Western Star 4900. Less than a year after purchasing the rig, she’s now the recipient of a custom interior renovation by "Secret Celebrity Renovation" series star Jason Cameron. That was courtesy of the TransFix digital brokerage company after Desiderato won the TransFix My Rig sweepstakes, part of the company’s efforts to give back during National Truck Driver Appreciation week. It’s a pretty spectacular upgrade, not only for a feature wall at the back of the sleeper with plenty of "wow" factor in it – in the conversation featured here between Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole and the owner-operator, Desiderato spends a good deal more time pointing out more purely functional additions. There's now a whole lot more cold storage space for food, for one. That comes with a real bottom line impact for the business, given the ability to better prep for cooking in the truck. Read about Desiderato's brief 2020 turn to hotshot car hauling after trade-show freight she'd been hauling dried up with COVID: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14897956/walkabout-transport-hotshot-as-refuge-from-the-pandemic Also in the podcast: FMCSA's last-week-promised answers to particular questions relative to the COVID-19 emergency declaration's hours of service waiver's now long existence. We've posted those answers in this post for last week's podcast with an update: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15114806/how-the-covid-hours-waiver-could-disentangle-hos-rigidity Recently former Acting FMCSA Administrator Wiley Deck also offers his own perspective on the future likelihood (or not) of any tie between proven safety through data and increased hours of service flexibility.
Could the COVID hours waiver be flexibility advocates' chance to further disentangle HOS rigidity?
Trucker Nation Director of Communications Andrea Marks is our guest for this edition of Overdrive Radio. Marks is no stranger to the regulatory process -- or the ins and out of running a small trucking business. She has livestock haulers in her family’s small fleet. She's sharing here what she sees as a golden opportunity for hours of service flexibility advocates lying in plain view, in the form of the COVID-19 emergency declaration, waiving regs for emergency relief haulers of particular commodities since the beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020. There’s not just opportunity therein, though, but danger, given the September 1 changes to the emergency waiver seem to her to be designed to discourage use of the exemption and give regulators a way to control the narrative around its use. She wonders whether they anticipate a serious challenge to the efficacy of the hours of service rule itself. Any serious challenge might depend on how many carriers are running under the exemption, and how often – a question we’ve been asking at Overdrive this week. If you haven’t weighed in on your use of the COVID exemptions as yet, you can find the poll embedded in the post that houses this podcast here: Also there, find responses to questions put directly to FMCSA that were promised at by end of day Friday the 16th by the agency -- early next week at the latest. Those questions: 1: What is the reasoning behind shifting the COVID-19 emergency and its waiver to exempting only the drive-time limits of the hours of service, and not the other regulations previously exempted? 2. With regard to the reporting requirement or ask of carriers – is it really a requirement or merely a voluntary ask? 3. What information exactly is being asked of carriers to report? Will FMCSA be requesting number of trips, specific logs of trips, or merely attestation that the declaration was relied on, period? 4: Has the agency considered examining crash rates of carriers who’ve used the declarations to date extensively versus other carriers who haven’t? Andrea Marks truly believes that the COVID exemption could be hours flexibility advocates’ best chance to demonstrate the safety effectiveness of more permissive drive-time regulations, if only that data can be mustered.
Trucker Talent Search preview: Sheffield, Scripps, Archer square off September 16
In this edition of Overdrive Radio, hear the musical entries of, and interviews with, the three songwriters who are finalists in this year’s Overdrive Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search. It's something of a preview of the big finale, set for September 16, at 5 p.m. Eastern time, and streaming from OverdriveOnline.com. Find out just how to tune in live that date and sign up for email reminders just before the broadcast via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-talent-search/article/15066153/trucker-talent-search-final-competition-set-for-september-16 In the podcast, we'll hear from trucker Mike Sheffield of Kentucky coal country, from Michigan-based Grassmid driver Rich Scripps, and Dayton, Ohio-based Guy Archer. All are featured in conversation, too, with the great Eric Harley, host of Red Eye Radio, Overdrive's partners in the program, now in its 8th year. This year's event's proved to be a special one, no doubt, with these excellent songwriters with incredibly diverse styles. Read more about Guy Archer via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-talent-search/article/15065701/trucker-talent-search-finalist-covers-chesneys-anything-but-mine Mike Sheffield: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-talent-search/article/15065572/mike-sheffield-performs-original-song-hammer-down-again Rich Scripps: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-talent-search/article/15065636/trucker-talent-search-competitor-covers-hawaiian-christmas-song
Songs of the Highway, No. 9: 'Eastbound and down,' by Jerry Reed
Arguably the best-known and most-loved trucker movie is “Smokey and the Bandit,” and sharing that limelight is its signature song by Jerry Reed, “Eastbound and down.” The movie, released in 1977, came near the end of trucking’s pop-culture craze of the 1970s. It shared kinship with another movie about trucker rebellion: “Convoy.” That film was released in 1978, though the hit song of the same name that it was based on was released three years earlier. “Convoy,” even with its comedic moments, was more focused than “Bandit” on the forces that clashed with trucking, said Todd Uhlman, a socio-cultural expert at the University of Dayton. In “Truck Driver’s Blues,” a long piece he published last year in the journal Automotive History Review, Uhlman traced trucking culture through the lens of trucker songs of the last century. “Bandit,” and to a lesser extent the lyrics of “Eastbound and down,” is about “the trucker engaging in illegal activity, escaping the authorities, avoiding the ICC [Interstate Commerce Commission], not keeping his logs, not getting weighed, and breaking the law about transportation of alcohol across borders,” Uhlman said. “He’s doing all of those things, and yet the song – and the movie – is really a comedy. It’s not really meant to be directly confrontational.” Read more about the song and its history via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15066221 Vote in Overdrive's ongoing surveying of readers about the greatest trucking song of all time via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15114028/poll-weigh-in-with-your-top-three-on-this-short-list-for-the-greatest-trucking-song-of-all-time
Five owner-operators, five forecasts for business growth, maintenance, alt-powertrain adoption
At the 2021 Shell Rotella SuperRigs truck show in the Chicago area last month, Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole asked these five owners variations on a couple of central questions: 1. The first asked owners to look out into the future and forecast prospects and plans five years ahead, given the current market and business plans in place. 2. The other had all to do with technology –- alternative powertrains like the electric-drive trucks we’re seeing trickle into the short-haul market, natural-gas power elsewhere, and those increasingly automated driver-assist features that continue to proliferate. The responses vary and overlap in significant ways -- illuminating in terms of where small trucking is today – and where it might well one day end up, hopefully with bedrock profitability intact. The owners who participated, clockwise from the top left in the thumbnail image associated with the podcast: Gary Jones: Owner, SPB Trucking Clayton Driskill: Owner, C&C Logistics J.R. Schleuger: Owner, Lifetime Nut Covers Dave Marti: Owner, Dave Marti Trucking Mike Wilkinson: Owner-operator, leased to Floyd Gibbons Trucking More coverage of the winning rigs from the Rotella SuperRigs event: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/article/15066783/rollin-transport-hauls-in-the-hardware-at-superrigs More editions of Overdrive Radio: http://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio
Inside the 20% rule: Out of service brake adjustment, other violations -- and how to prevent
Looking at the landscape for commercial truck inspections, Pennsylvania-based former local-department officer and long-certified DOT inspector Andy Blair sees plenty missed opportunities when it comes to troopers helping truckers when it comes to knowledge of out-of-service violations. All too frequently, violations that put an owner-op or other driver out of service simply aren't explained at the point of inspection. Too many trucking companies large and small, furthermore, he knows, don't invest in the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance out-of-service criteria handbook, the only place you'll find those criteria in all their minutiae. The equipment category that takes up the largest number of pages therein? Why, brakes, of course. In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, Blair runs us through the specifics of the "20% rule" when it comes to clamp-type brake adjustment, among the most common of brake violations. Fundamentally, as he outlined in a document that's excerpted in the post that houses this podcast at OverdriveOnline.com, if 20% or greater percentage of a truck's brakes are defective, that unit is out of service. Hear our full discussion with Blair in the podcast, and visit this page for more textual detail on the brakes OOS violations ahead of the Brake Safety Week enforcement blitz, kicking off August 22: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15114023 Find states and regions where brakes enforcement is most prioritized all around the country via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/csas-data-trail/article/15113995/where-brakes-vehicle-enforcement-is-most-intense
Owner-ops' big role out West as AB 5 wound toward this week's Supreme Court filing
The thumbnail image with today's podcast was the product of the 2019 groundswell of grassroots advocacy that rose leading into the ultimate passage of the AB 5 law in California, which codified a controversial court decision that applied the ABC contractor test in the state. That test, to say the least, is problematic for owner-operator lease arrangements with motor carriers as they've traditionally been drawn up -- and federally recognized now for decades in the Truth in Leasing regulations. In this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, we’re going to drop into the annual Symposium event hosted by Overdrive sister fleet publication CCJ. This past Wednesday in Birmingham, Alabama, at the event, CTA CEO Shawn Yadon described what he saw with his own eyes on the ground in 2019 as that groundswell of advocacy rose. The result of that advocacy – a myriad of carveouts in the law by the legislature aimed at a laundry list of professions, but not for trucking, not for owner-operators. That set up the Supreme Court case Yadon and CTA filed Monday, and here we get more on potential outcomes from both Yadon and transportation attorney Greg Feary of the Scopelitis, Garvin, Light, Hanson & Feary law firm. Both men had much more to say about the history of how we got to this point, with owner-operators and their contracting motor carriers still playing the high-stakes waiting game on the outcome. Read more about the session in this report from the scene Wednesday: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15113768/the-california-conundrum-independent-contractor-state-of-play And more about the 2019 advocacy efforts here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14897067/rumblings-of-protest-out-west-in-wake-of-california-contractor-law
Songs of the Highway, No. 8: 'Little Pink Mack,' by Kay Adams
It’s been decades since the influx of women into truck driving was considered news, at least among trucking media. But look long enough in the rear-view and you’ll reach a time when it was truly a novelty. One of the first – if not the very first – entertainers to use music to highlight that change was Kay Adams, with “Little Pink Mack.” Released in 1966, the song was written by Chris Roberts, Jim Thornton and Scott Turner. It wasn’t a strident feminist statement bucking the establishment in the way that, say, “Convoy” traded in themes of rebellion. But it did blend, in a light-hearted way, the singer’s femininity with her absolute confidence in handling a truck as well as any man could, said Todd Uhlman, a specialist in American socio-cultural history at the University of Dayton in Ohio and our guest for this "Songs of the Highway" edition of Overdrive Radio. “It was the first song that really talked about women truckers. It really framed them as both feminine and also very tough, very capable,” he said. Uhlman pointed to the song’s opening lines: "Everybody calls me the girl in the little pink Mack / The bumpers are chrome and so are the wheels and the stacks / It's got polka dot curtains hanging in a sleeper of pink / Ah, this Mack's a dandy, some kind of truck, they think.” Hear more in the "Songs of the Highway" series, part of Overdrive's 2021 60th-anniversary commemoration, via this link: http://overdriveonline.com/trucking-history
Tony Justice and '18 Gears to Life' -- the trucking behind, inside the music
For longtime Overdrive Radio listeners he will need no introduction whatsoever, but for the rest of you, the artist you'll hear straight away in this edition of the podcast is none other than Tony Justice. The Everhart Transportation driver, singer, songwriter and performer's recent history reaches back more than a decade now to the date of his first solo trucking-themed record, called "On the Road." This year, he’s out with his fifth, "18 Gears to Life." While Justice was in Nashville recently for a video shoot for the "War Paint" single from the record, he sat down Overdrive for a freewheeling talk through a variety of tracks on the record, his first in four years. The studio work on it was interrupted by the COVID pandemic last year. The year before that, as you’ll hear, Justice’s wife, Misty, waged a war against breast cancer that has likewise taken a toll on the music efforts. At once, the emotion of the experience has inspired the pair forward in several ways. The new record is a great listen, it’s no doubt. Production values were boosted by the ability to afford more studio than usual, Justice told us, with help from trucking sponsors like TBS Factoring Service, DPF Regeneration, Bull Snot products, and another that’s perhaps the most important of all -- the real support of professional truckers all around the country who are Justice's biggest fans. Read more about the album and Justice's "War Paint" single, written for Misty: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/article/15065019/overdrives-music-to-truck-by-back-with-tony-justice Hear more from Justice in our past podcasts featuring his music and more via our "Music to Truck By" collection here: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/music-to-truck-by-no-1
SuperRigs show report -- and this small fleet owner's growth story, managing pains that come with it
Just more than a decade ago, owner-operator Don Wood was prepping a recently purchased 2003 Peterbilt 379 former fleet sleeper truck as a custom daycab. He was about to go hauling local hoping to meet his then-young children's home needs after years over the road. That wouldn't last more than a couple years itself before, though, Wood was back out on his own and, as customers leaned on him for their transport needs and drivers he knew needed work, he began to buy other trucks. He knew he had the customers to keep them going, that's sure. Over the next decade or so, DSD would grow to more than 30 trucks, some owned and some leased and owner-operated. How has he kept up with the demands of growth? Part of it has to do with the nature of the freight -- including a lot of direct customers and particular jobsite contract work that doesn't require constant negotiating with brokers. Another part: Wood recognizes the true value of what little support staff he and DSD drivers and leased owner-ops have. Also in the podcast: Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole live from SuperRigs. Cole's on the ground in Hampshire, Illinois, at the Love's there covering the annual Shell Rotella event -- in the podcast we talk through some of the highlights from his first day there, including the cabover of J.R. Schleuger and a rare heavy-haul extendable and steerable trailer from Belgian manufacturer Faymonville. Rare in the U.S., in any case. Find pictures of both via Cole's Thursday, July 30, report from the show here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/article/15066767/scenes-from-superrigs-day-1-on-the-lot Small fleet owner Wood's pristine recent build of a 2003 Peterbilt 379, that former daycab mentioned above, was featured in this video and report earlier in the week: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/video/15066740/don-woods-2003-peterbilt-379-dsd-transports-new-flagship
What came before the CDL? 18 years old and hauling interstate in 1917
The context for the conversation you'll hear in today's 60th-anniversary special edition of Overdrive Radio, conducted at the Great American Trucking Show in 2019, was twofold, centered around both driver training and history. Over the course of the 20th century, as you'll hear, the licensing required for a driver to operate interstate tightened. In the early days of motorized transport, an 18-year-old had no problem being licensed for interstate operation of what passed for the big trucks of the day. They weren't, of course, very big at all by today's standards. The picture here is one of of Walter Thompson of Shelburn, Indiana, grandfather of Jay Thompson, now an independent consultant to various trucking and natural gas interests through his Transportation Business Associates company. As I wrote at the time of this conversation's original airing two years ago, Thompson’s been quite a resource for me when it comes to owner-operator and trucking history in general. He grew up in rural Indiana and starting his working career driving big trucks, a route taken by the generations of men in his family as well, all the way back to his grandfather. Walter Thompson had a chauffer’s license enabling him to move freight as early as age 18, in 1917. And given debate continues around training and potentially opening up interstate operations, perhaps in a limited fashion, to some drivers younger than 21, Thompson's thoughts do more than just gives us a window on trucking's history through the lens of one family's experience. We were also talking at the time about the potential potential for a pilot program for under-21 CDL drivers, then under intense debate, as we sat down to ferret out a little bit of the history there. As Thompson says, history often repeats itself in various ways … Find more installments in Overdrive's 60th-anniversary series of lookbacks on history via http://overdriveonline.com/trucking-history
Insurance, big-ticket maintenance, time off to recharge... What's your biggest business challenge?
Answers to that question in this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast from the four owners pictured here. The lightning round comes by way of truckers showing their equipment in the Walcott Truckers Jamboree's Super Truck Beauty Contest two weeks ago: Owner-operator Christopher Young, a one-truck livestock hauler several years into trucking with his own authority out of Shellsburg, Iowa. The veteran, Ashville, Alabama-based team of Michael and Jackie Wallace, hauling van freight yet working through some of the same challenges as the much younger livestock hauler. We talk to Hallahan Transport small fleet owner Rob Hallahan, who's concerned about the prospects of regulatory change (the insurance hike being currently considered). He's also dealing with the difficulties that come with growth. Finally: Minnesota-based Aaron Walters, A heavy-hauling owner-op who is second-generation in the family business. For him, growth limitations are top of mind -- if the business could just find more independents to contract with to haul under contract with their wind-energy and other customers. What emerges are four distinct yet overlapping pictures of trucking at that Midwest mecca for the kind of camaraderie among owner-operators that's sometimes hard to come by out on the road. Yes, there was no shortage of that in Iowa, too. So hang on tight. Read more about Hallahan Transport via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/14897911/small-fleet-champ-2020-semi-finalist-hallahan-transport Follow these links for more coverage from the Walcott Truckers Jamboree itself: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/article/15066507/the-big-winners-in-the-super-trucks-contest-in-iowa https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/video/15066453/video-super-trucks-light-up-the-night-at-walcott https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15066428/sunup-on-the-super-trucks-of-the-walcott-jamboree
'Routine, day's end, on the way home': Getting there, even with advanced assist tech
The principal conundrum of advanced driver assist systems like collision mitigation, lane-keeping and more was summed up well by Nussbaum Transportation driver Clark Reed as part of the panel featured in this edition of Overdrive Radio: "The more we take the driver away from the driving experience ... [the greater the potential] they're going to become lackadaisical. ..." Put another way, we're talking about, in a word, "complacency" -– the strong temptation to let the equipment take the responsibility for the work of safe operation from the hands of those to whom it truly belongs. That’s the operator, of course, and Reed would go on to say much more than that in the talk with longtime independent owner-operator Henry Albert, a former Overdrive Trucker of the Year, in a panel moderated by TCA chairman and D.M. Bowman chief Jim Ward. In today’s podcast, that discussion is featured in more depth than we've covered at OverdriveOnline.com as yet: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15065920/how-to-think-about-advanced-assist-systems-as-an-owneroperator It's invaluable for real-world perspective on the space where increasingly sophisticated driver-assist technologies meet the realities of the road. We ran into both Reed and Albert last week at the Walcott Truckers Jamboree, as it just so happens, where both showed the next-generation Cascadias they pilot in efforts for the Freightliner Team Run Smart program. Both rigs are outfitted with every bell and whistle you can think of. Also at the Walcott show was the exact opposite, of course, one example being the 1982 Peterbilt 359 of an owner-operator who's a contemporary example of where the truck owner-operator comes from in American history. W. Tim Miller has been in the business of trucking and farming for 40 years, mostly these days hauling his own product more than anything else, just as owner-operators of old. Miller farms around 300 acres of corn and beans, hauling exclusively with an early 1980s classic rig he told me about in what follows in the podcast. Catch more views of Miller's rig via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15066572
Real success leased to a 'virtual' carrier: Owner-operator Jason Hurley and CloudTrucks
Wisconsin-based owner-operator Jason Hurley, a former Schneider- leased owner-operator, made a move earlier this year to the young operation of CloudTrucks. The Texas-based company, with some operations in California, pitches to owner-operators as a "virtual carrier," operating less like a traditional asset-based carrier and more like a support company, basically. Cloud puts emphasis on its technology and systems in place to support otherwise independent businesses. Yet they're no broker or dispatch service -- it's CloudTrucks’ motor carrier authority under which an owner leased there runs. And though its model generally is tech-assisted self-dispatch for how owner-operators run there, it does field a functional support staff on the back end to smooth out the rough edges of any carrier-broker transaction. The brokered freight market comprises the large majority of its freight universe. Since founding within the last years, they’ve grown quickly. They were up to more than 70 owner-ops leased as of the company’s most-recent MCS-150 federal update earlier this year. Hurley was attracted initially for a percentage contract for compensation much lower than is traditional for asset-based companies taking care of leased owners' liability insurance. CloudTrucks allots 5 points of its 15%-per-load fee to the owner-operator's liability insurance, Hurley said, leaving a 10 percent fee otherwise for access to the company's freight platform and support networks. What he's found so far there? Find out in this podcast. Read about CloudTrucks' "Road to Independence" partnership with third-party leasing companies to offer a path to truck ownership for company drivers through fair lease-purchase programs: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15065768/alabama-truckers-fight-truckonly-toll-proposal-in-mobile More from Overdrive Radio: http://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio
Songs of the Highway, No 7: 'Hello, I'm a truck,' by Red Simpson
Trucking’s music history has no shortage of light-hearted songs, such as Kay Adams’ “Little Pink Mack,” Charlie Walker’s “Truck Drivin’ Cat With Nine Wives” or The Legendary Shack Shakers’ “The CB Song.” One of the most humorous, thanks to its sharp barbs aimed at truckers, is Joe Cecil “Red” Simpson’s “Hello, I’m a truck.” It hit No. 4 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in January 1972, making it the biggest hit single in Simpson’s long music career. “This song takes a different angle on the trucking experience,” says Todd Uhlman in this specia Songs of the Highway edition of Overdrive Radio. Uhlman's a specialist in American culture at the University of Dayton in Ohio. “It’s not about the trucker. It’s about the truck.” At the same time, the truck isn’t shy about criticizing truckers. The truck-narrator notes how drivers love to share “tales of daring” and “the girls they've left behind.” The truck criticizes its own driver, too, and, as Simpson often does, references other trucking songs: “Look at him sipping coffee and flirtin' with that waitress. And where do you think he left me? That's right, next to a cattle truck. Why couldn't we have put me next to that little pink Mack sitting over there?” Hear more about the truck's place in trucking-music history in this edition, and find so much more in Overdrive's 2021 60th-anniversary series covering trucking history and more via http://overdriveonline.com/trucking-history
Deckplate diner diaries: The ins and outs of this leased owner-operator's in-cab kitchen
"The freedom to eat what I want, when I want, and how I want to make it." --Decker Truck Line-leased owner-operator Thomas Remington, on outfitting his 2020 Volvo VNL740 (auto transmission, mid-roof, spec'd for Decker's flatbed operation) for versatility in cooking on the road. In this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, a window on Remington's leased business as well as tips on inverter power electric cooking appliances, propane-powered tools for cooking on the deck, and so much more. Also in this edition, on a bittersweet day for Overdrive staff as longtime editor Max Heine officially retires as of the first of July, a special message from host Todd Dills going out to Heine, fundamentally an editor with guts, with integrity, and a real sense of care when it comes to telling the story straight, whatever it is. We'll do our best, Max, to keep it pro out here. For the video with Remington mentioned in the podcast, follow this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15066100/a-parkinglot-lunch-with-ownerop-and-incab-chef-thomas-remington Access Thomas Remington's original "Recipes for the Road" via https://www.overdriveonline.com/authors/contact/15064418/thomas-remington
Little-known movie showcased Overdrive founder’s Hollywood, Nashville forays
Go way back in Overdrive’s 60-year history and you’ll find more than a little dabbling in the bright lights of Hollywood and the country music scene of the ‘60s and ‘70s. It didn’t hurt that the Overdrive office was in the entertainment mecca of the Los Angeles area, but what really drove the connections was Overdrive’s founder and editor, former independent trucker Mike Parkhurst. Many of those associated with the magazine’s early years have passed on, including Parkhurst, who died in 2014. One of the key players during about half of Parkhurst’s 25-year ownership of Overdrive was Roger Galloway. Now 77, Galloway is communications director for Mohave County, Arizona. “My Overdrive days were from 1970-'86, with the exception of 1979-'81, when I produced national TV specials,” said Galloway. Some of them focused on country music stars, such as “Great Ladies of Country” and “Tribute to Kitty Wells.” They were not tied to Overdrive, though Galloway’s first TV special, “Truckin’ in Nashville,” was produced in 1979 outside a Nashville, Tennessee, truck stop. Galloway was also involved the in the late 1960s/early 1970s off-and-on-again filming of Parkhurst's own "Moonfire" feature-length film, which you can also read more about via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15066080 Hear more in this Overdrive Radio special edition, part our 60th-anniversary series of lookbacks on trucking, and Overdrive's own, history: http://overdriveonline.com/trucking-history
Diesel emissions maintenance: Getting the right diagnosis, and repair, the first shop visit
There's good likelihood you know how the story goes. Code says a sensor is malfunctioning? Replace the sensor. Two weeks or two days later, same code, same sensor. Previous shop must have passed a bad part or otherwise messed up the install. Replace again, and "hey why don't we try" X or Y until, some weeks later, as happened in the story of owner-operator John Osinga, visual inspection reveals a mechanical issue. Turns out what seemed like a sensor malfunction wasn't really that at all: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15064088/detecting-the-diesel-exhaust-aftertreatment-demons Hundreds or thousands of dollars later, eureka moments like these are cold comfort, and owner-operators who've experienced these problems always look back and wonder what they could have done differently to spur enterprising (or not so enterprising) mechanics toward an accurate diagnosis and repair, the first time around. There's a lot to be said for picking your maintenance partners wisely, but there's more to it, too. In this edition of Overdrive Radio, a wide-ranging discussion is intended in part to pick the brains of two diesel pros on these issues -- Bruce Mallinson of Pittsburgh Power and Gray's Garage owner Jeff Gray, both men with a wide breadth of experience that spans the evolution from purely mechanical diesel engines through electronic controls and, now, increasingly complicated emissions controls. Much of the discussion is a re-air for the podcast audience of our live online broadcast Q&A held May 20, hosted by Overdrive Senior Editor Todd Dills and contributor Gary Buchs. Subjects range from the basic importance of fuel-filter changes to Pittsburgh Power's Max Mileage Fuel Borne Catalyst fuel treatment to ways to mitigate condensation in the exhaust system, exhaust leaks, phantom codes and so much more. Fine the archived webcast of the original discussion via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/equipment/article/15065467/bring-your-emissions-systems-questions-to-this-live-qa-may-20 Subscribe to Overdrive's daily newsletter for owner-operator business news, views and more: https://randallreilly.dragonforms.com/loading.do?omedasite=ov_subscriptions
Tales of three runaway trucks: Crises endured and averted, lessons learned
Today, this special edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, part of our 60th-anniversary series, in part transports you back to a moment in time in the late 1970s, when owner-operator Gordon Alkire found himself in an old Astro 95 cabover with no brakes heading Southeast down the backside of Monteagle Mountain in Tennessee. It’s a situation that’s no exactly universal among truckers through the years, but not as uncommon as you might think. The occasion in 2019 when this part of my talk with Alkire originally ran was the fiery Lakewood, Colorado, crash of Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos, who lost control of his truck on a downhill grade and, ultimately, crashed, killing multiple people and sending multiple others to the hospital. In the wake of the tragedy for all involved, including the driver, charged with vehicular homicide among other counts, the recriminations were quick in coming for him from fellow truckers, with no small amount of finger-pointing to this or that cause. Alkire, retired owner-operator of Riley, Kansas, at the time reached out with a considered piece about such finger-pointing that you can read in full via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/14896300/in-wake-of-colo-crash-reserve-judgment-says-gordon-alkire-recounting-a-70s-monteagle-brake-failure He ultimately asked his fellow drivers to check their condemnation and take a close look at themselves. “Ask yourself if that could have been you,” he wrote. “A downgrade, a loaded trailer, no brakes. Confusion, fear, and panic.” He's been there, and he tells that story here. Also: Shortly after airing Alkire’s tale in the Spring of 2019, we heard from South Carolina-based owner-operator Lee Epling about his own, more recent no-brakes run. You'll hear that one here, too, and find the original editions of Overdrive Radio featuring these stories in the post that houses this podcast at OverdriveOnline.com: http://overdriveonline.com/14896300
Truck parking, under-21 interstate drivers, more: A window on congressional trucking machinations
In this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, track through Truckload Carriers Association Government Affairs Vice President David Heller’s viewpoints on a variety of aspects of just what’s happening on Capitol Hill around funding infrastructure, including several of those trucking-business-specific initiatives tucked into the House highway bill Overdrive has reported on recently: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15065998/house-highway-funding-bill-keeps-2-million-insurance-hike Heller spoke at the TCA Safety & Security Division annual meeting earlier in the week in a talk hosted by trucking broadcasting great Dave Nemo and fellow host Jimmy Mac. Along the way, Heller dove into the subject of driver training and the notion of allowing under-21 interstate drivers with extra training, one he and much of Overdrive's audience are well at odds on. The Drive Safe Act, introduced earlier this year, would establish an apprenticeship-type training program that, with assistive technology, might allow 18-20-year-old CDL holders to haul interstate, within some other program limits. Heller and TCA broadly speaking are in favor. When we surveyed Overdrive’s audience in March on allowing an interstate option for under-21 drivers. A majority of readers showed no favor for it, with 63% saying it shouldn’t be allowed, full stop; 15% had unqualified support; and about 18 percent supported the idea with either a robust apprenticeship program in place or a mileage-range limitation. You’ll hear a contrasting view in this episode from Heller and TCA, yet know that Heller has a refined sense for the political process. His thoughts are invaluable on where Congress could head on potential highway reauthorization, or not if Democrats decide to go it alone on Biden’s American Jobs Plan, pitched as infrastructure investment.
