Came back with a plank window down yelling now money anything hey oh Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm get to the back hey Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when the lane moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them made them make a bigger balls.
Hey what is up, ladies and gentlemen? We are back. We are live. It is a free coach podcast, the top podcast in transportation, coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central, to break down some industry headlines. But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome. This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen. And I say this before every single show. And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because at the end of the day, you guys, I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve.
So you can take that information, apply it, utilize it, and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life. Happy Monday, everybody. I got a very special guest for you guys here today. I met him all of seven minutes ago. And we are going to break down some. You know, honestly, you guys, as a broker, myself, knowing the rules, regulations, what all the safety scores, all of that stuff means, it is. It's imperative for you to operate. But also, this is one of those, how do we put some more information out there for the driver community as well? Because at the end of the day, you guys were just looking to improve everything as a whole. So with that being said, I have Mr. Brandon Wiseman on the show today. You guys, Brandon is an attorney.
None of this should be used as legal advice at all. This is just a conversation between two individuals. But thank you for joining me.
Thanks for having me. Thanks for the disclaimer. Appreciate it.
Yeah, no, man, like I was saying, I've had enough attorneys on here, like to throw that out there before every single time. Because I could only imagine the amount of DMs that some individuals get after it, saying, hey, how do I do this? You're an attorney. And you're like, yeah, I'm not. I'm not your attorney.
Yeah, you shouldn't be getting your. Your legal advice from a podcast is my recommendation to you.
Dude, I am right there with you. And I, you know, this is a little off topic, but kind of on topic. You know, one of the best things that I Ever did when I started my business was finding the right attorney and then finding the right like bookkeeper, CPA and everything. Like those two things, man, it's like going through contracts and everything else. Like it's vital. And you know, there's a lot of stuff in the industry right now, like again, this is off topic, but it's like the lease purchase program. And I'm like, how has nobody ever like said go bring this to an attorney? And I also look at this. If you can't afford a 500 attorney bill, you probably shouldn't be going into business that requires you to sign a contract.
Yeah, especially in that context. I mean those lease agreements are very heavily regulated. The regulations specify what type of stuff has to go in those and if you don't do those correctly, you're asking for trouble. So yeah, big mistake, dude.
I, I agree with that, man. So truck safe. What, what is this, man? How did like first and foremost though, how did you get your start into to the industry? Kind of like what brought you in.
Here out of law school? Started working for a, a law firm indianapolis that specialized in trucking. It's the largest transportation specific firm in the country. I think we represented 95 of the top 100 motor carriers in the, in the US and so spent 10 years there, was a partner there working primarily on dot safety and compliance and got a lot of good experience doing that. Worked with a lot of different types of fleets doing that. And then in 2021, broke off on my own, started Trucksafe and a small law firm with a partner of mine called Childress Law. But trucksafe, my whole idea for it was, you know, you and I talked briefly before we got started here.
What I saw over the years was a pretty big gap in the industry for good quality content on trucking regulation, specifically like train the trainer type stuff, helping fleets to understand the complexities of these rules. And so I just decided to build it on my own. I kind of had a background in video production and that type of stuff before I went to law school. So it made sense for me to kind of pick that back up. And so that's what I did. And that's what we do through trucksafe, deliver a lot of DOT compliance related content.
So what, you know, speaking of, you know, DOT compliance and safety and all that stuff, man, what is one thing that most individuals overlook right away?
The thing they overlook, you know, because you know, every year we have thousands of new entrant motor carriers coming into the industry. And they're usually pretty small, you know, one or two trucks. And I would say this is kind of a, you know, a cop out maybe. But overlooking DOT compliance to begin with is what they're overlooking because they don't even realize that, you know, when you set up a DOT number for the first time, an interstate DOT number, one of the very first things you're going to have to do is pass what's called a new entrance safety audit. And those new entrant safety audits are pretty cursory to anybody that has any understanding of DOT regulations at all. It's, it's pretty easy to pass one of those audits.
