Overdrive Radio
534 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 9 hours ago - ★★★★ - 18 ratingsThe 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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Episodes
Hey shippers, we're out here: Small fleet resolved to sharpen biz on long haul for change
April 29, 2024 17:04 - 22 minutes - 31.5 MBLast 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 sma...
Should freight brokers' required bond amount vary according to company size?
April 22, 2024 14:16 - 21 minutes - 29.6 MBManteca, 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. "H...
Staying choosy about brokers -- 'too many scammers out there': Trucker of the Month Candace Marley
April 12, 2024 18:46 - 24 minutes - 33.3 MBIn 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 Myt...
'You're the business owner, so be the boss': Engage your own trucking numbers to take control
April 10, 2024 19:01 - 8 minutes - 11.7 MBHere 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 w...
How to leave trucking better than you found it, with Small Fleet Champ Jason Cowan
April 05, 2024 17:43 - 30 minutes - 41.8 MB“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 e...
Trucking's feast-or-famine cycles: Stock the pantry against 'panic mode' as an owner-operator
April 03, 2024 15:33 - 11 minutes - 16.2 MBIn 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 H...
FMCSA moves on carrier/broker-registration overhaul to tamp down fraud: Detail, potential problems
April 01, 2024 16:49 - 35 minutes - 49.3 MB"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 ...
Long legacy, good humor of LNL Trucking owner Larry Limp: From a '79 White COE to fleet of 12
March 22, 2024 14:27 - 24 minutes - 33.3 MB"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 Lar...
On-highway toward MATS with the 'Sisters of the Road' book tour and its pilot, Debbie Desiderato
March 15, 2024 14:11 - 26 minutes - 36.2 MBIndependent 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...
How owner-operator Doug Viaille persevered through 30-plus years trucking: 'Expensive wisdom'
March 08, 2024 21:53 - 24 minutes - 33.1 MBIn 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...
A shot at health insurance, and the new Driver Advocacy Network, with CDLDU grassroots group
March 01, 2024 23:45 - 30 minutes - 42.3 MBIndiana-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...
(Don't) inspect me! With Roadcheck on the horizon, ways to avoid trouble at the scale house
February 24, 2024 17:00 - 29 minutes - 40.7 MB"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...
Peterbilt trucks, and a living history with three owners of a 359, 379 and 389
February 16, 2024 21:48 - 24 minutes - 33.2 MBThe 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, ch...
Family affair: Owner-operator Leslie Bitterman claws back from near-death for success
February 10, 2024 19:09 - 13 minutes - 18.1 MBWith 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 t...
Alert! Roadside inspection system should be 'preventive,' not punitive as is with 'safety' scoring
February 02, 2024 21:27 - 30 minutes - 41.3 MBOwner-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 po...
Parking-lot-trap tows, roadside tows: Truckers' defense against predatory billing, other practices
January 26, 2024 20:20 - 31 minutes - 43 MBIn 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/podca...
Crash-review DataQs: Why owner-ops, small fleets should file for 'nonpreventable' determinations
January 19, 2024 23:25 - 32 minutes - 44.4 MBIf 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, div...
They said he'd fail, but he proved them wrong: Overdrive's Trucker of the Year Jay Hosty
January 12, 2024 17:36 - 44 minutes - 61.4 MBBy 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...
The owner-operator's trucking New Year's Resolutions: Back to basics in a down market
January 05, 2024 22:17 - 41 minutes - 57 MBLooking 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, ...
Closed coops, worst roads, weathering the storm toward value: Owner-operators' countdown to 2024
December 29, 2023 13:00 - 59 minutes - 81.2 MBThis 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 ...
'Predatory' tows' big dollar impact in trucking at roadside, or as blunt end of the parking shortage
December 21, 2023 15:19 - 34 minutes - 47.1 MBOverdrive 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 ...
2023 retread: Tony Justice's best of the best with 'Greatest Shifts' record
December 15, 2023 18:43 - 45 minutes - 62.8 MBAs 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 ...
'Never give up' in drive to trucking success: New owners' pitfalls, best advice for the long term
December 11, 2023 21:09 - 38 minutes - 53.5 MB"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, del...
Overdrive 2023 Truckers of the Year: The 'exit interviews' toward the finale, Part 1
December 01, 2023 21:52 - 39 minutes - 54 MBThis 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 Se...
A plan to not just survive -- but thrive -- through the bottom of the freight market
November 24, 2023 11:00 - 1 hour - 93.9 MB"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 par...