Songs of the Highway, No. 6: 'Convoy,' by C.W. McCall
Trucking’s rise in pop culture was well underway when “Convoy” was released in late 1975, capturing the hearts of not just truckers but many Americans. The song, heavily laden with CB slang and conversation, tells the story of a spontaneous truck convoy that clashes with authorities. It was by C.W. McCall, who was actually a character co-created and voiced by advertising executive Bill Fries. “It hit at a conjuncture of a lot of different things,” said Todd Uhlman, assistant professor of U.S. socio-cultural history of the University of Dayton. “First of all, the trucker movie had really begun to take off.” “Duel” had come out in 1971 and “White Line Fever” debuted in 1975. “Simultaneously, the CB had really begun to expand outside of the trucker circle and become a kind of pop culture phenomenon.” The song led to the movie “Convoy,” released in June 1978. Directed by Sam Peckinpah, it starred Kris Kristofferson, Ali MacGraw and Ernest Borgnine. That movie and perhaps the most famous of movies involving trucking, “Smokey & the Bandit,” also released in 1978, solidified the image of trucker as not just a highway cowboy but an iconic American rebel, bucking political and regulatory authorities, Uhlman said. Catch more installments in Overdrive's 60th-anniversary series involving lookbacks on trucking history via this link: http://overdriveonline.com/trucking-history
Inside the divide between docs and Congress, trucking constituencies over sleep apnea
Also in this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast: Intro'ing a new dispatch provider in S2 Logistics, with hotshot hauler S2 Transport co-owner Scott Sabatini at its helm and stressing integrity in operations, a response to his own early difficulties. When the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Medical Review Board met May 20 in part to take up a revised sleep-apnea-related section of the FMCSA’s official handbook for the fine folks that perform DOT physicals all around the country, doctors on the board discovered that handbook drafters had made pains in that section to remove a detailed set of screening, testing and treatment recommendations. The Medical Review Board had originally come up with those in 2016, when FMCSA was considering pursuing rulemaking around the condition. Those recommendations were then in a draft update to the official medical examiners’ handbook that came to light about a year ago but had yet to be officially published as the agency worked on finalizing an update with the board in an advisory capacity. Handbook drafters as of the May 20 meeting had cut that and added language making it abundantly clear that there was no regulation that required sleep apnea driver screening, referrals for testing or treatment. Board member Michael Kelly worried over that addition in particular, and was joined by the entire board in protest over the lack of specifics. As Truckers for a Cause sleep apnea support group cofounder, and longtime driver Bob Stanton put it recently, commenting in the Overdrive's Trucking Pro group at Linkedin, though, “the Medical Review Board seems to have forgotten what Congress mandated through Public Law 113-45.” Namely, that FMCSA must go through public notice and comment rulemaking in order to issue any further guidance on the condition when it comes to required or recommended screening, testing and treatment guidelines for CDL holders. Dr. Kelley went further, too, expressing disappointment over what he predicted would be the reality if this handbook draft was made final. As was quoted in my report from that day, Kelley beleved "it will be very rare for drivers here on out to be tested and treated for sleep apnea unless they truly want to be." His statement of that disappointment sounded to some truckers in the audience quite differently than how he intended it. Read more background on the MRB meeting and the sleep apnea issue via https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15065662/strict-sleep-apnea-screening-criteria-not-in-latest-draft-handbook Find links to S2 Logistics' business pages via the post that houses this podcast at https://www.overdriveonline.com/15065897
As the pandemic eases, owner-ops take stock of parking, biz pressures, more
... and plenty more. At the East Coast Truckers Jamboree truck show early this month, Overdrive news editor Matt Cole spoke with these six owner-operators about a lot more than just the custom rigs they were showing (speaking of which, keep tuned to http://overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs for views on/videos of all mentioned here through the next weeks). A year following the depths of the early-pandemic downturn, it felt like a fine time to reflect on the experience of the past year. Here find perspectives on the trials, and some joys, of trucking through the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as thoughts on where truckers go from here in terms of addressing the biggest issues of the present well into the future, chief among them the parking situation all around the country. Featured owner-operators here are: **Robert Davis, out of Vermont, hauling Cabot Cheese in a 2012 Great Dane 53-foot slide and spread reefer, with a 1988 Freight FLC120. **Austin Kiser drives for his dad’s operation, Greg Kiser Trucking, based in Rosedale, Virginia. They pull mostly pneumatic tanks and some dump trailers: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/article/15065658/austin-kisers-2018-peterbilt-389-at-kenly-95-east-coast-jamboree **Greg Eudy, owner of Greg Eudy Trucking, out of Monroe, North Carolina. Eudy hauls sand and rock to concrete plants for Reynolds Trucking out of Indian Trail, North Carolina, in a 2000 Pete 379 that he converted from a day cab to a sleeper: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/article/15065773/blank-canvas-daycab-to-stretched-flattop-2000-peterbilt-379 **Jeff Walters, owner of J&N Trucking out of Bath, New York. Walters hauls dry freight as an independent with his 2006 Pete 379 and 2019 Great Dane van. **Steve Johnson, based in Apple Valley, California. He’s currently leased on with Landstar and hauls pretty much anything that will fit on a flatbed in a flattop 2019 Pete 389. **Daniel and Phyllis Snow, whom regular listeners will recall as owners of "Goose" custom Freightliner. Hear their contemporaneous pandemic-trucking experience tale from this time in 2020 via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/14897705/refusing-to-run-at-a-loss-a-solution-for-low-freight-rates
The trucking spirit within 'Cumberland Bones,' the new record from Stephen Flatt
This week's special edition of Overdrive Radio features the words and music of singer-songwriter Stephen Flatt, native of White County, Tennessee, and current Nashville resident. Flatt's first record as a solo artist, "Cumberland Bones," came out last month and features the "Hold You Tonight" single that in part takes the point of view of a long-distance hauler on his way home to the family. As you might well have guessed, Flatt’s no stranger to trucking, having worked for years in shipping and receiving and thus with plenty trucking companies, owner-ops and drivers, for a few different outfits. Today he’s doing logistics work in the health-care space, dealing with smaller packages but with similar concerns. If Stephen Flatt’s name sounds familiar, that’s because he’s got bluegrass royalty a few generations behind him – one Lester Flatt, in fact, was his Great Uncle. I had the chance earlier this week to sit down with him for a half-hour to run through some of the tracks on the record, including the new single and so much more -- it's traditional country, a couple tracks with a little bit of that bluegrass influence, though as Flatt notes some might call it "alt country" today. It's a record full of narratives about characters, "whether your in-laws or outlaws, people you've worked with and been friends with." There's a lot about it to like. Listen to hear how you can get a copy of the CD mailed to your doorstep. Find a video for the new single via the post at Overdrive that houses this podcast: http://overdriveonline.com/15065688
Songs of the Highway, No. 5: 'Six Days on the Road,' by Dave Dudley
Where does the loveable-outlaw image of the professional trucker first come into play in a big way in American culture? Perhaps the earliest notable instance came with Dave Dudley’s hit, “Six Days on the Road.” American culture expert Todd Uhlman makes that association in this ongoing "Overdrive’s Songs of the Highway" series, part of Overdrive's ongoing 60th anniversary celebration with coverage of trucking history: http://overdriveonline.com/trucking-history “Six Days” remains in contemporary times one of trucking’s most popular songs -- a decade ago around Overdrive's 50th anniversary, readers voted the track as the No. 1 trucking song of all time: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14875984/results-the-top-10-trucking-songs-of-all-time It was initially record by Paul Davis and released in 1961, but it was Dudley who put it on the map with his version in 1963. It reached number two on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart and crossed over at No. 32 on its broader Hot 100 chart. A former trucker, Dudley packed the lyrics with details from the road. The song included references to speeding, popping pills, a “Georgia overdrive,” emitting black exhaust, dodging scales and being behind on his logs. ...
'What extortion looks like': Owner-operator Glenn Keller v. Parking Pirates, round 2
In late 2019 going into 2020 the state of Colorado became what's believed to be the first to ban statewide the practice of booting an occupied vehicle, just what you’re about to hear in this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, with audio courtesy of the 911 call April 21 from Louisiana-based owner-operator Glenn Keller to dispatch in Gaston County, North Carolina, due west of Charlotte. Regular Overdrive readers may well be familiar with Keller from past coverage of his leased operation, some of it towing- and Gastonia-related, interestingly enough. That's where Keller was when this happened, idling while sitting in the driver's seat in a place where there is no express prohibition on the onerous occupied-vehicle-booting practice. Keller was surrounded by three tow trucks, whose operators who demanded money, and Keller promptly involved the police when he realized there was no escape. In this edition of Overdrive Radio, we talk further with Keller about just what happened here, as it’s yet another example of tow and boot operators in some locales all around the country whose plenty aggressive tactics are inspiring angst among folks like him -- and not just angst, not just anger –- nay, rage might be a better word there. And there’s fear, for sure. Were it not for the police showing up when they did, well, things could have gone all sorts of sideways. Keller remains hopeful his post-incident efforts might have a lasting effect where this incident occurred –- in Gastonia, North Carolina. See the following Charlotte Fox affiliate news report on the location where Keller was booted via: http://overdriveonline.com/15065549 Read more about the issue nationwide: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14894396/truck-booting-and-towing-traps-in-light-of-eld-mandate Could Colorado's ban on booting occupied vehicles be a model for the nation?: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14897201/could-colorados-pending-vehicle-booting-regulation-be-a-model-for-the-nation
Rising oil prices -- for dry bulk hauler Sisu Energy, there's far less fear than opportunity
The fears among many in the diesel-powered owner-operator community of late are real when it comes to rising oil prices with constraints on production and promotion of alternative sources of energy, as we've reported. All of it seems to mean little more than added costs for those fearful, but for the man whose voice is featured in this edition of Overdrive Radio, it all feels less like a problem than an opportunity. That’s Jim Grundy, headquartered in Texas and owner of Sisu Energy LLC, an all-owner-operator/leased-small-fleet carrier hauling mostly dry bulk in the oil and gas business. Grundy's got a multifaceted trucking background, which includes past work with the 1845 company, likewise heavy in oil and gas-related hauling. Farther back, as you’ll hear, he came up in the trucking world in more over the road operations, and when COVID hit last year he put that experience to work to take advantage of OTR opportunities in a new division of the company that’s power-only for owner-ops coming in. Otherwise, Sisu Energy owns no trucks or trailers itself, nor do dispatch personnel at the company. That’s a feature owner-operators there take to heart as evidence the company’s sticking to its mission to be a platform where owner-operators can thrive, with support people invested in their success. And thrive they have been. Over just two years since Sisu Energy’s founding the company's managed to attract in the neighborhood of 150 owner-operators/small fleets, most running in and around Texas oil fields and some to points farther afield. Read more about the dry bulk niche more broadly via this recent-past feature report: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14897244/dry-bulk-hauling-offers-easy-freight-handling-steady-work Our recent coverage of fuel-price worries among owner-operators: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15064976/independents-worry-fuel-prices-will-keep-rising
The first Mother's Day Make-a-Wish convoy in Pennsylvania, remembered with George Ruelens
This special edition of Overdrive Radio is part of our weekly 60th-anniversary series of stories with a significant historical aspect, as it's got no doubt in spades. It features the voice of former trucker George Ruelens, telling his tale in a 2019 interview about what’s become a veritable institution out of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania -- the annual Mother’s Day truck convoy benefiting the Make-a-Wish foundation. In 2019, the convoy featured 650 trucks in its 30th year, a huge amount of growth over the course of three decades from the first one, which Ruelens well-remembers. With last year’s event sidelined amid the initial COVID outbreak, the 2021 event on May 9 upcoming should be every bit as impressive: https://secure2.wish.org/site/TR;jsessionid=00000000.app208a?fr_id=3758&pg=entry Find more pictures from Ruelens' archive from the first even in the late 1980s via http://overdriveonline.com/14896399 Read more of our weekly 60th-anniversary series of dispatches from trucking history in Overdrive: http://overdriveonline.com/trucking-history
CSA's Achilles' Heel: The pubic nature of carrier data
From the advent of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s CSA Safety Measurement System in 2010, its shortcomings were well-evident to carriers and baked into its structure. At that time, carriers were laser-focused on equities in scoring, particularly when comparing the way a small carrier's scores moved wildly with very little data input versus the slow climbs and falls with more data on the large-carrier side. As the years have gone by there's been refinement of a sense among critics of the program that the very public nature of the data underpinning what passes for CSA today is its fatal design flaw, with far too many "unintended consequences," in the words of Payne Trucking Safety Director Chris Haney, that have been at best unfair to carriers forced to contend with them on a daily basis. That’s inclusive of small fleets and owner-operators, and company drivers to an extent, too, given the increased importance of every violation you could possibly think of, large and small. For today's edition of Overdrive Radio, we're turning back to my February discussion with Haney and CVSA data director Chris Turner, formerly of the Kansas Highway Patrol, to highlight various aspects of the discussion, including Haney's view that, despite efforts to better contextualize publicly available data, too many of those unintended consequences continue to be big problems for carriers. The entire trucking, enforcement and regulator community should do a lot better, both he and Turner contend. The February discussion centered around Overdrive's Setting the Record Straight package of investigative features looking closely at FMCSA's DataQs system for correcting data collected about carriers and drivers. Access all the pieces of that package via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15063803/criticism-of-dataqs-review-system-continues-to-rise
Songs of the Highway, No. 4: 'Woman Behind the Man Behind the Wheel,' by Red Sovine
He’s best-known for his trucking hits “Giddyup Go,” “Teddy Bear” and “Phantom 309.” But another single by Red Sovine, a master of the sentimental trucker song, spoke poignantly to the difficult family dynamic of over-the-road haulers and their kin back home. That’s “Woman Behind the Man Behind the Wheel.” It’s a tribute to truckers’ wives, as the lyrics say, a "special breed of woman" that has to "share a love affair with that long stretch of highway on his mind." The theme, however, is more complex, considering the realities of over-the-road drivers being separated from their wives so much, said Todd Uhlman, a professor at the University of Dayton, in Ohio, who specializes in America’s socio-cultural history. In this episode of the "Songs of the Highway" special feature to Overdrive Radio as Overdrive celebrates 60 years as the Voice of the American Trucker, hear how the lyrics perpetuate the romantic notion of a long-suffering wife waiting for the return of her faithful husband, yet Uhlman notes certain trucker songs play up “the flip side.” That’s the trucker being “on the road and free from his wife and being able to do whatever he wants to do.” Hear more "Songs of the Highway" installments via Overdrive's "Music to Truck By" playlist on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/music-to-truck-by-no-1 Access all of Overdrive's weekly 60th-anniversary special coverage via http://overdriveonline.com/trucking-history
Building a small fleet as destination for the best: Alabama-based Brian Lindley's LB3
You probably think you know Wedowee, Alabama-based Brian Lindley. Not afraid to work, grew up on a farm, grew up 'round trucks – all are familiar aspects of many a story in the trucking business. But as with so many of the millions of stories out there, there’s plenty of twists and turns in the details when it comes to the tale Lindley has for you in today's edition of Overdrive Radio. Having started out hauling chicken litter from poultry operations with this Mack daycab -- which had a trash body to begin with as part of one of Lindley's early-career efforts doing storm recovery and tree work -- Lindley is the owner of the now-20-truck LB3. He's got three owner-operators leased on, and the balance of the power units are operated in full-service lease arrangements with Penske. He's hauling mostly for direct customers. In just under a decade, he's turned what was a very small operation into what he hopes is a "destination company," of a fashion, for the best in the business. He's doing dandy in that regard so far. During the March event of the Alabama Trucking Association, Lindley operators scored both number 1 and 2 spots in the association's driver of the year awards program. Nathan Heflin of Lineville took home the top spot, and LB3-leased owner-operator Jason Webber the second. Brian Lindley’s wife, Valerie, was named Safety Professional of the Year for her work as safety director, and Maintenance Director Todd Martin was honored as Maintenance Professional of the Year. It all comes on the heels of near-disaster in early 2020, when the operation had part of its principal reefer contract undercut by a larger carrier just a month ahead of the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. In today's podcast, hear how Lindley and company steered through it all, and much more. Also in the podcast: Following up with ATBS President Todd Amen's Q&A portion from the owner-operator performance benchmarking session we re-aired last week on the podcast. Amen address his thoughts on where fuel prices are likely to go the rest of the year, the outlook for owner-operator business viability long-term, several tax matters from per diem calculation to dealing with quarterlies and back taxes, and more.
Owner-ops are not company drivers for a reason -- ABC test in practice, more data from ATBS
Today’s special edition of the podcast is a re-air of ATBS President Todd Amen’s semi-annual conference call with clients of the business services firm and other owner-operators that offers the opportunity for listeners to benchmark their own income performance against the averages of their peers that ATBS computes. Near the call’s beginning, though, Amen detailed the pressures that the Biden administration and Congress have renewed against the independent contractor model writ large. Fleets of all sizes are worrying more about it, as he shows, and some owner-operators are, too. At once, the majority of ATBS’ owner-op clientele aren’t aware even of California’s A.B. 5 law, for instance, in place now for a year and a half and currently not applying to trucking, though that could change depending on pending court cases. The so-called ‘ABC test’ in that law in essence prevents an independent contractor relationship between a worker and a business if both parties are essentially in the same line of work, making current and traditional owner-operator lease arrangements with other motor carriers problematic in various ways. What’s abundantly clear from other surveys ATBS has conducted, though? When asked if leasing suddenly were not an option any longer, just what would ATBS client leased owner-ops do? Not even two in 10 would become company drivers, Amen noted results of his company's surveying. There’s a lot more where that came from in this episode, and a wealth of data on the topsy-turvy 2020 year’s income performance for average owner-operators among dry, reefer, flatbed and independent segments ATBS tracks. Read more about Amen's presentation: http://overdriveonline.com/15064950 Subscribe to Overdrive's daily newsletter for updates, news, views and analysis via http://overdriveonline.com
Flailing toward an 'automated future'? Over the Road reality, more in final episode
The Over the Road podcast, a co-production of Overdrive and PRX’s Radiotopia podcast network, finished its run of eight main episodes last year with this final episode, titled “The Road Ahead,” in which Overdrive contributing writer and Moeller Trucking driver Paul Marhoefer documented a yogurt haul outbound from the Midwest to Texas and then to the 2019 Great American Trucking Show in Dallas, Texas. There, the OTR crew explored the implications for drivers of new technology in trucking — specifically, the march toward vehicles capable of more autonomous operation. Automation has become a fundamental piece of the way so many think about the future of trucks and trucking, including regulators who seem bent on preparing the way in the name of safety. regular listeners may recall news that aired just a couple weeks ago here in which the new Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator expressed her view that, though the timeline is ultimately unknown, that “automated future,” as some say, is coming. It's unclear, though, given the structure of our highway system, that the American public will ever feel fully comfortable with the notion of sharing the road with 80,000-lb. robots, without an operator therein as capable "overseer," one might say, of the machine. But as more folks are eventually ferried around by wheeled robots themselves, that could be a likely prospect, not to mention the impulses the old dollar-signs-in-the-eye can infect even the most staid among us with. The future looks pretty fuzzy, as it were. Don’t forget to pack your reading glasses. Find all eight of Overdrive Radio's re-air of the Over the Road podcast via http://overdriveonline.com/tag/over-the-road-podcast Subscribe to Overdrive's daily for news updates, views and analysis via http://overdriveonline.com
Songs of the Highway, No. 3: 'I've Been Everywhere'
Johnny Cash isn’t the only singer who’s taken on the challenge of sprinting through the long, rhyming lists of cities in “I’ve Been Everywhere.” As some older readers might recall, the song was a big hit in 1962 for Hank Snow. Its success helped vault trucking songs further into the mainstream of an expanding country music radio scene, says Todd Uhlman, an assistant professor at the University of Dayton in Ohio who’s specialized in socio-cultural history, in this special edition of Overdrive Radio attendant to Overdrive's ongoing celebration of it's 60th anniversary year in 2021. Country music and trucking songs were firmly established by 1966, when Johnny Cash did a version that’s perhaps the best-known, at least in the U.S. There were other covers, too, including one by Lynn Anderson in 1970. Yet "I've Been Everywhere" has roots farther back, and way farther afield, that trace all the way to the Land Down Under. Hear its history here in this latest "Songs of the Highway" exploration of trucking music classics. Read more in Overdrive's weekly 60th-annversary series of lookbacks on trucking history, and that of the magazine itself, via this link: http://overdriveonline.com/trucking-history Find more editions of "Songs of the Highway" via http://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio
Roadcheck preps, with the state where inspections were up in 2020, not down like everywhere else
In the COVID-19 pandemic year of 2020, there were but two states in the entire nation where truck inspections numbers in the aggregate rose from 2019 levels. Every other state saw fall-offs ranging from just a few percentage points to more than a third in some places. Alabama's mostly mobile enforcement crew posted higher number, in part a result the state's investment in an expansion of the department. In this episode of Overdrive Radio, Captain Brent McElvaine of Alabama explains further reasons -- a continued emphasis on inspection screening via "virtual weigh stations" with weigh-in-motion or other technologies to better prioritize inspections of trucks and carriers troopers believe probably need it, for instance. There's more where that came from, however, in this episode, including a bevy of tips for owner-ops looking ahead to the May 4-6 Roadcheck event -- in one of Roadcheck's prinicipal areas of emphasis this year, lighting equipment, Alabama ranks very high. Nearly 1 in 4 of its violations written in recent years has been for a light out or other related infraction. Mentioned in the episode, Overdrive Radio's prior podcast with Minnesota State Patrol Captain Jon Olsen about the DataQs process: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15063931/dataqs-crash-and-violation-appeals-process-in-minnesota The live webcast of a panel discussion with CVSA and Payne Trucking about DataQs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHRlGZp-VFk Subscribe to Overdrive's daily newsletter for owner-operator and small fleet news, views and analysis: http://overdriveonline.com
Indelible trucking portrait -- Long Haul Paul's 'Long Haul of Fame' through highs, lows of history
Another edition here drops in Overdrive Radio's re-air of the Over the Road podcast series, coproduced by Overdrive and PRX's Radiotopia podcast network and hosted by 'Long Haul Paul' Marhoefer. Here, the host's "Long Haul of Fame” tells the stories of five of Marhoefer’s personal heroes -- longtime professional driver Idella Marie Hansen; owner-operator Big Jim Selkirk; trucker Ken “Shoestring” Waugh; overnight radio D.J. Marcia Campbell; and, finally, a tribute to one of those heroes who’s passed on, New York-based Fast Freddie Lieb, the “Pope of Pompano” running out of the Florida Pompano Beach market and up and down the East Coast, where Marhoefer knew him best. What emerges over the course of the episode is an indelible take on recent trucking history through these individual stories, including that of Marhoefer himself. Also in the podcast: Highlights from the week's news, which you can keep tabs on daily via Overdrive's daily newsletter. Subscribe via http://overdriveonline.com Find all editions of Over the Road via this playlist collecting our re-airs: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/the-over-the-road-podcast-on Hear more from the Radiotopia network via http://radiotopia.fm
Trucking team turns to rocking country with new record, 'If Wishes Were Horses'
In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, we hear selections from the new 'If Wishes Were Horses' long player out from Rylan Brooks, the songwriting duo of Chris Brooks (Philadelphia) and Nate Rylan (Nashville). Brooks is a former independent owner-operator trucking with authority and now one half of this songwriting duo truly doing great work here with their second record, a follow-up to 2018's 'Half Wild.' Rylan and Brooks’ history as a band -- with a particularly hard-driving brand of what you might call 'outlaw country' (or would in another time) ... the collaboration blossomed on the road when Rylan came aboard with Brooks’ business as a codriver on longer, time-sensitive runs. Here, along with updates for the week in the trucking news, follow along through the pair's narration of how the record came to be and the influence of the road in their writing through and through. Find more about the band at its website: https://rylanbrooks.com/ Subscribe to Overdrive's newsletter for daily updates five days a week: http://overdriveonline.com
'Our Punjabi brothers' -- portrait of a protest, a trucking community, and changed hearts and minds
In this week's Overdrive Radio podcast episode, we drop into October of 2017, a key moment in trucking regulatory history over the last several years, given demonstrations on both coasts and some points in between against the electronic logging device mandate. Generally, out east, those demonstrations were comparatively small, but you can tie a direct line between them and the next year’s pursuit by FMCSA of hours of service changes designed to enhance drivers’ scheduling options around the clarion call for rest-period flexibility that emerged in the aftermath. Where those 2017 demonstrations were in fact not small, however, was out west, led by a coalition of Punjabi-American owner-operators, drivers and advocates. We told that story in brief in Overdrive at the time, and then again via the person of one Binda Atwal this past year in Episode 6 of the Over the Road podcast, produced in collaboration with PRX's Radiotopia. This edition of Overdrive Radio looks back at the tale, which ends up being a portrait not only of a demonstration, but of a close-knit community of U.S. truckers that, with visibility, changed more than a few minds and hearts around the industry. Read Overdrive's contemporaneous account of the demonstration via this portrait of the Punjabi community out West and elsewhere: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14893823/into-the-limelight-sikh-truckers-in-america Find more from PRX's Radiotopia network: http://radiotopia.fm Also in the podcast: An intro to host and longtime over the road operator "Big Al" Weekley and the new "Overdrive's Music to Truck By" music show streaming live every Friday and in the wee hours Wednesday mornings via http://thebluegrassjamboree.com -- read more about it via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/article/15063917/bluegrass-jamboree-streaming-overdrives-music-to-truck-by
Songs of the Highway, No. 2: 'Truck Driver's Blues,' by the Texas Wanderers
Chart-topping songs about trucking have been around for decades. But what was the first one to become a big hit? It was “Truck Driver’s Blues,” performed by the Texas Wanderers and sung by piano player Moon Mullican and at other times by Cliff Bruner, said Todd Uhlman. Uhlman's an assistant professor who’s specialized in U.S. socio-cultural history and has published a lengthy article about trucking music’s place in that history. The song was written by Louisianan Ted Daffan after he visited honky-tonks frequented by truckers. “Truck Driver’s Blues” was one of 1939’s biggest hits, Uhlman says in this special edition of Overdrive Radio attendant to Overdrive's coverage of trucking history in this its 60th-anniversary year. Find more history coverage, including part 1 in the "Songs of the Highway" special series, via http://overdriveonline.com/trucking-history Subscribe to Overdrive's newsletter for daily updates five days a week: http://overdriveonline.com
The long tail of the CB's social utility, or: How the Lucky Turkey became the Maverick became ...