But so many of those new entrant motor carriers fail those audits because they don't know the first thing about DOT compliance. And so they don't have any of the basic records that a regulated motor carrier is supposed to have. And so they end up being weeded out of the industry within the first year because they just didn't take, you know, a half an hour to understand that you got to have a, you know, copy of the driver's license and a med card for your drivers and stuff like that. So I, I would say not being proactive in that regard is one of the biggest things that gets overlooked.
Do you think that's an FMCSA problem where they should, like, again, I've never registered as a motor carrier before, right. Like, so I don't want to sit here and try and act like I'm a, I've got it all figured out. But is that in that steps of like, hey, you've been issued a DOT number and an MC number, now you need to do this? Is that part of it? Okay, yeah.
They tell you, and they tell you multiple times and there's good resources available from them on their website. But just, you know, and I kind of get it, you know, you're ready to get out there and start getting the wheels turning and making some money. And you've got other, especially those small trucking companies. You know, the owners of those companies are wearing multiple hats. They've got their customers to worry about. Where are we going to get the fray? They got the, you know, the insurance to worry about, the taxes to worry about. And DOT compliance should be on that list as well. And it's one of the things can get you shut down pretty quickly if you don't have that, you know, under control.
So, you know, Brandon, I, I, I just put a post out there last week about stuff like this, because I kind of feel like entrepreneurship is very glorified right now on social media, in other areas of it and, you know, go out there and start this business and do all of that. But it's like, I kind of look at it like, man, you have to have all your I's dotted in T's crossed before you go out there. And that's why I always say don't quit your day job until you have everything done. Because, like, you know, again, I'm not saying this is all attorney. Attorneys hope you overlook this stuff, you guys, because they're. That's like what they're paid for by their clients and they don't care. Right. Like most people insurance, all of that.
They don't care that you had a bad day and overlook this stuff. And if you are the business owner, you are liable for all of this. And it's like, I just want people to take a couple of minutes, make sure all their stuff is, you know, their eyes are dotted and their T's are crossed, especially when it comes down to federal paperwork and everything else, because, like, they will shut you down. And then what? You might have a couple hundred thousand dollars in loans out and now you don't have a way to operate that now? Yes, granted, you might be able to go lease on with somebody and utilize your equipment, but your dream of being a business owner is essent. Is essentially stopped before it even begins. All because you overlooked a line item.
Yeah. I mean, particularly in a highly regulated industry like transportation.
Yeah.
You have to do your research before you just jump in. And if you don't, then the consequences of that can be severe. I mean, you mentioned being shut down. Obviously that's no good. But the thing I'm always looking out for is your highway accident exposure. You know, putting aside your, you the potential for you getting shut down. What about if one of your drivers gets involved in a bad accident and you didn't have your eyes dotted and your T's crossed from a regulatory standpoint? Well, now you are a huge target in that litigation and that is very likely going to put you out of business, plus put your assets at risk, your business assets. And then possibly if you don't have your business set up correctly, also your personal assets at risk.
So again, highly regulated industry, you have to spend some time at the outset getting your arms wrapped around what it entails from a regulatory standpoint.
No, that's definitely it. And I mean, I had Rob Carpenter on the show last week, and I don't know if you're familiar with him, but you know, he's with Truck. Oh, he works with you. Wait, really?
Yeah.
Dude, I didn't even know that. That's wild. Okay, well, anyways, yeah, dude, were literally talking about a lot of that and I guess I didn't even put two and two together there. See, I reach out, I book all of my own guests at the end of the day. So it's like after a while I pay attention to first names, but no, dude. But yeah. So I mean, you'll know exactly what I'm. I'm saying here, man. Like those videos that he posts every day, like, those are one of those things for me where I'm. I'm sitting there and I'm looking at every single one of them and I'm like, how much of this is avoidable? How much of this is, you know, the human error aspect of things? Because you're right, man, it's all good and great until there's an accident, until there's an issue.
