Overdrive Radio
547 episodes - English - Latest episode: 8 days 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
The spot market slide: Mid-year owner-op numbers illustrate a turn back to leasing, much more
September 30, 2022 16:52 - 49 minutes - 68.2 MBWith 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 ...
Bryon Stoll, survivor: Hindsight's 20/20 after the small fleet owner's heart attack
September 23, 2022 18:37 - 36 minutes - 50.6 MBit’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...
Used-truck warranty evolution, coverage improvements, and what to consider when evaluating
September 16, 2022 16:56 - 37 minutes - 51.8 MBWade 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 ...
A stolen truck, a freight scam and a big re-evaluation on the road to small fleet success
September 09, 2022 11:00 - 35 minutes - 49.1 MBWhen 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 conv...
Get ready for the downturn -- it's always right around the corner
September 02, 2022 18:59 - 22 minutes - 30.9 MBIn 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 Spring...
'Knock on wood,' owner-op of the year Glen Horack's money-making ways set to grow
August 26, 2022 17:23 - 26 minutes - 36.6 MBThis 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. R...
Listen back: The 20% rule -- how brake adjustment violations can put your truck out of service
August 19, 2022 17:47 - 50 minutes - 69.2 MBAhead 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 un...
The expert songwriting of Ky.-based hauler Coby Langham -- and a special truck, on a special day
August 12, 2022 17:47 - 29 minutes - 41.1 MBToday 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/3c5Vvtgk1sEhmGY...
Remembering owner-operators Mark Mills, Jeff Seales on tough week for show hauler Clark Transfer
August 05, 2022 17:42 - 34 minutes - 47.3 MBThis 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, ...
Independents/private fleets connection engine, a haul for breast cancer, and a legend remembered
July 29, 2022 16:27 - 37 minutes - 50.9 MBIn 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 alleviat...
Tank operator Guy Archer on the roll, trucking with new music
July 26, 2022 16:18 - 32 minutes - 44.6 MBDayton, 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, Arc...
Drive to small-biz trucking success -- living and learning, pride of ownership on offer at Walcott
July 15, 2022 17:54 - 24 minutes - 34 MBGary 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, ...
Two show-ready rigs -- and owners -- moving toward retirement in style: Meet Bruce and Kellie Cone
July 08, 2022 17:53 - 35 minutes - 49.3 MBThe 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 ...
OTR to home: Making local trucking work with Mike 'The Boston Trucker' Gaffin, Terry Shelton
June 24, 2022 18:29 - 22 minutes - 31.5 MBIt 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...
What if you didn't need 10 after 11 or 14 in the hours of service? Lee Schmitt aims to find out
June 17, 2022 17:30 - 34 minutes - 47.5 MBFor 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 t...
California trucking crossroads: $7 fuel, AB 5 and a special truck show in the offing
June 10, 2022 18:01 - 36 minutes - 49.6 MBSmall 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 c...
What a three-year expediter and 2021 Small Fleet Champ Jason Cowan have in common
June 01, 2022 18:07 - 26 minutes - 36.1 MBThe 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...
Limits to the cargo-van hustle: Bre the Xpediter stresses business-systems value to break through
May 24, 2022 17:36 - 32 minutes - 44.4 MBThe 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,...
How politics/PR cloud 'zero emissions trucks' reality -- digging into recent ATRI analysis
May 13, 2022 16:22 - 37 minutes - 51.1 MBDoes 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: ...
Fuel-market insanity: A tale of two loads, bedrock cost control, rates-management tactics
May 06, 2022 11:23 - 45 minutes - 63.1 MBIt’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, t...
'All drivers': Support, recruiting inclusivity highlight mission of LGBTQ+ Truck Driver Network
April 29, 2022 17:48 - 20 minutes - 28.2 MBCliffside 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 ...
How this hauler for some of the biggest names in popular music survived COVID
April 22, 2022 17:40 - 19 minutes - 26.5 MBIn 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 ...
Meet your regulator -- FMCSA chief Robin Hutcheson -- and post-PIB biz talk, part 2
April 15, 2022 14:38 - 56 minutes - 77.6 MBIt’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 othe...
Why truck drivers get into business as owner-operators
April 11, 2022 18:16 - 28 minutes - 39.5 MBAs 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-...
Out on 'The Big Road' with a new podcast, small fleet TMS for back-office/operator management
April 01, 2022 18:03 - 26 minutes - 36.2 MBIt'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 bran...