Owner-operator Mike Crawford in this week's Overdrive Radio expands on some of the themes showcased earlier this week in our special-edition podcast in part about the ongoing safety utility, and the decreased cultural importance, of the CB in trucking. If you missed that 60th-anniversary podcast earlier this week and attendant coverage, visit http://OverdriveOnline.com/trucking-history access it. We wanted to bring Crawford back in here because what you heard for him via that special edition was just a very sliver of our longer conversation – the talk was centered on the CB and his history, how he went from being the Lucky Turkey to the Maverick for a time to what he's known pretty much universally as today. Listen on ... Crawford's an independent with his authority now for many years but running mostly with a single broker – Prime’s logistics group, after having leased there for many years. He was Trucker of the Year back in 2010 in the Overdrive program of that time. Read more about Crawford via this link to past coverage: https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4381542 Subscribe to Overdrive's newsletter for daily updates five days a week: http://overdriveonline.com
60th-anniversary special: CB radio's safety, cultural importance, past to present
This special edition Overdrive Radio is part of our celebration 60 years since the magazine's founding in 1961 -- as such, every Monday we’re looking back on various elements of the trucking business and culture as they’ve existed in the past and evolved on up through today via http://overdriveonline.com/trucking-history For this episode, we’re looking at the CB radio, both in the context of safety and trucking culture. First, we run back through the first in my Channel One Nine series of mini-episodes produced in collaboration with PRX’s Radiotopia last year – that episode was devoted to CB handles and the history of the CB in trucking in brief. Following that is a variety of reader views from 2017, after a disastrous late-night winter pileup on I-80 in Pennsylvania, around the importance of using the CB in dangerous conditions to avoid such events -– this time of year, as is particularly in evidence this year, such sentiment is, as they say, timeless. Hear more from the Radiotopia podcast network, including Over the Road, via http://radiotopia.fm Subscribe to Overdrive's newsletter for daily updates five days a week: http://overdriveonline.com
DataQs for violations, crashes: Minn.'s appeals process, reform efforts, and how to work the system
In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, we’ll hear from Captain Jon Olsen of Minnesota State Patrol's truck enforcement unit, one of many sources for Overdrive's reporting about the federal DataQs system that went live earlier this week: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15063803/criticism-of-dataqs-review-system-continues-to-rise Overdrive Editorial Director Max Heine and Senior Editor Todd Dills dug into the FMCSA's data around the DataQs system, doing scads of interviews over the last several months as well, and Olsen's state of Minnesota was one of two states that emerged as a model for a potential national reform effort in early stages as we speak. When a DataQs challenge cannot be resolved to the satisfaction of the carrier, Minnesota offers the chance for an appeal to a review panel that includes not only supervisory staff from the State Patrol itself but also outside representatives from industry, introducing a measure of fairness that has been uncommon for DataQs routed back to the issuing state jurisdiction. In this podcast, Olsen describes the state's full process as well as offers more general advice to motor carriers on succeeding in their DataQs challenge efforts. Also in the podcast: Save the Date -- February 25, 3 p.m. Central time, we’ll be hosting a live discussion with former Kansas Highway Patrol Captain Chris Turner, who’s now with the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, and former owner-operator Christopher Haney, who’s now safety and human resources director for 130-truck end dump puller Payne Trucking, out of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Both men are fountains of knowledge around DataQs – Chris Haney’s got a so-far unblemished record in his DataQs efforts, for instance, and both he and Turner will offer plenty in the way of helpful tips on succeeding in DataQs challenges. You’ll have an opportunity to ask questions of them, too. And you can help us prep for the talk by sending those questions in advance directly. Reach out via our podcast message line at 530-408-6423 and let us know your question about violation or other challenges in DataQs. We'll be sure to get some answers. Follow this link to register for the live discussion to find out just where it will take place online: https://www.overdriveonline.com/page/dataqwebcast
COVID hours exemption not valid 'just because you're hauling food'; OTR's 'Back home'
In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, another in the run through our eight-episode Over the Road podcast series, coproduced for 2020 with PRX's Radiotopia podcast network. "Back home" featured our own Long Haul Paul Marhoefer, host of the show, and Over the Road contributing producer Lacy Roberts on a haul back through Lacy’s childhood as a daughter of a trucking family growing up in Montana. The tale, among the most-listened-to within the trucking community (the podcast was broadcast out to a general listening audience as well), offered a moving portrait of the sacrifices over-the-road drivers make balancing work and family life -- and the sacrifices, too, those back home endure. Before we get there, though, Captain Jon Olsen of the Minnesota State Patrol offers some food for thought on the COVID-19 emergency declaration's exemption to the hours of service, still in place at least through the end of the month. He and colleagues note there seems to be a disconnect between those along the food supply chain as to just what loads qualify as "emergency restocking" and what loads don't. Also: dogs aren’t livestock, maybe. That should make sense momentarily. Read more about claiming the emergency exemption via this link to early coverage of it: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14897583/emergency-hos-exemption-guidance-for-owner-operators Hear more from the Radiotopia podcast network, including Over the Road, via http://radiotopia.fm Subscribe to Overdrive's newsletter for daily updates five days a week: http://overdriveonline.com
The best nanner pudding on I-75 -- and the custom restoration of this 1980 Kenworth W900A
In this edition of Overdrive Radio, take a tour down I-75 in Kentucky in search of an answer to the age-old question: Who has the best nanner pudding among the truck stops along that route, and which one of them was the first to advertise it on the CB? This week, we run back through some trucking micro-history with our own "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer via another edition in the Over the Road podcast series, originally produced by PRX’s Radiotopia in collaboration with us here at Overdrive. It’s a veritable caper of a episode, so hang on tight. Also in the podcast: A fairly moderate amount of snow in and around Evanston, Wyoming, this season has put a bit of a damper on business for the Dustbusters provider of road de-icers and stabilizers for dusty gravel roads. It hasn't, however, stopped work in the shop on a beauty of a daycab 1980 Kenworth W900A owner-operator Martin Herman has put in with this crew -- Dustbusters owner Craig Prete, shop foreman Cole Potter, mechanic Kipp Knight and Austin Oliver. Regular readers may well recall Herman’s own 1970 model W900A from our detail of it back last summer: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/14898050/ownerop-talks-roadside-inspections-and-rig-restoration In the podcast, Herman details a good bit of the work put into Prete's 1980 after it had been more or less idle for many years. The daycab features a rolloff body Dustbusters will most likely use simply as a flatbed for hauling bagged product. (The tow companies in the area are keeping an eye out for stiff competition, nonetheless, Herman joked.) Near the end of this week's episode, too, a brand-new song from Marhoefer, in part inspired by the stories told here, in what was originally Over the Road episode 4, airing early last year. You can here the song in full via the following link, and keep tuned for more releases from Marhoefer from this session with cellist Michael Ronstadt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQuVqTy_4jU Subscribe to Overdrive's newsletter for daily updates five days a week: overdriveonline.com
Fuel's up, rates down, and this owner-op's growth determination in authority's 'honeymoon'
In April 2019. Kenyette Godhigh-Bell was a company driver at Grand Island Express. Our own "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer met her for the first time at the company headquarters in Nebraska when researching and recording for what would become the Over the Road podcast. If you’re a regular Overdrive Radio listener, you heard that episode and met Godhigh-Bell from that time. Part of the episodes featured the sound of a class intended for drivers at the company who were considering the decision to buy a truck themselves. It was no accident that Kenyette was in that class. About a year to the day later, she took the keys to a 2017 Freightliner Cascadia and leased on with small fleet B-F Trucking out of Plainfield, Ill.. Today, she's in what she calls a bit of a “honeymoon period” with her authority active since the beginning of the year, running short-haul loads from Amazon facility to Amazon facility in and around Atlanta, where she lived as a young woman and attended school -- though her business is based out of Florida. Here's the thing, though, as she's working her way into the independent business, she's got an eye toward the future, and laying the groundwork with partnerships she'll need as she moves to purchase other trucks, hire drivers and so much more. Also in the podcast, our own James Jaillet and I mull over recent spot freight dynamics, illustrated in his story about a potential return to seasonal patterns this year, among other things: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14972990/as-a-spot-rates-sag-might-loom-truckers-would-be-wise-to-seek-alternatives Subscribe to Overdrive's newsletter for daily updates five days a week: http://overdriveonline.com
The OTR 'Brief history of trucking in America' -- and this preserved 1978 Pete 352
For today’s episode of the Overdrive Radio podcast, brace for a long run through the history of trucking with former household-goods-hauling owner-operator Finn Murphy, also a well-versed student of that history. Murphy is interviewed and much of the story is narrated by Overdrive contributing writer and reefer hauler "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer. This brief history of trucking in America tracks the rise of the business from the 1920s up through today -– and the owner-operator's central role in it all. It was originally part of the Over the Road podcast series, Overdrive's 2020 coproduction with PRX's Radiotopia We’ll hear form a past wildcatter about, among other thing, the Allis Chalmers "Purple People Eater" engine in one of his trucks; from Murphy about his post-deregulation career, made possible in part by the 1980 Motor Carrier Act’s removal of barriers to entry that kept many new ventures out of non-agricultural freight markets; and about the rise of the Teamsters in regulated markets from the 1930s on. If you missed the original airing -- it'd be unsurprising, as it aired originally smack dab in the center of the initial surge of COVID-19 cases late last March that kept the entire nation on edge -- you're in for a treat. Also in the podcast, another special piece of history in Ohio-based Fred Bowerman's preservation of this 1978 Peterbilt 352, pictured during "That's a Big 10-4 on D.C." on the National Mall this past year, an event Bowerman's helped to organize three years running. Find a distillation of owner-operator via this link to Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills' "Breaking Free" history, written attendant to Overdrive's 2011 50th anniversary: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14876086/breaking-free-owner-operator-history-upon-overdrives-50th-anniversary A special series highlighting elements of Overdrive's and trucking's history attendant to our ongoing 60th-anniversay year is available via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4406897 Hear more from the Over the Road podcast editions: https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4405867 Subscribe to Overdrive's newsletter for daily updates five days a week: http://overdriveonline.com
Songs Of The Highway, No. 1: 'Wreck on the Mountain Road,' by the Red Fox Chasers
What was the first recorded trucking song? According to Todd Uhlman, an assistant professor at the University of Dayton in Ohio, “Wreck on the Mountain Road,” recorded by the Red Fox Chasers in 1928, may well have set the stage for many such songs to come. Such trivia is only a small part of what Uhlman academic specialty has uncovered -- he places trucking songs in the context of U.S. socio-cultural history, explaining how each song reflects something of the trucking industry and culture at the time of its release. This year, as Overdrive shares pieces of trucking history in weekly installments attendant to our 60th anniversary celebration, we’ll hear more from Uhlman in this new "Songs of the Highway" podcast series of shorts from Overdrive Radio, about a variety of important trucking songs -- some familiar, some not. The Chasers’ song “tells the real-life story of a trucker named Lonnie Brown who died in an accident on Bent Mountain in Southwest Virginia,” Uhlman wrote in the journal. The song followed a similar one about a newsmaking 1903 train wreck at Stillhouse Trestle in Virginia. Listen to learn more about the historic “Wreck on the Mountain Road,” including a few clips from it, and thoughts about truckers’ interest in the prospects of dying on the job. Find links to the entire song, likewise the Chasers' record “I'm Going Down to North Carolina: The Complete Recordings of the Red Fox Chasers (1928-1931)" via this link to our coverage at Overdrive: http://overdriveonline.com/14898500 Follow this link for more in our weekly 60th-anniversary series probing the history of Overdrive and trucking: https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4406897 Subscribe to Overdrive's newsletter for daily updates five days a week: http://overdriveonline.com
Inside an uptick in human smuggling via truck: Avoid unwitting participation, keep attention high
In this week's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Chief Patrol Agent for the Laredo, Texas, sector Matthew Hudak has a message for the trucking community about what he’s seeing in the numbers since October 2020 when it comes to busted human smuggling operations. There's been a dramatic uptick in instances of drivers moving strange cargo in their dry van or reefer trailers -- actual human beings. In some cases, the drivers involved may have been initially hookwinked into participation in the schemes, though the red flags are what they are, and should be easy to spot for anyone recruited by a smuggling ring for the purpose. For the entirety of fiscal year 2020, ending September 30, Chief Hudak said 1,400 people were caught being smuggled in tractor-trailers. Since October, in just a short three and a half months, 51 separate busts involved more than 1,600 people, a sizable increase in real numbers, in just a fourth of the time. The image associated with this week's episode is from the border patrol’s X-Ray imaging technology, which helped discover a bust that led to a driver’s arrest just as the new year turned a couple weeks ago. The motivating factor in that case? Well, the driver told police he was to be paid $10,000 for the load, which had planned to move from Laredo to San Antonio. If you’re not from or familiar with South Texas, that’s about a 150-mile trip. Yet the price this driver will pay is going to be no doubt steeper than that windfall. The man may never haul again, as you’ll hear through the course of this talk with the chief. Subscribe to Overdrive's newsletter for daily updates five days a week: http://overdriveonline.com
Trucking with authority and other reasons 'Why we drive' -- OTR rewind No. 2
A note for Overdrive Radio subscribers using some podcasting apps: We’ve got a new, redesigned website coming at http://OverdriveOnline.com – if you regularly listen via a podcasting app other than those offered by Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud, or Apple or Google podcasts, we’re transitioning to a different principle RSS feed for Overdrive Radio. If you need to in your app, you can update the settings with this feed URL and be certain to get all of the episodes going forward: https://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:63998864/sounds.rss In today's edition, we’re taking a run back through another episode of the Over the Road podcast series -- hopefully engrossing listening to take you through a long run and perhaps a little diversion from the political rancor of our chaotic time. This is episode 2 in the OTR series -- originally titled “Why We Drive.” Regular readers will know we produced Over the Road in collaboration with PRX’s Radiotopia podcast network, and it was hosted by our own "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer. In the episode, Marhoefer and producer Lacy Roberts spent time with two operators in Grand Island, Neb., owner-operator Jared Sidlo as well as Kenyette Godhigh-Bell, based out of Florida. In April 2019 when the interview was conducted, Godhigh-Bell was right at one year in trucking, pulling a reefer as a company driver with Grand Island Express. The visit with her featured in the podcast also included some time in an owner-operator training course of sorts at Grand Island headquarters -- no matter of chance, as it were. Less than two years since we talked with her on the anniversary of maiden voyage with Grand Island Express, she's now out trucking with her own authority in a 2017 Freightliner Cascadia near identical to the company truck Marhoefer describes in the episode, minus as yet the "Lady K" insignia on the door. She’s power only at the moment with her authority active for just a couple of months – part of the wave of new authorities since mid-summer host Todd Dills wrote about in this story a month or so ago: https://www.overdriveonline.com/volatile-year-growing-pains-in-app-freight-pricing-value-of-negotiation/ As you listen to this OTR episode, keep Godhigh-Bell’s present in mind as she speaks from the past –- wonderful, simply put, isn't it, to see a plan come to fruition. Find the Radiotopia podcast network via http://Radiotopia.fm Subscribe to Overdrive's newsletter for daily updates five days a week: http://overdriveonline.com/newsletter-signup
Brass tacks, bad brokers, big loads to count down the hours with a long run into 2021
Happy New Year! For this final 2020 edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, Daniel and Phyllis Snow are here, as is Rico Muhammad and Joe DeLorenzo and Jim Mullen and all the owner-ops and government administrators and brokers and drivers and others we talked to this year. We’re going to hear from a lot of them as we tour back through this oh-so-chaotic and pivotal of years trucking in America. We’ll be counting down the top 10 podcasts of the year along the way, and hearing from some other editions besides, from chaos of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to the hours of service changes, the Biden election and more. Find a playlist of 14 shows, including that top 10 and a four-way tie for the 11th spot, in the Channel 19 blog post that houses this podcast: http://overdriveonline.com/channel19 There, you can hear in full any of the editions. Subscribe to Overdrive's newsletter for daily updates five days a week: http://overdriveonline.com/newsletter-signup
Back to the 'Biggest Tailgate in Trucking' -- and Germann Soeth's 1976 KW K100
With this edition of the podcast, just two days out from Christmas, we’re starting a run back through a little high-quality road listening with Overdrive's podcast coproduction with PRX’s Radiotopia network. The Over the Road podcast ran originally between February and June 2020, and the principal eight-episode series was hosted by our own "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer. Therein, we hoped to give mainstream, general-public listeners an intimate portrait of the wide array of voices and issues emanating out of and hotly debated within the owner-operator community, also with clear portraits of the men and women doing the work of trucking. And while Over the Road was broadcast for a general listening audience, we did the best we could to accommodate the perspectives and needs of those who, like you, are on the inside of trucking. What emerged was an uncommon sort of end result -– less an explainer of trucking to the outsider than an exploration of the present through stories of the past, in a lot of different ways. Mistakes made, redeemed, careers launched and ruined and relaunched, and so much more. Herein, find a replay of Episode 1 from the 2019 Mid-America Trucking Show, when so many were hopeful for hours of service change (which has since occurred) and the stainless was polished, the camaraderie had. Think of it as a trip down memory lane, to a time when four people could talk for hours within the stagnant air of a tractor’s cab in lieu of a recording studio, without much worry of just who was infecting who, and with just what. We hope you enjoy. Also in the podcast: A taste of an interview I did with owner-operator Germann Soeth out of Frederick, Maryland, with mostly dump work and principally in a 1998 Kenworth W900 that was featured in past at OverdriveOnline.com When we caught back up with owner-operator Soeth in October, though, he was showing a 1976 vintage Kenworth cabover. He was, interestingly enough, getting ready to put it into service hauling loads after a long retirement, given a significant breakdown with his 1990s conventional. Find out how he took the rig from scrap yard to working order over the course of a few years here. Find more podcasts in Radiotopia's podcast network, including "Over the Road," via http://radiotopia.fm See Germann Soeth's 1998 Kenworth W900B conventional via https://www.overdriveonline.com/the-trucking-history-of-independent-germann-soeth-and-his-long-running-1998-kenworth-w900b/ Subscribe to Overdrive's daily newsletter for trucking news, views and analysis geared toward current and prospective owner-operators: OverdriveOnline.com/newsletter-signup
Log annotations to avoid hours of service violations, new split sleeper, and more from FMCSA Q&A
Today's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast runs through the variety of hours of service issues addressed yesterday in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's third Q&A relative to the changes put in place as of Sept. 29. One particular question addressed a subject we've taken up before -- namely what happens if you need the 14-hour-clock pause value of a berth period to avoid a violation and you're inspected before you can pair that period with another berth period to complete the split. FMCSA Enforcement Director Joe DeLorenzo noted, and he has also said in the past, that officers are trained to the assumption that a second split will be completed, yet are assumptions enough to go on? You can always verbally make clear to an inspector your intentions to split, yet a contemporaneous annotation of any off-duty period you intend to begin a split pair could further underly those intentions, in my view. If you’re inspected prior to the next qualifying pair, it would give the officer something other than just your word and his own assumptions to go on. Hear much more about particular situations pertaining the short-haul and adverse conditions exceptions' expansion, the 30-minute break, and the new sleeper splits in this edition. Download the presentation FMCSA used -- including some logbook examples among other detail -- via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/12/HOS_QA_Webinar_12.17.20-2020-12-18-11-33.pdf More hours of service resources are available via http://OverdriveOnline.com/tag/hours-of-service Subscribe to Overdrive's daily newsletter for trucking news, views and analysis geared toward current and prospective owner-operators: http://OverdriveOnline.com/newsletter-signup
OTR soundtrack custom-built for 2020: Paul Marhoefer's 'Songs from a truck'
The 11 tracks on Long Haul Paul Marhoefer's new "Songs from a Truck" album -- available now via the streaming platforms and on a CD you can order via http://longhaulpaulmusic.com/merch -- cap what’s been quite a year for Marhoefer, as most of you will know pretty well. He was the voice of the Overdrive/Radiotopia coproduction of the Over the Road podcast earlier this year, which reached millions of listeners both inside and out of trucking. His stories of hauling in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, too, turned no small number of your ears early on in the national panic that ensued -- and lately, too -- via his contributions to the Overdrive Extra blog, and Overdrive Radio. For me, though, this record, released with little promotional fanfare a couple months back, might be the crowning achievement. It follows the stellar “You Were a Good Hand” from a year ago, and comes at a time where its explorations of personal history and emotion will strike a chord for anyone struggling with how to manage the pressures and risks of the road with a family back home – such a struggle got more than a few added wrinkles this year, no doubt. Hear a variety of the tracks within, and the stories behind those songs, in this Overdrive Radio edition. The title of "Songs from a Truck" can be taken quite literally, too -- the entirety was recorded in the cab of the Moeller Trucking Peterbilt Marhoefer pulls a reefer in today, in the lot of a Ft. Worth, Texas, warehouse. Marhoefer's wife of 40 years, Denise, was on-hand for recording and, along with well-known videographer James “Tex” Crowley (who engineered the in-cab recording), became something of a character throughout the course of the album's stories told, songs sung, jokes told. Hear more Marhoefer via the Over the Road podcast production of PRX's Radiotopia and Overdrive: http://overdriveonline.com/tag/over-the-road-podcast Subscribe to Overdrive's daily newsletter for trucking news, views and analysis geared toward current and prospective owner-operators: http://OverdriveOnline.com/newsletter-signup
Is it time to account for independent dispatch services in regulation?
The Transportation Intermediaries Association's August-filed petition is well-known for its request to FMCSA to essentially throw out the transparency reg in place since the early 1980s, and in other forms earlier than that. What's been discussed far less, however, is the second part of the broker group TIA's petition, that having to do with independent dispatchers. TIA asks the agency to provide formal guidance officially limiting dispatchers to working with just a single carrier and, in cases where they work with multiple carriers, require a broker authority and bond. For today's edition of Overdrive Radio, hear the voice one such independent dispatch service, the one-woman shop of Brittany Hamstreet's Brittany Dispatch business, headquartered in California, likewise the Brittany Dispatch customer owner-operator Brian Bent, who weighs in on just what it would mean to his business if additional regulatory requirements eventuated in Hamstreet no longer being available to negotiate loads, collaborate on scheduling and more with his business. Also, viewpoint from two larger businesses that bring technology to bear in efforts to provide value-added services to their independent owner-operator and small carrier clients -- Justin Taylor with Merge Transit and Guillermo Garcia of SmartHop. Subscribe to Overdrive's daily newsletter for ongoing news and views via http://overdriveonline.com/newsletter-signup
Music, tales for the big road: John Malayter, Long Haul Paul, and bluegrass pro Tina Adair
In this week's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, a little music and storytelling to take you through the weekend and into next, whether you're still off for Thanksgiving or on the road: **A tour through the Nashville session at Jay Vernali's Jay's Place studio on music row with our 2020 Trucker Talent Search winner, John Malayter. Hear the results of that session, as Malayter tells the stories behind four tracks any fan of folk-blues and bluegrass is likely to enjoy. The Jordan Carriers hauler, who lives in Rogersville, Tenn., picked up the guitar at a young age and learned to finger- and flat-pick, bluegrass-style, mostly self-taught, and has made music an integral part of his life for decades since. **Bluegrass pro Tina Adair talks through the June session that delivered the first single from a forthcoming, as yet untitled record, along with her performing and songwriting history in part with the Grammy-nominated and otherwise award-winning all-female bluegrass group Sister Sadie. Adair's music video for that single, a cover of trucking-song classic "Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses," premiered here on Overdrive this past Tuesday. **"Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer's "When a pandemic becomes personal," another intimate look at life between the road and home in this tragic year, read by the author. Read more about Malayter: https://www.overdriveonline.com/musician-switch-to-trucking-pays-the-bills/ Adair's "Eighteen Wheels" video: https://www.overdriveonline.com/video-18-wheels-and-a-dozen-roses-new-bluegrass-single-tina-adair/ Subscribe to Overdrive's daily newsletter for more trucking news, views and analysis geared to owner-operator businesses: http://overdriveonline.com/newsletter-signup
What can owner-operators expect from a Biden administration?
For this edition of Overdrive Radio, we sat down with Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association President Todd Spencer and Executive Vice President Lewie Pugh in an attempt to forecast some answers to the question in the title. The conversation touched on potential Congressional and/or administrative initiatives around infrastructure (parking infrastructure being a principal component), interest (or not) things few in trucking want to see like insurance hikes and speed-limiter mandates, the recent and potentially further hours of service changes, the profile of the brokered freight transparency issue, and much more. Find further editions of Overdrive Radio via our Trucking Business playlist here on SoundCloud or via http://OverdriveOnline.com/OverdriveRadio Subscribe to Overdrive's newsletter for daily updates five days a week: overdriveonline.com/newsletter-signup
Double-brokered freight fraud: How to prevent, with a U.S. postal inspector who cracked case
Regular Overdrive readers may well recall the case of a William Hickey of Maryland last year -- Hickey was convicted of operating as a U.S. runner for a mostly overseas ring of identity thieves targeting both brokers and carriers in a double-brokering scheme that's sucking hundreds of thousands in freight payments out of trucking. In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, U.S. postal inspector Steve Cohen of the federal U.S. Postal Inspection Service offers clarity on how the scheme operates, and just what brokers and carriers can do to put a stop to it. As he well knows, Hickey's capture and conviction was just a blip -- as the scheme is still well in operation as thieves adapt. Given limitations on extradition in the countries where these rings operate, Cohen and his team, including local and state partners around the nation, are mostly limited themselves to targeting the money launderers operating here. Over the phone lines where the ID thieves ply their trade, though, it's you that can have the biggest impact. Read more about these issues via our early 2020 "Broker Reforms" feature series: http://overdriveonline.com/tag/broker-reforms Subscribe to Overdrive's newsletter for daily updates five days a week: http://overdriveonline.com/newsletter-signup
Where's the size 'sweet spot' for small fleets? And other insights into owner-op growth
Is there an ideal size for an owner-operator as he/she adds trucks, drivers and freight? The answer to that question is probably, well, "it depends." It's certain, though, that whether leased or independent with carrier authority, any owner is bound to reach a point where administrative and/or sales/operational demands outstrip his/her ability to handle everything -- and still haul. Cadle Trucking owner Ben Cadle is just about at that breaking point, and feels he may have reached his "sweet spot" of sorts at 11 full-time drivers and trucks in operation (12 if you count him and his "Joy Ride 3" cabover, too, though his hauling frequency seems less and less as time goes on). His fleet's size has doubled over the course of the last five years, and "I don't want any more trucks at this point, he said, “It gets to a certain point it’s like, 'Yeah, I’m good.'” As have so many small fleet operators I’ve talked to through the years, Cadle credits his drivers as the bedrock of his success. Not that he’s getting rich, he emphasizes, but rather “trying to get to a comfortable point, and that’s about it. Trying to secure the future.” As are no doubt our three Small Fleet Champ finalists you’ll hear in today's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast: James Davis of JDT out of Oregon(platform freight), Evan Guckien of Indiana-based Ed Burns & Sons (mostly platform), and Louisiana tank hauler John McGee Trucking. All three here offer insights on hiring and retaining the best drivers, on the issue of size and manageability, on learning to delegate, on the huge challenges that small fleet owners with motor carrier authority are facing with insurance costs when it comes to primary commercial auto liability. And more.
Listen back: FMCSA's brokered freight transaction transparency session
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s listening session on brokered freight transactions this past Wednesday, October 28, shone light from multiple viewpoints on regulation that today exists and that some feel is being circumvented by brokers to owner-operators', shippers' and the public's detriment. Others -- brokers, principally -- voice the view that the reg has outlived its usefulness and applicability in today's freight market. In this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, track back through the entire session, with quite a lot of commentary from the broker side of the equation at the top, but with truckers further weighing in in roughly equivalent numbers as the session wears on. At issue specifically: three petitions, two to beef up the regulation requiring disclosure of all freight charges on both sides of a brokered transaction, another to remove the reg entirely. 49 Code of Federal Regulations 371.3(c) is the part of the broker regulations at principal issue – it enshrines that all parties to a brokered transaction have a right to review the record. Find more reporting on the subject via http://OverdriveOnline.com/tag/brokers and the origin story of this most recent attention to the issue after this year's Mayday protests in the depths of the freight downturn via this link to a past podcast: https://www.overdriveonline.com/eld-mandate-protestor-provider-discuss-brokers/
Sell service, haul value -- word to the wise of the next generation, from longtime independent
An owner-operator's over-reliance on the path of least resistance to freight will like as not get him/her in trouble in a down market, notes longtime independent Artie Daniel, out of McKinney, Virginia. Not that he doesn't understand the attraction of today's online marketplaces and the speed and convenience they offer for freight. But he's built his business over time and through the years with a mind on serving a customer (whether broker or shipper) toward building a solid connection, with close communication and more. "You've got to build relationships with people who you can trust, to make it work," he said. If you don't have that, "you're at their mercy." Plenty more from Daniel's history and about his 1982 Kenworth W900A, bought a few years ago from an original owner who'd put only scant miles on the unit over decades as his personal truck.
The day an ELD mandate protestor and ELD provider visited the White House to talk brokers
The title of this Overdrive Radio podcast sounds a little like the set-up for an inside-baseball joke of sorts, but for owner-operator Mike Landis and Ezlogz head and former owner-op C.J. Karman, that day was a serious one indeed. Directly and indirectly in a variety of ways, its culimination of the three-week Mayday-begun protest vigil outside the White House has had material effects in terms of getting the conversation going around enforcement and potential enhancement of the 49 CFR 371.3 transparency requirement for brokers when other parties in a freight transaction request it. Here, Landis and Karman nonetheless narrate the story of how the two came to be on the same page in talks over the issue with the White House chief of staff in May 2020. FMCSA recently extended the comment period on three petitions and the transparency regulation in general through November 18. Find a link to where you can comment at Regulations.gov directly in this recent coverage of the extension: https://www.overdriveonline.com/fmcsa-extends-comment-period-on-broker-transparency-petitions/
ELDs giving wrong impression to operators about short-split pause value
Answers to several hours of service questions in this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, including: 1. Can I use a three-hour nap and not get penalized on it in the 14-hour rule? 2. How do you log a 20-load back and forth load/unload trip where there's scantly a mile between load/unload sites? 3. To use split sleeper, does it matter if the shorter period is longer than three hours? Is the pause value for the duty clock still there? Also: a peculiarity of some ELDs that makes it seem as if the shorter of the sleeper/off-duty periods hasn't changed much at all when it comes to the ability to pause the 14-hour clock, and one provider's efforts to improve the split experience in their app. Bonus: Several voices -- and plenty horns -- from 'That's a Big 10-4 on D.C.' on the National Mall October 2 in D.C.
Final review: Hours of service changes recap, detailed explanation with FMCSA
Are you ready for September 29? In this edition of Overdrive Radio, we’re diving into the specifics of the hours of service changes going into effect on that date with FMCSA's Joe DeLorenzo, something of a recap from our GATS Week session in late August a month ago, for the podcast audience. The talk centers on the new flexibilities, the particulars of just what constitutes off-duty time for an owner-operator, a variety of scenarios posed by those who were participating live in the discussion, and much more about the rule. Will roadside inspectors be ready? Will ELD providers? Are you? The original presentation DeLorenzo gave was broadcast with a few slides that it’s pretty easy to follow along with if you have them. You can download them here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/09/FMCSA-HOS-Outreach-Slides-Final-2020-09-25-11-43.pdf
Custom cabover emerges as tribute to a driver's pride, from former Viking hauler
Owner-operators across the country probably remember the LTL doubles and triples hauler Viking Freight, before a buyout by FedEx folded the company under the FedEx Freight umbrella with another, American Freightways, in the early part of this century. A special treat for you today in this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast with Steve Sprenger, a commercial real estate broker for the last couple of decades following work in trucking with about a decade hauling for Viking from the mid-1980s. Sprenger's finally concluded what’s been a decade-and-then-some-long project in a full custom restoration of a 1983 single-drive-axle Kenworth cabover, a former Viking Freight truck he found in a yard in Northern California. Enlisting the initial help of NorCal Kenworth to make sure the rig was roadworthy for a trip back to his home area in Southern California those years ago, detail work commenced and took on a life of its own over time. The end result is a fitting tribute, he believes, to a company's drivers who took as much pride in what they did as him.
Hear the 2020 Trucker Talent Search -- and intro'ing Jason Keeler's custom shop
You can catch the performances also in video via OverdriveOnline.com or at http://youtube.com/overdrivemag -- herein find audio of the entire show, building to Tennessee-based John Malayter performing his own "Take Me Back to Tennessee" for the win. Before we take a run through all the performances, including fellow talent search finalists Freddy French and Paul Cullers, "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer returns to the podcast mic, as it were, via a 2019 interview with Keeler Custom Truck Restoration owner-operator Jason Keeler of Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, detailing his history and one spectacular 1950 Kenworth W923. At podcast's end: A couple minutes’ worth of KTA600 Cummins-powered 1950 Kenworth action. Enjoy it, and thanks to Paul Marhoefer and Jason Keeler for the audio.
How to manage for downside risk in turbulent trucking times
This year has no doubt been a wild ride in any number of different ways for every one of you, I’m guessing. Whether you’re leased to a carrier and newly dealing with regular customers’ facility restrictions and the necessity of new personal protective equipment on-site or at once routinely familiar and now sometimes ever-stranger-seeming truck stops along regular routes. Maybe you’re an independent who’s experienced the topsy-turvy rate situation along with that, from the highest of highs of late and those lowest of lows in April and May. Whatever your individual case, there's something for you in this talk with our own contributing writer Gary Buchs and well-known satellite radio host and fellow owner-operator coach Kevin Rutherford in large part on best practices in a time like the present. How can an owner-operator effectively manage the business when future market prospects are basically a crapshoot? Plenty of answers, here. Many of them re-emphasize tried-and-true business practice, no matter the exterior circumstances weighing on freight and society. Think of it as welcome grounding, perhaps, amid the high-flying cacophony of our time. The talk was broadcast to Overdrive’s Facebook page live, as part of Overdrive’s GATS Week series of events in late August 2020, also part of our long-running Partners In Business seminar series. The PIB program includes an owner-operator business manual produced in conjunction with business services firm ATBS. PIB is sponsored by TBS Factoring Service.
Trucker Talent Search preview -- the performers, their hauling histories and songs
So much can come from a song, and its connection to the work that its writer or performer does otherwise. The culture forged and re-forged by the connections between the individual performers who've taken part in Overdrive's Trucker Talent Search over the years, and hopefully those among you who have the opportunity to really make a similar connection with them through their work, well … for this podcaster's money, this effort since its very first year has always felt in a way perhaps the most meaningful work I’ve been involved in at Overdrive. We all hope it thrives for the foreseeable future, and that you’re a part of it. Tune in on Overdrive's Facebook page -- http:;//facebook.com/OverdriveTrucking -- Friday, August 28, at 7 p.m. Central for the final performance from Talent finalists Freddy French, Paul Cullers and John Malayter, bookended by some extra entertainment from these trucking-music leading lights, both past Talent Search participants in a variety of ways themselves: our own contributing writer “Long Haul Paul” Marhoefer and the one and only Tony Justice.
One Big Cam-powered 1970 KW's long transformation -- and the value of inspections
With the Brake Safety Week upcoming August 23-29, tank doubles-pulling independent Martin Herman, based in Wyoming, is sure to be ready. In this edition of Overdrive Radio, we talk inspections, for sure, but more so his half-century-old 1970 Kenworth needlenose W925, quite an exceptional rig. Herman regular Overdrive readers may well recall as the owner-op who engineered replacement parts and even used a turbo from a Cummins N14 to retrofit to the Big Cam 3 that powered the KW. Since we last checked in with Herman, that motor is no more, as you’ll hear. ... Hear more in the podcast, and find pictures of the unit via http://overdriveonline.com/channel19
Hauling smart -- and high, wide and ugly -- with Owner-Operator of the Year Kevin Kocmich
The complications that can be brought on by any overdimensional load’s permitted complexity are many, and extend to the routes those permits send you on, of course. The bigger or heavier the load gets, the more circuitous and lengthy the route, often enough. It can make for a cumbersome process when it comes to weighing whether the price of any load is worth the effort and cost put in. Owner-Operator of the Year Kevin Kocmich has mastered such deliberations over his decades in business. For more on his operation, listen to this podcast or find our May cover story on heavy specialized hauling via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/big-equipment-loads-pay-specialized-heavy-hauling/
'We're supposed to be in this thing together': Level 3 inspection advice with Kansas trooper
You read a little about this week's podcast subject last week, likely, with reporting around the Operation Safe Driver Week traffic-enforcement event (focused on motorists as well as professional operators) ongoing as we speak. Namely -- the Level 3 inspection and Kansas Highway Patrol trooper and Public Information Officer Nick Wright, whose advice related to how to prep for an inspection was delivered in this conversation from early March. He and I were talking in the context of the three-day Roadcheck inspection event, then scheduled for early May, where the full Level 1 driver and vehicle inspection is what often enough is the focus of the event. Before it was postponed, though, CVSA had named the theme of the annual event as driver-related violations, from medical certification status to ELDs and hours of service – the things hit on by those Level 3 inspections. That just so happens to also be the inspection level most likely to accompany any roadside stop, which the Operation Safe Driver Week ongoing right now takes as its focus. [related-post id="289339"/]So let’s go back in time to early March – the entire state of Kansas had just three confirmed cases of COVID-19, and, as KHP Nick Wright put it, as in my home base in Nashville, nary a bottle of hand sanitizer or roll of toilet paper could be found within a 100-mile radius of almost any city in America ... Along the way, Wright details answers to the following: **What are best practices for annotations of the log in an ELD when errors are made on the drive line, which can’t be edited in an ELD? **What’s the best inspection-preparation advice he could give a driver beyond what’s obvious? **Do states actually run out of those CVSA clean-inspection stickers? And much more besides.
'Twice as good': Rico Muhammad on race-related opportunity barriers, trucking and otherwise
In the first part of this two-part podcast, owner-operator and Rates & Lanes Podcast cohost Rico Muhammad detailed his views on policing issues and his personal experiences with unjustified actions throughout his life. In part 2, a discussion of opportunity barriers that exist for many in African-American communities where, as Muhammad says, kids are often counseled they must be "twice as good" as white counterparts to achieve the same level of success. Cynical though the adage may be, the truth of the matter is closer to the notion that there's work left to be done by all of us in living up to the everyone's-created-equal ideal enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, when it comes to opportunity. Find Part 1 of this series via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/difficult-conversations-race-in-trucking-u-s-culture-owner-op-rico-muhammad/
Having the 'difficult conversations': Race in trucking, wider U.S. culture with Rico Muhammad
Atlanta-based Rico Muhammad regulat listeners may well recall from past Overdrive Radio editions covering a variety of issues, from electronic logging device choices ahead of the mandate back in 2017 to a variety of other business topics. Muhammad's also the host of a weekly audio program in the Rate & Lanes podcast available via http://BlogTalkRadio.com/rates. In this week's Overdrive Radio, Muhammad speaks to the movement that's gathered steam nationally in response to killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, in addition to a rash of deaths of African-American citizens in the hands of police around the nation, among other atrocities. He details some of his own experiences as an African-American when it comes to police interactions -- from the first but not only time he had a gun pulled on him by an officer, when he was just a boy in his early teens, to today's much more smooth though not always pleasant routine interactions at scale houses that all operators deal with in varying degrees. Along the way, Muhammad -- who named his Crescent Carriers business after what he says is seen as a symbol of progress toward equality in his religion of Islam -- offers perspective on the movement toward righting historical and continuing systemic wrongs, and practical advice and viewpoint relative to the increased likelihood of highway encounters with demonstrating crowds. He's borne witness to both from relative distance, though still close to home for him in Atlanta in the past few weeks.
Transparency in high demand, though seldom formally sought: Part 2 with broker Paul Berman
What does East Coast Transport Vice President of Logistics Paul Berman think about all the talk around potentially new requirements for freight-transaction transparency, and the existing regs? That was, after all, partly the question Berman joined me for this two-part edition of Overdrive Radio to answer to begin with. The answer is complicated, and involves honest questioning of the utility of after-the-load rate transparency for any owner-operator and more. What's not so complicated is Berman's answer to the question of just how his own company handles right-to-review requests under 49 CFR 371.3, the current reg that requires brokers to make records, including the brokerage fees assessed to the shipper, available to carriers upon request. That regulation, and the potential for its enforcement outside of carrier, broker and shipper contracts, played a big part in May’s protest actions by truckers in D.C., of course. And the existence of contract language in some instances requiring carriers to sign away the right to review continues for many to feel like a huge red flag that, basically, brokers have something to hide. Berman’s company’s contracts with carriers don’t utilize such language. It’s been explained by others as the way the broker chooses to deal with non-disclosure requirements handed down to them from their shipper customers. Berman and company deal with those shipper demands, too, he says. East Coast requires an in-person review for transparency rather than offering any electronic disclosure – OOIDA has asked Congress to include an automatic, electronic required disclosure to the carrier as a provision in the next COVID-19 economic relief bill that’s been in talks now for weeks. OOIDA also has suggested the in-person review required by many brokers is simply a way to put a barrier in front of a carrier that in effect makes transaction review that much more unlikely. For Berman, though, there's more to the in-person review -- it's East Coast's way of maintaining some measure of control of that information in a good-faith effort not to violate their contracts with customers while also not violating federal regulations guaranteeing a carrier’s right to review the record. There's more to it, as always. What he's definitely certain about, though: In the past decade, he could count on one hand the number of times a carrier's actually requested review under 371.3. ...
