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Archived Posts
Elephants in the room: MCSAC snapshot
February 8, 2012
There were two of them in the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee meeting room at the Hilton Old Town in Alexandria, Va., yesterday.
At a certain point in the committee's discussion yesterday, Feb. 7, about the issue of electronic logs and harassment, as the discussion ranged seemingly away from the task at hand -- discussion to provide a report to FMCSA ...
Language of MCSAC / Medical Review Board recommended apnea guidelines — more from D.C.
February 6, 2012
Contrasting viewpoints coming together -- or not -- made for an interesting day today at the first of four days' worth of meetings of the FMCSA's Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee. Today's agenda was dedicated to drafting language toward formal recommendation to the agency of potential guidance to adopt in future rulemaking relating to sleep apnea and drivers' medical qualifications. ...
Are fuel-injector-cleaning diesel additives worth it?; Apnea update
February 6, 2012
I'm at the FMCSA Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee's joint meeting with the Medical Review Board today -- watch my Twitter feed for updates from the meeting, where committee members are slated to draft guidance on regulation of the sleep apnea condition as it relates to interstate driver medical qualifications. Find prior reporting from recent-past MCSAC meetings on the subject ...
Finding happiness with Dutch trucking music
February 5, 2012
De weg naar geluk, per the nifty Google Translator service, is The road to happiness in Dutch. It also happens to be a song title for a country tune from across the pond by Dutch country singer Henk Wijngaard, with Silvia Swart. Wijngaard is known for his trucking music. Below, find a vid for the song to satisfy idle Sunday ...
Flying high, running low: Friday Channel 19 news round-up
February 3, 2012
Big birds to fly by truckWriting on the New York Times blog yesterday, Matthew L. Wald delivered a little unexpected news about a flock of young whooping cranes currently settled down for the winter about 45 miles southwest of Decatur, Ala.: they would travel the last leg of this year's winter journey, led in large part by ultralight aircraft used ...
Downtime pursuits: More road music from Tennessee
February 1, 2012
Tony Justice moving down the roadFirst up, Allen Smith over at AsktheTrucker.com reports Tony Justice (featured in the blog here and here and last month in Truckers News) will be performing at a pre-Grammy Awards showcase in Hollywood Feb. 12. Congrats, Tony! If you haven't seen it as yet, look for his excellent "On the Road" trucking-country record at Pilot ...
What you may not know about the EOBR bill
January 31, 2012
Since I reported on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's attempts to gain new regulatory authority over interstate drivers relative to the Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program's now-internal Driver Safety Measurement System last summer, new wrinkles have emerged in Senate bill S.1950. This bill caused an uproar over the fact that it would, among other things, mandate electronic onboard recorders ...
‘Courtesy not necessarily contagious’: UPS driver after 50 accident-free years
January 30, 2012
Ohio resident and UPS driver Ron "Big Dog" Sowder (pictured) started his career with UPS in 1962 after serving in the Navy and answering an employment ad. On January 25, the driver marked 50 years hauling for the company -- all of it without an accident. Sowder's 4 million-plus safe miles have made him the longest-serving active member of the ...
Operator to train in CNN’s Fit Nation program this year
January 28, 2012
“I was on my way back to Texas and didn’t have a webcam," says Roadrunner Transportation Services contractor Glenn Keller about the circumstances in which he filmed what has become a winning entry to take part in CNN's 2012 Fit Nation Triathlon Challenge. "I pulled off the interstate, went into a Walmart and bought what I figured would be my ...
‘Leave Tony alone’ — An owner-operator on the truck stop tiger
January 27, 2012
Animal rights advocates are a vocal bunch, as I've found out over the course of the last several years. Write word one about Tony, the tiger at the Tiger Truck Stop in Gross Tete, La., and you can pretty much place your bets on a blizzard of commentary coming your way. Until recently, much of that commentary, including some of ...
‘Monkey gouger’ Jimmy Ardis beats the odds to 4 million safe miles
January 26, 2012
Owner-operator Jimmy Ardis of Sumter, S.C., leased to Moultrie, Ga.-based Sapp Trucking, learned to drive "in a 1971 International 4070 cabover with a 250 Cummins in it," he says, running to the West Coast and back. He'd driven farm tractors prior to that. "I pretty well had it mastered by the time I went over the road."
This might be a ...
Trucking fruit in Obama’s energy, manufacturing messages
January 25, 2012
If you missed last night's State of the Union address, the President followed in predecessors' footsteps by detailing a veritable laundry list of election-year policy initiatives with no small measure of specific requests for the deadlocked Congress -- many of which, it's sure, will not see the light of day this year.