And then again, it's. They're gonna find the way around it. And I think like when I'm bringing up here is we, you know, were talking about the Warner case out in Texas, for example. You know, again, I'm not going to go into that because I've mentioned that enough on this show about how ridiculous it is. But like, that's the target that is on a lot of trucking companies backs right now. And I mean, are you saying that increase. Brandon, are you seeing like the. Because I'm seeing a rise in nuclear verdicts, it seems like that are going on out there. Is there just a bigger and bigger target on all these drivers backs right now?
Yeah, I think the data shows. So American Transportation Research Institute attri put out a study on nuclear verdicts, want to say five or six years ago, probably where they looked at a sample of nuclear verdicts over the last decade or so. And I think the data showed that the number of these cases, essentially cases where the jury reached a verdict in excess of $10 million against a trucking company, were up over 1,000% over the last decade. And so, yeah, I think the data bears out that we are seeing a huge uptick in these types of cases. They're not going away, that's for sure. And so the question is, what do we need to do to get a handle on it? You know, there's some things that you know are beyond your control as the carrier or the driver, obviously.
And you look at that Warner case is a pretty good example of that. But even in that case, it's like, you know, you throw your hands up, it's like, what more could we have done to have kept ourselves out of this lawsuit? And the truth of the matter is, you're not going to keep yourselves out of the lawsuits. You're always going to have the potential of getting dragged into these lawsuits even if your driver did nothing wrong. And so the better question is, what are we doing to minimize our exposure, to get us out of those cases as quickly as we can and, you know, save on expense and that type of stuff?
So, you know, I want to kind of shift gears a little bit here. You know, when we're talking about the CSV scores and everything else out there, is there a way that, you know, drivers can improve those scores in, like, a shorter amount of time or, you know, and I really want to get your take on this because I feel like, you know, sometimes, I mean, I have seen this a lot as of recent, where, you know, there might be a bad driver on a staff or there might be, you know, maybe it was a couple of months of bad situations that have happened at a trucking company, which doesn't ultimately make them a bad company. They just went through a shitty time and now they're fighting that battle of being able to find freight and everything else.
Because now it seems like there's a lot of stuff out there that is almost designed to stop them from finding work. But it's like we all make mistakes or we all had a bad couple of times. So how are you guys working with carriers to really improve that and really give them the opportunity? Because, like, if I'm being honest, Brandon, I've worked with some carriers where a lot of people out there, based on the parameters that are set, wouldn't even touch them to book their freight. But they are like the best drivers that I've worked with.
Yeah, I mean, a couple thoughts on that. So, first of all, when it comes to scoring, so the scores that most people think of when they think about this Is, are called CSA scores or Safety Measurement SMS scores. And that system has been in place since 2010. And originally there was going to be a separate scoring system for drivers and for carriers. The only one that moved forward officially was the carrier scoring platform. So carriers are the only one that have true CSA scores. But that isn't to say that these violations that end up on those accounts don't affect drivers, because there is a system out there called the PSP Pre Employ screening program, which pulls its data from the same database. And it is essentially roadside violations and also accidents involving commercial motor vehicles.
And so if you're a regulated driver and you're out there incurring violations or getting involved in DOT recordable accidents, those are going to land on your PSP account. And then that PSP program is used by a lot of motor carriers, particularly the larger ones when they are evaluating new driver candidates. So they will pull not only their motor vehicle reports from the states in which they're licensed, but they'll pull a PSP report and see what types of violations and accidents you've been involved in the last however long. And they will use that as part of their hiring process. And if you've incurred too many according to their standards, then maybe you don't get that job. And so it is important for that reason for drivers and for carriers.
And so, you know, in terms of how you kind of get control of those things, you know, you hear a lot of carriers and drivers complaining about their scores and thinking that they've been wronged in some way or the other, I will challenge you. I will push back on that a little bit and say that the system, you know, you don't just get too high scores based one or two bad inspections. The system is designed to target trends of non compliance over time. So the system is pulling in violation data for the last two years, and it's not even giving scores unless you incur a certain number of inspections with violations over that time period. So there are some protections in there to keep your scores from being negatively influenced by a little amount of data.