Part 1: Transparency, history, strategy from the other side of the fence with a food-industry broker
View from the broker, Part 1. East Coast Transport's logistics VP Paul Berman has been around trucking, and particularly the food-freight side of things, since the 1970s and also happens to be a former owner-operator himself. He sat down with Overdrive Radio for an expansive talk on the history of brokerage in trucking and the evolution of the spot market into a sort of market-within-a-market, with plenty of downsides when pursued to the exclusion of tried-and-true strategies toward business relationships built on mutual trust, fairness and need. As the current crisis has done so much to expose bad actors among brokerages and spur a push for greater fairness, Berman emphasizes that there are plenty good guys out there among brokers, and owner-operators would do well to spend personal capital on setting up for the long haul. It's the regular partners who will sustain you through the next downturn, no doubt. In Part 2 next week, we'll talk with Berman about how current transparency regs have been exercised at East Coast and what he thinks about the push for more required transaction records disclosure, among other subjects.
Sleeper splits toward 'Knights of the Highway' Revival? Trucker and author Ed Miller's new memoir
A longer talk here with Maryland-headquartered Ed Miller, now retired from trucking and the author of a memoir called “A Trucker’s Tale: Wit, Wisdom and True Stories from 60 Years on the Road.” It’s an intimate portrait of a life lived in trucking, from a kid in Western North Carolina changing tires for his father and grandfather’s trucking company, to the driver’s seat himself stateside and in Vietnam as a Navy Seabee, to managing shipper relationships and/or operation back in this or that trucking-company office or terminal. First, though, at the top, a few more readers’ responses to the hours of service final rule that FMCSA announced not quite two weeks ago. Caller look on changes to the split sleeper rules as advantageous to safety, given the ability now of the shorter period in the split to stop the 14-hour clock as long as it’s at least two hours long, according to the text of the rule itself. Miller, ultimately, hopes new changes might bring about more ability to restore a little of that Knights of Highway public profile once enjoyed by today's drivers forebears -- more might stop to help out a broken-down four-wheeler, at least, as his book suggests ...
D.C., transparency, hours changes and more with independent Bryan Hutchens
This edition features a talk with Generations Express independent owner-operator Bryan Hutchens, and we’ll get to how he feels about the hours of service changes released just yesterday and set to go into effect es early as September. Regular listeners and Overdrive readers may well remember Hutchens from an organizing role he assumed with others around last year’s That’s a Big 10-4 on D.C. outreach effort on the National Mall in October. The last couple of months, he’s seen business slow down a good bit, as have so many, and sold the business’s second truck, a 2007 model, early in the pandemic period, reducing costs. His insurance renewal came up, too, and his agent was able to shop coverage around and found insurers rather aggressively competing with each other – he got a substantial reduction, so maybe, just maybe there’s a bright spot in all this. The owner-operator spent parts of Tuesday and Wednesday this week in D.C. with his 1996 Peterbilt 379 and 53-foot step deck parked with the assembled, he guesses, more than 100 trucks and probably double that of drivers and, in some cases, their families. Wednesday, notably, after Hutchens departed to pick up a load to take him back to his home base in Oklahoma, the group in D.C. was paid a visit by former North Carolina congressman Mark Meadows, President Trump’s Chief of Staff, and his security detail. As we reported yesterday at OverdriveOnline.com, Meadows pledged dialogue to continue, and insisted they had the administration’s attention on rates and transparency issues – though he stressed the reality, that, well, the entire country is hurting right now.
Words to truck by: 'You will never, ever come out ahead running at a loss’
Owner-operators Daniel and Phyllis Snow have been off the road refusing to run at a loss for going on a month now as rates and available freight volumes have fallen. The crisis spurred by the COVID-19 coronavirus' spread, though, comes after a rough year of its own. To put everything in context, Daniel says, on the same miles run in 2019, the Snows were able to gross only around 60 percent of revenue they brought in 2013. Market deterioration has been the rule the past year, and they're not the only independent owner-op carriers who feel like the spot market is just broken. The pair have been in spend-reduction mode as they try to hold on for some return.
Questionable offer of easy money 'without asking for any business equity'
Questionable offer of easy money 'without asking for any business equity' by Overdrive
A tough week's diversion with music, trucking in pursuit of truth
In what has been perhaps the toughest week for trucking as an owner-operator in the last decade, this edition of Overdrive Radio offers some diversion via an interview with Haley Fohr of Chicago-based "Jackie Lynn," whose new record proceeds from a conception of the character for whom the band is named as a long-hauler with a particularly spectacular rig -- a mirrored vessel that carries the weight of the world it inhabits. The record, called "Jacqueline," is the group's second, among Fohr's other songwriting/performing projects. Also: Our own "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer offers two of his pensive, funny, and sometimes moving dispatches from the COVID-19 road, happy for the grocery, food and beverage loads but facing near impossible decisions in other ways ...
Do the hard work now: COVID-19 business, health support insights
Nearing the end of the first week of the SBA disaster-assistance loan programs available to owner-operators, insight in this Overdrive Radio edition from longtime owner-operator and now trucking-business coach Gary Buchs. In a time like this, look ahead to the relationships that you need to establish -- whether with a health-care provider, a broker or shipper customer, and indeed as Buchs suggests, a bank … those relationships you’ll need to be able to leverage when times get tough again. If you don’t have those relationships now, there’s no time like the present to establish them. You may not be able to meet face to face with your banker in the right here, right now, but pick up the phone and get things start. More detail here on both the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Disaster Injury loans, variously forgiveable, now standing up and available.
Follow the orange ribbon to Logan's lunch for truckers, at I-79 W.Va. rest area -- and more support
Special thanks to 13-year-old Logan Miller in this April Fool's Day edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, no kidding. Miller is the young man I wrote a little about on Friday, who's been serving sack lunches in appreciation of professional drivers at the I-79 rest area in West Virginia, southbound side just inside the Pennsylvania state line. Logan Miller has partnered on an "Orange Ribbon Campaign" with the folks at Trucks With Room to Spare, and attempt to promote the use of orange ribbons by businesses and individuals offering various measures of direct support to owner-operators and other drivers out there who need it in these times out on the road. Logan is the son of West Virginia-based owner-operator Jason Miller, who's been trucking through the COVID-19 crisis leased to Mercer Transportation with his International. Hear more about the Orange Ribbon Campaign, and when you can expect Logan lunch to be back available on I-79 in the near future, in this week's podcast.
'This thing is on': Methods amid the mess, madness around COVID-19
Three examples of a new intensity of appreciation not only of professional drivers amid the COVID-19 crisis, but also from the professionals for those out there on the road with them in support, from fuel desk personnel to sanitary workers and so many more. Interviews: Ingrid Brown on hauling produce in and out of Hunt's Pont. Paul Marhoefer narrates the first two weeks' worth of the virus spread and the hoarding that's come with it.
Professional appreciation, and more on an owner-op-designed solar aux power system
Owner-operator Chad Fowler's "Solar Peterbilt" 1996 379 springs from a motivation more owner-operators are acting on with the increasing availability of relatively affordable solar panels, whether like Fowler's of the type built for stationary use or the more flexible variety built for mobile application. A look on his mostly maintenance-free power system (a big step forward from diesel APU-type power, Fowler believes, in that respect) and a message of appreciation from a purchasing and receiving staffer out in Spokane, Wash., a result of the Overdrive collaboration with PRX's Radiotopia podcast network on Over the Road. Hear those episodes via http://overtheroad.fm or at Overdrive's website starting with Episode 1: https://www.overdriveonline.com/over-the-road-episode-1-biggest-tailgate-trucking/
In defense of truckers? FMCSA Chief Jim Mullen on hours, nuclear verdicts, more in Charlotte talk
Speaking to a gathering of the Specialized Carriers & Rigging Association last week in Charlotte, N.C., while digging in on a view that the ELD mandate is a safety-positive rule, FMCSA Acting Administrator Jim Mullen made it clear he believed the flawed rigidity of the hours rules needed significant modification for drivers, and trumpeted the agency's efforts to promote the true safety-plus image of trucking as we know it. Such efforts could help stem the tide of so-called "nuclear verdicts" sought by ambulance-chasing lawyers from carriers large and small unlucky enough to be involved in most any crash, whether at fault or not. Along the way, Mullen revealed viewpoints on other trucking subjects, including the CSA program, that some owner-operators will at the least find familiar, if not exactly laudatory. His talk, annotated by Overdrive Senior Editor Todd Dills, here.
For the love of ... Patty the traveling road dog, with owner-op Rob Goodwin
Let’s hear it for the self-described "door-swinger," everybody. That’d be current reefer hauler and former and still sometime step-decker and flatbedder Rob Goodwin, based up in the Texas panhandle and today running leased to a very small carrier. We'll hear how he got there, following some years running a small fleet with his authority, a run-in with a bad broker that cost him well north of 10 grand, and plenty business recalibration back to a one-truck affair. The last two years, too, he's found what might be the greatest ride-along companion a dog lover could ask for in his Patty the Traveling Road Dog. Also in the podcast: Introducing Overdrive's collaboration with PRX's Radiotopia podcast network -- "Over the Road," debuting Feb. 20. Catch the audio trailer with Long Haul Paul Marhoefer here. Visit http://overtheroad.fm to subscribe.
$50 and a little install work could save your life: Trucker Scott Carlson's close call
The voice of trucker Scott Carlson dominates this week's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, detailing a little piece of equipment he’s got in his truck, as do the rest of the trucks in the fleet he's driven for for 17 years out of New York state. This little device, he knows, likely saved his life last week. The equipment? A simple carbon monoxide detector. An exhaust leak from his diesel-powered APU happened to have broken in the exact wrong spot, just below a vent for fresh cab air. Fortunately for him, the fleet’s trucks had been outfitted years earlier with detectors (Safe-T-Alert by RV-centric manufacturer MTI Industries) hardwired for power from the trucks' batteries and mounted low on the sleeper wall down near where Carlson lays his head when asleep -- recommended for these kinds of applications. The company's fleetwide investment in the units followed a leased owner-operator]s similar situation, though caused by a leak in the truck's primary exhaust system, that sent him to a four-day hospital stay. The consequences of carbon monoxide poisoning can be much worse than that.
How former heavy-haul owner-op and current fuel hauler Lonnie Laurie became the 'one-armed bandit'
It wasn't a result of the kind of accident we most think about when it comes to hauling freight on the highways -- rather, it involved a set of monster trucks then-owner-operator Lonnie Laurie ran in rallies, the "Michigan Ice Monster" and "Neighborhood Nightmare," as they were known. Airing up a flat on one of them after an event Memorial Day weekend in 1994, the worst happened, as you'll hear him tell the story in this week's edition of Overdrive Radio. Periodically now, he says, "some people call me the 'one-armed bandit.'" Undeterred by now being without his right arm, Laurie, in his 20s at the time of the accident, went on to haul as an owner-operator out of his native Quincy, Michigan, for some time serving the auto industry with a Landoll tilt trailer, then with a move to Minnesota eventually launching a lawn care and landscaping business that morphed into an excavating and heavy-haul fleet of 12 trucks. Today, he says, he's found a long-term work home hauling fuel from an Arizona home base with Gemini Transportation, affiliated with Love's Travel Stops.
Truckers together in pursuit of victories over child abuse
The notion in the title of this podcast is, at least, the goal of Western Flyer Express founder Rodney Timms, based in Oklahoma and also the founder of the All Truckers Together Against Child Abuse org. In this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, find Timms' impassioned plea to the trucking community to join his effort in pursuit of victories large and small in a fight against child abuse, which is ultimately quite personal for him. As Christenson-leased owner-operator and regular Overdrive Extra Clifford Petersen memorably told his own and part of Timms' story some months back, Rodney Timms has written about his experience growing up in an abusive situation in a book call "My Three Angles." He details part of that, including an incident when he was 15 and his own father beat him within an inch of his life on the roadside of an Oklahoma highway, in this week's podcast, with further detail of how he came to start the organization two years back.
Whose 'Autonomy'? The independent owner-operator and tech skeptic featured in new film
As with advancing driver-assist techs in chaotic on-highway situations and wild weather, perhaps, the real world intrudes on podcast recordings, too. While I spoke with Walkabout Transport independent Debbie Desiderato about her brief appearance in a documentary film on, and her skepticism about, the advancements in driver assist technologies, her dog Bubba was startled by a deer or other animal near the Virginia home she keeps today. Hear him bark toward the tail end of the audio, where we also ask: Ever had your business impersonated by a scammer with a broker? Desiderato and a vigilant broker recently had just such an experience. How such a scam runs: An individual misrepresents him- or herself as an independent to a broker in hopes of getting the load and a fuel advance, then disappearing into the ether. If you've ever been involved in an investigation of such a scam, leave a message on our podcast line at 530-408-6423 -- we'd love to hear from you about the experience.
Countdown through a parking shortage, tech surge, truck boot ... 2019's Top 10 episodes
Let’s get ready to say goodbye to 2019 on the Overdrive Radio podcast. Christmas is in the books and, soon, so will be the year, so we’re taking a trip down memory lane via the top 10 most-listened-to episodes of Overdrive Radio this year, with some honorable mentions, too, covering a boatload of ground all told: From trucking history to shutdowns and slow rolls, parking and booting, the ELD mandate and hours of service, small fleet business, working the spot market and so much more ... Bonus at the end: A special little sing-along with "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer. Run through the full top ten podcasts (in reverse order) via this link to a playlist rounding them up: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/2019-year-in-review-the-top-10
How to get more time for a malfunctioning ELD, entry level training redux, more
In this edition of Overdrive Radio, listener Regi Rinear wonders at the risk for a company or leased operator of running with paper logs when ELDs are required, with little assurance that support personnel had done what was necessary to, if ultimately needed, extend the eight-day period FMCSA gives any carrier and/or driver experiencing an ELD malfunction. Herein: How to get that grace-period extension. Also: More on the Entry Level Training Rule and its likely delay with operator Scott Hainline, who was trained twice, in entirely different trucking eras, bookended by a career in law enforcement. For our previous talk with Hainline: https://www.overdriveonline.com/with-training-rule-delay-in-the-offing-operator-scott-hainline-compares-own-70s-2010s-training/
The methodical tour, by 'Choice,' from corporate America to a small flatbed fleet
Fredrick "Choice M.A.S." Claxton of New York caught the trucking bug on a two-wheeled cross-country tour on a Suzuki street bike, no less. His friends told him he was crazy at the time, as he notes some truckers will now for a preference for the challenge, for instance, of crowded I-95 in the Northeast, or the curves and ups and downs of Rocky Mountain roads out West. He set his mind to making a move, after that big cross-country trip, from work with one of most recognizable names in apparel to where he eventually landed today, three years and some months later, with small fleet I-65 Transport, based in Indiana. He runs with a flatbed behind him in a Peterbilt, and has his sights set on a future in trucking, and bringing others along with him in success. Hear more in this Overdrive Radio edition, too, and his and colleagues' Truckers Feeding the Homeless support initiative, with another outreach event planned for July in Baltimore. Read more about the organization's past efforts viahttps://www.overdriveonline.com/truckers-feeding-the-homeless-delivered-to-600-plus-in-dallas/
Training rule delay in the offing, operator Scott Hainline compares own '70s, 2010s training
Yes, we've heard from the off-the-record sources, too. With the training rule delay set to be made official any day now, operator Scott Hainline of Illinois notes he's just as hopeful as other operators for real safety improvement with training practices standardization –- at least when it comes to raising the bar for minimum standards. His perspective is interesting because he was initially trained back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As with so many owner-operators starting out during that time and even up through the present day in some cases, Hainline learned through an informal apprenticeship with a fuel hauler in his area, which you’ll hear more about in the conversation that follows here. By the early 1990s, though, he’d left trucking behind for a career in law enforcement, retiring just several years ago, whereupon he decided to re-enter trucking. What he found upon retraining for his CDL with a community-college program, though, he felt lacked in several different areas, and looking around his state he’s seen the wide variability in how different CDL-training programs approach the basics. Our conversation touches on all of that, likewise what opportunity may exist for formalizing the one-on-one CDL apprenticeships of yesteryear in the at-some-point coming required training regime, where both coursework and range and road training minimum standards must be met before a learner’s permit holder can take their CDL skills test. (Pictured: Hainline in the mid-1970s as a teenager.)
Talent Search winner Taylor Barker's new musical bonds; Brumbach Stephens hauls one giant tree
in this edition of Overdrive Radio we’re talking music, and the Capitol Christmas Tree haul, and a recording session that happened November 23 in Nashville. Kingsport, Tenn.-based owner-operator Taylor Barker won this year’s edition of Overdrive’s own Trucker Talent Search, held annually at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas. Part of the prize for the big win is a recording session at Jay’s Place in Nashville on Music Row, with longtime producer-engineer and session player himself Jay Vernali. “It's Saturday night on Music Row,” as Jay set the scene -- where the magic happens, as it were. A window here into Taylor Barker's history in music and trucking, and the singer-songwriter's plans for the recording. Also: Brumbach Stephens on his experience piloting the final third of the haul of this Capitol Christmas Tree in a specially wrapped KW W990. Brumbach, a former small fleet owner-operator now principally in sales with Wilbanks Trucking, spelled out some of the details of his and others’ piloting of the tree clear across the nation, making stops along the way. We caught up with him a week ago at the stop outside the Bridgestone Arena here in Nashville. Songwriter Lindsay Lawler and a crew of Nashville local songwriters entertained the assembled with a bevy of Christmas songs, as you’ll hear.
Occupied vehicle booting: No, it does not happen to cars; More 10-4 voices
As Michigan-based small fleet owner Leander Richmond said in the last edition of Overdrive Radio. No, it doesn’t happen to drivers of cars, it does not happen to campers – it does, often enough, happen to truckers. He was talking about the phenomenon of private-lot or other booting of trucks in which drivers are sleeping, most often during federally mandated rest periods, of course. As so many of you likely saw last week with a report from a Dandridge, Tenn., Speedway fuel-stop location, that can include tow trucks hooked up to you while you rest, with a fee required to unhook. Richmond, as he noted in the last podcast, believes there should be a prohibition on booting or hooking to an occupied vehicle in this manner, and it’s a subject we’ll be covering in more depth in a later issue of Overdrive. For now, in this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast some sound piece of advice before parking in any spot where you have doubt about the possibility of a tow-hook or boot in your future. And that is, if at an open location with any no-parking sign within eyesight –- do the reasonable thing and get out and ask a question in-store before you make a $300 or more costly mistake. That only works to an extent, of course. ... Some cases here where it most definitely didn't. And: Accounts from the one-truck businesses of Bryan Hutchens, Ruben Carrion, and Kit Spanfellner from That's a Big 10-4 on D.C. last month.
The truck booting trap, and one small fleet owner's crusade for a solution
Small fleet owner Leander Richmond's efforts to fight the egregious practice of booting trucks when drivers are asleep in the bunk have been written about before -- he's been successful when booters violate local ordinances that govern their businesses, or in one recent case he details here didn’t even have a contract with a particular property owner to be doing what he was doing on the property. Local and/or state laws around booting and towing vary considerably, as he’s most certainly found in his efforts to raise awareness among truckers and law enforcement about the more predatory boots in that business. Here, what he sees as a possible solution to a problem exacerbated by the ELD mandate and its parking-related ripple effects along all manner of routes around the nation. Picture of Richmond here by Denise Marhoefer. Also in the podcast: A window into one of the conversations with participants in "That’s a Big 10-4 on D.C.," which happened early last month on the National Mall in Washington. This talk introduces a little bit of the history, stretching back into the 1980s, and the long development of the business of independent Germann Soeth, of Frederick, Maryland.
'Highways and heart attacks' to trucker Will Beeley's place in the American songbook
Thanks to the Tompkins Square record label and the man behind the voice you hear in the song at the top here, Will Beeley. Beeley's new “Highways and Heart Attacks” record is the singer-songwriter and hazmat pressurized tank hauler's third. Today, Beeley lives in New Mexico, with roots in Texas. His story in music reaches back to his youth in the late 1960s, runs through an iconic record label in Jackson, Mississippi and extends on up into the present day, with his new record following 40 years after his last, called “Passing Dream.” Nashville-based music writer Edd Hurt views that 1979 slab as an overlooked classic in the American songbook. On this edition of Overdrive Radio, take a run through parts of Edd Hurt’s and my own interviews with Beeley attendant to a special treat in the day to day of this trucking-business writer back in September. Beeley was in Nashville performing attendant to Americana fest.
No ‘crystal ball’ for FMCSA’s post-Martinez future; Jason Lee Wilson live in a cave
There's a new record forthcoming for 2016 Trucker Talent Search winning singer-songwriter Jason Lee Wilson, due in the new year. It's dubbed, simply, "Tennessee," and it's title track is an appreciation of home for the East Tennessee resident. He performed it as part of a three-song set at The Caverns venue in Pelham, Tenn., current home of the Bluegrass Underground television program -- you can hear it, and hear more about just where the song and the album are coming from, in today's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast. Also there, a talk with trucker/singer-songwriter Tony Justice about his recent performance in quite a nontraditional venue for many artists -- though not exactly for Justice himself: Bristol Motor Speedway, where he gave a post-race infield show for attendees of the Bandit Series big-rig-racing finale (congrats once again to Ricky "Rude" Proffitt for the season points championship). He also speaks to ongoing advocacy efforts of Trucker Nation, an organization he cofounded, and the difficulty he's had getting his crystal ball to work when it comes to the question of whether FMCSA Administrator Ray Martinez's impending departure as agency head holds any import for the hours of service changes Martinez played a large role in fast-tracking.
VP undercover in a large carrier's training program; Voices From 10-4 D.C.
Pam Wilson hired on with Utah-based large fleet C.R. England about a year ago as vice president of process development. That’s something of a fancy way of saying she was brought in with hopes of improving parts of the company that support those who make the it tick – that’s truck drivers, of course. At the time of Wilson’s hiring, as Aaron Huff wrote in Overdrive sister fleet publication CCJ earlier this year, among the large number of company-employed drivers that make up the over-the-road division (accounting for around 80 percent of the entire company’s drivers), “the large majority of its OTR drivers are in the process of completing the company’s 90-day training program after they have earned a CDL.” That represents a lot of turnover. Figuring out how to better set those new drivers up for success could pay dividends long-term, no doubt, company executives knew. The goal, as Wilson puts it, is to be a better safety net as a company, particularly important for those who are jumping into trucking for the first time and a situation where they don’t know quite what exactly to expect. Aaron Huff’s story turned heads for another reason, though. Wilson, in her 40s, didn’t immediately publicly come onboard as management upon her hiring. Rather, she called C.R. England’s training academy and started the process of getting her CDL – undercover, as it were, within the training program. Also: Voices from 10-4 D.C. last week with point of view on the issues from Germann Soeth of Frederick, Md.; Kit Spanfellner of Northwest Ohio, leased to Davidson Trucking; Generations Express owner-operator Bryan Hutchens of Oklahoma; independent Rueben Carrion of Kissimmee, Fla.; and Iowa-based Mike Jellison, also running independent.
California independent contractor fallout: 'Two-check' employee/contractor pay system explored
There's been more chatter about the old "two-check" system of pay for owner-operators contracted to carriers in the last year and more as fleets of all shapes and sizes in California or with California-based independent contractor owner-ops ponder what approach to take to preserve relationships with business relationships with owner-ops in the wake of the state's codification of the so-called "ABC" independent contractor classification test. California's newly passed bill establishes that test as the go-to one when determining the appropriateness of the independent contractor classification for workers in all manner of sectors and operations, trucking included. Unless there’s clear action in courts or something else that happens legislatively in the state, that will become the law of the land there the first month of next year. Though the two-check employee/contractor hybrid system for owner-operators is something a "dinosaur" in trucking today, some believe it could hold promise in a manner of areas. OOIDA board member Monte Wiederhold speaks to possibilities and his memory of the system when he started trucking in the late 1970s, up through the 1990s.
'Truck parking only': Working together toward a new get-in reality
The need for greater parking capacity, well-managed, throughout the nation is no secret. The need along Texas lanes was the subject of the lively discussion Overdrive held at the Great American Trucking Show last month, devoted to parking. In today’s podcast, you’ll get a full window into that discussion, aimed at engaging with Texas DOT freight planning branch manager Sherry Pifer and others from the agency as they re-evaluate their own approach to marshalling public resources and create partnership with private companies toward parking improvement. The discussion could well provide a model toward engaging with other states, too. Along the way you’ll hear from a multitude of owner-operators, drivers and other drivers in attendance, as well as owner-operator Ingrid Brown, Clark Freight Lines driver Jack Smith and former owner-op Scott Grenerth, who moderated the discussion. Grenerth, as regular listerners will know, is part of the Truck Specialized Parking Service company.
After the accident: First-responder superheroes, coping resources, first-person perspective
Overdrive Radio's rebroadcast of the Trucking Solutions Group's "accident-awareness" conference call, with interviews about the impetus for the event with owner-ops Vince Crisanti and Shane Rizzuto. Both operators were motivated in part by personal experience with crashes on the roadways, and hopeful that "anyone who touches a seatbelt" could benefit from the input of firefighter, police and water rescue first-responders who presented. Also: Resources for dealing with the personal aftermath of any major accident, with some first-person stories of coping from more than one trucker and family member. One comes from Monica Stevens, widow of Harry Pierce, pictured with his ridealong dog, Blue, who survived Pierce's tragic crash.
Engineering realities v. hyperactive marketing: The 'driverless' trucking future explored
Something a little different on Overdrive Radio today – the podcast will transport you like so many futuristic teleporting time machines to a Thursday, Aug. 22, panel at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas. That panel was all about the notion of a “driverless” truck and where drivers really fit in as such a thing gets closer to real. Find a brief contemporaneous report from the panel, a discussion with Starsky Robotics' Paul Schlegel and Pronto's Ognen Stojanovski, via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/drivers-role-in-driverless-trucks-explored-in-gats-panel/
Trucker Talent Search: The performances; And more on hours amid comment period
In this Overdrive Radio podcast edition, run through the performances by competing truckers Jason Henley, "Mississippi Ken" Freeman and the ultimate talent search winner, Taylor Barker, live from the Great American Trucking Show a week ago. Also: A warm-up three-song act by Paul Marhoefer and Tony Justice's homespun emcee-ing of the event, an ongoing anchor among the community of musicians who also happened to haul freight on the open road, or vice versa, as it were. Thirdly: Near the top, a brief talk with Pennsylvania-based owner-operator Mike Landis, also of the United States Transportation Alliance, about his view of the FMCSA's hours of service proposal, including a bit of clarification of how the rule views computation of the split-sleeper options it's proposing.
Special edition: FMCSA's GATS hours of service listening session
If you missed the Great American Trucking Show or the FMCSA's webcast last week, you can sit in on the first hour and more of the hours of service listening session held at GATS in Dallas Aug. 23, 2019, via this special presentation of Overdrive Radio. This was the first listening session held by the FMCSA following its introduction of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that offered some changes to truckers aimed at increasing both safety and some measure of flexibility for drivers. Two significant elements of that were revisions to split-sleeper-berth regs as well as the proposal to allow up to a three-hour pause to the 14-hour duty clock daily with an off-duty mid-period break. Read more about the proposed changes via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/stop-the-clock-proposed-hours-of-service-overhaul-would-allow-drivers-to-pause-14-hour-clock/
18 years old and hauling in 1917; Leon Everette, Long Haul Paul from GATS
Wednesday night in Dallas, classic country star and gospel singer Leon Everette, with trucker-songwriter Bill Weaver, started us up with a sound-check of sorts that turned into an impromptu extended jam -- you'll hear some of that and more in this week's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast. (Paul Marhoefer, too.) And though the news has been dominated this week and the previous one by the hours of service, we sit down at GATS for a chat about history, training and more with Jay Thompson of Transportation Business Associates. He grew up in rural Indiana and starting his working career driving big trucks, a route taken by the generations of men in his family as well, all the way back to his grandfather, Walter Thompson. Walter had a chauffer’s license at age 18, in 1917, and given we’re talking today as an industry about the potential for a pilot program for under-21 CDL drivers, we sat down to ferret out a little bit of the history there. As Thompson says, history often repeats itself in various ways …
Mailbag: Worm turns on regs favorability with hours proposal, readers sound off
Readers weigh in largely favorably on FMCSA's this-week-proposed hours of service changes. Any of these changes have quite an interesting road ahead of them in the next year or however long it takes for the agency to push them through. So-called "safety advocates" are already howling to mainstream news outlets -– stories are being spread far and wide with editorialized headlines like “Trump administration moves to relax rules on how long truckers can drive”… You may have seen that one or some variant on it -- the headline the L.A. Times put on the Associated Press story about the rules. It’s not a terrible story, all things considered, despite the headline. At once, it does lead in part with what feels like the nut the way it’s presented: “highway safety groups have warned that putting the revisions into place would dangerously weaken the regulations.” Well … nothing new there. Though as noted the headline itself is just flat wrong, or at the least misleading, as it pertains to anyone using a logbook. The FMCSA isn’t proposing to change the underlying 11-hour drive time maximum.
What would you do for another 1-2 mpg in fuel mileage?
What would you do for another mile or two per gallon in running fuel mileage? How does a six-year odyssey in modifications to your truck’s engine and related systems, reducing the draw on the engine from the main fan and A/C and more sound? That’s in essence what thinker-tinker, so to speak, inventor, and independent owner-operator Kenny Capell did. Based in East Tennessee, Kenny continues to modify his own Freightliner Columbia and Detroit to get to the point where not only is he achieving about a mile-and-a-half overall running fuel mileage benefit. He's moving toward also eliminating idling entirely with the integrated system, now officially patented by himself and his sister, Patti Lane. Pictured here: The modified engine fan with four electric fans -- one among many aspects of the custom-designed system.
Longtime TA Nashville employees recount historic 2010 flood, support and recovery
Up from water: This week's Overdrive Radio podcast edition features the voices of six current longtime staff of the Nashville downtown TravelCenters of America location. It’s certainly a unique stop with its proximity to the city center, likewise just a few city blocks' worth of distance from the banks of the mighty Cumberland River. TA Nashville’s continued existence at its now 40-year location is remarkable further for what happened nine years ago this past May, when over the weekend of May 1-2, 2010 the city and surrounding region got almost 20 inches of torrential rain in some areas, flooding the city’s drainage system, area creeks among other tributaries and, ultimately, that nearby mighty river. In this podcast, longtime staff from the stop and the region recount their experiences watching the water come up, and what happened there in the aftermath.
More flexible sleeper splits: It didn’t take long for this newbie team to see potential value
You’ll be hard-pressed to come across cooler heads than those of the husband-wife team pair of relative trucking newbies I had the pleasure of sitting down with in Hartsville, Tenn., several weeks back. Tommy and Linda Bryant have about a year over the road as a company team with Old Time Express, pulling a dry van and, generally, loving life together after their mid-life switch to the work. For this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, we drop into Hartsville Old Time office, where I met the Bryants. Before trucking, with the kids grown and out of the house, Tommy and Linda were already basically spending the vast majority of their days together running a small Hartsville café, the Early Bird, today owned and operated by a son. A road trip taken in a four-wheeler out west, though, gave them an idea of how they could get even closer, and for longer, maximizing as a unit that precious commodity of time, together, as Tommy puts it. What are you doing with work but selling your time to an employer, after all, whether that’s yourself, or, as is the case for the Bryants now, the Old Time Express fleet? And though Tommy and Linda may be new to trucking, it hasn’t taken them long to see, as both pointed out, the potential value of more flexible sleeper splits, beyond the 8/w split currently available. Particularly for their team operation.
A truckstop in the halls of Congress, and a hotshot carrier's data-use-transparency hopes
Dispatch here from the day the truck stop came to the U.S. Congress with Truckstop.com’s Chief Relationship Officer Brent Hutto. Hutto testitifed recently before a subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee about the position of technology providers in the freight ecosystem, the potential for electronic permitting, the importance of funding road maintenance and more. Regarding the latter, his thoughts here include illustration of just how road deterioration makes the No. 1 reason owner-ops go out business much more likely to come to fruition -- that’s a major mechanical failure, of course, hastened by bad roads. Also here: Jon Gavrilyuk of hotshot-focused Safe Way Carrier out of central Missouri on issues of data usage, personal privacy, competition and Safe Way’s operation.