All the same, Obama's vision for boosting American economic ...
Divine intervention at its best: A truck accident in Guam
January 23, 2012
What happens when a loaded straight dump loses its brakes on a downhill run and collides head-on with a tanker truck loaded with jet fuel? Not what you might expect. Reporter Brett Kelman, writing in the Pacific Daily News, reports that Guam Governor Eddie Calvo (pictured) was proclaiming the relatively ho-hum aftermath, with mostly minor injuries, as an act of ...
New blog from Women in Trucking
January 22, 2012
The Women In Trucking Association (WIT) recently launched an online forum at womenintruckingblog.com, to add a more interactive blog to their long-extant online presence at womenintrucking.org.
“Drivers are some of the most technologically advanced people I know and many of them interact via social media each day,” said Ellen Voie, WIT’s President/CEO. “By offering this forum we can give our members ...
Meet the maker of the Cubby Buddy truck toolbox
January 20, 2012
I've written about the toolbox before, which you may remember. Since then, says Debbie Zehrer, wife and business partner of owner-operator Jeff Zehrer (both pictured), the Cubby Buddy toolbox system has added models, with a total 10 to choose from. If you've been looking for a good system for your truck, you can give them a look at CubbyBuddy.com.
I had ...
Make accident victims pay for traffic tie-ups?
January 19, 2012
A letter writer to the Chattanoogan newspaper last week proposed to fine drivers of large trucks involved in accidents per hour of required cleanup or per mile of backed up traffic. Specifically:
$5,000 per hour of cleanup or per mile of backed up traffic, whichever is greater, to be paid by the trucking companies, and $1,000 per hour of cleanup or ...
Are you happy with your insurance company?
January 18, 2012
Consumer insurance portal Insure.com recently tracked customer satisfaction by polling users of the site as to their happiness -- or lack thereof -- with their auto, home, life and health insurers, evaluating these keys areas; customer service, claims experience and value for the price paid. They also ...
ATHS Music City Chapter kicks off the new year
January 17, 2012
Thanks to Rhonda Reagan (pictured) for the invite to the American Truck Historical Society Music City Chapter's year-beginning meeting and auction this past Saturday, Jan. 14. Held at an elementary school in Lebanon, Tenn., the event drew a crowd near 100 strong, made up of members and their families as well as representatives from other regional ATHS chapters like the ...
Tony the Truck Stop Tiger: Legal limbo
January 15, 2012
There have been so many back-and-forth motions in the battle over the fate of the Siberian/Bengal tiger, Tony (pictured), at the Tiger Truck Stop in Gross Tete, La., it would be next to impossible for me to summarize them. At once, it's been quite a while since I posted an update, so here goes:
The most current action, as far as ...
Rich Wilson’s ‘state of the industry’; and MCSAC apnea update
January 13, 2012
You're likely to remember Rich Wilson (pictured), former owner-operator and current regulatory manager with the Trans Products/Trans Services company, for his part in the Truck Driver Social Media Convention last fall, where he urged the drivers and owner-operators in attendance really be a part of the regulatory process -- on the front end, in the planning stages, before the regs ...
Enter winter trucking photo competition, win cash
January 12, 2012
While Truckers News' monthly photo contests have gone on hiatus, the folks at job placement organization Truckers America have picked up the torch and are offering a cash incentive for haulers who can enter with the best winter trucking photo you have. With a snowy system passing through the Midwest and bearing down on the East Coast today, I imagine ...
Dodging bullets from on high
January 11, 2012
Look up, drivers. Just when you think you're safe -- rig in the lane, four-wheelers keeping a good distance off your back bumper, new regs falling from on high fully accounted for -- occasionally, something like this happens.
Click through the link to watch a video interview (which aired last week on a local Georgia TV station) with Atlanta-based 25-year veteran ...
‘Shipping wars’ TV series starts tonight on A&E
January 10, 2012
The Austin American-Statesman reminds us that the latest in the phenomenon of truck-driving reality-TV series debuts tonight, with back-to-back half-hour episodes of 'Shipping Wars' occupying the 9 p.m. (ET and PT) hour on A&E. The debate over whether the show will be a boon to the image of drivers in the public imagination has already begun, as evidenced by comments ...
Identical trucking twins in National Geographic this month
January 9, 2012
Part of a feature story in this month's National Geographic on various aspects of identical twin siblings features in its lead a couple of trucking twins near the lead. Dave and Don Wolf, pictured here in a National Geographic photo by Jodi Cobb (click through the picture for more of Cobb's excellent work in a full gallery), also happen to ...