So it takes a good amount of data to end up costing you in those contexts. And so what I would say to you is if the data is saying something negative about your fleet, then it probably means you have a problem with whatever category you're struggling in. You have a, you have demonstrated multiple violations in that category, and you need to dig in there and figure out who's incurring the violations, number one, and what types of violations are they, number two, and start to get control of that. And, you know, there's no magic bullet to how you get control of it. It's holding drivers accountable when it's their fault for doing these things. It is providing additional training when warranted. It is looking yourself in the mirror as the motor carrier.
If you're to blame for, you know, for example, systemic maintenance problems and getting control of those issues, then you will start to buck those trends. And that's how you bring your scores down.
Yeah, it's, you know, because that's one thing that I probably hear and see the most is, you know, it's elevated scores. And I mean, back when I first started brokering, man, it was like essentially hours of service, alcohol and drug. And then, you know, driver. I forget the other ones maybe. Yeah, driver fitness. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. And you know, and now it seems like it's becoming, you know, like it's. I don't want to go as far as saying trucking's over regulated. I think that there, if it is over regulated, it's just overregulated in the wrong areas because I feel like there are certain things that are prohibiting really good companies from even getting off the ground that's out there. And, you know, I look at, I know that there's a rise in the DOT inspections. Right. Like that.
That's another kind of hot button thing where it's like, hey, I've never been inspected. How do I get a DOT inspection? Brokers won't work with me. And I understand a lot of brokers who have that, hey, we want you in business for 90 days or something before we'll start working with you. I, I get that time frame is arbitrary to me, but, you know, ultimately, what is it that a driver can do from the inspection standpoint that shows, like, hey, I'm a legit company. Because when I, when my brain goes to inspection, it means that, like, they did something wrong.
Right.
And you know, because that's otherwise. Like, again, my dad drove for 40 years and I don't remember every single time that he got inspected, but I remember every single time I was with him and went into a scale and his reaction at that time. So I'll just leave that at that.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is where we need some more education for the brokers because I do see that requirement a lot that they have to have so many inspectors to be a candidate to haul freight for their customers. And what they misunderstand, you know, maybe 10, 15 years ago, it was possible for fleets to go volunteer for a roadside inspection and hope that they get a clean inspection out of it. But nowadays, you know, 20, 25, you, you cannot go and volunteer for an inspection and just get inspected. And you know, at, just by asking the officer at the way station or whatever to inspect you, it doesn't work like that.
In fact, the Commercial Vehicle Safety alliance, cvsa, the entity that's kind of over all of the state law enforcement agencies has put out a directive, as far as I understand, that says we don't do voluntary inspections anymore because the FMCSA doesn't pay for those voluntary inspections. And so it's just not a thing anymore to get a voluntary inspection. So brokers need to understand that because what you're asking is for something that may be an impossibility for small fleets that don't have a lot of trucks out there that are rolling through the way stations or anything like that. It's just not a possibility. So I think education goes a long way.
And then if you're a small fleet and you're trying to impress the brokers, I mean, you're certainly going to encounter the brokers that have those rigid requirements and there's not going to be anything you can really do about it. But if you find the brokers that are willing to work with you, there are many things you can do to demonstrate your, your compliance, your compliance posture. You can certainly not run afoul of, you know, or not drive your safety metrics to a point where you are no longer a good candidate. You know, watching your CSA scores, watching your out of service rates, certainly watching your safety rating. Safety rating is what most brokers are looking at primarily. Do you have a unsatisfactory safety rating or a conditional safety rating? So keeping those metrics in check goes a long way for sure.
