Overdrive Radio

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 Edit...

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 ef...

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 the...

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...

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 Win...

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 p...

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...

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 i...

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...

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 res...

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 m...

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 abou...

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...

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.

"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 problema...

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.

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.

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 o...

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.

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.

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 req...

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 chall...

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, y...

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...

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...