Connect with Love’s on your phone
January 8, 2012
Since its debut in mid-2011, the Love’s Connect smartphone app for iPhone, Blackberry and Android devices has seen multiple upgrades aimed at streamlining and cementing users’ connections to Love’s Travel Stops’ services. Today, the app not only provides an efficient stop locator tool, but drivers can utilize one-touch contact of Love’s nationwide dispatch service for roadside assistance, info on bulk ...
Intent v. interpretation: Questions raised by new hours rule
January 6, 2012
The intent is not living up to the interpretation of language in the hours of service final rule, Rich Wilson of Trans Products / Trans Services told me this morning.
Just one example of the disconnect (notwithstanding the one I wrote about last week) was noted by owner-operators Linda Caffee and Henry Albert of the Trucking Solutions Group after reading an ...
Top of his game: Leland Martin in Truckers News this month
January 5, 2012
I had the pleasure of interviewing and writing about Leland Martin for this month's issue of Truckers News, available here. Among today’s trucking troubadours, with a new record out in large part inspired by his work with one particular specialized hauler, Martin stands at the top of the mountain looking down, a position well-deserved after a lifetime of guitar picking ...
What it takes: Contractors Cargo hauls B-1 bomber body
January 4, 2012
“We transport all kinds of things, from construction equipment, petro-chemical equipment – even wind turbines," says 84-year-old Jerry Wheeler, owner of the Compton, Calif.-based Contractors Cargo heavy-haul fleet. "And then we do the not-so-ordinary. We’ve hauled the Space Shuttle, and we just moved a B-1 Bomber from Arizona to Portland. It’s loads like that that keep things interesting and keep ...
Stiff wind to pay the toll: The 2011 Channel 19 year in review
January 1, 2012
What better way to start the new year than with a look back on the previous? I did it last year, after all, so let's make it a tradition, how bout?
The Chinese Year of the Rabbit saw all manner of issues hopping in and out of the national on-highway spotlight, bookended by a proposed hours-of-service rule and its ultimate issuance, ...
FMCSA’s hours rule justification includes, well, guess who…
December 29, 2011
You can imagine my surprise yesterday when, just as I'm perusing portions of the new hours rule's full text in preparation for a story or two I'm putting together for Truckers News and Overdrive, I get an email from a colleague making note of the fact that none other than my own reporting is sourced in part of the rule's ...
Big Idaho Potato Tour peels out behind T660 drives
December 28, 2011
More trucking news here emerging from the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl like a shoot from a half-pound baker left on the windowsill. You'll recall my post about the fine salute Women in Trucking delivered to the females of our industry during the televised contest -- and now, check out the giant re-creation of one of those half-pound Idaho symbols of ...
New vids from owner-operator/songwriter Howard Salmon
December 26, 2011
I caught up with Howard Salmon at the TA in downtown Nashville a couple weeks back now -- it'd been more than a year since the last time we'd been able to meet up, and he had much to tell.
His independent trucking business, hauling in a 1999 Kenworth W900 with a reefer and loading mostly brokered freight around the states, ...
Merry Christmas, Overdrive nation!
December 25, 2011
Here's hoping someone is thinking today that you are the...
...whether you're at home or on the road today. If the latter, fire up the phone or laptop and tell the family and friends how you feel about them, too, eh?
This little ornament I believe my mother found at the Southern Christmas Show in Charlotte several years back, shortly after I ...
Truck Centers Inc.’s Christmas food drive a success
December 23, 2011
Freightliner/Western Star dealer network Truck Centers Inc. recently hosted a first-ever food drive for the St. Louis area’s largest food suppliers for shelters and food banks, Operation Food Search (OFS). The company’s Troy, Ill., headquarters kicked off a one-month can drive for OFS, also a TCI customer since the recent economic downturn has resulted in a 20 percent increase in ...
A&E’s new ‘Shipping Wars’ series trailer vid — and the operators featured
December 21, 2011
There's a new reality-TV series coming January 10, with back-to-back episodes at 9 and 9:30 p.m., EST and PST, to the A&E network. You may have heard a little about it already here in Overdrive. The trailer vid for the Shipping Wars show is embedded below, and I thought I'd take a moment to introduce the hotshot haulers (and one ...
Drivers’ safety conversation continues
December 20, 2011
If the handheld cell ban for drivers (which goes into effect Jan. 3) has done anything for the nation's interstate haulers, it's upped the ante on the conversation on this blog about the direction of safety in the industry. Driver and radio host Big Al Weekley is back today with a lament for the safety practices of some among the ...