And then just building out those relationships with the brokers, you know, showing them through, you know, your, your work that you do for them, that you've got all of your eyes dotted and your T's crossed from a compliance standpoint because they've got skin in the game too. I mean, that's the thing that fleets need to understand is that, you know, you mentioned, Chris, more and more motor carriers being in the crosshair, but more and more brokers and even shippers are in the crosshairs for accidents involving the fleets that they hire to transport their freight. And we're seeing this more and more particularly on, you know, on the west coast. We're seeing it, We've had some good case law in the Midwest, where I'm located, that essentially kind of shields brokers and other third party intermediaries for that type of liability.
But that's certainly not the case all over the country.
Yeah.
So the point is, brokers have some skin in the game. That's why they have to make sure that the fleets that they are using are safe and compliant.
No, absolutely. And it's one of those, like there has to be a set standard, right? Like you have to have something out there to show. Because like, I've seen, I think two or three major rulings by, you know, with involving freight brokers in regards to the carrier selection. I mean, you guys can just Google Chrome lawsuit and there'll be a couple of very high profile ones right there. And again, like that's the reason behind a lot of it. And if you're a broker and you don't have anything, you need to start, you need to have some sort of criteria because again, you need verifiable proof that you actually did something to try and prevent this.
Because you know, again, I know that there's a lot of back and forth in the industry about how brokers suck and carriers suck and everything else under the sun, but let's be honest, you guys, they're shitty actors on every side of this industry. And the only way to really weed a lot of them out is by having an actual step, an SOP involved. And I tell every driver that I talk to, you guys should have an SOP that you follow for brokers that you guys are even willing to work with because they are just as bad as some of the, you know, the drivers that they try and pin in the crosshairs of acting out in these, in this regard. And you know, from my perspective, it's like, I personally think it's going to get worse before it gets better.
Brandon, I think that, you know, again, I'm not going to sit here and say that I'm a fan of over regulation or anything else, but I truly feel like there is a fundamental issue at the FMCSA that is allowing a lot of these individuals to get through and register as real, actual businesses out there. You know, we're just talking about fraud and everything else at the end of the day.
Yeah, well, I mean, you know, something to keep in mind, I'm certainly no FMCSA apologist and I could get on board with the industry being overregulated from a safety standpoint. You know, I think the key is, and this is what ostensibly federal agencies are supposed to be doing anyway when they are promulgating new regulations, is supporting those regulations with studies that show that the intended regulations are going to improve safety. That's obviously the key. And you know, I've been critical of the agency in the past. I think we've got an article on our website that talks about overregulation and this idea that even once we promulgate a new regulation. The agency should be periodically conducting new studies to see if the regulations have been effective at accomplishing their goals. And if not, then they should target those regulations for potential, you know, removal.
And, you know, it'll be interesting to see with Trump taking office. Trump signed a couple of executive orders early on in 2025 that I think will have some bearing on this. So, number one, he has a regulatory freeze in place right now in February of 2025, which is essentially putting a pause on all new federal rulemaking activity until they, you know, the new administration can get their arms wrapped around what's, what each agency is doing and whether they think they should move forward with some of the initiatives that they had going or not.
And then also he implemented something that he did similarly back when held office previously, but he enacted what's called a ten to one rule, which is essentially telling federal agencies that for every new rule they want to move forward with going, you know, going forward, they have to identify 10 existing regulations for potential revocation. And so it kind of dissuades them from enacting new rules. So, I mean, that's kind of what you get with the Republican administration anyway, is kind of a rollback of, you know, federal rulemaking. So we'll see where it goes. But, yeah, hard telling.
Yeah. What are your thoughts on ELDs? And if you want to completely avoid this question, Brandon, by all means, say next question. But, you know, that's one for me that I think is a big sticking point with a lot of the drivers that are out there. And then when it comes to, in regards, of course, to correlation between safety, traffic accidents, there has not been a drastic drop in it. So can you see that ever being rolled back to where, like, it actually hasn't improved safety in accidents or anything like that? So why are we using that?