40 years of trucking — and surviving — with owner-op Ingrid Brown; Plus: Talent finalists’ tunes
Owner-operator Ingrid Brown started trucking as a teenager in 1979, and she's been on the road since. In this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast: Her reflections on her 40-year career, many of those spent as a single-truck owner-operator, as well as her recent involvement in FMCSA's Our Roads, Our Safety campaign and her ongoing bout with various forms of skin cancer. Also — a listen to the three songs that earned three truckers finalists spots in this year's Overdrive-Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search.
Preventing skin cancer: 'The sun will hunt you down' in the truck
So says retired trucker Joe Jolly out of Kansas, who was recently treated for a small spot of aggressive skin cancer on his face. He has a message for young drivers who aren't thinking about their in-cab sun exposure. Put fairly succinctly, you might say the sun is “trying to kill you” from the day you’re born, as Joe puts it. Anything you can do to protect yourself from damaging ultraviolet radiation while trucking over the road today will pay dividends in later years. We talk about that throughout this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast. Also: a quick walk through a bit of our contributing writer, trucker and singer-songwriter Paul Marhoefer’s recording session in Muscle Shoals last week. There, he laid down an original track that will also serve as the theme for a new special-edition podcast we’ve been working on . Hear a little of "Over the Road" here.
'Tennessee Alabama Fireworks': The new record from Nashville-based singer-songwriter Boo Ray
Ride along with Overdrive Senior Editor Todd Dills and Nashville singer-songwriter Boo Ray on a tour through Ray's latest, named after a familiar site on I-24 anyone who's run west from Chattanooga will recognize. The record starts with a trio of road songs in which there's no shortage of mirth, pathos and more.
The first Penn. Make-a-Wish convoy, remembered, and: OOIDA highway-bill priorities
In this week's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, we get a clear window onto the fist Make-A-Wish convoy from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with former trucker George Ruelens. He was hauling for Ned Bard & Son at the time, with no idea what he and the 41 other truckers were doing that day would go on to become a veritable institution in the region around Lancaster County -- the annual Mother’s Day convoy benefiting the Make-a-Wish foundation. This year, the convoy featured 650 trucks in its 30th year, a huge amount of growth over the course of three decades from the first one. Ruelens narrates his experience of that first one, and looks back fondly on the day and subsequent editions of the convoy, which have created so many memories for children involved -- truckers, too, no doubt, and members of the community in that area. Also in the podcast: With highway-funding measures being introduced in the House, President Trump pledges not to work w/ Dems on it, objecting to ongoing investigations; OOIDA's infrastructure outreach discussed with OOIDA board member and small fleet owner Monte Wiederhold.
Runaway on I-64 down Sandstone Mountain, and revisiting an accurate rate prediction pre-ELDs
South Carolina-based owner-operator Lee Epling echoes retired veteran hauler Gordon Alkire's perspective in the previous edition of Overdrive Radio, in which Alkire spoke on the tragic Colorado crash several weeks back. Epling, in turn, likewise urged caution pointing the finger before all the facts are known. Along the way, Epling shares his own brake-failure story on Sandstone Mountain in W.Va./Va. on I-64. Further, we talk with OOIDA board member Monte Wiederhold about what turned out to be a quite accurate prediction when it comes to spot market rates and the ELD mandate. While his small fleet's mostly shipper-direct freight benefited directly with gains that he hasn't lost in his contracts, the same cannot be said about the spot market, which adjusting for the rise in fuel in April was give or take some pennies per mile was more or less right back where it was in April of 2017. Wiederhold offers some perspective how to maintain in such an environment.
In wake of Colo. crash, reserve judgment: Owner-op recounts '70s no-brakes run off Monteagle
A week ago Thursday began no doubt no shortage of investigation into the fiery Lakewood, Colorado, crash of Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos, who lost control of his truck on a downhill grade and, ultimately, crashed, killing multiple people and sending multiple others to the hospital. In the wake of the tragedy for all involved, including the driver, who was charged with vehicular homicide among other counts, there’s been no small amount of finger-pointing to this or that cause. Gordon Alkire, retired owner-operator of Riley, Kan., reached out with a considered piece about such finger-pointing that you can read in full via the Channel 19 blog post for May 3 via http://OverdriveOnline.com/channel19. Alkire has little patience for such finger-pointing, and asks his fellow drivers to check their condemnation and take a close look at themselves. “Ask yourself if that could have been you?” he wrote. “A downgrade, a loaded trailer, no brakes. Confusion, fear, and panic.” He's been there, and he tells that story here -- a harrowing 1970s run down Monteagle Mountain.
Custom walk-in storage at the front of a dry van; bulk tank niche explored
If regular listeners don’t recognize the first voice you hear in this podcast, that of Daniel Snow, he and his wife and business partner Phyllis' rig you're certain you'll remember. Christened “The Goose,” it’s a 1996 Freightliner Classic with 140 inches’ worth of a custom-redesigned ICT sleeper the Snows located and outfitted themselves for the comforts of home on the road about 7 years ago. Another project undertaken around the same time is a four-foot storage compartment they built into the front of their dry-van trailer, accessible from the tractor’s deck catwalk via a door assembly, to house tools and other supplies. From the first time we saw it last year, it certainly seemed like a modification with scads of potential for emulation by any single-trailer owner out there with mechanical expertise and, like the Snows, plenty of time spent on the road away from the comfort of home and established relationships with diesel shops you know well. Later in the podcast, too, a couple conversations with liquid-bulk tank owner-ops Mike Landis and J.D. Howard, both of whom will be featured in more detail in the May issue of Overdrive.
Learning from the mistakes of others with owner-op Bill Ater
Learn from the mistakes of others, because you can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself. Bill Ater’s words to live by. in this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast we drop into the scene at the Junction truckstop in Blunt, S.D., round about mid-week last week, with the Landstar-leased owner-operator and a fellow hauler on a run from Midland, Texas, up to the Williston, N.D., oil fields. The two found themselves just ahead of the early-Spring blizzard that hammered the area and surrounding states last week. They spent a good deal longer at The Junction than they’d initially expected –- nearly three days, all told –- and owner-operator Ater came out of the experience with a new appreciation for the dedication and generosity of Colleen Pool, manager of the Junction stop there. Take a listen.
Even in a roaring market, think twice before joining the stampede
An unfortunate reality in the 2018 year-end income averages from ATBS showed independent owner-operators with their authority earning on average less than some leased owner-op segments. In Kevin Rutherford's view, that just shouldn’t be the case for any full-time independent given the old greater risk equals greater reward truism. If you’re not beating the leased averages and are working full-time or more, something is terribly wrong. Find more on the numbers that explains those averages via OverdriveOnline.com, search ATBS.
Lights-out at MATS, and: You're the parking expert 'where you live and where you truck to'
Today on Overdrive Radio, much of a conversation I had with former owner-operator Scott Grenerth, with whom regular listeners will be familiar from his moderation of our parking-issues-related panel at the Great American Trucking Show in August 2018. Grenerth’s currently with the Truck Specialized Parking Services company and is a former regulatory affairs director with OOIDA. At Mid-America last week, his company introduced a new parking-related resource in RigRest.com, a mobile-optimized search tool -- and more – for parking around the country. Most importantly, perhaps, Grenerth and company are working in a variety of ways to optimize and in some cases make newly available excess parking capacity for truckers of all stripes in partnership with fleet operators with available space, dedicated sites around warehouses under development, and others. Now to a certain extent, and hopefully more in future, Grenerth says RigRest.com will be an info and parking-reservation hub for truckers not only looking to park in chain truck stops but in a variety of nontraditional locations and independent stops all around the country. Also in the podcast: When the lights went out on FMCSA at MATS, and Grenerth's continuing work with the National Coalition on Truck Parking and around metro and county zoning and planning issues, advocacy and more.
Why pick a fight with the air? And: downtime for the spot market 3 o'clock hustle
This edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast comes as the Mid-America Trucking Show continues in Louisville, Ky. In this edition, a couple of my conversations with two owner-ops with some commonality between them in a willingness to be the contrarian in this loud age, on a variety of things. That’d be Lexington, Kentucky-based owner-op Chad Boblett, running with one truck and using brokers. Likewise the operator you'll hear at the podcast's top, Henry Albert, who moves truck parts between Laredo and points in the Southeast when he’s hauling and not working with dealer reps or other operators to train them on new technology as part of Freightliner’s longstanding Team Run Smart initiative. Albert’s been demonstrating lately in his own operation the effect of speed increases on fuel mileage, an attempt to investigate the benefits of time saved versus the sacrifices made in increased fuel costs. In the podcas, he describes the 70-75 mph speeds he’s been pushing along his lanes, and the benefits accrued in, for him, added time off, by eliminating a 10-hour break on a roundtrip. Also: Chad Boblett on the 3 o'clock hustle, the waiting game one can play to take full advantage of all available negotiating leverage, and the ELD mandate's damper on its usefulness, given broker and carrier adjustments to concerns with time efficiency.
In love with trucking: Mandi Jo Pinheiro in-studio in Nashville
Mandi Jo Pinheiro, the winner of the 2018 Trucker Talent Search, and her father and fellow guitarist, Urban Roger Brown, were kind enough to sit down with Overdrive in Nashville earlier this week. They'd come all the way from Idaho Tuesday for an all-day Wednesday recording session at Jay’s Place, a studio long operated by Jay Vernali on Music Row. Conveniently, Vernali also offers up the apartment above the studio to travelers, and it was there that Pinheiro and Brown ran through a couple of the tracks the pair planned to put to tape, so to speak. the next day, and independent owner-operator Pinheiro (in a team with her husband, William) also offered up a tour through her history in trucking. That follows time in a cargo van working for a medical courier company in the Pacific Northwest, and a long-held dream of over-the-road work realized after she met and married William. Today, the pair run out of a home base of Twin Falls, Idaho, hauling step deck freight behind a 2005 Peterbilt 379. Hop on and run through it all with us in this edition of Overdrive Radio.
90-plus-inch double-bunk sleeper in a cargo van? You bet
In this week's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, following last week's talk with Load One's John Elliott about significant challenges in the cargo-van-powered segment of the expedited trucking niche, owner-operator Darren Ayres details his own place within it hauling in a Mercedes Sprinter Van. He and his co-owner-op wife, Trish, run leased to Landstar and with (as suggested by the podcast's title) a sizable sleeper area as an on-the-road living quarters in the mostly military-freight-specific operation. Working with Fastlane Products of Oak Ridge, Tenn., after they took delivery of the base van, the pair planned the sleeper with double bunks along the driver side, leaving extra space for more amenities, including a sink and storage spaces, that Darren details in the podcast. The sleeper addition and overall upfit with auxiliary roof air, an inverter and more in 2017 came at an additional roughly $20K investment over the sticker (around $45K) on the diesel-powered Sprinter. The approximately 8 feet of cargo space the sleeper takes up leaves enough for two pallets in the cargo area, plenty for often very small loads the pair hauls to military installations.
1970s, 2010s trucking parallels, and: Hauling away (or into) the headaches with a cargo van
In this edition of Overdrive Radio find Max Heine's talk with owner-operator John Strong, recently off the road, about his involvement in the 1970s and beyond in advocacy efforts with Overdrive founder Mike Parkhurst, memories of the Mass 10 truck stop, and much more. Todd Dills' talk with Load One head John Elliott continues here, too, about the cargo van niche, which would seem to check the boxes as a solution to a lot of the headaches -- hours of service, scales, parking -- Class 8 tractor-trailer owner-ops deal with, as long as they’re not hauling a placardable hazmat load, in which case cargo vans are regulated more or less just like bigger trucks. And that’s not to mention lower cost barriers to entry into the market as well, with much lower new-vehicle purchase prices. At once, though, challenges abound, and Elliott describes the multitude of those in detail from his perspective. Find a previous podcast with Elliott via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/a-closer-look-at-the-freight-demand-and-planning-app-for-owner-ops-with-load-one/
More slow-rollin' supporting shutdown call: A talk with owner-op Brian Bucenell
Owner-operator Brian Bucenell's 2002 Peterbilt 379 was among the 100 or so trucks that participated in the "slow roll" event in Indianapolis last week. Bucenell's also helping put on a Virginia "slow roll" event tomorrow, March 2, with a gathering point in Doswell, Va. (The group plans to roll out from the Doswell truck stop on I-95 at 11 a.m.) Slow roll events follow in Ohio on March 8 and in the Carolinas around Charlotte on March 9. Bucenell -- pictured with his daughter, Savannah, and wife, Casey -- is spurred to be involved in protest and advocacy events in part by a desire to leave trucking better than he found it, thinking principally of his nine-year-old son. He speaks to the issues most participants are advocating for -- hours flexibility, parking investment, training for new drivers, and safety broadly speaking -- from his own point of view in this edition of Overdrive Radio.
Raise scam awareness -- How to combat expensive online fakery; More from Long Haul Paul
And, as the picture shows, more from Long Haul Paul Marhoefer from the stage at the Key Palace Theater in Redkey, Ind., this past Feb. 2. Otherwise, this edition of Overdrive Radio takes aim at combating increasingly proliferating online scams. High degrees of situational awareness are your best tools, says Safr.me consultant and author Robert Siciliano, who speaks here. Some such cases have seen the light of day at OverdriveOnline.com, including the recent dramatic and expensive tale of a Georgia trucker catfished by a fake online romantic relationship and tricked into wiring more than $25 grand to the other party. Fall for such a scam once, too, and you're now on a "sucker list" maintained by what's increasingly resembling something of an online-scam industrial complex. "They will work you to the end of your days," says Siciliano, who has a particular expertise in the online scam arena. He’s the CEO of the non-profit personal security education site, and also a private investigator. He regularly consults with Fortune 500 companies about privacy and security and you might recognize his voice from interviews in major media outlets tapping his expertise in just how people can protect themselves in their online interactions. Overdrive Senior Editor James Jaillet and Contributing Editor Carolyn Mason talked with Siciliano about increasing your own awareness of how these scams play out to most effectively prevent them.
A close look into the freight-demand and planning app for owner-ops with Load One
There are a multiplicity of smartphone apps out there for leased owner-ops from their leasing carriers, but we hadn’t seen anything quite like the "Ultimate Advantage" app from expediter Load One before we first wrote about it this time last year. In the sort of emergency-freight service that is the expedited trucking business, having information about where to be to best set yourself up for the next load is, to say the least, a difficult proposition. Long waits between loads have been common there for years for many owner-ops. The app, as Load One head John Elliott here explains, helps enable decision-making with a few swipes and taps, giving owner-ops clarity into the overall demand picture in any area they’re in – and not just when it comes to Load One freight but competitors’ capacity there as well. The app was named 2018's Innovation of the Year by Overdrive sister magazine CCJ, geared to fleet owners and managers, recently, and it's quickly drawn the accolades of the owner-ops who use it, too.
Dissecting new study on post-ELD mandate crash rates, and the blues of Watermelon Slim
This edition of Overdrive Radio features Overdrive Senior Editor James Jaillet's conversation with Northeastern University academic Alex Scott, who with colleagues at Michigan State and the University of Arkansas completed a recent study around potential safety-sensitive impacts of the electronic-logging-device mandate. The upshot, which you know if you saw the headlines, is that a comparative analysis of various carrier size groups, average weekly crash volumes, and hours of service violations, among others, showed that, while hours violations were down quite a lot for small carriers, there was little change in crash volumes before and after the mandate was being fully enforced in any size grouping. If anything, average weekly crash volume ticked up a bit for those most directly affected by the mandate – the smallest of fleets. It all seemed to lend at least a little further credence to the notion that the mandate, ultimately, might not be about safety at all, also the widely held contention that the hours of service rule could use some work to reintroduce flexibility for professional truckers in how they utilize available hours, within limits. Also: Running through the trucking blues of former highway hauler Bill "Watermelon Slim" Homans, with pieces of his mammoth performance last weekend, Feb. 2, in Redkey, Ind. More from his performance, and that of opener "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer, via video: https://www.overdriveonline.com/watch-bill-watermelon-slim-homans-long-haul-paul-marhoefer-live-from-indiana/
Local/regional fuel hauling's winter boost: Seasonal cost tradeoffs and more with Dave Marti
This week's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast features a talk with small fleet owner Dave Marti of Forrest, Ill. He's got six power units, including his own, leased to Transport Services of Sullivan, Ill., hauling fuel in the region around his home base, delivering in liquid-bulk hazmat tanks to fueling stations that see an uptick in volume this time of year. His is one of not many trucking niches that actually see a boost in business this time of year, though as you’ll hear, costs are higher for his business just as they are for many in this frigid season. Balancing the tradeoffs is one of the many calculations the owner’s learned to make over his years in business. His move toward trucking following 20 years off and on driving and in maintenance, as you’ll hear him describe shortly, and growth in the business has come with the dependable partner in Transport Services he made about five years after he got his start as an owner-operator with that a 2007 Pete leased to another outfit. His story I imagine might help show the way for any of you thinking of expansion in the years ahead, and ring familiar to those who've done just that with success today. Also in the podcast: If you missed prior coverage of Chicago-area-based owner-operator Robert Budzik and his 2002 Kenworth T2000, our brief talk with the operator about his young business' recent history -- on the opposite end of the spectrum of a fashion in life and business from where Marti is today -- rounds out the podcast.
Preparing for the impossible, shutdown pessimism, and the divisions in trucking history
Today's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast features a long talk on subject matter in the headline, and more, with owner-operator Steve Bixler of Valley View, Pa., the relatively recently former OOIDA board member and hauler of sand to natural gas drilling and fracking operations in his region. He resigned from OOIDA board in 2017 amid business issues at that time, and today, he’s working with an intrastate log and wood-chips hauling operation that uses its company trucks in Pennnsylvania. Independent owner-operator Bixler’s interstate authority, then, affords him plenty opportunity contracting with the operation for runs to a facility in New York State. Bixler has long been a strong advocate for the notion of a panel of experienced drivers to serve as a regulations-review board of sorts, his thoughts about which lead the podcast. One principal subjects of the podcast: preparation for the worst – whatever series of events you can imagine that threaten your continued operation. Bixler himself was in the middle of paying off a couple bank loans when his daily-driver 1996 Kenworth went down last year, needing an engine rebuild or replacement that was going to take some time to complete, if he could muster up the money to do it. He knew it was coming time for the engine work, and even with the aggressive moves on the bank loans limiting his ready cash flow, he had a contingency plan in place that he moved on. That contingency plan involved his trusty 1989-model Freightliner cabover, the Lady in Red.
The growing pains of small trucking: Midnight Xpress on blown motors, hiring mistakes and more
This edition of Overdrive Radio follows up with Andre Jackson, owner-operator with a business partner of the one-year-old Midnight Xpress small fleet, based down in Mississippi (partner in the business, owner-op Donte Ogletree, is based in Atlanta). Regular listeners will remember late last summer when Jackson was the principal guest on the podcast telling the story of his comeback from multiple heart attacks to where he is today, on his own with his authority and a small trucking company that, as he alludes to at the top, was started with a plan for somewhat aggressive, hopefully sustainable growth in the near-term future. In the short time since we talked, a breakdown of the first truck the pair of owner-ops added to the two-truck fleet, a 2007 Volvo 780 with an '06 engine, set them back a good bit. The driver they hired for that truck then, well, Jackson gets to that in the talk that follows, one that lays out plenty of considerations any owner-operator considering expansion beyond a single truck should make.
'Dynamex' ABC test 'an unfair hammer to legitimate contractors' -- view from a small fleet
A talk here with the owner of and a contractor to Southern California-based Angus Transportation, a now three-truck business owned and operated by Jimmy Nevarez. Leased owner-operator Darril Lightburn is in a percentage-type comensation arrangement there as an independent contractor, and Overdrive spoke with he and Nevarez both given latter’s past experience hauling rail intermodal containers in the region where they're based, attendant to a feature you’ll see in the February issue of Overdrive about the independent contractor classification, challenges to it via West Coast courts and other areas, and its abuse by too many companies around trucking with, often, lease-purchase arrangements that make it impossible to succeed, much less be afforded any truly independent status with negotiating power. Union organizing and attendant litigation in the ports, and some high-profile examples of muckraking-type journalism over the past years, have exposed some of the most egregious examples. At the same time, the traditional percentage-pay method of small fleets with lease agreements with owner-operators survives. Yes, even in California, as Lightburn and Nevarez are evidence of.
2018 'coulda planned better': Counting down the top 10 Overdrive Radio podcasts of the year
Take a look back on 2018 and, viewed through the lenses of time and the myriad of conversations and voices heard on the Overdrive Radio podcast, 2018 might well be dubbed the year of ticky-tack and more serious issues related to the implementation of, what else, the electronic logging device mandate. Owner-operators’ adjustments in light of that rule, which started being enforced in a significant way on April 1 of 2018, ride over almost the entirety of the top 10 most-listened to episodes here, including some mailbag rounds of callers’ messages on related issues that very nearly made the top 10 themselves. Excerpts here from all 10, in bottom to top order. Also a repeated theme: Focus shifting to or continuing on for many independents in the audience to the occasionally fraught, and often challenging, relationship with freight partner brokers. A big part of that is contractual games brokers have played for years, occupying No. 3 and No. 2 slots.
Weighing ECM retune options, or full-on emissions defeats, in light of enforcement risk
This edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast features Overdrive Senior Editor James Jaillet, who penned the piece we suspect many of you noticed in the last couple weeks at OverdriveOnline.com, or in the December print magazine, about new enforcement heat on emissions regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency when it comes to post-2006 heavy duty diesel engines. The story was spurred on by a particular case that caught everybody’s attention way back in June, when a shop in Pennsylvania was hit with fines for performing essentially emissions-defeating work for a two-truck fleet. It’s not the only action EPA, in this case in concert with DOT, has taken against shops doing this kind of work, but what was remarkable about this one was it also hit the owner-operator getting the work done, to a certain degree. From that point up until we put the December issue to bed last month, Jaillet’s been working the area toward the "Engine tinkerers, beware” feature recently released, and his reporting led him into a variety of areas, including how ECM-retune-device providers have responded to the modern-emissions era of equipment, how engine manufacturers are viewing the various engine modifications that are possible, risks owner-operators face and more, given the sword EPA’s increasingly willing to wield around heavy-duty emissions work. While it's sharper when it comes to the shops doing the work, at the same time, fines possible for individual truck owners, as the June case showed, are nothing to sniff at themselves. Also in the podcast: A related conversation with owner-operator Dean DeSantis some of you may have heard in prior coverage of his 2018 Peterbilt 389 at OverdriveOnline.com. DeSantis is bullish on durability and functionality of emissions systems in the last two model years of trucks and believes they will only continue to get better.
On the 'flower gravy train': Greenhouse freight, 10-4 D.C. convoy and more with Scott Hampton
Owner-operator Scott Hampton pulled hoppers before transitioning to the operation he's in today, which he describes as his "flower gravy train" doing multi-drop distribution runs for shipper Dallas Johnson Greenhouse in Council Bluffs, Iowa, south to a variety of stores this time of year. When we talked for what is the latest edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast a couple weeks back, he'd hopped around the Oklahoma City area making deliveries with poinsettias in a reefer, a typical run for this time of year, often loading empty carts back to their origin. If he was correct in his assessment then, this week might see the last of such seasonal loads, but not the end of the line for Hampton's relationship with the shipper, to which he's been more or less dedicated going on a couple years. Also in the podcast, hear more from Hampton about his remarkable 2000 Peterbilt 379, which I wrote a good bit about early last week, and his participation in "That's a Big 10-4 on D.C." in October, where we met for the first time. Hampton was the tail truck rolling in the convoy out of D.C. at the end of the event, but by the end of the convoy he tailed no more, as the now somewhat infamous picture we shared from another convoy participant at the time shows Hampton's Pete on the right shoulder of I-95 in the far left of the frame, as convoy participants stopped in a line across all lanes.
Beware what you sign with brokers: Freight-charge offsetting of cargo claims a 'sucker's game'
Beware what you sign, owner-operators, when getting set up with a broker. So notes Transportation attorney Hank Seaton, in conversation about the curious case of a Florida-based three-truck fleet who reached out about what it saw as the strange treatment of two loads her company hauled earlier this year for Bennett International Group, both as yet unpaid. Seaton describes brokers' "right to offset" clauses in contract that should be avoided -- they give the broker the right to hold payments to offset cost of any claim, and such clauses he believes are intolerable given appropriate cargo insurance, and should be avoided like the plague. Also: Plenty more on Seaton's view of safety ratings and how they could be prioritized over the data-based scoring approach en vogue at present.
The truckers helping foster 12-year-old Robbie Welsh' creative journey
In this edition Overdrive Radio, St. Louis mother Sarah Welsh details how the trucking community, particularly a variety of owner-operators among it, has helped foster her 12-year-old son Robbie's passion for so many things trucking -- and particularly: "meeting drivers to talk about their trucks." A young man of my own heart, as it were. Also in the podcast, we’ll hear from a man I bet young Robbie Welsh would love to meet himself. We’ll make it a tale of two Robbies, as it were, in this edition with more from owner-operator Robbie Harris, who hauls heavy in the 2004 Kenworth W9 that is an homage to the 1970s-era KW in the famous "Movin' On" TV series. I posted a video detailing the rig last week at the blog. What you don’t hear in that video, though, is Harris’s detail of a recent haul with a 17-foot-high, more than 130,000-lb. generator between Wisconsin and Washington State, with insights on costs when it comes to hiring pilot cars and obtaining, state by individual state of course, permits for such a heavy run.
How a '99 Classic came to be 'the Goose,' and: Hope for small-biz primacy with FMCSA?
So just how did Daniel and Phyllis Snow's 1996 Freightliner Classic XL get to be called 'The Goose'? Here in this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, the independent owner-operators tell that story, which involves their son's 1999 Classic 'The Duck', too. Also: A bit of stumping for the importance of small business in trucking from Ray Martinez, part of his address at the annual meeting of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies in Nashville November 1.
'Winds of change' at FMCSA: Ray Martinez addresses 2018 NASTC event
"The winds of change" are afoot at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said FMCSA chief Ray Martinez in his opening keynote at the annual conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies November 1. The three-day event is ongoing in Nashville, Tenn. Leadership at the Department of Transportation on up to the President of the United States, he added, "wants us to work with the regulated community," he added, going on to emphatically validate an oft-repeated statistic among the small-fleet and owner-operator community. "I recognize and respect the fact -- and this is a fact," Martinez emphasized -- "that 90 percent of the trucking industry is represented by carriers with 10 or fewer power units. ... It may not have been recognized in the past, but I can tell you it is loud and clear in our offices today."
Hurricane relief hauling with Fla. owner-op Tim Philmon; and a look at ATA's fed/state agenda
In this week’s edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, we take a run through Hurricane Michael’s devastating effects on the Florida panhandle north through clear to Albany, Ga., where 100-mile-per-hour-plus winds persisted in the fast-moving storm well after landfall. With all the devastation, for some owner-operators new opportunities arise, as regular listeners and readers of Overdrive well know. In this edition we talk more about front-line FEMA/state shuttle relief operations like the one Florida-based independent Tim Philmon contracted to in the wake of the most recent hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland, via a brokerage with a FEMA contract. The bulk of the podcast is devoted to Philmon’s operation, but before we get there, I checked in with fellow Overdrive Senior Editor James Jaillet, who splits some of his time with our sister fleet-news publication CCJ, for a close look into the American Trucking Associations regulatory and legislative agenda. Jaillet’s just off a reporting trip to the Associations’ annual Management Conference and Exhibition, and his thoughts give us a window into the fleet interest group that’s loomed large in the imagination of many an owner-operator over the long run -- reaching the size of an 800-pound gorilla, one might say, during all the advocacy machinations around the ELD mandate.
Living legacy of the 'BlackOut' veterans-tribute truck; small fleet expansion with Rob Hallahan
Just a couple weeks out from Veteran’s Day November 11, we walked through recent additions to BlackOut Freightliner veterans-tribute and memorial truck and owner Chuck Timbrook’s formalizing of the operation as a nonprofit organization, some new involvement in NASCAR and other racing events for Timbrook, and more relating to the rig two years after Timbrook's heart surgery sidelined him from commercial hauling. Toward the end, too, a little audio from a talk with Wisconsin-based small fleet owner-operator Rob Hallahan at “That’s a Big Ten-Four on D.C.” a couple weeks back –- about how, in the last year, he’s brought in other owner-operators leasing to his Hallahan Transport business and has gone from 1 truck to 5 over that time period.
The truck parking problem: Tools in the toolbox, modest capacity proposals and more
In this Overdrive Radio edition we’re talking truck parking with some of the insights on parking advocacy and brass-tacks on-highway planning delivered as part of the parking panel we hosted at the Great American Trucking Show in August. You probably saw Overdrive’s James Jaillet’s report on the panel in September, but this bit of audio gives you a window into the discussion, valuable for anyone I’d imagine who has to think hard about parking along their lanes. Most of you in this current post-ELD mandate environment, I’d wager. Voices include those of owner-ops Gary Buchs and Desiree Wood, moderator Scott Grenerth and Mike Johnson of the North Central Texas Council of Regional Governments. Also: what would you think about parking for a 10-hour break at a truck-dedicated, secure facility on the site of a NASCAR track? After the selected panel excerpts, you’ll hear part of a conversation I had with a member of the audience at that panel, Houston-based Schneider National leased operator Rodny Ziolkowski, who proffered a novel idea for adding parking capacity in a variety of areas around the country –- the notion of partnering with race-track facilities to utilize suitable space there for the purpose.
Voices from 10-4 D.C.: Doug Hasner, Todd Campbell -- and more from the hours mailbag
A few voices from participants in "That's a big 10-4 on D.C." last week from the National Mall. Owner-op Doug Hasner explains the rationale behind his own involvement, and updates the status of the charges filed against him after he was tased by police in April during a Constitution Ave. demonstration (all charges dropped). Todd Campbell of Ohio argues that a qualified positive for truckers in the market rates effects of the mandate is a negative for consumers, and in a mailbag round readers posit a variety of ideas for hours of service change. FMCSA ANPRM asking for hours of service fixes from the industry closes October 10.
The long bounce back from a widow maker with two-truck independent Andre Jackson
Since being featured on the cover of Overdrive in February of 2013, Bolton, Mississippi-based owner-operator Andre Jackson in the last year has completed a more than five-year journey through adversity to success in business ownership with a business partner, Donte Ogletree of Atlanta, the two operating under their own authority with two power units as Midnight Express. In this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, Jackson tells what happened to him following his appearance on the magazine's cover when, five years ago the Friday prior to the Great American Trucking Show, he arrived that fateful day to load in and stage the truck for participation there. He had a massive heart attack, and nearly was lost. He’s clawed back after two years of essentially losing most of his mobility and the very ability to take care of himself. Now, nearly 200 pounds lighter but no less driven, Jackson has a truly remarkable story to tell. Few stood by him in the years that followed but for his wife, Naomi Jackson, and as you’ll hear, it’s people like her that hold the world on their shoulders. No doubt about that.
Owner-operator income benchmarking, freight relationships and best practices
This edition of Overdrive Radio rounds up three distinct parts of the Partners in Business seminars held last month at the Great American Trucking Show, with presentations by ATBS President Todd Amen, radio host and former small fleet owner-operator Kevin Rutherford, and Richard DeForest, also with ATBS and a longtime PIB presenter. 1) Amen begins with a quick take on current conditions in trucking relative to the wider economy and continues into the weeds with some valuable data against which you can compare your own for major tracked segments. 2) DeForest offers what amounts to an owner-operator version of business best practices for a solid foundation to prepare for what inevitably will come -- another economic downturn, often tough to weather for owner-operators in trucking -- to set up for success for the long-term and a comfortable retirement, pull out of a credit hole and other situations. 3) Rutherford runs through his philosophy on dealing with customer relationships -- and how, he believes, too many owner-ops create an impossible task in this department when dealing with just too many brokers. His thoughts on the broker as customer, direct-shipper relationships and much more dominated this talk, in part spurred on by lively discussions with members of the audience.
Cooking in-cab, St. Christopher Fund update, and the big 10-4 to D.C.
This Overdrive Radio edition is a triptych of sorts: this edition is threefold – 1. Owner-operator Allen Kelly of Pennsylvania runs through some of the particulars on the “That’s a Big 10-4 on D.C.” event coming up, when else, on October 4 in Fredericksburg, Va., and Washington, D.C. 2: Stevens Transport driver and RoadTestedLiving.com proprietor Tom Kyrk run through his in-cab cooking demos and a recipe that’s part of a sweepstakes you can get involved in with a chance to win $2,000 through Monday, Sept. 17. 3) Shannon Currier of the St. Christopher Truckers Fund joined Kyrk at GATS to run us through the longtime charity’s fund-raising efforts, including a heartfelt thank-you to its no. 1 well of support: truckers themselves.
