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 message has served him well over his most recent years trucking as an owner-operator. Also a songwriter, ...
Jun 22, 2017•22 min
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 to customers as a core service to avoid getting "beat up" on freight by those who would undercut yo...
Jun 15, 2017•18 min
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 service regs, detention and truckload rates and determined 'it's not adding up,' in the words of on...
Jun 13, 2017•9 min
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 several warrants out for his arrest. That’s when the reality of just what had happened to his credit tr...
Jun 02, 2017•26 min
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. He’s hopeful getting more drivers taking a proactive role in healthy eating can spur a movement to c...
May 26, 2017•17 min
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 and other locales around the nation. For now, those interested can find it via CDBaby.com, search "...
May 19, 2017•21 min
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 to subsidize CDL training and give tax breaks to companies hiring recent graduates.
May 12, 2017•12 min
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 Greg Simpson to stick within about a 200-mile radius of his home.
Apr 28, 2017•23 min
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, respectively, at January Sound in Dallas.
Apr 25, 2017•10 min
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 ELDs come into full implementation. Amen will be the first to tell you the crystal ball is what it is, ...
Apr 13, 2017•53 min
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.
Apr 05, 2017•18 min
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 a brief appearance near the end by owner-operator Marion Spray) about just where the association's c...
Mar 29, 2017•19 min
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 and business strategy with convention attendees.
Mar 27, 2017•14 min
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.
Mar 25, 2017•42 min
Moderated by mostly-owner-operator truckload carrier Jet Express President Kevin Burch, this panel featured four multi-million-miler captains for the America's Road Team, speaking to recruiters and other carrier reps at Conversion Interactive Agency's 2017 Recruiting and Retention conference. Featured were Walmart drivers Allen Boyd and Kenny Lowry, FedEx Freight hauler Don Logan and Steve Fields of YRC out of Kansas City.
Feb 27, 2017•36 min
A bevy of readers responded to the National Association of Truck Stop Operators' reported opposition to an idea floated by the Federal Highway Administration to relax rules against states adding greater food options to rest areas as a way to help fund the rest areas to keep them open -- thus providing ensuring they remain viable parking options at the same time. There was near unanimity from truckers that the idea was a good one, despite any added competition to truck stops.
Jan 31, 2017•5 min
In Overdrive Radio mailbag podcast airing readers' view, the subject of declining CB usage is roundly decried. Once and still a valuable tool for sharing and receiving reports about unsafe situations up ahead on the highways and bi-ways of America, the CB is only as good a tool as the number of highway users is large. Readers urged drivers to better employ it day to day for the benefit of all highway users' safety.
Jan 24, 2017•7 min
Former owner-operator Joe Rajkovacz, now representing the Western States Trucking Association, addressed attendees of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies' annual meeting here in Nashville last week. As usual, his talk contained more than a few items of note for owner-operators and small fleets, not least among them his good news view on where the speed-limiter mandate is going (see above) and less-sunny thoughts about a somewhat recent California Air Resources Board meeting mull...
Nov 22, 2016•19 min
This podcast installment of Overdrive’s Partners in Business, condensed from Overdrive's business manual of the same name, covers how to control fuel costs. Topics include how to minimize fuel consumption, getting a fair fuel surcharge and choosing where to buy fuel.
Nov 22, 2016•22 min
One of the biggest hurdles in being a successful owner-operator has little to do with what goes on inside the cab or under the hood. Instead, it’s the challenge you face as an independent who has to run a small business, managing thousands of dollars in revenue and costs. This podcast installment in the Overdrive’s Partners in Business series, excerpting portions of the Partners in Business manual, covers how to develop and use profit and loss statements, and how to understand your revenue, earn...
Nov 17, 2016•18 min
Overdrive readers react to Donald Trump's election victory with a call for increased attention to and revision or repeal of, variously, the FMCSA's ELD mandate, NHTSA/FMCSA's proposed speed limiter mandate, the inflexibility of the 14-hour rule and 30-minute break in the hours of service and more.
Nov 14, 2016•6 min
How former owner-operator/fleet owner and current educator and radio host Rutherford broke the ice with the mostly-broker audience at Truckstop.com's Connected 2016 user conference: "Many of my listeners think the majority of this room are lying, cheating scumbag parasites sitting in a room with a phone and an internet connection sucking all the profit out of the load." Truth is, brokers serve a purpose in the industry as the outside sales force for many an independent owner-operator, a model fo...
Nov 02, 2016•39 min
Following Halloween news that the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected OOIDA's arguments against the FMCSA's electronic logging device mandate, readers weighed in on their views relative to the court decision, ELDs in practice broadly, and the hours of service, which several noted were the bedrock problem. To access the full test of the court's decision, visit this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/eld-mandate-survives-court-challenge/
Nov 01, 2016•10 min
Overdrive’s Partners in Business manual combines the best material from Overdrive magazine with the expertise of the consultants at ATBS, the nation’s largest owner-operator financial services provider. This first installment of a new series condenses parts of the manual to cover making the transition to self-employment and some of the planning basics for running your own business.
Oct 26, 2016•17 min
Trucker and singer-songwriter Paul Marhoefer's new "Old Black Epiphone" record follows his participation in the 2015 Trucker Talent Search and his previous record, "Raw Cuts." Recorded in part near his Muncie, Ind., home base -- the other half at Muscle Shoals Music in Tuscumbia, Ala. -- the record tracks in themes of redemption for and reckoning with mistakes of the past. In Marhoefer's case, a lot of that past is trucking, of course. The interview here, intercut with tracks from the record, wa...
Oct 24, 2016•35 min
From a contention that OOIDA is making the wrong case in its lawsuit to block FMCSA's electronic-logging-device mandate to more bedrock concerns about mandated use of the devices' safety impacts, readers weighed in following oral arguments in the case delivered in the federal 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in September. Hear those via this link: http://www.overdriveonline.com/audio-ooida-v-u-s-dot-arguments-delivered-in-court-tuesday/
Oct 21, 2016•4 min
The annual Larry H. Martin Award is meant to honor the memory of Larry Martin, who opened 4 State Trucks, and is delivered to a trucker who goes above and beyond duty. In this audio, hear Martin's son and current co-owner Brice Martin, and near the end his brother Bryan, narrate the attributes of the trucker and singer-songwriter they delivered the annual recognition to this year -- East Tennessee-based Tony Justice.
Sep 26, 2016•4 min
In the wake of DOT's late-August proposed rulemaking to mandate speed limiters for much of the industry, while many questions remains as to what might finally emerge from the proposal, readers are virtually unequivocal is opposition to it. That's in part for its discounting of the driver's role in highway safety, as is evidenced in this latest mailbag podcast rounding up a bevy of Overdrive reader views. Find more in this related podcast: http://www.overdriveonline.com/mailbag-one-operators-hair...
Sep 20, 2016•11 min
Oral arguments in the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association's lawsuit against the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's December 2015-released electronic logging device mandate proceeded September 13, 2016. Arguing for the association, Paul D. Cullen Sr. in this audio released by the Chicago-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals lays out the basics of OOIDA's case, and Department of Justice attorney Joshua Waldman defends the U.S. Department of Transportation. Read more about the s...
Sep 14, 2016•42 min
Asked just what, if any, speed they would choose if a speed-limiter mandate became law and specified a speed setting, nearly half of Overdrive's owner-operator readers indicated none, objecting entirely to the mandate. A slightly larger share chose speeds higher than those analyzed by the Department of Transportation in the recently released proposed rulemaking, for reasons of safety and more. A Maine-based trucker recounted the experience of running across the Western U.S. limited to 65 mph as ...
Sep 13, 2016•8 min
