Overdrive Radio

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 ow...

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...

"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...

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 a...

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 t...

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 p...

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 unethica...

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...

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 t...

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...

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...

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 th...

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 c...

"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 migh...

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...

"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 Ruth...

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, pr...

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-f...

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 t...

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’...

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 ne...

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 foll...

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...

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...

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 s...