Former owner-operator going after MCSAC committee representation
December 19, 2011
As I've written about here in weeks prior, former owner-operator Fred Schaffner, a man with a passion for fighting for fairness in the treatment of drivers in the face of regulatory flux and with a keen eye on the regulatory process, came out of the Truck Driver Social Media Convention last October on a mission: to do his part to ...
A turn in the road for owner-operator R.C. Barnes
December 18, 2011
Since I shared his "Old Glory" video here on the blog, I've had the opportunity to learn more about the man behind the vid: R.C. Barnes ultimately might have more experience behind the wheel of a trucking business than any other hauler on the highway today. “I’ve heard there’s two guys out here who are as old as I am,” ...
Trucking salute to appear during the Idaho Potato Bowl on ESPN today
December 17, 2011
If it so happens you're watching the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl college football matchup this afternoon between MAC and WAC conference standouts the Ohio University Bobcats and the Utah State Aggies, respectively, you'll get a treat in a 30-second commercial promoting women in the trucking industry, says the Women in Trucking Association. The association, with the support of Frito-Lay North ...
Kicking the habit: Why a blanket cell-phone ban won’t work
December 15, 2011
As if hearing the plethora of truck drivers' objections to the prohibitions on handheld cell use in-cab while driving, minus any similar prohibition for the motoring public and given the wide problem of motorist distraction on the highways, the National Transportation Safety Board formally recommended that all personal electronic devices be banned from use while driving by everyone in all ...
Salute: Writer trumpets independent truckers
December 14, 2011
Colleen Kelly Mellor (pictured) is a 30-year veteran of the classroom with near a decade in real estate. Today she's a writer who keeps a blog dedicated to items of "encouragement in a difficult world" at Biddybytes.com. Her husband was a long-haul household-moves owner-operator with Atlas Van Lines with more than a million accident-free miles before exit from the industry, ...
Port haulers on Occupy actions
December 13, 2011
The Occupy Wall Street movement claimed solidarity with West Coast port haulers yesterday in efforts with varying success to shut down ports in Southern and Northern California as well as farther north in the Pacific Northwest. Some port haulers reciprocated the gesture. This "Open Letter From America's Port Truck Drivers," for instance, originating from the website of the Coalition for ...
Modest proposal: ‘Let regulators have what they want’
December 12, 2011
Today, a dispatch from driver and radio host Big Al Weekley (pictured), the man behind the streaming Dispatch Me Home Radio Network site. It comes in response to Nabisco hauler Buddy Wenners' modest proposal to regulators to skip all the preamble and really just do what they really seem to want to do, "ban truck driving," posted to the blog ...
Webb Wheel on Motorhead Garage TV this morning
December 11, 2011
Looking for a little extra wheel maintenance know-how? Tune into Webb Wheel's television debut this morning during a Motorhead Garage TV episode on Fox Sports Network (FSN) Sunday, Dec. 11 at 11:30 a.m., re-airing Monday, Dec. 12 at 4:30 p.m., all time zones.
You'll recall prior appearances of fifth-wheel makers Jost as well as Hendrickson Suspensions, which I've written about on ...
Take CSA challenge: Win iPad, $5,000
December 10, 2011
The folks at Big Truck TV, in partnership with AT&T, have announced a competition taking applications from potential competitors, including you, through early February. "The CSA Challenge will comprise six challengers being chosen to compete over a two-month period," or 10 weeks, says Michael Carpentier, Big Truck TV CEO. Each challenger will receive an iPad2 with which to answer questions ...
Modest proposal: ‘Ban truck driving’
December 9, 2011
The comments on the news of the handheld cellphone ban while driving for the interstate pilots of the nation's tractor-trailer rigs continue to come in. (Read them for yourself here, including among them at the very end a reaction by driver Wayne Leverton to witnessing a state patrol officer in Washington State use both hands to manipulate a mounted laptop ...
Language of the MCSAC/MRB sleep apnea recommendations
December 8, 2011
You've more than likely seen the news, available via Overdrive here, that firm recommendations for guidance on required evaluation and treatment for sleep apnea among truck drivers with a body mass index (BMI) measurement of 35 or higher came down from the FMCSA's Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee in their joint meeting with the Medical Review Board late yesterday. At ...
MCSAC / MRB meeting webcast underway on sleep apnea
December 7, 2011
If you haven't been able to tune into the meeting today of the FMCSA's Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee with the Medical Review Board, keep an eye on my Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/channel19todd, where I'm posting various items from the presentations ongoing.
Benjamin Hoffman, director of the Medical Review Board and GE Chief Medical Officer, says he hopes the meeting will ...