No, I don't see it ever being rolled back, if I'm being honest. And yeah, I've seen the data, I think that you're talking about, which suggests that we haven't seen a decrease in accidents necessarily since the ELD implementation. But I guess kind of my thoughts on it, you know, if we look at what ELDs are really intended to do, and I think they actually do a decent job of this, which is to sniff out log falsifications. So, you know, it's no secret that our industry for years had suffered from drivers falsifying logs either, you know, on their own or at the direction of the motor carriers for whom they work. You know, you hear tales of drivers having two logbooks in their truck, the official one and then the one that they give to the, to law enforcement if they got stopped.
And it was a big issue, I mean, a huge issue. And so if nothing else, elds, for all of their problems that they may create for drivers, they at least automatically capture driving time. So from an enforcement standpoint, we know when that vehicle was in motion, there's no hiding it unless you, unless you unplug the device. But even then, the device is still capturing unassigned drive time. So I look at it from that perspective and also how that ends up playing out in highway accident litigation. I tend to prefer ELDs over paper logs for that reason. But I certainly understand the criticisms with the eld systems over the years. I'm hearing less and less of that as we go along and it's seems like the ire has started to turn towards cameras. So inward facing cameras certainly.
So that may be the new ELDs when it comes to looking at things that are pissing drivers off.
I, you know, I just look at it as, you know, from my perspective, if you owned the truck, right, like you own a fleet, maybe you're an owner, you know, you're a driver and then you own, you know, six other trucks or whatever that looks like, you know, what you brought up there, man, is like you want to have as clean of records as possible to prove that you had nothing to do with it, right? Like I've seen so many videos of drivers that, you know, are wrongfully brought into lawsuits and then their forward facing cameras, I'm not going touch the inward facing, but they're forward facing cameras, completely removed them from the lawsuit at that point, right.
So I feel like if you're operating a commercial vehicle of any sort, whether it's an 18 wheeler or a company vehicle of any sort, you would want something to protect your business, right? And I think like, you know, again, it's always down to, you know, we want to talk about those safety scores that were talking about earlier. Wouldn't you want a fast track to show like, hey, actually this wasn't us and then kind of have all of that documented. I, I just feel like, you know, there's nuance with everything, right? And if it's not going to be this, it's going to be something else. But ultimately when we're talking about A, people's lives, but B, hundreds of thousands, if not millions and millions of dollars worth of investment into equipment and everything else, you want to protect that investment, most importantly.
And I feel like having something out there, you know, to prove your innocence is vital for you long term. And again, I'm not going to sit here and say I'm a fan of Big Brother and all of that stuff, but like, ultimately, at the end of the day, you want to protect yourself. And that's the way that I look at a lot of that.
Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. And for sure, forward facing cameras, in my view are no brainers nowadays. Jury is still out on inward facing. I see a lot more concern with that, particularly from the privacy standpoint. We're seeing more and more states, for example, like Illinois enacting privacy related laws that potentially impact those devices. But yeah, forward facing cameras, I don't really see a great argument against those for your, for the reasons you already mentioned. So.
Yeah, no, I'm right there with you, man. Well, Brandon, I appreciate your time today. And dude, how does anybody reach out to you guys to find out more how you know, just with everything you guys are doing from a content perspective as well?
Yeah, trucksafe.com is our website. We've got a lot going on. We've got our Truck Safe Live podcast if you're interested in that. Check it out wherever you get your podcast. And Truck Safe Network is a social network we've built for fleet safety professionals. I've got an app for that or it's trucksafenetwork.com. So, yeah, reach out. Happy to help if we can. And yeah, looking forward to talking with anybody that reaches out.
Perfect. And Brandon, thank you so much for joining me. And I promise I don't have anybody else from trucks on the docket here that I don't know that the joys of going out and planning everything yourself, man, you know, I didn't even look at the email addresses. That's funny though. I see it now. But Brandon, thank you so much for your time. That's going to be it for today, you guys. As always, if you guys got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show. If you're feeling really ambitious, which you should be after this one, rank the show on itunes and Spotify because that's how we reach more people is because if you saw value, your network's going to see value as well. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys and we'll be talking to you soon. I don't have any cool.