'Burnin' the Old School Down' with trucker/singer-songwriter Bill Weaver
A run through Bill Weaver’s new all-truckin' 'Burnin’ the Old School Down' record, recorded in part with members of a band called the Stone Creek Four out of Kingsport, Tennessee, with whom Weaver performed three nights running at the Great American Trucking Show a couple weeks back now in Dallas. That's where we talked with him for this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, burning through a few of the tracks on the new record, complete with Weaver’s own commentary on the genesis of many of the songs, and his hopes for the record. Find a 2016 talk with Weaver on the occasion of his first, 'Every Mile I Drive' record via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/podcast-take-a-run-through-the-stories-behind-bill-weavers-every-mile-i-drive/
Owner-operators relay their hours suggestions, concerns to FMCSA
From FMCSA's Aug. 25-held public listening session on hours of service reforms: Owner-operators take to the mic to make their recommendations and anecdotes pertaining to the agency's review of hours of service regs.
Listen in on the Trucker Talent Search, 2018 edition
As it happened on Friday, Aug. 24, of the 2018 Great American Trucking Show in Dallas, this week's Overdrive Radio podcast takes you through the music and people who were a part of the fifth annual Overdrive/Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search: emcee Tony Justice, opener and past talent search competitor Paul Marhoefer, and this year's entrants Benford "B.J." Williams, James Nelson, and winner Mandi Jo Pinheiro.
"In My Final Mile," by Paul Marhoefer
Paul Marhoefer performed this original track at the 2018 edition of Overdrive/Red Eye Radio's Trucker Talent Search at the Dallas Great American Trucking Show. His performance opened the 2018 edition of the competition, eventually won by Mandi Jo Pinheiro.
"That's Why I Drink," by Paul Marhoefer
Paul Marhoefer performs the track that got him into the 2015 final round of Overdrive/Red Eye Radio's Trucker Talent Search. His performance opened the 2018 edition of the competition, eventually won by Mandi Jo Pinheiro.
"Heartbeat," by Mandi Jo Pinheiro
Owner-operator Mandi Jo Pinheiro -- in a team with her husband, William -- won the Overdrive/Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search 2018 competition with this performance of an original tune crafted after a solicitation of the community of drivers asking about their favorite route to truck — and why. Read more about the track via this link:https://www.overdriveonline.com/idaho-independent-wins-trucker-talent-search-with-heartbeat-original/
"Live, Love, Laugh and Dance," by Tony Justice
Tony Justice emcee'd the 2018 Trucker Talent Search, which happened August 24 at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas. He also performed this track from his "Brothers of the Highway" record, written with his wife, Misty.
"What I'd Do to Ride With You," by James Nelson
Accelerated, Inc., driver James Nelson live from the Trucker Talent Search at 2018's Great American Trucking Show in Dallas.
"Tennessee Bluesman," by BJ Williams
LaVergne, Tenn.-based Ryder Integrated Logistics driver B.J. Williams live from the Trucker Talent Search, which happened August 24 at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas.
"The Big Road," by Tony Justice
This track, from Tony Justice's "Apple Pie Moonshine" record, was one of two Tony Justice performed while emcee'ing the 2018 Trucker Talent Search at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas while the judges worked.
Mailbag: Operators want hours options for safety, more
This run through recent messages on Overdrive Radio's podcast message line reveals what many drivers want out of any hours of service revision -- options to stop the 14-hour clock without additional complication, though ideas for how to get there show some variation.
Hours of service, truck automation, ELDs, crash stats and more with FMCSA boss Martinez
In a wide-ranging but broad interview, FMCSA Administrator Ray Martinez spoke with Overdrive in an exclusive interview about trucking industry pain points, the ongoing transition to electronic logging devices, evaluating hours of service reforms, implementation of automated vehicle tech and what he hopes to accomplish as FMCSA's administrator.
2018 Trucker Talent Search preview: Interviews, music with the finalists
In this Overdrive Radio special editor, you'll hear a little more directly from each of this year's Overdrive/Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search finalists – Mandi Jo Pinheiro, James Nelson and B.J. Williams, all of whom were interviewed by Red Eye Radio’s Eric Harley in advance of the final competition. That will take place Friday, Aug. 24, at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas. For those attending the show, don’t miss it –- it’s scheduled for a 3 p.m. start on the America Strong Stage in Hall A at the Dallas Convention Center. For general information on attending GATS, including how to get registered and full schedules and the like, visit truckshow.com.
When a failing starter is really a bad cable
If you’ve ever had the experience of a starter going bad at ever-decreasing intervals — the first one on the truck from the factory lasted 500,000 miles, the next one 200,000, etc. — you could be experiencing a phenomenon noted by Danial Mustafa, TA Truck Centers’ Director of Technical Services. Absent the right diagnostic equipment to troubleshoot conditions all along the loaded-up electrical and electronic systems of modern diesels, too many technicians, he says, essentially throw parts and components at any given problem, particularly in the starting and charging system. This special edition of Overdrive Radio is Mustafa's presentation at the Expedite Expo conference in July, where he detailed the increasing electrical demands in modern diesels and offered ways to troubleshoot them, and troubleshoot technicians' recommendations for maintenance, as it were. Find a related video in the August 14, 2018, post on the Channel 19 blog -- OverdriveOnline.com/Channel19.
Expedited conversations before the storm: Operator Nancy Hudson, Eric Escobar's small fleet
In the relative calm before a storm that walloped Lexington, Ky., as the first day of the Expedite Expo let out last month, Overdrive Radio sat down with the two finalists and ultimately runners-up for the Expediter of the Year award: AD Transportation driver Nancy Hudson and cargo van small fleet owner and Class 8 straight truck owner-operator Eric Escobar. The two shared insights from decades in business between them, Escobar after a prior career in the Army and Hudson following long work in a hospital as a patient care technician.
The push for camaraderie, community, from Overdrive Extra contributing owner-op Clifford Petersen
This Overdrive Radio edition checks in with a more complete introduction to Clifford Petersen’s leased operation with Christenson transportation, headquartered near Springfield, Mo., with more than 100 power units hauling mostly dry freight, Petersen notes. For regular Overdrive readers, Petersen probably needs no introduction, as he’s written several blog posts in recent times in which he draws on his experience over a few decades now in and out of trucking. His last time away, from 2005-15, though, gave him a new purpose in his approach to the industry and, as he notes, a desire to leave it better than he found it initially growing up in the 1970s.
Tim Paxton, the 2018 owner-operator Expediter of the Year, eyes his business' future
Cargo van owner-operator Tim Paxton, leased to Arkansas-based Barrett Directline, is the 2018 Expediter of the Year, and in this edition of Overdrive Radio, recorded prior to the announcement of his award July 21 at Expedite Expo, Paxton lays out a variety challenges faced by his and others' small-vehicle trucking operations. He's got an eye on the successes, too, though, from a healthy income for his family to a growing community he's helped spearhead via Youtube channel and, more recently, the "Transportation Life: Wheels, Wings and Rudders" Facebook group.
The demise of One20 Trucking, and its owner-op's efforts to get paid
As of press time, more than a month after the One20 company ceased operations entirely, and nearly three months after the owner of an affiliated business, the single-truck One20 Trucking, resigned his position as head of One20 Inc., owner-operators Lee and Lisa Schmitt, contracted to One20 Trucking, were still owed money for loads booked and hauled for the company, they say. The former One20 Trucking owner, Christian Schenk, says he's working on settling their accounts soon. In telling their story, though, the Schmitts reveal a key element as yet unreported in the One20 company's demise, the financial support from PeopleNet owner the Trimble Companies, whose decision to withdraw investment support in One20 essentially precipitated its fall. Take a listen.
Owner-operator Jon Hose and a malfunction junction where ELDs meet hours enforcement
Hose was put out of service with a false-log violation in Missouri early in June, as his One20 ELD was giving him problems en route a couple weeks prior to the company stopping support for the device on June 18. For Hose, his run with that particular ELD is one marred by inexplicable automatic duty-status changes and other malfunctions he can’t explain to this day, His story is one of difficulty, generally, as a direct result of selection of an ELD provider. This talk with him reveals how inspectors and state-patrol personnel are handling en-route malfunctions, and how you can be prepared for one should it happen to you.
Another way to do reefer washouts: Produce broker Pam Young's new 'Healthy Trailer' machine
Pam Young's thoughts on produce rates post-ELD mandate and how the Food Safety Modernization Act's new sanitary transportation requirements led her to develop a new automated reefer washout effort lead this podcast discussion with the produce broker, following up on parts of the discussion in last week's Overdrive Radio edition.
Old-school ways in new-school days: Freight partnerships with produce broker Pam Young
A brief run through the mailbag with disheartened haulers affected by the shuttering of the One20 F-ELD just a couple months beyond the April 1 out-of-service enforcement date for the ELD mandate. And a more extensive talk with produce broker Pam Young, well-learned in old-school ways, preferring the personal touch to digital standoffishness when it comes to building relationships with carriers. Among subjects of discussion: Adjustment (or lack thereof) to mandated ELDs, honesty in transactions, what happens when a load of cherries goes awry, communication and bedrock trust in business relationships.
Australian trucking troubadour 'Calamity' Jayne Denham on a run through America
Ahead of her Rotella SuperRigs performance in Raphine, Va., June 16, Australia singer-songwriter Jayne Denham sat down with us in Nashville to talk in-roads with the U.S. trucking community, her new "Calamity" record, the "Lights on the Hill" memorial for fallen haulers taken before their time in Australia and more. Also: Bonus update from the scene with the custom rigs on offer at White's Travel Center with Overdrive's own Matt Cole. Rotella SuperRigs continues through Saturday, June 16.
ELD impacts, take 3,456: Reserved parking, hurry-up dynamics and more with owner-op Carolyn Carroll
This edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast picks up in part from where we left off in the intro last week with a note from Carolyn Carroll on the utility she finds in paid parking reservations. You can find our report, “ELDs up the ante on parking”, on the growth in those (reviled by many but appreciated by many as well) and much more besides at OverdriveOnline.com. In our talk Carroll lays out her now seven-year tour in trucking both in team and solo operations, as a company driver for a time and now leased –- she’s recently refinanced a lease-ending balloon payment on her 2015 Freightliner Cascadia she’ll be entirely finished paying off over the next couple years. The 5-foot-4 owner-op cuts a unique figure among most highway haulers, and she addresses the dynamics of being a woman among a largely male-dominated profession, hauling, as well, though one among a clearly growing cohort out there no doubt.
How long will the good times last? And: Mailbag from the no-parking trail
More tales of private parking enforcement via booting and towing result in what James Smith of Jackson, Ga., calls a "very expensive Kentucky Fried Chicken meal." Further perspective on the utility of paid-reserved parking, the demise of truck-dedicated parking at the Walmart in Aurora, Colo., and some predictions from panelists at last week's Truckstop.com's user conference in Dallas on just how long good economic conditions will last in the wider economy -- and in trucking.
The 'Amazon effect' and rate opportunities for small fleets, owner-ops
The first in what will ultimately be two podcasts sharing portions of a trucking-insights panel held at Truckstop.com’s third Connected user conference, held earlier this week in Dallas. Insights on rates growth post-ELD mandate, economic conditions and just when we might look out for a downturn, automation in trucking and brokerage and much more were on offer from Tucker Company Worldwide broker Jeff Tucker, Truckstop.com Chief Economist Noel Perry, and Stifel’s John Larkin. This edition features some occasionally diverging thoughts on opportunities and dilemmas for brokers and small carriers when it comes to the “Amazon effect” we’ve written about from time to time, in food and retail in particular, with tightened delivery windows and lead times on loads offering opportunities to truly differentiate onself from a service perspective.
ELD-exempt trucking with W. Joel Baker: Inspections, adjustments and bedrock profitability
Independent owner-operator W. Joel Baker's W. recent blog post about business opportunity, rate improvement and other conditions since the ELD mandate was the jumping-off point for this edition of Overdrive Radio. Baker trucks in an ELD-exempt 1999 International, and he’s had difficulty keeping up with is customers’ demand for RV delivery lately, given the double whammy of an improved economy and the availability constraints around trucking that have resulted from the mandate. He was writing on his own LearntoTruck.com website about it all, and here added thoughts on operational adjustments those who actually have to utilize ELDs might be able to make to enhance profitability as best they can, his own incidence of inspection in the run-up to the mandate (given the target his older truck has newly put on his back, as he sees it), and much more.
Trucking needs the 'brotherhood virus' to come alive: Owner-op Jim Bardsley on its long dormancy
Owner-op Jim Bardsley believes about the best thing that could happen to trucking, from perspectives of safety and so much more, is the spread of the brotherhood virus, a return of some semblance of honor to the hiring practices, follow-on training protocols and more in place today at carriers large and small. Bardsley, in this edition of Overdrive Radio, reflects on his three-decade-plus career and the years-long dormancy of the brotherhood virus, among other subjects covered, from ELDs, a 1980s Ford LTL9000 he's looking to restore and put into operation, and the beginning of the long wind-down into retirement.
Parking problems nothing new, though most truckers feel ELDs have exacerbated issues
A run through the mailbag with contrarians and true believers around the question of whether the ELD mandate has exacerbated parking issues around the nation. And: A little detail on an hours-enforcement-with-ELD situation that begged for officer leniency when none was to be had.
Will FMCSA Administrator Ray Martinez thread the industry needle toward hours change?
No sooner did we receive word of an amendment proposed to the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill that seemed to be designed to grease the skids for some sort of regulatory hours of service action by the FMCSA than we heard the opposite, at least according to an aide to the amendment's sponsor, Arkansas Rep. Rick Crawford. Overdrive News Editor James Jaillet, TruckersNews.com Editor David Hollis and Overdrive Senior Editor Todd Dills talked about the amendment yesterday for the Overdrive Radio podcast on tap here today, ahead of the full audio of Hollis and Jaillet's interview with Administrator Ray Martinez at the Mid-America Trucking Show last month. When we queried Crawford's office to ask whether, as suspected, Crawford worked directly with FMCSA in crafting the amendment -- which would have removed a regulatory step for FMCSA in any hours of service proposed rulemaking -- his office noted the amendment would not ultimately be taken up and was slated for withdrawal. We're keeping an eye on that going forward, but for now, here's the podcast, interesting to hear for several reasons, chiefly as it gives a window directly into the new FMCSA administrator's thinking on his still quite new post, and just what he might be able to do if the agency wants to in fact thread the needle through divisions in opinion on views around the ELD mandate, hours of service and so much more, and make meaningful change.
Don't be a 'one-and-done': Survive your first year trucking with authority by knowing your customer
The last of three separate seminars at the Mid-America Trucking Show conducted by Sirius XM radio host and owner-op coach/consultant Kevin Rutherford was billed to focus on surviving the first year under your own authority as an owner-op. Rutherford in recent years has pushed the idea that owner-operators with authority pursuing relationships with brokers to move freight could make for the most efficient models in trucking, as long as all parties are honest with each other. As any regular reader will know, that's not always the case when we're talking about brokerages -- and the same can be said about some trucking companies large and small, for that matter, as plenty decent brokers emphasize in conversation. Too many, Rutherford emphasizes, shoot themselves in the foot with a view of a freight broker they're working with as at best a necessary evil, as something less than their central customer. For an owner-operator in business as a motor carrier with authority and working primarily with brokers, those brokers are the customer because they're the people paying you for your business' service, Rutherford emphasizes.
800-pound gorilla needs a few good lumpers: Team owner-ops' weeklong trailer dilemma at Amazon
When they booked a load going from one Amazon warehouse in Las Vegas to another in Edwardsville, Ill., Gary and Ondena Caraway had some indications all would not be well for the couple's van trailer on the other end. Problem is, they missed the fine-print indication on the load listing that 12-48 hours would be required for unload. When that 48 hours turned into a week.... Well, let's just say they were not happy. The Caraways' story is this week's Overdrive Radio edition.
Motor carrier self-insurance 'privilege': Removal might, dare one say, 'level the playing field'
This talk with owner-operator and OOIDA board member Tilden Curl of Washington State touches on the option available to (mostly large) motor carriers to self-insure, whose implications "run deep," Curl says, from issues of training and substandard pay to safety and more. Curl also weighs on the central theme in this week following all the hours of service/ELD angst percolating among haulers of all stripes -- "It seems like the small working man doesn’t get heard anymore, even if they get the chance to speak. It’s all about the constituency of the dollar. … I don’t know how we will get hold of our rules in our industry until we can depend on our government representing the people instead of the dollar." Also: Parking on I-5 corridor, where Curl specializes.
Jason Lee Wilson live at MATS 2018
It was a knock-out performance by 2016 Trucker Talent Search winning trucker-singer-songwriter Jason Lee Wilson of Maryville, Tenn., including his infamous “Truck Stop Betty” in homage to a waitress at the old Monteagle Truck Stop, and a track those of you who’ve been dealing with those persnickety ELDs might relate to. This performance occurred at the Progressive Commercial booth in the North Wing at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Ky., March 23. Opening on the harmonica: Joe Harewicz of Long Haul Trucking.
Live from Nashville to start MATS week: 'Long Haul Paul' Marhoefer with Donnie and Jan Gullett
With a new record out from Laughing Hyena records and available at many truck stops around the nation, Paul Marhoefer started the week of the 2018 Mid-America Trucking Show in Nashville, Tenn., where Overdrive Radio caught up with him for an impromptu run through several of his tracks at the Fiddler's Inn. "Long Haul Paul" also talks a bit here through his approach to a new irregular series he's penning on the Overdrive Extra blog, "Faces of the Road."
Lay of the land for owner-operators: By the numbers, redux, with ATBS' Todd Amen
Todd Amen of ATBS is increasingly bullish on the prospects of income improvements for owner-operators in 2018 as capacity pressures mount and rates rise for independents and leased reefer, dry and flatbed haulers paid on a percentage of the load. Expect, he says, many of those paid per-mile to see pay-rate hikes this year, too. These are just a couple 2018 and forward predictions he makes in this special-edition Overdrive Radio podcast -- audio from the owner-operator business services firm's President's annual income and other metrics benchmarking conference call, with data based on full-year 2017 numbers and more.
Double-brokering, ELDs, pausing that 14-hour clock: Round-up from the mailbag, more
The second half of Overdrive Radio's Todd Dills' talk with Leander Richmond, Eagle Express small fleet owner, about brokers' and truckers' often conflicting expectations, his own thoughts on the hours of service regulations now that ELDs are here, business conditions, an experience with double brokering and more. That follows a bit of a further mailbag round of voices on the potential for change in the hours of service.
Managing ridiculous expectations in the broker-communication game for owner-ops and small fleets
Communication is important, for sure, but Leander Richmond of eight-truck small fleet Eagle Express, headquartered in Michigan, has uncovered no small amount of frustration in the very fiber of his being with increasingly pushy freight middlemen when it comes to proof of delivery. As you’ll hear here at the beginning of our talk, some go so far as to make it a contract stipulation that the carrier will be required to send proof of delivery within an hour of offload – or lose all claim to payment for that load. Sound outrageous? There's more ...
Mailbag: Split sleeper-berth hours option high on haulers' hours wish list
Herein a bevy of reader responses to OOIDA’s petition to FMCSA to add a three-hour pause button option to the 14-hour on-duty clock in the hours of service rule. Several readers viewed it as the kind of common-sense option that could add some flexibility to the rule to alleviate new stresses incurred as a result of the mandate to utilize electronic logging devices. The large majority of reader respondents you’ll hear here, however, took the notion of a pause button farther. It’s split-rest, or split sleeper berth period flexibility, that most want, a return of a fashion to options that were available prior to the 14-hour on duty period coming into play more than a decade ago now.
A site with community at its heart: BigRigTravels turns 10 under trucker Stephen Michaels' tutelage
In this edition of Overdrive Radio, a talk with trucker Stephen Michaels, who for 10 years this week has been proprietor of a website, BigRigTravels.com, through which people around the world have been able to ride along with Michaels through his windshield-cam live feeds. Among the more well-known among truckers who engage the public this way, Michaels reflects here on friendships made with his many "Road Crew" followers and collaborators as well as impact, from individual shifts in the perception of trucking to education on just how to drive safely around big trucks. Bonus: BigRigTravels fan Dave Isett weighs in on what the site has meant to him.
Profit -- what this trucking thing is all about: A talk with Scott Jordan
The ICG ProfitCalc app for Android and iOS devices is a bidding app that allows owner-operator users to input their annual cost projections as a benchmark for load-by-load rate calculations to ensure a chosen profit margin. In this Overdrive Radio podcast, creator and small fleet owner Scott Jordan runs through some of the app's history with use in his own business. Also: Did you hear the one about the farmer, the fox and the butcher? ...
Despite state-level momentum, truckers 'prohibited from using marijuana -- period'
Though there's an ever-expanding rift between state law and federal law regarding marijuana use, the issue is clear for carriers and drivers, say Joe Rajkovacz, of the Western States Trucking Association, and Tim Doyle, VP of the Maine Motor Transport Association, both of whom reside in states where aggressive action is being taken to upend drug testing practices regarding marijuana use. Hear them discuss the latest on driver drug testing through the lens of state-level action on legalizing marijuana.
New tax law enacts major changes for owner-operators
Listen to owner-operator tax experts Kevin Rutherford and consultants at ATBS discuss how 2017's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act impacts owner-operator businesses. Read more at OverdriveOnline.com.
When 'planning better' is not an option: Owner-operator Mark Kirbyson on the move to ELDs
"Planning better" will only get you so far when it comes to a 14-hour rule with rigid ends, says owner-operator Mark Kirbyson in this latest edition of Overdrive Radio. Kirbyson, and many other operators, find themselves this new year dealing with a variety of headaches with their last-minute switch to ELDs as mandate went into effect on December 18 -- issues discussed here range from the problematic nature of the hours of service to overwhelmed ELD vendors and more. The bonus -- quickly improving spot rates translating themselves more slowly to the contract market -- Kirbyson believes, can only go so far.
Driver monitoring and scoring: A brief overview of fleets' initiatives
CCJ Tech Editor Aaron Huff provides a high-level overview of how fleets are using the influx of data from in-cab systems to monitor, coach and score drivers.
The Odious Death of the Cracker King, by Paul Marhoefer
Paul Marhoefer's "Odious Death of the Cracker King," from "Raw Cuts" record of acoustic folks, tells the story of a fictional character in the title, which Marhoefer describes as something of a composite of two men he'd known long ago, the "sons of outlaw bull haulers" both, plus a little of that mythic dirge treatment Marhoefer's a master of.
Emotions are high, but trucking didn't die Dec. 18: A talk with Gary Buchs
A wide-ranging talk with owner-operator Gary Buchs on emotion around the ELD mandate and need for greater calculation in future business decisions, among a variety of others subjects related to freight, pricing and cost reduction. “We want to get emotional and say, you know, truck driving died on Dec. 18," he says, "but you know what, it didn’t die, it just changed, and with every change there’s opportunity. We in this industry that do this job –- we’ve tended to pride ourselves on working more for less, but we need to not work more for less.”
Less than a week to go before ELD mandate enforcement: Truckers voices raised against it
Voices from the December 4 anti-ELD mandate rallies held across the country as well as from the Overdrive Radio podcast message line as the temperature continues to be raised by many in the trucking community against the electronic logging device mandate. If nothing changes, enforcement of the requirement for most interstate truckers to use ELDs will begin Dec. 18.
Can electric-drive upend diesel's long reign?
Overdrive Equipment Editor Jason Cannon, speaking with KC Phillips on the “Road Dog Live” program, discussed the Tesla Semi electric truck recently, including responding to numerous owner-operators' call-in questions about the big recent Semi reveal in California, which Cannnon attended.
Everybody's favorite subject, ELD implementation, with 9-truck fleet owner Bill Frerichs
This talk with Bill Frerichs of Frerichs Freight Lines touches on issues that will no doubt arise with wide use of ELDs industrywide, likewise Frerichs own beginning implementation of the Telogis ELD platform in his nine-truck dry van operation. Bonus: A key difference between AOBRDs, ELDs' regulatory predecessors, and the new devices -- administrator/back-office edits of drivers' logs are not required to display at roadside with AOBRDs, though such devices still must preserve the original log, available to auditors.
Carriers' 'magic eraser' role in compounding detention issues: Rico Muhammad on the e-log shift
As a trade-off for the ultimate hassle of mandated e-logs, owner-operator and Rates & Lanes podcast host Rico Muhammad's hopeful owner-operators can both individually and collectively use the change as a cudgel to their advantage when dealing with brokers, shippers, receivers ... anyone in the supply chain who would insist on wasting drivers' time. He doesn't have his head in the sand to the challenge of that actually happening, however, nor in the clouds with predictions on where rates might go in the coming year, provided the mandate stays on its schedule. On both, "the jury is still out," he says. Hear nuts-and-bolts thoughts on his own e-log implementation as well as plenty discussion of broader issues in this edition of Overdrive Radio.
'Bringing the cultural diversity of trucking together': Scott Reed, Mike Landis on the ELD protests
Among perhaps the biggest ripple effects from the ELD mandate protests could be, some truckers believe, a new appreciation for the cultural diversity within the owner-operator community. That's something that both Scott Reed, part organizer among the different groups that came together in D.C., and owner-operator Mike Landis, who participated, certainly agree on. In this Overdrive Radio podcast, you'll hear Reed's reflection on outcomes and next steps, and Landis offers his narration of what it was like to have been a part of.
'It's time somebody starts looking out for the little guy': Voices from the ELD mandate protests
As ripple effects continue to emanate from some sense of camaraderie among many anti-ELD-mandate partisans -- a result of protest efforts around the country a week or two back -- this Overdrive Radio podcast runs through some of the various conversations had during Overdrive Senior Editor Todd Dills' few days in D.C. as the efforts there got under way. The podcast rounds out with more messages on the podcast line taken over the course of the protest week as many shut down.
From the scene in D.C. and around the country as grassroots groups press against the ELD mandate
Rounding up sounds and some news from the grassroots influence campaign on lawmakers/protest against the ELD mandate in Washington, D.C. An interview after Day One with Tony Justice, and a bevy of responses on Overdrive Radio's podcast call-in line from around the country, among other news. A small group of demonstrators, meanwhile, as the podcast was wrapping up, were meeting with FMCSA officials at DOT headquarters.
Mailbag: ELD mandate, 14-hour reform should be top priorities for next FMCSA administrator
It’s been quite a while since the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration had an administrator appointed to head it up, but this week, the news was that Ray Martinez had been tapped for the role. Career bureaucrat Martinez, currently serving at the head of New Jersey's Motor Vehicle Commission, should focus, say Overdrive readers, on a bevy of hours of service-related issues, in addition to other concerns voiced in this mailbag edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, compiled from responses prompted via OverdriveOnline.com. What's your view on where FMCSA's eventual new administrator should put his focus?
Mailbag: Views on ELD protest actions promoted for Oct. 3 and following days
in this week’s edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, we’re taking a run through the mailbag following last week’s conversations with organizers of two ELD mandate protest actions set to take place in Washington, D.C., beginning Oct. 3.
Protest efforts around the ELD mandate set to stage October 3
Two unaffiliated groups -- Tony Justice and company's ELD or Me, and the Texas-headquartered Operation Black and Blue -- share details for ELD mandate protests coalescing around a beginning date of October 3. Owner-operator Erick Engbarth, not involved in either effort, distills his anti-ELD rationale. Will you participate in protest efforts 10/3 through the rest of that week? Tell Overdrive why or why not via: 530-408-6423. With any message, let us know your name and base location.
Overdrive Radio special edition: Trucker Talent Search 2017
In this special edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, Overdrive Senior Editor Todd Dills walks you back to the 2017 Trucker Talent Search event at the Great American Trucking Show, for a run through the series of performances, from Bill Weaver introductory tune through competitors Michael Lochmiller, Terrance "Jake Brake Junkie" Mathis, and Richard Woods. Finally, host Tony Justice played two tracks from his "Stars, Stripes and White Lines" record, out earlier this summer.
"Mr. D-O-T," by Bill Weaver
Flippin, Ark.-based Bill Weaver opened the 2017 Trucker Talent Search with this classic from his "Every Mile I Drive" record.
"Hitch Your Wagon," by Michael Lochmiller
Las Vegas-based Michael Lochmiller's Trucker Talent Search competition performance at the Great American Trucking Show. "Hitch your wagon" is a Lochmiller original.
"She got the goldmine" parody -- Terrance Mathis
Jake Brake Junkie Terrance Mathis performs a parody of Jerry Reed's "She got the goldmine" as part of the Trucker Talent Search competition at the Great American Trucking Show.
"Gran" by Richard Woods
Owner-operator Richard Woods' winning original, a tune written for his grandfather, in the 2017 Trucker Talent Search at the Great American Trucking Show.
Tony Justice live at the 2017 Trucker Talent Search
Trucker singer-songwriter Tony Justice, host of the 2017 Trucker Talent Search competition at GAT, did a pro turn as judges tabulated the results and delivered beautiful renditions of two songs from his "Stars, Stripes and White Lines" record, including the title track and "Live, Laugh, Love and Dance," written with his wife, Misty.
On a Hurricane Harvey relief mission with owner-operator Bill Ater
Owner-operator Bill Ater, based in Fort Worth, had his "feet in the starting blocks, hands on the floor" and was "waiting on the starting shot" when Overdrive Senior Editor Todd Dills talked with him August 29, staged in South Texas for relief shuttles associated with Hurricane Harvey. "Welcome to my world when I’m working FEMA," he said. Ater's worked 14 or 15 hurricane relief efforts over the years, he says, all of which offer a chance he says he appreciates as much or more for the human connections than income opportunity, in the end.
'Benefit of the doubt' to the driver on the ELD mandate in inspections
After an introduction by trucker/singer-songwriter Michael Lochmiller, listen in on Overdrive Senior Editor Todd Dills' discussion of roadside enforcement of the ELD mandate set to go into effect in December -- with Sergeant Dana Moore of the Texas DPS, who urged officers to 'punt' to administrative review in questionable situations and get the driver on his way. Todd Amen of ATBS, further, delivers news about economic conditions broadly for trucking, a bit of good news in recent months as load-to-truck ratios on the spot market have spiked.
'Honky Tonk Nighttime Man': Talent search finalist Michael Lochmiller
Finally in our Overdrive Radio podcast round featuring interviews with this year’s Overdrive/Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search contestants, this one features Michael Lochmiller, with a rendition of a classic from Merle Haggard in "Honky Tonk Nighttime Man." Lochmiller hauls for System Transport out of a home base in Las Vegas, and following (or above) hear Red Eye Radio’s Eric Harley talk music, trucking and life with the driver.
'Country road': Trucking, music, life with Trucker Talent Search finalist Richard Woods
Owner-operator Richard Woods earned his spot in this year's Overdrive/Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search with a cover of the famous John Denver tune, "Country Road." He's one of three finalists in the talent search, coming to a close with a final winner Friday, August 25, at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas. Woods is an owner-operator hauling rail containers, largely, and lives in Hickory Flat, Mississippi. Following (and above), hear a little from his music, and Red Eye Radio’s Eric Harley talks with Woods about his musical history, trucking and more.
'Take this e-log and shove it': Talking with Trucker Talent Search finalist Terrance Mathis
This edition of Overdrive Radio spotlights one of our three Overdrive/Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search finalists, set battle it out Friday, August 25, at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas. Red Eye Radio's Eric Harley talks here with Rockford, Illinois, resident and Kloeckner metals driver Terrance Mathis. Mathis is the man responsible for the great Johnny Paycheck parody you'll hear a little of here, which earned his spot in the talent search.
Rebuilding: From bulk dedicated to a solid core of direct customers with independent Tim Klaus
Independent owner-operator and longtime flatbedder Tim Klaus re-entered trucking early in the last decade and soon enough found himself at the center of the natural gas drilling boom, hauling frac sand. It dried up earlier for him than many owner-ops, but since then he's made several moves in his pick of freight, trailer spec and more to build a core of direct customers that keeps his brokered loads down to just several annually. The Missouri-based owner-op runs through those details, and some of his family's long trucking history, in this Overdrive Radio edition.
