Busting myths: owner-operators here to stay

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a href=”http://www.digitalmagazinetechnology.com/a/?KEY=overdrive-09-08augustamp;title=Overdrive+July+09#page=21″img style=”MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 300px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 150px; CURSOR: hand” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5376533440426695346″ border=”0″ alt=”” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ez6JTnOl_tQ/Sp1IrY-kWrI/AAAAAAAAAZE/9siuYsrblRo/s320/hazardousduty.jpg” //aWith so-called “mythbusting” a href=”http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/08/31/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5278111.shtml”dominating headlines/a this Sept. 1 and no doubt propagating some new myths of its own, I thought I’d take the media moment to point you to the August a title=”Overdrive+July+09#page=” href=”http://www.blogger.com/” key=””emOverdrive /emcover story/a in case you missed it, about resurgent rumors of the owner-operator’s impending demise, greatly exaggerated in most cases, to modify the old Twain saying.br /div/divbr /divWhich is exactly what several analysts and owner-operators I interviewed for the story did, in several key areas: /divbr /divstrongMyth 1:/strong More short haul dedicated and intermodal carriage = Less opportunity for O/Os. While there is a trend toward shorter hauls, this doesn’t mean owner-operators won’t be carrying that freight./divdiv/divbr /divstrongMyth 2:/strong Coming wave of fleet consolidation = O/Os priced out of the downturn. Just as fleets adjust to the severe down cycle we’ve seen lately, business will come back as it always does, and owner-operators will likewise adjust. /divdiv/divbr /divstrongMyth 3:/strong Coming electronic onboard recorder mandate = ‘Death knell’ for owner-operators. On average, owner-operators run well under hours of service limits. /divbr /div/divdivstrongMyth 4:/strong Increased costs = Insufficient profit to sustain O/O business model. Owner-operator success is always dependent on individuals’ ability to sustain lean, efficient operations, already prevalent among those still in business today./divbr /div/divIn the end, recent Overdrive Trucker of the Year Steve Brosnan, leased to Anderson Trucking Service, put it best. ““We’re an integral part of this industry,” he told me, simply, “and we’ll stay that way.”br /br /divClick on the image above from the August cover for the digital mag version, a href=”http://www.etrucker.com/apps/news/article.asp?id=80667″here/a for the text.br //divdiv/divbr /divem/em/divbr /divemshare:/em/divdiva onclick=”window.open(‘http://digg.com/submit?phase=2amp;url=’+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+’amp;title=’+encodeURIComponent(document.title), ‘digg’); return false;” href=”http://digg.com/submit”Digg/a/divdiva onclick=”window.open(‘http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=’+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+’amp;title=’+encodeURIComponent(document.title),’facebook’); return false;” href=”http://www.facebook.com/share.php”facebook/a /divdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”Channel 19 is the blog version of the column of the same name featured in Overdrive: The Voice of the American Trucker. Todd Dills ([email protected]) is its author./div

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