Overdrive Radio

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, delive...

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,...

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 Hicko...

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...

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 loa...

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...

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...

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 fragmente...

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 a...

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 eith...

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”...

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 messa...

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...

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...

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 sev...

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....

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...

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...

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 G...

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, respectiv...

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 ELD...

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.

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...

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 an...

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.