A strong base: The mechanical prowess -- and ELD trials and tribulations -- of Randy Carlson
Owner-operator Randy Carlson, with a 2001 Freightliner Classic powered by an older B model Caterpillar, got his start in trucking when his dad trucked, then mechanicking after attending trade school, providing a solid base from which to forget an owner-operator business. He's been at it since at least 1993, first with a mid-1980s KW T600 he came to own in quite an interesting way. In this edition of Overdrive Radio, hear more about his calculations around the ELD mandate, and plenty of insights around the value to any owner-operator of a strong base of mechanical prowess.
Out of the unknown: Step deck owner's strategies around mobile information tech, freight, ELDs
Blue Ridge Transport step deck hauler Joey Slaughter presented at Expedite Expo about the bevy of smartphone apps he uses in his business, antidote to the situation suggested by his presentation's lead image -- a lone rig on a highway sits under an illuminated road sign alerting icy winter conditions ahead.without much more than that a driver is flying blind into the unknown. Today, though, you’ve got access to real-time radar, to real-time traffic, to information on dock locations and procedures, loads of course through broker apps and boards and so very much more. In this Overdrive Radio episode, we also talked to Slaughter about his broker/agent relationship-building strategies, his approach to ELDs (he's still on paper) and more.
Freight niche transition -- HHG to expedited -- with Landstar-leased owner-operator Greg Huggins
Expediter Greg Huggins three years ago made the transition to the need-it-now/high-touch freight niche after two decades and more hauling as an owner-operator with a moving van, also in a straight truck. The transition entailed more than you might think, somewhat akin to a driver who’s relied on a dispatcher for his entire career going out and getting his own authority and navigating the fragmented world of freight brokers and shippers on his own. Also in this podcast, a brief talk with expedited small fleet owner Steve McNeal about his custom six-skid-box/sleeper-outfitted 2017 Ford Transit van, unique in its configuration.
'Make mad money. Be a freight broker': Independent on a culture of dishonesty among middlemen
A culture of maximum profit, whatever the cost in toil or honesty be damned, clearly infects some corners of the trucking industry, to the detriment, too often, of those doing the work of hauling the freight. That's the message of independent owner-operator James Woods, who spoke for this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast on subjects of transactional transparency, fair dealing and more that are sorely needed in some quarters. A culture of dishonesty is alive and well, Woods says, and needs to be fought. Also: What it feels like to take home a $150K piece of equipment free of charge -- owner-operator Dickie Penrod wins big in Landstar's most recent truck giveaway.
Making the e-log switch: The evolution of small fleet Old Time Express
This talk with Mark and Mitch White of 25-truck fleet Old Time Express ranges over the company's transition to electronic logs a few years back now, made in part to help get it out of a Conditional rating purgatory. It hasn’t all been without its bumps in the road, as you’ll hear in the conversation. But with focus on improving rates with customers, expanding the use of pre-loaded trailers on either end of drivers’ round trips where possible, and the close attention to collecting detention and adjusting hourly rates and policies with shipper customers and brokers, Mark White believes Old Time has at this point worked out the ELD kinks. More on the subject of where rates may go after the ELD mandate here, too.
A tour through Tony Justice's new 'Stars, Stripes and White Lines' album
In this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, take an audio tour with Everhart Transportation driver and songwriter Tony Justice and his wife, Misty (cowriter on one track), through his new Stars, Stripes and White Lines record, out June 30 officially. Here the two talk with Overdrive Senior Editor Todd Dills about several of the stories behind the tracks on the record, likewise the “ELD or me” Facebook group the driver-songwriter started a month or two back to coalesce driver opposition to the ELD mandate toward an October demonstration in Washington, D.C. Sample several of the tracks from the record along the way ... Elvis was a truck driver, too, you know...
No more chasing rates: How dedicated freight can deliver on a chief concern, income stability
For Keith and Vickie Sampson, leased to Landstar for most of the last decade, that dedicated run has delivered healthy profits, too -- the best of both worlds for their team operation. In this podcast, Keith tells his trucking story and offers perspective on what he's learned over the years when it comes to maintaining his business' health. Sampson's take-closest-care-of-what-you-can-control message has served him well over his most recent years trucking as an owner-operator. Also a songwriter, Sampson's most recent record was profiled in a prior Overdrive Radio podcast you can find at this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/podcast-owner-operator-keith-sampson-and-his-new-its-made-me-who-i-am-record/
Don't get 'beat up' on rates: Talking direct-ship freight with Monte Wiederhold
Shipper-direct freight and managing customer relationships are the bread and butter for all-owner-operator (including himself) 9-truck B.L. Reever Transport owner Monte Wiederhold's business. Wiederhold’s based in Southwest Ohio, hauling out of a variety of manufacturers in the area, utilizing brokers on occasion. Here he stresses the value of communication throughout all participants in the fleet to customers as a core service to avoid getting "beat up" on freight by those who would undercut you. Hear a past podcast with Wiederhold on the subject of ELDs and a potential rates effect via this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/podcast-cold-water-on-the-eld-mandates-potential-rates-impacts/
'Not adding up': Skepticism of income equation with ELDs, hours regs, rates and detention issues
Following Clifford "Chappy" Petersen's letter to the President of the United States -- http://www.overdriveonline.com/letter-to-trump-parking-14-hour-rule-congestion-ever-more-urgent-issues-with-elds/ -- stressing the need for hours of service change in light of the mandate for most truckers to use electronic logging devices, owner-operators looked out at the revenue equation with ELD and hours of service regs, detention and truckload rates and determined 'it's not adding up,' in the words of one. Find here a bevy of views on ELDs and hours, published following the Supreme Court declining to hear OOIDA's last-ditch appeal to the court to overturn the mandate.
Identity theft: Owner-operator Scott Reed's ongoing clawback from a dramatic credit hit
It's an increasingly common scenario: identity theft, which can be a huge negative to your credit rating. It happened to owner-operator Scott Reed a few years back. His identity was stolen by a still-undetermined individual far west of his Ohio home, and after being surprisingly denied on a simple credit application, he was pulled over in the normal run of trucking and notified that there were several warrants out for his arrest. That’s when the reality of just what had happened to his credit truly sank in. Along the way, he had to let go of a prized power unit, claw his way back into profitability after a health issue, and more. He tells the rest of the story in this podcast.
Owner-op Dean Carnahan: Bad health is a 'preventable accident'
There is no more prescient business topic than personal health, as CargoMax-leased owner-operator Dean Carnahan would have it. Without your life, your business can't even be an afterthought. Trouble is, as Carnahan well knows, taking control of diet isn’t always a simple thing to do out on the road. Truck stop options are too often limited to high-calorie, high-sugar junk or fast food these days. He’s hopeful getting more drivers taking a proactive role in healthy eating can spur a movement to change the status quo in that regard.
'It's made me who I am': Owner-operator Keith Sampson's new record
Take a run through Overdrive Senior Editor Todd Dills' conversation with Keith Sampson about a variety of tracks on his "It's Made Me Who I Am" record of rockin' country and trucking music. The record follows Sampson's 2014 win in Overdrive's inaugural Trucker Talent Search, which spurred Sampson on to produce the album, lately inking a deal with Laughing Hyena Records to distribute to truck stops and other locales around the nation. For now, those interested can find it via CDBaby.com, search "Keith Sampson."
ELDs, rates: Small fleet owner throws cold water on the notion that a big change is in the offing
Following a variety of reports -- and somewhat widespread hope -- that an ELD mandate in place for a significant amount of time might result in a sizable rate gain for small business and other truckers around the nation, small fleet owner Monte Wiederhold throws a little cold water on the notion by appealing to history, in part. Also: Wiederhold discusses nascent efforts in his home state of Ohio to subsidize CDL training and give tax breaks to companies hiring recent graduates.
When a straight 14 isn't the ideal, or most safe, option: A run with Scott Reed
In this Overdrive Radio podcast what you'll hear is part of Overdrive Senior Editor Todd Dills' many conversations with Buckland, Ohio-based owner-operator Scott Reed over two days on the road in mid-April 2017. It tells the story of what Reed sees as a certainly less-than-ideal hours rule when it comes to his operation. He's leased to Ohio Transport out of Middletown, Ohio, and works with agent Greg Simpson to stick within about a 200-mile radius of his home.
2016 Trucker Talent Search winner Jason Lee Wilson interviewed by Eric Harley on Red Eye Radio
In this April 2017 interview conducted by Eric Harley of Red Eye Radio, trucker/singer-songwriter Jason Lee Wilson details the recording session that was the result of his winning the Overdrive 2016 Trucker Talent Search competition. For the session, recording his "Roads I've taken" original track, he invited his fellow finalists Will Perry and Keith Snyder to do backing vocals and bass, respectively, at January Sound in Dallas.
Looking into the crystal ball on ELDs/rates with ATBS' Todd Amen
Audio here from ATBS' annual conference call with owner-operators detailing year-end income averages and other data from 2016 among the business services firm's owner-operator clients. Amen outlines what many know about 2016 -- it was a lackluster year for many, with income stagnant to down a bit -- and makes bold predictions about what's going to happen to rates over the next several years as ELDs come into full implementation. Amen will be the first to tell you the crystal ball is what it is, and things change. But if he's reading the landscape right, he says, good things for rates are coming, particularly for those who already have a handle on the electronic hours environment, whether with large or the smallest of fleets. It's not all good news, of course, and he offers a word of advice to independents: Start looking for ways to maximize income by cost-cutting or other measures now -- if you can hang on well into next year and beyond, there could be a payoff on the other side of the ELD mandate.
Cutting through the 'autonomous' hype with Bendix' Fred Andersky
Listen in on Bendix' Fred Andersky's presentation at the Mid-America Trucking Show, part of the company's series of brief "tech talks" at its show booth, on the realistic outlook for truly "autonomous" trucks -- they're a long, long way off, to say the least, he notes.
Separate regs wheat from the chaff, say OOIDA's Todd Spencer, small fleet owner Monte Wiederhold
OOIDA's "Knock Out Bad Regs" effort to hold the Trump administration accountable for its pledge to ease regulatory burdens, as they relate in this case to small business trucking, spurred this conversation at the Mid-America Trucking Show in March 2017. Overdrive's Todd Dills spoke with OOIDA Executive Vice President Todd Spencer and OOIDA board member and small fleet owner Monte Wiederhold (with a brief appearance near the end by owner-operator Marion Spray) about just where the association's case against the ELD mandate is (pending to the Supreme Court) and what's happening all around the nation as truckers take matters into their own hands delivering the message to lawmakers.
Chad Boblett of Rate Per Mile Masters: More on building relationships with brokers
In the crowded West Wing at the Louisville convention center during MATS this Friday (apologies for the background noise), Overdrive's Todd Dills talked through load-negotiation and broker-relationship strategy with Chad Boblett, administrator of the Rate Per Mile Masters Facebook group, 10,000 members (and growing) strong. Boblett was on hand at the DAT Load Boards booth to talk load-board use and business strategy with convention attendees.
Navigating trucking's 'tech bubble': FMCSA outlines ELD mandate implementation for drivers
It was a packed house in the South Wing seminar room Friday, March 24, for FMCSA's electronic-logging-device-implementation seminar for owner-operator and driver attendees at the Mid-America Trucking Show. FMCSA representatives LaTonya Mimms and Danielle Smith here walked attendees through the basics of ELD use and adoption, where the rule hits the road.
America's Road Team captains to carriers' recruiters: 'Respect your drivers'
Moderated by mostly-owner-operator truckload carrier Jet Express President Kevin Burch, this panel featured four multi-million-miler captains for the America's Road Team, speaking to recruiters and other carrier reps at Conversion Interactive Agency's 2017 Recruiting and Retention conference. Featured were Walmart drivers Allen Boyd and Kenny Lowry, FedEx Freight hauler Don Logan and Steve Fields of YRC out of Kansas City.
If it means parking options remain, readers say, rest-area commercialization A-OK
A bevy of readers responded to the National Association of Truck Stop Operators' reported opposition to an idea floated by the Federal Highway Administration to relax rules against states adding greater food options to rest areas as a way to help fund the rest areas to keep them open -- thus providing ensuring they remain viable parking options at the same time. There was near unanimity from truckers that the idea was a good one, despite any added competition to truck stops.
'Common sense, you've got it for a reason' -- Use your CB already, readers say
In Overdrive Radio mailbag podcast airing readers' view, the subject of declining CB usage is roundly decried. Once and still a valuable tool for sharing and receiving reports about unsafe situations up ahead on the highways and bi-ways of America, the CB is only as good a tool as the number of highway users is large. Readers urged drivers to better employ it day to day for the benefit of all highway users' safety.
Will the speed-limiter mandate 'die an ignominious death'?: Joe Rajkovacz on incoming administration
Former owner-operator Joe Rajkovacz, now representing the Western States Trucking Association, addressed attendees of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies' annual meeting here in Nashville last week. As usual, his talk contained more than a few items of note for owner-operators and small fleets, not least among them his good news view on where the speed-limiter mandate is going (see above) and less-sunny thoughts about a somewhat recent California Air Resources Board meeting mulling possibilities of a new Ultra-Low NOx emissions standard -- that one holds the possibility of further pushing up the cost of new diesels. $200,000 trucks would not be far off under such a scenario, he said. More from his regulatory update presentation here at the National Association of Small Trucking Companies' annual meeting. More via this link: http://overdriveonline.com/regs-outlook-change-is-in-the-air
Partners in Business, part 3: Managing fuel costs
This podcast installment of Overdrive’s Partners in Business, condensed from Overdrive's business manual of the same name, covers how to control fuel costs. Topics include how to minimize fuel consumption, getting a fair fuel surcharge and choosing where to buy fuel.
Partners in Business, part 2: Managing money and time
One of the biggest hurdles in being a successful owner-operator has little to do with what goes on inside the cab or under the hood. Instead, it’s the challenge you face as an independent who has to run a small business, managing thousands of dollars in revenue and costs. This podcast installment in the Overdrive’s Partners in Business series, excerpting portions of the Partners in Business manual, covers how to develop and use profit and loss statements, and how to understand your revenue, earnings and costs.
Truckers to Trump on regs: Hours, speed limiters, ELDs should be on tap for revision, withdrawal
Overdrive readers react to Donald Trump's election victory with a call for increased attention to and revision or repeal of, variously, the FMCSA's ELD mandate, NHTSA/FMCSA's proposed speed limiter mandate, the inflexibility of the 14-hour rule and 30-minute break in the hours of service and more.
A case for stronger owner-operator freight partnerships: Kevin Rutherford to a roomful of brokers
How former owner-operator/fleet owner and current educator and radio host Rutherford broke the ice with the mostly-broker audience at Truckstop.com's Connected 2016 user conference: "Many of my listeners think the majority of this room are lying, cheating scumbag parasites sitting in a room with a phone and an internet connection sucking all the profit out of the load." Truth is, brokers serve a purpose in the industry as the outside sales force for many an independent owner-operator, a model for freight movement that Rutherford views as the most efficient in trucking all around. In this talk, he spelled out for the brokerage audience why he's on a mission to help strengthen the relationships between brokers and independents toward better profitability for owner-operators and a more healthy industry.
Mailbag: ELD mandate upheld in 7th circuit court, readers react
Following Halloween news that the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected OOIDA's arguments against the FMCSA's electronic logging device mandate, readers weighed in on their views relative to the court decision, ELDs in practice broadly, and the hours of service, which several noted were the bedrock problem. To access the full test of the court's decision, visit this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/eld-mandate-survives-court-challenge/
Partners in Business, part 1: Getting started as an owner-operator
Overdrive’s Partners in Business manual combines the best material from Overdrive magazine with the expertise of the consultants at ATBS, the nation’s largest owner-operator financial services provider. This first installment of a new series condenses parts of the manual to cover making the transition to self-employment and some of the planning basics for running your own business.
Paul Marhoefer's "Old Black Epiphone" record: Trucking, music, life
Trucker and singer-songwriter Paul Marhoefer's new "Old Black Epiphone" record follows his participation in the 2015 Trucker Talent Search and his previous record, "Raw Cuts." Recorded in part near his Muncie, Ind., home base -- the other half at Muscle Shoals Music in Tuscumbia, Ala. -- the record tracks in themes of redemption for and reckoning with mistakes of the past. In Marhoefer's case, a lot of that past is trucking, of course. The interview here, intercut with tracks from the record, was recorded in October 2016 in Nashville, Tenn. Hear more about the Muscle Shoals sessions here: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/live-from-muscle-shoals-truckersinger-songwriter-paul-marhoefer-cuts-old-black-epiphone-record
Cost, safety, undue government intrusion on business: More reader voices on mandated ELDs
From a contention that OOIDA is making the wrong case in its lawsuit to block FMCSA's electronic-logging-device mandate to more bedrock concerns about mandated use of the devices' safety impacts, readers weighed in following oral arguments in the case delivered in the federal 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in September. Hear those via this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/audio-ooida-v-u-s-dot-arguments-delivered-in-court-tuesday/
Brice Martin presents the Larry H. Martin award to Tony Justice
The annual Larry H. Martin Award is meant to honor the memory of Larry Martin, who opened 4 State Trucks, and is delivered to a trucker who goes above and beyond duty. In this audio, hear Martin's son and current co-owner Brice Martin, and near the end his brother Bryan, narrate the attributes of the trucker and singer-songwriter they delivered the annual recognition to this year -- East Tennessee-based Tony Justice.
'I am a speed limiter': More voices against -- and one in favor of -- the DOT's speed proposal
In the wake of DOT's late-August proposed rulemaking to mandate speed limiters for much of the industry, while many questions remains as to what might finally emerge from the proposal, readers are virtually unequivocal is opposition to it. That's in part for its discounting of the driver's role in highway safety, as is evidenced in this latest mailbag podcast rounding up a bevy of Overdrive reader views. Find more in this related podcast: http://www.overdriveonline.com/mailbag-one-operators-hairy-trip-speed-limited-at-65-more-views-on-limiter-mandate-proposal/
OOIDA v. U.S. DOT's ELD mandate: Oral arguments in the 7th Circuit
Oral arguments in the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association's lawsuit against the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's December 2015-released electronic logging device mandate proceeded September 13, 2016. Arguing for the association, Paul D. Cullen Sr. in this audio released by the Chicago-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals lays out the basics of OOIDA's case, and Department of Justice attorney Joshua Waldman defends the U.S. Department of Transportation. Read more about the sundry issues discussed via this page containing Overdrive's complete coverage of the ELD mandate and related issues: http://overdriveonline.com/tag/electronic-logs
Mailbag: 'It was hairy' --reader on cross-country trip speed-limited at 65, more views
Asked just what, if any, speed they would choose if a speed-limiter mandate became law and specified a speed setting, nearly half of Overdrive's owner-operator readers indicated none, objecting entirely to the mandate. A slightly larger share chose speeds higher than those analyzed by the Department of Transportation in the recently released proposed rulemaking, for reasons of safety and more. A Maine-based trucker recounted the experience of running across the Western U.S. limited to 65 mph as "hairy" in high-speed environments for four-wheelers.
Truck Stop Betty, by Jason Lee Wilson
Jason Lee Wilson's winning performance of "Truck Stop Betty," dedicated to Betty Thomas, former proprietor of the Monteagle Truck Plaza at the top of the rock in Monteagle, Tenn. Wilson, resident of Knoxville, came out on top in the 2016 edition of the Overdrive/Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search.
Walkin' the Alligators, by Keith Snyder
Snyder's performance in the Aug. 26, 2016, Overdrive/Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search finals in Dallas, Texas.
Yesterday is History, by Will Perry
Minnesota-based trucker and songwriter Will Perry's performance of this song at the Overdrive/Red Eye Radio 2016 Trucker Talent Search. Perry was one of three finalists in the annual competition.
ATBS' Richard Deforest on the 'driver shortage': Turnover/retention and income is the real problem
Owner-operators have a distinct advantage over company drivers in manipulating conditions toward better income, and that's cost management, says ATBS' Richard DeForest in this presentation, delivered at the Aug. 26, 2016 Overdrive/ATBS Partners in Seminar at the Great American Trucking Show. DeForest also laid out his case that the much-talked-about "driver shortage" issue is not a shortage at all, a subject also covered in-depth in Overdrive earlier this year: http://www.overdriveonline.com/the-driver-shortage-alarm/
Trucker and songwriter Jason Lee Wilson's 'From Lynchburg to Nashville' and more
Knoxville-area-based Jason Lee Wilson delivered this performance on the final day on the 2016 Great American Trucking Show in Dallas. It followed his live rendition of his own "Truck Stop Betty" the prior day during the Overdrive/Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search competition, which he won. Also played here is his "From Lynchburg to Nashville" original song, including on his "Big Gun" 2010 record, available via this link: https://www.amazon.com/Big-Gun-Jason-Lee-Wilson/dp/B005UGX8US
'Why he trucks' and more: Trucker-songwriter Bill Weaver live at GATS 2016
Bill Weaver's "Every Mile I Drive" record turned heads in early 2016 for its strong Southern-rock flavor backing an honest approach to songwriting that tracks heavily in themes of the hazmat-hauling driver's day-to-day life on the road. Here, Weaver delivers renditions of some of those songs and dedicates the Leon Everette-recorded "Hurricane" to flood-stricken residents of Louisiana. Hear more from "Every Mile I Drive" via this Overdrive Radio podcast: http://www.overdriveonline.com/podcast-take-a-run-through-the-stories-behind-bill-weavers-every-mile-i-drive/
'Walking the alligators' with Minn.-based independent trucker/songwriter Keith Snyder
At the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas Saturday, Aug. 27, Keith Snyder's performance built on his prior-day run through his original "Walking the Alligators" in the Trucker Talent Search competition. Read more about the Minn.-based reefer-hauling independent owner-operator and songwriter via this link to the Eric Harley's Red Eye Radio interview with him: http://www.overdriveonline.com/walkin-with-grace-the-red-eye-radio-interview-with-trucker-talent-search-finalist-keith-snyder/
'27,000 lbs. over gross': Trucker-songwriter Paul Marhoefer at GATS 2016
Paul Marhoefer's performance at the Great American Trucking Show in 2016 followed on the heels of two night rounds of shows with Bill Weaver at Fair Park in the hospitality area of the truck-parking lot for the event -- likewise release of Marhoefer's "Old Black Epiphone" record. Read more about the album and part of its recording at Muscle Shoals Music with Alabama session players via this report from Spring 2016: http://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-paul-marhoefer-live-from-muscle-shoals-music-studio/
'Coast to coast' and more: Will Perry live at GATS 2016
Will Perry's "Coast to Coast" was the first trucking-related song the Wayne Transportation driver ever wrote, and here he well delivers it to the crowd out at the Trucker Talent Search all-stars performance Aug. 27 at the 2016 Great American Trucking Show. Blessed with a dynamic tenor voice honed over many years, Perry's got a record under his belt and, as of this performance, was at work on another. Find more about him via his website: http://willperryband.com/
'You don't need to outrun the bear': NASTC head Dave Owen's case to small fleets for e-logs
NASTC's Dave Owen urges small fleets to use computer-assisted logs, "before they make you turn it into an ELD" by syncing with the engine, to do what they're designed to do as a "spellcheck for logs": solve the problem of form-and-manner mistakes represented in safety scores and stats. Read more via this link: http://overdriveonline.com/dave-owens-case-for-electronic-hours-of-service-compliance
Lay of the land for owner-operators: By the numbers with ATBS Todd Amen
In spite of the softness of the freight market at the midpoint of 2016, owner-operators' income has actually tracked upward on average, says Todd Amen, ATBS President, in this podcast from the Overdrive/ATBS Partners in Business seminars at the Great American Trucking Show. More insights from ATBS' analysis of its 10s of thousands of owner-operator client business performance in this podcast.
'Stars, stripes and white lines': Tony Justice live at GATS 2016
Live from the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center in Dallas, Texas, trucker and singer-songwriter Tony Justice delivered this performance Aug. 26, 2016, to an appreciative crowd made up primarily of truckers attending the Great American Trucking Show. It included the live debut of his "Stars, Stripes and White Lines" patriotic anthem, planned for release with his next record. To hear samples from his last, the 2016-released "Brothers of the Highway," check out this Overdrive Radio interview with him: http://www.overdriveonline.com/podcast-tony-justices-brothers-of-the-highway-the-trucking-brotherhood-reinforced/
'Renegade' Australian singer-songwriter Jayne Denham live at GATS
Australian singer-songwriter Jayne Denham in her first trip to the U.S. performed live for attendees of the Great American Trucking Show August 26, 2016. Red Eye Radio's Eric Harley introduced her at the online station's booth here following Overdrive's brief interview about just what's she's seen so far (and hasn't -- the Pride & Polish floor, coming soon) at GATS. Hear more from the performance here and search her name at http://overdriveonline.com for further coverage.
Starting GATS off right -- a front-porch singalong with Tony Justice, Bill Weaver
The Great American Trucking is under way today, and we can't remember a better beginning to it for me than this treat, served up to several of us, including my friends the Parkers and an untold number of hangers-on, those who just so happened to walk outside the Omni hotel here in Dallas to catch the spectacle you'll hear in this podcast, trucker/singer-songwriters Tony Justice and Bill Weaver running through originals and several crowd-pleasers in an impromptu, unplugged front-porch sound session.
Coast to Coast: Trucker Talent Search finalist Will Perry
"Coast to coast," the song that got Will Perry to the finalist round of the Overdrive/Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search, was the first one he'd ever written directly involving trucking, Perry tells Eric Harley of Red Eye Radio in this podcast interview. What it's about: The industry he's spent the past quarter century in as a driver, with no small measure of pride evoked, he says -- in "the whole atmosphere of over-the-road driving and the trucks." Read more about him via this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-talent-search-finalist-will-perry/
'Came out singing': Trucker/singer-songwriter Jason Lee Wilson
"If I write a song, it ends up setting the stage for the path I take later on" often enough, says Jason Lee Wilson in this interview with Red Eye Radio's Eric Harley in advance of the RER/Overdrive Trucker Talent Search, happening later this week at the Great American Trucking Show. Having grown up around trucks and truckers in Monteagle, Tenn., Wilson wrote the "Lynchburg to Nashville" song that was the track in the talent search that got him to this point, in part about a friend's regular run with whisky barrels for export on the route in the title. Read more about Wilson via http://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-talent-search-finalist-jason-lee-wilson-trapped-in-the-gears/
Walkin' with grace: Interview with 2016 Trucker Talent Search finalist Keith Snyder
Red Eye Radio's Eric Harley here interviews 2016 Trucker Talent Search finalist Keith Snyder. At the Great American Trucking Show Aug. 25-57, Snyder squares off with fellow finalist singer-songwriters to compete for this year's grand prize. Snyder, an independent owner-operator, based in Minnesota, walks Harley through his past in music on the bar circuit to his current approach with Christian themes. Read more about Snyder via this link to Overdrive's profile of the owner-operator: http://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-talent-search-finalist-keith-snyder-grew-up-playing-music-with-family/
The trucking brotherhood reinforced -- Tony Justice's "Brothers of the Highway" record
In this edition of Overdrive Radio, singer-songwriter and ETI driver Tony Justice walks us through several tracks on his new album, "Brothers of the Highway," from the title track duet with country legend Aaron Tippin to the anthem "We Drive Trucks." Find out here, too, just what's in store for the next one. Read more about just what went into making the album via links to past coverage at this story: http://www.overdriveonline.com/tony-justice-aaron-tippin-brothers-of-the-highway-music-video-released/
From 'tourist truck' to consummate professional: The evolution of owner-operator Gary Buchs
Hitting the road with Landstar-leased owner-operator Gary Buchs, of Bloomington, Ill., Overdrive Senior Editor Todd Dills' conversation with Buchs just prior to the July 4 holiday ranged across Buchs' own evolution from a Roadway driver in the 1990s to an owner-operator throughout much of the last decade and a half -- firmly in control of his own destiny -- to broader issues throughout the industry, from company driver pay to views on the federal pursuit of the speed-limiter mandate. Buchs views the last as unsafe, period, like so many Overdrive readers. Read more about the run via this link: http://overdriveonline.com/owner-operator-evolution-through-education
One driver's bounce-back after two years lost to 'suicide by truck'
Around a decade ago, Brian Rudisell experienced something that is tragically common among truckers, as reporting by Carolyn Magner last year made abundantly clear. In this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, Rudisell details a "suicide by truck" event that derailed his dump bucket hauling for two years, which included reconstructive surgery on his ankle and, essentially, "learning to walk" again. But the physical aspects of recovery from the head-on crash weren't what was the most difficult to overcome. "The more you talk about the problem, the faster you heal," he says.
Expansion limits: Brita Nowak's BratCat Express odyssey from one to five trucks and back
Overdrive's 2015 Most Beautiful champ Brita Nowak, independent owner-operator of BratCat Express, here talks with Red Eye Radio host Eric Harley about her 14-year trucking career, following a decade of work in Hollywood as a body double and with the Star Trek Voyager Series. As she makes clear in the interview, she's returned to just a single 2005 Kenworth in her independent business after owning as many as five trucks, learning something many an owner-operator has found out during expansion. Earning potential is often greatest when you're fully in control of the business, from the finances to the steering wheel. Read more about her in this feature: http://www.overdriveonline.com/reinvented-overdrives-most-beautiful-winner-goes-from-the-big-screen-to-the-big-rig-excels-as-independent-owner-operator
A 'major issue': Problems with uncompensated detention impact income, safety, health
In this "mailbag" edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, readers weigh in on the perennial issue of detention, or excess waiting time at shipper and receiver docks, following release of a new study by DAT that showed a majority of brokers didn't hold the issue in such high import as the carriers they deal with. Read more about that study via this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/serious-excess-detention-issue-lost-on-many-brokers-survey-says/
Your best post-crash resource to avoid litigation: Attention to 'every little thing'
Wayne VanHooser recounts an accident on I-70 and the subsequent litigation threat, defused working with his insurance company to counter misinformation with his close attention to detail at the scene.
"I Became An American," by Jennie Simpson
Owner-operator Jennie Simpson, originally from Australia, penned and recorded this song about getting her U.S. citizenship after "wanting to do something like this for quite a while," she says. After working on the words for "quite a long time" she turned to fellow owner-operator and 2014 Trucker Talent Search participant Keith Sampson for assist with the melody. The song is available for download via iTunes, Amazon, CDBaby and other retailers. Find a music video via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhCFI55q1XU
Carl Lambert reads the ESGR pledge of commitment at U.S. Express military program event
Carl Lambert, a Tennessee-based rep of the DOD's Employer Support of the Guard unit, reads the ESGR pledge at a July 1 U.S. Xpress event. Company president Eric Fuller signed the document, committing the company more effort spent in supporting military veterans' transition to civilian life. Read more about six specially dedicated and designed patriotic tractors and the military-veteran drivers handed the keys at the event: http://www.overdriveonline.com/u-s-xpress-launches-military-hiring-initiative/
"War Within," by Howard Salmon
Independent owner-operator Howard Salmon is back this year ahead of the Mid-America Trucking Show with another recorded song -- a moving account of a soldier's struggle relationships, memory and more after combat. He's utilizing the song to donate proceeds to outreach efforts to U.S. troops. "War Within" was originally written by Dublin, Ireland-based songwriter Tom Byrne.