Meet the Owner-Operator of the Year -- a window on the Las Vegas awards banquet
March 25, 2022 11:40 - 32 minutes - 44.2 MBWhile 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...
'Unpopular opinions' on the Entry Level Training regs newly in effect last month
March 18, 2022 15:38 - 26 minutes - 36 MBIn 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, inc...
A truckin' start: Owner-Op of the Year finalists Glen Horack, Gene Houchin, Allen & Sandy Smith
March 11, 2022 19:02 - 32 minutes - 44.5 MBEvery 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 m...
Will the national emergency declaration's COVID hours of service waiver extend again?
March 03, 2022 19:32 - 25 minutes - 34.4 MBThe “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.overdrive...
'Advanced ELD auditing': How small fleets, independents can work to prevent adverse safety ratings
February 17, 2022 18:40 - 27 minutes - 37.1 MBAs 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 th...
The 'Freedom Convoy' protest, with Canadian cross-border owner-op Mike Murchison
February 11, 2022 18:38 - 38 minutes - 52.9 MBIf 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 an...
The FBI needs your help solving this cold-case murder, and: Inside FMCSA's under-21 interstate pilot
February 04, 2022 19:04 - 34 minutes - 47.3 MBFederal 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 Gallo...
'Not really what we need': Training regs may miss the mark, but this small fleet's doing it right
January 28, 2022 19:14 - 51 minutes - 70.8 MBPre-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...
Marine Corps to trucking, martial arts, music, family: Meet Owner-Op of the Year Bryan Smith
January 21, 2022 19:24 - 31 minutes - 42.7 MBThe 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 eq...
Trucking exit strategies, 'The Great Resignation' and a 'Face of the Road' with author Michael Perry
January 14, 2022 17:59 - 57 minutes - 79.2 MBSerious 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 wi...
With whorls of history: Paul Marhoefer's new record, 'Corn Belt Cafe'
January 07, 2022 17:43 - 37 minutes - 52 MBEarly 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 bli...
A final 14 -- plus a 3-hour pause -- to count down to 2022: HOS, in-cab cooks, roadside trends...
December 31, 2021 17:00 - 53 minutes - 73.9 MBHappy 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. W...
A tale of two loads of Kentucky tornado relief collected, distributed, with owner-op Daniel Koors
December 23, 2021 20:02 - 24 minutes - 33 MBThe 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, ...
'Power only' as a springboard for owner-operator growth: Tim DeWitt's 34-truck fleet
December 17, 2021 18:15 - 40 minutes - 55.1 MBTim 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, d...
Trucker-songwriter Guy Archer's journeys with heavy loads, right back to Nashville
December 10, 2021 18:57 - 48 minutes - 67.1 MBFrom 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 ...
Small fleet roundtable: Co-opetition, balancing personal/business pursuits, tech challenges, more
November 29, 2021 19:02 - 46 minutes - 63.4 MBSmall 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 oppo...
The promise -- and challenges -- of the car-haul trucking niche
November 19, 2021 19:00 - 26 minutes - 36.6 MBIn 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 th...
Inside the veterans-support mission of MSR Transport with active duty servicemember Rob Ahlers
November 11, 2021 18:51 - 28 minutes - 38.8 MBIn 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 a...
'Fun' with safety/compliance: Low-hanging fruit to avoid drug/alcohol Clearinghouse violations
November 08, 2021 19:11 - 45 minutes - 62.8 MBHelping 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 Nas...
Behind the wheel with automated-driving start-up safety driver Ruben Cardenas
October 29, 2021 16:25 - 31 minutes - 43.2 MBRuben 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 conduct...
Why California ports are overwhelmed: Intermodal perspective from out East
October 25, 2021 20:17 - 40 minutes - 55.6 MBConsider 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/152794...
Empowerment, education, innovation: Growing minority-owned-business community, trucking influence
October 13, 2021 19:20 - 46 minutes - 63.9 MBIn 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 bac...
Meet the owner-ops of the year -- and hear talent-search finalists' performances
October 08, 2021 15:52 - 44 minutes - 61.3 MBHeading 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...
Introducing the trucking-focused TNC Radio online network with driver Tom Kyrk
October 01, 2021 18:13 - 38 minutes - 52.5 MBThis 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 g...
The big reveal: From a truck to a home, with owner-op Debbie Desiderato and 'celebrity renovator'
September 24, 2021 17:50 - 29 minutes - 40.4 MBThis 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...