Homer Hogg's top 5 diesel fault codes: At No. 1, emissions issues that you can do something about
November 17, 2023 21:31 - 39 minutes - 54.1 MBAt 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...
Small fleets find a way: 2023 challenges, from slowdown to recruiting, equipment devaluation, more
November 10, 2023 23:52 - 38 minutes - 53.3 MBThis 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, O...
Owner-operator John Schiltz's top-notch team with business and life partner: Trucker of the Month
November 06, 2023 19:43 - 30 minutes - 42.5 MBToday 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 ...
Without accessible power, battery-electric Class 8 trucks don't stand a chance, even in drayage
October 27, 2023 22:02 - 32 minutes - 44.2 MBThat'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 t...
'Trucking Legends': New podcast charts 70-year career of Ken Greff
October 20, 2023 19:56 - 35 minutes - 48.3 MBNashville, 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 Nashvil...
Speed limiter mandate: Safety, congestion concerns high among truckers opposed
October 13, 2023 13:00 - 18 minutes - 25.3 MBMisplaced 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 ...
Super-sweet spot hauling chocolate for Roger and Rita Wilson's two-truck operation
October 06, 2023 12:00 - 34 minutes - 47.1 MBIn 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 consolidati...
Has your trucking income taken a beating this down cycle? You're not alone
September 29, 2023 11:00 - 1 hour - 102 MBOwner-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 co...
Meet Tommy Marshall: Lead hauler with ESPN College Gameday tour team truckers
September 22, 2023 19:23 - 37 minutes - 51 MBAlso 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 ...
Grabbing history's reins with 1978 W900A on '96 Dodge chassis, '46 Brockway, more: Adam Johnson
September 15, 2023 21:17 - 28 minutes - 39.5 MBK&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 Fle...
Beating the odds, from Chicago construction dump to OTR: Trucker of the Month Steve Massat
September 09, 2023 15:20 - 26 minutes - 35.9 MBOwner-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'...
Beating the odds, from Chicago construction dump to OTR: Trucker of the Month Steve Masset
September 09, 2023 15:20 - 26 minutes - 35.9 MBOwner-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'...
Inside an explosion of cyber crime in brokered-freight networks, with DAT's Jeff Hopper
September 01, 2023 20:57 - 47 minutes - 64.6 MBFor 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-fr...
After Yellow ceased operations, trucker Chris Dowdy's picking up the pieces
August 25, 2023 19:32 - 26 minutes - 35.9 MBChris 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 ther...
The best of the best from trucker-songwriter Tony Justice: The story behind 'Greatest Shifts'
August 18, 2023 20:42 - 44 minutes - 61.1 MBTrucker-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 r...
Introducing Freight Fest, host-to-host with Truck N' Hustle podcast's Rahmel Wattley
August 11, 2023 20:35 - 33 minutes - 46.6 MBToday 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 truc...
Making car-haul look easy with owner-op Crystal Rives: 'Couldn't imagine doing anything else'
August 04, 2023 20:16 - 32 minutes - 44.2 MBShe 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 du...
Lightning round: Owner-operators' worst roads in America, take two
July 28, 2023 19:14 - 9 minutes - 12.6 MBWe 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/...
Owner-operator Kate Whiting's journey to trucking by way of 1973 W900A custom resto
July 21, 2023 12:39 - 25 minutes - 35.4 MBToday 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 t...
FMCSA offering 'kinder, gentler' approach to safety scoring? Not if automated inspections go live
July 10, 2023 12:00 - 1 hour - 84.8 MBIn 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...
Regulators 'miss the boat' on trucking and the ELD mandate, rise of 'new workplace surveillance'
July 07, 2023 12:28 - 38 minutes - 53.2 MBFor 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 c...
Writing the book on trucking as an independent: June Trucker of the Month Debbie Desiderato
June 30, 2023 19:16 - 35 minutes - 49.4 MBThis 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 ...
Trucking owner-operators call out the worst road in America
June 23, 2023 21:40 - 20 minutes - 28.2 MBAsked 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 attent...
Work-life balance as an owner-operator, small fleet owner: You have to build it
June 16, 2023 20:57 - 1 hour - 89.8 MBWith 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 ...
Trucking with authority, take 2: Trucker of the Month Matthew Karr reboots after banner year leased
June 09, 2023 20:29 - 35 minutes - 49.4 MB'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 ...