Live from Muscle Shoals: Trucker/singer-songwriter Paul Marhoefer cuts 'Old Black Epiphone' record
Indiana-based Paul Marhoefer "Old Black Epiphone" sessions in mid-May at the Muscle Shoals Music studio of Donnie Gullett in Tuscumbia, Ala., move the 2015 Trucker Talent Search finalist closer to a record. Here the roots songwriter talks about his inspiration for the choice of the studio and where he takes cues for his songwriting, in some cases his fellow drivers. Catch video and more from the session via http://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-paul-marhoefer-live-from-muscle-shoals-music-studio/
Mandating speed limiters is 'unsafe, period,' readers say
Requiring speed limiters for nearly all on-highway trucks would be a detriment to highway safety, readers say near universally in this mailbag podcast. And, as one reader noted, regulators "will never find out" unless "they get out on the road with us" to see for themselves. The most recent news saw the Senate appropriations committee sending something of a message to the DOT that they wanted the long-in-process expected rule proposal to mandate speed limiters now: http://www.overdriveonline.com/whats-up-with-speed-limiter-rule-dot-wants-it-delayed-congress-wants-it-hurried/
34-hour restart: Readers weigh in on hours as they are and could be
Following news that the U.S. Senate included a measure that could hold import for change in cumulative on-duty limits with restart use, readers sounded off again on just where they feel the hours of service should be. Responses ranged from "leave well enough alone already" to an oft-repeated desire for a return to pre-14-hour-rule regs, when it was possible to split sleeper periods in any way desired. For more on the potential rule change, read this story: http://www.overdriveonline.com/senate-bill-clears-up-34-hour-restart-confusion-could-extend-hours-limits/
Trucker Bob Stanton's proposals for FMCSA's Beyond Compliance program
Truck driver Bob Stanton, well-known for his work with his self-styled Truckers for a Cause driver/patient support and advocacy group, brought these three distinct proposals to FMCSA's Beyond Compliance listening session in Chicago attendant to the CVSA Workshop event. Read/hear more about the session via this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/beyond-compliance-to-be-csas-8th-basic/
Bill Quade explains FMCSA's Beyond Compliance program proposal
Bill Quade explains FMCSA's Beyond Compliance program proposal by Overdrive
Panther Expedited's Irwin Shires speaks at Beyond Compliance listening session
Panther Expedited's Irwin Shires speaks at Beyond Compliance listening session by Overdrive
Joe Rajkovacz, FMCSA's Jack Van Steenburg back and forth on Beyond Compliance
Joe Rajkovacz, FMCSA's Jack Van Steenburg back and forth on Beyond Compliance by Overdrive
Mailbag: More voices on pay, ELDs and proposed safety rating tied to roadside inspections
Following Overdrive Radio's prior podcast in this series -- "Mailbag from the 'driver wage shortage'" -- more voices here on a growing sense that regulated transparency in freight transactions with brokers could go a long way to improving the income situation for owner-operators. Two more views, too, on prospects for new programs, from mandated ELDs to FMCSA's proposed new safety rating system, to have a beneficial effect on highway safety, imposing only unnecessary constraints or more complexity ripe for problems.
The 'daily fitness for duty'? Talking fatigue measurement, monitoring and the pace of technology
Former Schneider VP and current SmartDrive advisory board member Don Osterberg believes a stepped-up fitness-for-duty assessment is in drivers' future -- to be conducted via biometric fatigue measurement/monitoring technology. This talk, part of Overdrive's reporting in the "Tomorrow's Trucker" series, ranges over that notion as well as the profusion of other technologies -- such as inward-facing video cameras -- with potential to assess fatigue in real-time. Read more via http://overdriveonline.com.
Vigillo CEO Steve Bryan: How data will be used to predict accidents and what that means for drivers
In this 5-minute collection of excerpts from a 2015 interview with Overdrive Editorial Director Max Heine, Bryan discusses the increasing use of data – “drivers’ behavior, vehicle performance, weather, routes, lanes, congestion, other drivers” – to find patterns that can lead to crashes. Also, his thoughts on whether the attention on performance data will force more drivers out of the industry.
Mailbag from the driver wage shortage: More views on the long fall in pay, rates, income and more
This podcast rounds up several views following the report on what is a fall in the purchasing power of truckers' wages over 35 years. Adjusted for inflation, had driver pay kept up with the Consumer Price Index's inflation since 1980, the average trucker today would make more than $100,000 annually. As one caller put it, there's absolutely not a "driver shortage" but rather it's the "wage shortage" that is the problem. In addition, toward the end of the podcast, find a few views on the Safety Fitness Determination rulemaking proposal that FMCSA floated to much controversy earlier this year. Read more via http://www.overdriveonline.com/no-surprise-voices-following-report-on-driver-pays-historic-fall/ and http://www.overdriveonline.com/so-does-fmcsas-safety-rating-rule-in-fact-violate-congressional-directive/
Back from the brink: On the road with Ted Bowers Trucking
Kingston, Tenn.-based Ted Bowers, in business as an owner-operator for decades, took Overdrive Senior Editor Todd Dills along for part of a run of 3,300 lbs. of stainless tubing from Knoxville, Tenn., bound for Iowa. Along the way, as Dills explains, Bowers told a story of adversity overcome that holds lessons in the importance of close freight, accounting, driver and other partnerships in any successful owner-operator or small fleet business. Recorded along the way in Bowers' own custom stretched 2005 Peterbilt 379, the talk here runs through an array of topics toward an expansive profile of a man at home in his business. "I've never worked a day in my life," Bowers says. Read more about Bowers via this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/one-independents-comeback-from-the-brink-a-run-with-ted-bowers/
Nails in the coffin or change for the better? Talking trucking's future with Gary Carlisle
Attendant to the March 2016 issue of Overdrive and its Part 1 coverage of the future of the owner-operator business model, this talk between Agri-Empresa oil field service fleet manager and one-truck owner Gary Carlisle ranges over a myriad of issues on which Carlisle bucks many a forward-looking trend in his focus on bedrock issues of generational shifts, economic cycles and regulation. Tip of the hat to trucker/singer-songwriter Bill Weaver for a bit of his "I'm Rollin'" single from the "Every Mile I Drive" record as the intro music here.
"I'm rollin'": Behind 'Every Mile I Drive' with trucker/singer-songwriter Bill Weaver
In this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, run through the brand-new record from trucker Bill Weaver, who with regulator collaborators in his band has honed the Southern Rock style you'll hear here over many years. The Flippin, Ark., native is a hazmat hauler by trade, and no slouch of a songwriter, the new "Every Mile I Drive" record makes abundantly clear. Read more about him via http://overdriveonline.com/podcast-take-a-run-through-the-stories-behind-bill-weavers-every-mile-i-drive
"I Likes Me a Big Girl," by Paul Marhoefer
Trucker/singer-songwriter Paul Marhoefer continues his recent spate of recording activity with this romp of a track, a sneak peek of sorts at results from a recent session with the studio pros at the famous Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama. Read more about him and his music via http://www.overdriveonline.com/god-and-god-alone-driver-songwriter-paul-marhoefers-latest/
I'm Rollin', by Bill Weaver
This advance track from trucker/singer-songwriter Bill Weaver is part of his long-in-the-making "Every Mile I Drive" album of original trucking songs. The latest on the record is it's due sometime during or shortly following February of 2016. Visit http://billweavermusic.com for more.
'Brothers of the highway': Aaron Tippin, Tony Justice in the studio in Nashville
Trucker-singer-songwriter Tony Justice's upcoming "Brothers of the Highway" record reached an important stop on its route toward the destination of its 2016 release. This week in Nashville, country legend and former trucker Aaron Tippin joined Justice and his producer, Nashville-based Jeff Silvey, at a modest-looking house on 18th Street in the Music Row section of town to lay down vocals for their collaboration on the record's title track, a song penned in part by Justice cowriter for many tracks on the album, songwriter Kim Williams, who wrote "Brothers" with Doug Johnson and Nicole Witt some time ago. Read more about the session via this link: http://overdriveonline.com/aaron-tippin-and-tony-justice-brothers-of-the-highway-from-nashville
'God and God Alone,' by Paul Marhoefer
A new track from Indiana-based trucker and singer-songwriter Paul Marhoefer, written following his two daughters graduation from college early in 2015 and also inspired by memories of a catastrophic crash Marhoefer was involved in years ago. Given it crippled him in the short term and ruined his career as an owner-operator, Marhoefer believes it held the potential to have outsize negative effects on the young lives around him but that "God, and God Alone, took us here from there...." against the odds.
Mailbag: Answering ELD Mandate questions, and more trucking views
In this Overdrive Radio podcast edition, Senior Editor Todd Dills answers a few ELD-mandate-related question and rounds up commentary coming in on the podcast line: 530-408-6423. Commentary has reflected fairly strong opposition to the mandate by and large, with as much as 85 percent of readers -- in a poll still ongoing at OverdriveOnline.com -- noting they’d do what they could to avoid running with an electronic log of any kind. Half said they’d rather retire or look for another line of work if they couldn’t avoid it with the short-haul exception under the hours of service rules or a pre-2000 truck. Such trucks are notably exempt from the requirement. Find Overdrive's complete coverage of the mandate via this link: http://overdriveonline.com/tag/electronic-logs
A 'piece of freedom' under threat: Owner-operators sound off on ELDs after final rule's release
In this edition of the audio mailbag, owner-operators respond to news of the electronic-logs mandate's final rule release by FMCSA -- if the timetable for implementation in the rule stands, truckers running under the hours of service and with a model year 2000 or newer truck will be required to record hours with an approved device in December 2017. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association petitioned in court for a review of the rule on December 15. More detail here: http://www.overdriveonline.com/ooida-petitions-federal-court-to-block-eld-mandate/
Mailbag: Mixed reactions from owner-operators on CSA's public scores' removal
In this mailbag podcast, drivers offer a decidedly mixed response to Dec. 4 news that the CSA Safety Measurement System, pursuant to requirements in the highway bill signed into law the same day by President Obama, had been pulled from public view. Some called it a win for trucking, while others wondered whether pulling the scores would simply make it easier for less qualified carriers to compete for freight. For more on the news, join the discussion at this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/fmcsa-removes-csa-scores-in-wake-of-highway-bill-signing/ (This podcast includes a replay at the end of the previous mailbag relative to the CSA SMS public view.)
Lindsay Lawler's "Highway Angel" live in Nashville
This edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast excerpts Lindsay Lawler's final performance on her Truck Stop Tour in support of the Truckload Carriers Association's Highway Angel program recognizing acts of heroism large and small by truckers on the road. The song here, also titled "Highway Angel," was penned for the program by Lawler and writing partner Chris Roberts. Find more at this link: http://overdriveonline.com/podcast-lindsay-lawlers-highway-angel-live-in-nashville
Will Congress pass CSA-reforming highway bill?
Greg Cohen, president of the Highway Users Alliance, talks with Overdrive News Editor James Jaillet about the chances that Congress will pass a bill to hide CSA cores and force FMCSA to fix the program. Cohen also talks tolling provisions, size and weight and whether highway monies will go to rail projects.
Trucking troubadour Tony Justice hard at work on third album in Nashville
Justice recently passed the 50,000-CD unit just a few years into establishing a distribution network with most major truck stop chains. He talks here about what the accomplishment means to him amid work on his third record, due in January.
What's up with rates?
DAT Solutions' Mark Montague talks with Overdrive News Editor James Jaillet about recent rate trends, where he sees rates headed next year and more.
What it's like driving an autonomous truck
What's it like behind the wheel of a self-driving truck? And how do you get an autonomous endorsement for your CDL? Overdrive Equipment Editor Jack Roberts and OD News Editor James Jaillet talk details of automated trucking.
What does the future hold for hours of service?
In this brief interview, Overdrive News Editor James Jaillet talks with the Truckload Carriers Association's David Heller about potential changes to hours of service rules FMCSA and Congress could be working on.
Hope Rivenburg: General public 'naive' on pressing need for truck parking
For many of you, Rivenburg needs no introduction, but for those who don’t know who she is, the Fultonham, N.Y., resident and postal employee — she mans the small local post office there — and mother of three became well-known among drivers after her husband, Jason Rivenburg, was killed during a robbery while, for want of other better options, he was parked overnight near a closed gas station at I-26 exit 136 in Calhoun County, South Carolina. Here Hope describes how her connection to many in the driver communities on social media solidified as “Jason’s Law” was codified in law in 2012 to make truck parking a national priority. Three years later, the issues have been hitting the mainstream, and Rivenburg here discusses next steps -- for herself and, she hopes, for drivers -- around pressing the issue on states and businesses that provide parking. More via http://www.overdriveonline.com/hope-rivenburg-general-public-naive-on-truck-parking-needs/
Shippers and brokers, too: Voices on detention and compensation for delays
Calls continue to come in from drivers around the nation in response to the Detention détente series of reports -- in this podcast, drivers weigh in on the regulatory apparatus' potential role. Find further exploration of the issue at this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/audio-mailbag-more-voices-in-favor-of-swift-action-on-the-problem-of-uncompensated-detention/
Mailbag: 'All about the money'? A bevy of reader views on proposal to increase truck weight limits
A sizable majority of Overdrive readers (64 percent) see negative primary consequences of any significant rise in interstate truck weight limits, preferring the current limit to the added burden of purchasing new equipment and the potential to compound safety issues associated with bridge and other infrastructure deterioration and congestion. In this podcast, several readers weigh in on the September 2015 proposal to raise limits from 80,000 lbs. to 91,000 lbs. with the addition of a third trailer axle. Find more reader views via this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/mailbag-all-about-the-money-reader-views-on-increasing-truck-weight/
Brad James does "Detention" live at Trucker Talent Search 2015
2014 Trucker Talent Search competitor Brad James warmed up the 2015 crowd at the Great American Trucking Show with his trucking-themed version of "Dock of the Bay"... "I've been sitting at the dock all day, wasting time..."
Paul Marhoefer live at Trucker Talent Search 2015 with "Jacksonville"
Paul Marhoefer's "Jacksonville" takes the point of view of a trucker nearing the end of his career and requesting that final dispatch. Marhoefer got the competition heated up as the first performer among the three finalists at the Great American Trucking Show. Based in Indiana, he drives for Moeller Trucking. Read more about him at this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/looking-forward-to-a-musical-good-time-trucker-talent-search-finalist-paul-marhoefer/
Nate Moran live at Trucker Talent Search 2015 with "Middle of the Moonlight"
Nate Moran took first place in the 2015 Trucker Talent Search with his "Middle of the Moonlight" track -- the Bryant Freight owner-operator is based in California and has only begun what will no doubt be a serious foray into country music as a singer-songwriter. Read more about him via this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/new-musical-beginnings-trucker-talent-search-finalist-nate-moran/
Don Whatley live at Trucker Talent Search 2015 with "Honey-Dos"
Three-plus-million-mile driver Don Whatley, based in Oklahoma, competed as one of three finalists in the 2015 Trucker Talent Search competition, a coproduction of Overdrive and Red Eye Radio. His wife, he noted, urged him to perform this original track, part of his self-released "American Trucker" record. Read more about Whatley's long career and his current work with Texas-based Mesquite Transportation, at this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/music-over-3-million-miles-trucker-talent-search-finalist-don-whatley/
Tony Justice live from Trucker Talent Search 2015, where he emcee'd
As part of his role as emcee of the 2015 Trucker Talent Search competition -- featuring drivers Paul Marhoefer, Don Whatley and eventual winner Nate Moran -- trucking troubadour Tony played three tracks from his in-progress "Brothers of the Highway" record: "Broke down in the Hammer Lane," "We Drive Trucks," and "18 Wheels and Jesus." Catch a video production by Chris Fiffie of the last of those via this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/music-video-18-wheels-and-jesus-by-tony-justice/
Keith Sampson live at Trucker Talent Search 2015 with 'Made Me Who I Am,' 'Hard Working Family Man'
2014 Trucker Talent Search champ and Landstar-leased owner-operator Keith Sampson warmed up the crowd at the 2015 event in Dallas with these two original songs. Read more about the first of the tracks and Sampson via this post at OverdriveOnline.com: http://www.overdriveonline.com/axleoutpro-ups-the-ante-for-trucker-talent-search-participants-and-a-new-keith-sampson-vid/
Kevin Rutherford at PIB reveals owner-operators' most overlooked asset: Time
Speaking in the GATS Theater at the 2015 Great American Trucking Show's Saturday edition of the Overdrive/ATBS Partners in Business seminar, Trucking Business and Beyond host, small fleet owner and longtime owner-operator business consultant Kevin Rutherford took questions and spoke over a few hours, emphasizing the importance of ongoing education to business success. There's a field of veritable diamonds lurking in the cab of most every owner-operator's truck, he noted. Find more about his talk at this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/kevin-rutherford-reveals-owner-operators-most-oft-overlooked-and-untapped-resource/
Tony Justice on the big stage at GATS 2015
It was a big night Friday, Aug. 28, at the Great American Trucking Show for singer-songwriter and Everhart Transportation driver Tony Justice. Following two widely well-received albums of trucking songs (On the Road, Apple Pie Moonshine) and performances over the years at a variety of shows, Justice's first show on the big stage at GATS, opening for one of his musical heroes, John Anderson, was a special occasion indeed. Between his second and third songs, Justice asked all the drivers in the crowded house to stand. They clearly made up a sizable majority of attendees in the hall. "From one trucker to another I want to thank you guys for what you all do," Justice said. "I just want you guys and gals to know one thing. If it wasn't for you men and women who sacrifice your times with your family, your home and your friends to sit behind that wheel to keep this country rolling, none of this would be happening here in Dallas."
"Made Me Who I Am," by Keith Sampson
2014 Trucker Talent Search winner Keith Sampson's song here tells a true story, Keith says, about Sampson’s parents. It’s a moving story about himself as a young man and those who came before him — a father who left when he was young and a mother who knew how to be the dad when she needed to be. Read more about the track, and see the video, at this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/axleoutpro-ups-the-ante-for-trucker-talent-search-participants-and-a-new-keith-sampson-vid/
New beginnings for Trucker Talent Search finalist Nate Moran
Personal history has driven country singer-songwriter and Smokey Point Distributing driver Nate Moran from the get-go. His father unexpectedly passed when he was a boy, and music became his way of coping. "Nate picked up a guitar 'to keep my mind right,'" he says in a profile on the website of the Daseke company. He talks about this and more with Eric Harley of Red Eye Radio ahead of his performance August 28, 2015 at the Trucker Talent Search competition at the Great American Trucking Show. Find more about him at this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/three-singing-truckers-head-to-dallas/
Music over 3 million+ miles: Don Whatley with Eric Harley of Red Eye Radio
2015 Overdrive/Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search finalist Don Whatley talks at length about his long trucking career and musical pursuits in this interview, conducted by Red Eye's Eric Harley. In the on-site theater at GATS in Dallas August 28, 3:30 p.m., Whatley as well as fellow finalists Nate Moran and Paul Marhoefer will perform before a panel of judges to determine the ultimate winner of the competition. Singer-songwriter and driver Tony Justice will emcee the event and also perform. Find more via http://www.overdriveonline.com/three-singing-truckers-head-to-dallas/
'A good time': Trucker Talent Search finalist Paul Marhoefer with Eric Harley of Red Eye Radio
Paul Marhoefer, 55, of Indiana, talks at length about his musical influences and his long trucking career in this interview, conducted by Red Eye Radio's Eric Harley you'll find in the podcast below. In the on-site theater at GATS in Dallas August 28, 3:30 p.m., Marhoefer as well as fellow Trucker Talent Search finalists Nate Moran and Don Whatley will perform before a panel of judges to determine the ultimate winner of the Overdrive/Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search competition. Singer-songwriter and driver Tony Justice will emcee the event and also perform. Find more via http://www.overdriveonline.com/three-singing-truckers-head-to-dallas/
The resurrection of Evel Knievel's 1970s cabover Mack haul rig
This talk with Robb Mariani, onetime host and producer of the American Trucker show on the Speed Channel, marks the beginning of the end of the story of the Evel Knievel Mack haul rig Mariani located several years ago in the Finding Evel episode of the show. Overdrive subsequently covered the initial stages of the restoration at small fleet owner-operator Brad Wike's shop in Lincolnton, N.C., among other things paying witness to a little safe-cracking. In the podcast, Mariani details the coming debut of the finished rig from the current owner, actor and past professional skateboarder Lathan McKay. You can read archived interviews with Evel Knievel himself, view videos from past coverage and more via http://www.overdriveonline.com/tag/evel-knievel/
Owner-operator John Raffone -- for President?
Swift-leased Raffone is running for the Presidency of the United States. With no operating budget for the candidacy outside of the one that keeps his trucking business rolling, he's relying on word of mouth via the road and social media to spread his message. Raffone’s by no means a traditional politician. The 25-year over-the-road operator’s platform, if he could be said to have one beyond a desire to return high-level politics to the average person, however, is heavy on trucking-related issues. He hopes that by staging a run he can at least raise the profiles for what he says are in some senses “old-fashioned” trucking ideas. He’s running, he says, as a Democrat. Read more about him here: http://www.overdriveonline.com/owner-operator-john-raffone-for-president/
Mailbag: Hours wish list -- 'We are people, not machines'
Overdrive's truck owner-operator readers sound off with ideas toward a more perfect driver hours of service rule.
Mailbag: "Huge Mistake!" Operators sound off on impending speed limiter mandate proposal
In this Overdrive Radio podcast, voices are raised against any mandate for the use of speed limiters/governors in heavy trucks, while some emphasize alternatives to imposing a single speed on on-highway trucks, such as adequate training and rewards for voluntary governing,
Clear the cache: Attorney Rob Moseley on ECM data use in crash litigation
South Carolina-based attorney Rob Moseley, speaking at the May 2015 meeting of the Truckload Carriers Association Safety and Security Division meeting, stressed the need for motor carriers of all sizes to keep an handle on data their truck electronic control modules are collecting, outlining when the data needs to be saved. Otherwise, periodic downloads from the ECM are advisable, as Moseley elaborates on in this selection from his talk.
'An industry with a force': Dave Heller's regulatory update at TCA Safety and Security meet
In the wake of the record number of comments filed on the hours of service rulemaking several years ago, followed by further legislative advocacy on the part of individual business owners, drivers and so many others, TCA's Dave Heller contends the trucking industry is a force to be reckoned with. Engagement with government on the top issues in the industry is key to changing things for the better. On CSA, the Safety Fitness Determination rulemaking upcoming represents a key opportunity to begin to truly fix the system. Heller spoke at the Charlotte, N.C., meeting of the TCA's Safety & Security Division Sunday, May 3.
Aaron Tippin talks 25 years in music, celebrated with his new record
Our talk with country singer-songwriter Aaron Tippin, ranging over his 25-year career in the music business attendant to release of his new '25' double CD, featuring classic Tippin tracks as well as new material and some special features. (Catch a few samples from new tracks in this podcast.) Tippin also ranges back over his close relationship with trucking -- he worked as a driver before his music success -- and truckers, who've been a core part of his audience over the years.
TMAF's highway bill push -- 7 million reasons
Trucking Moves America Forward began its "7 Million Reasons" ad campaign in the D.C. area last week, pushing lawmakers and lobbyists to back a long-term highway bill, citing the 7 million workers in the trucking industry as why.
Mike Morgan on a victory lap after inaugural ChampTruck Class 8 racing event
A talk with '88 Mike' Morgan, who came out on top of the points following the inaugural ChampTruck World Series Class 8 racing event in Millville, N.J., in April 2015. Read more about the event results via http://www.overdriveonline.com/88-mike-gets-win-at-champtruck/
Mailbag: Drivers react to Kenny Capell's dismissed obstruction case
A few Ovedrive readers had thoughts on camaraderie that’s fallen by the wayside given what many see as an increasingly adversarial relationship between truckers and law enforcement at the scale houses and on the road. In this mailbag podcast, readers react to the story of owner-operator Kenny Capell’s arrest and his case’s subsequent dismissal, which we reported on at the following link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/kenny-capells-obstruction-of-justice-case-at-the-scale-house-in-his-own-words/ Capell’s case followed from his 2014 refusal to comply with a request for ID after being woken from a sleeper period by an inspector.
Kenny Capell tells the story of his dismissed obstruction charge after scale-house arrest
The charge stemmed from his being awoken twice over the course of two inspections in just a few weeks by the same officer while he was on his 10-hour rest period in the sleeper of the truck, driven at the time by his wife. Ultimately, Capell would like to see it become common practice in law enforcement — whether by new law or by better recognition of existing protocol — to better respect the job trucking professionals do by refraining in cases where there is clearly no reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing from waking sleeping codrivers. Read more: http://www.overdriveonline.com/kenny-capells-obstruction-of-justice-case-at-the-scale-house-in-his-own-words/
Mailbag: Recent owner-operator views on CSA's public scores
Overdrive readers weigh in positively and negatively on the public nature of carrier CSA scores today.
Watermelon Slim live in Nashville, Tuscaloosa in Spring 2010
Blil "Watermelon Slim" Homans in 2010, upon release of his "Escape from the Chicken Coop" record of trucking blues, plays his solo slide dobro set at Carol Ann's BBQ in Nashville, Tenn., and at Overdrive HQ in Tuscaloosa, Ala. More about the performances via http://www.overdriveonline.com/?s=watermelon+slim
Rulemaking committee member owner-operator talks driver training
As an independent owner-operator, Bryan Spoon holds the rare distinction of having been selected among many qualified nominees to serve on the Entry Level Driver Training Advisory Committee. Or, as he puts it in this podcast, one of the only members who doesn't typically "wear a suit and tie to work" every day. More of his throughts on training here as well: http://www.overdriveonline.com/driver-training-introducing-bryan-spoon-owner-operator-on-the-rulemaking-committee/
Mailbag: 'Don't Help The Lawyers. Help Us.' --Readers on insurance
More costs piled on by regulators in the form of an insurance hike, Overdrive readers argue in this podcast, would only serve to idle more trucks and boost crash settlements unnecessarily, with them attorney’s fees. Find more on the issue via this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/mailbag-dont-help-the-lawyers-help-us-voices-on-insurance/
Introducing owner-operator Howard Salmon's 'Who Would They Look Up To' track and outreach project
Independent owner-operator Howard Salmon's moving "Who Would They Look Up To" track, originally released on his 2009 record "These Trucks Are Made of Gold," is now the center of an outreach project via the WhoWouldTheyLookUpTo.com site. Salmon's offering the track for a free download and encouraging parents, attendant to the song's message, to support schools and other institutions like the Trucker Buddy program that provide role models to the youth of today.
2014 Trucker Talent Search Winner Keith Sampson's 2015 TTS Ditty
Sampson penned this little jingle for Overdrive readers, encouraging participation in the 2015 Trucker Talent Search music competition. Visit http://TruckerTalentSearch.com to find out how you can compete.
Entry Level Driver Training: Conversations following rulemaking committee's first meeting
Will traditional training approaches survive the Entry Level Driver Training rulemaking? If statutory language is any indication, it's likely. Points of view on such approaches to training follow in conversations with owner-operator Cody Blankenship, ELDTAC committee member and owner-operator Bryan Spoon, and (principally) former operator/small fleet owner Richard Wilson of TCRG Consulting.
Six Days On The Road, Who Needs Heaven: Tony Justice's early-2011 impromptu In-cab performance
Though Justice has come a long way since, with two well-received albums of trucking music released and work on a third, this brief performance in late winter in early 2011, a brief talk with Overdrive Senior Editor Todd Dills, remains a good look at an artist coming into his own behind the wheel. Recorded in Nashville at the TravelCenters of America downtown. Find more recent Justice music via this podcast: http://www.overdriveonline.com/podcast-behind-the-new-tony-justice-record-more-song-samples-too/
Audio Mailbag: Readers Sound Off on Minimum Interstate Driver Age, Insurance Costs
Bob Purcell argues that, even today, it makes sense for an 18-year-old driver to have the leeway to operate interstate. At once, the way the insurance market works for owner-operators in their early 20s with their own authority is in many ways a huge barrier to starting out young. Premiums can cost well upward of $10K annually for a one-truck operation. That, another caller argues, needs to change. Find more discussion via http://www.overdriveonline.com/audio-mailbag-minimum-interstate-age-should-be-18-insurance-barriers-to-new-owner-operators/
Entry Level Driver Training's potential data problem
The Entry Level Driver Training Advisory Committee spent the last part of day one of its Thursday meeting outlining what facilitator Richard Parker termed “key policy issues” around the negotiated rulemaking on pre-CDL training it’s conducting with FMCSA. Toward the end of the meeting, facilitator Parker added a key item to the list of issues related to data: “the need for data on the connection between training inputs and safety outputs” as he put it. Shortly after, during the public comment period, Joe Rajkovacz pointed out that we’ve been down this same road with a training rule in years past. In his comment, he calls up the memory of something one of the public safety advocates had to say about the data on training and its connection to safety. Read more via http://www.overdriveonline.com/entry-level-driver-training-podcast-the-data-problem/
ChampTruck update with Mack technician and race team head/driver Mike Morgan
If you've been following OverdriveOnline.com, you know that there's a U.S. Class 8 race series set to hit the road this year in the ChampTruck World Series. You also probably know there's a driver, "88 Mike" Morgan, who's bringing the old driver-owner spirit to his built-from-ground-up Powershift Performance race team, sponsored by Winrock Truck Parts and Equipment but also in search of more sponsors to keep it going well beyond race 1 in New Jersey come April. Morgan's a Mack of Nashville diesel tech by day, as I've written about before, who I got another chance to check in with this past weekend for an update on progress on his Mack racing unit. In this podcast, he talks further vehicle specifications, as well as the truck's special grille -- where it came from, and what it means to him and all those who've got a part in the truck going forward. More via http://www.overdriveonline.com/champtruck-update-with-88-mike/
NTI's Gordon Klemp discusses owner-operator market trends
Gordon Klemp discusses fuel surcharges, signon bonuses, and pay trends for flatbed and independents. Klemp heads the National Transportation Institute.
Former Army ranger Keni Thomas performs "Hold the Line"
Thomas spoke, telling the story of his Somalia experience, and performed the "Hold the Line" song Feb. 5 to open the Conversion Interactive / TCA recruiting, retention conference. Read more about Thomas at this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/hold-the-line-former-black-hawk-down-army-rangers-message-of-endurance-persistence/
Obamacare, Round Two: Progress Report with Marc Ballard of the Truckers Insurance Exchange
With end of the second open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act's health-insurance exchanges approaching Feb. 15, and a court decision looming this summer on the legality of much of subsidies that underpin the reduced premiums, Ballard joined us for a wide-ranging talk on what he's seeing in terms of premiums, enrollment and tax implications with respect to the exchanges this year.
Mailbag: FMCSA 'barked up the wrong tree' with 2013 restart restrictions
In the wake of Congressional efforts to force a stay on the 2013 restart provisions in December 2014, readers weighed in on their view of the so-called Collins amendment just before it was finally included in both House and Senate versions of the bill. Generally, sentiment fired hard against continued hours of service changes in the face of a variety of other more pressing issues for highway haulers. As noted an owner-operator from Double Springs, Ala., the new restart restrictions have had the effect of removing a modicum of flexibility from a rule already hampered by the 14-hour clock, the biggest flexibility reducer. Ultimately, he noted, "If you want to make it right, let us do our job the way we know how to do it." Read more: http://www.overdriveonline.com/audio-mailbag-fmcsa-barked-up-the-wrong-tree-with-2013-implemented-restart-changes/
NASTC head David Owen's sleep apnea story
National Association of Small Trucking Companies president David Owen is firm in his belief in a professional driver's ability to manage fatigue. Speaking here from the NASTC annual conference in Nashville in November 2014, while he clearly knows the benefit of apnea treatment in those who suffer from it, Owen cites a fundamental disagreement with those who believe untreated apnea is public highway safety danger No. 1.
Audio Mailbag: CARB's hardship exemption, ELDs and harassment
In this mailbag podcast Overdrive readers weigh in on both the California Air Resources Board's hardship extension (intended for those denied a series of financing opportunities in their attempts to comply with the state's powertrain regs) and FMCSA's recent survey report on electronic logs and whether use of the devices themselves comes with indicators of driver harassment.
CARB legal situation with Joe Rajkovacz: Court delays as rules go hardfast for most truckers
Speaking at the annual conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies in Nashville in November 2014, Joe Rajkovacz detailed the status of legal challenges to the California Air Resources Board's in-use emissions regulations. With his California Construction Trucking Association's own appeal long delayed in the Ninth Circuit, OOIDA's intention to appeal after its lawsuit was dismissed on the same technical "buzzsaw" CCTA ran into and more, Rajkovacz offers tough advice to those who've held out hope the lawsuits would give them a lifeline. With prolonged legal dealys, the rules are going hardfast -- small fleet owners and owner-operators will need to "bring your fleets into conformance."
Audio Mailbag: Voice on the liability insurance hike effort, split sleeper flexibility
In the first of a new series of "mailbag" podcasts, readers weigh in on deliberations over FMCSA's planned liability insurance minimum hike for motor carriers -- if the current minimum comes into effect, says one Texas-based owner-operator it may be "time for a change" in industries, even after three decades in business. Others sounded off with applause for the FMCSA for seeing the error of their ways with the 2003 reduction in hours flexibility. Not all were sure the issue of sleeper-berth-period flexibility really needed to be studied, however, given it was the rule of the day from the 1930s. Read more on the issues here: http://www.overdriveonline.com/audio-mailbag-liability-insurance-sleeper-berth-flexibility/