Human-powered Mack tractor pull
December 6, 2011
They've called it the "most powerful truck Mack has ever built." Powered by the Mack MP10 engine with a top rating of 605 hp and 2,060 lb.-ft. of torque, the Titan (pictured) was "engineered for handling the toughest jobs in the most extreme conditions – oil fields, logging, heavy equipment hauling," says company spokesman John Walsh. "It doesn’t flinch in rugged ...
Michigan excavators use doubles rig to fight MS
December 4, 2011
For almost half a decade, the Champagne & Marx Excavating excavating company, of Saginaw, Mich., has been hauling Michigan Specials -- double-dump trailers capable of transporting 50 tons of payload -- with a fleet of Kenworth T800s for road prep, foundation digging and other commercial and industrial projects.
But, the company has also long been a big contributor to the fight ...
Cumberland Collective: Road music to keep an ear out for
December 3, 2011
I had the rare opportunity to pay witness to a recording session Wednesday night in Nashville at Blackbird Studios -- a group called the Cumberland Collective (a couple of members of which I'm familiar with via the folks-in-their-30s-with-kids-needing-an-occasional-babysitter circuit) had opened up the doors on the 45-track studio to turn the 10-hour session into something of a drop-in-and-hangout affair, inviting ...
Tomorrow: A growing spectacular, the Vancouver Island truck lights parade
December 2, 2011
I don't know about you, but this has to take the cake for the most brilliantly extravagant of the Christmas truck parades -- those I've seen, anyway. Hand it to the Canadians for these fantastically decorated rigs, the one at right the property of Slegg Lumber, headquartered on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, where the parade is taking place tomorrow, ...
Air Force drivers haul the Iraq withdrawal
December 1, 2011
They're "working overtime now with the 31 December deadline," says Melissa Milner with U.S. Air Forces Central. Last week, she notified me of a special feature on their website detailing the hauling efforts of the Air Force's 70th Medium Truck Detachment, charged with moving massive amounts of materiel out of Iraq before the end of the year. They've stepped up ...
Power to win: Do you have it?
November 30, 2011
We know Sugar Ray Leonard's got it. He delivered a "Power to Win!" keynote (pictured) to the 2011 VIPAR Heavy Duty Annual Business Conference, held in October in Tuscon.
The network of parts distributors benefited well from Sugar Ray's message, which drew parallels between the stores of various qualities it takes to run a successful business and those that gave him ...
$50,000 reward for some missing …
November 29, 2011
They've been gone a few years -- a grand total of 175 of them, mostly between the ages 3 and 7 years old now, according to a story published yesterday at the website of AgWeek. They were the property of cattleman James Larsen, whose father, incidentally, was a trucker.
ATTENTION LIVESTOCK HAULERS: in two ads in Rosholt and Sisseton, S.D., newspapers, ...
Operation Roger, Susanne Spirit get some national ink
November 28, 2011
Growing for a long moment, the Operation Roger network of volunteer haulers making themselves available to connect adopted pets with new caretakers -- or to reunite lost pets with their owners -- free of any charge got some ink this month. The MSNBC cable network did a story on them, and we're happy to report they remain strong, having made ...
About truckin’ time: Tony Justice record in stores Dec. 6
November 26, 2011
"It’s about truckin’ time," says Tony Justice, East Tennessee-based B&B Transport driver and the songwriter behind the upcoming "On the Road" album (I wrote about it last month here). It's due out in all Pilot Flying J stores Dec. 6. It's a trucking album by a trucker and for truckers, Justice notes, and stay tuned on a feature in the January ...
Happy Thanksgiving!
November 24, 2011
Personally, I know I've got lots to be thankful for, but this is a trucking blog, isn't it? In any case, if we can't exactly be thankful for much this year -- with the exception for the fact that I'd suspect the majority of you are still in fact in business, some I know well benefiting from a rise in ...
Driver action on sleep apnea, CSA, EOBRs, cross-border trucking
November 23, 2011
Regular readers will recall my post from last month following the first annual Truck Driver Social Media Convention, which spurred on driver advocate Frederick Schaffner to be a presence in D.C. at the November meeting of the FMCSA's Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committtee. There, a large part of the discussion was devoted to standards for electronic onboard recorders for hours-of-service ...
Heads-up: NY Times on truckers’ health
November 22, 2011
The U.S. newspaper of record, the New York Times, devoted significant ink to many truck drivers' moves toward improving their health in their Monday edition. The primary feature, by Abby Ellin and well-illustrated with pictures of many of the drivers she talked to, charts a rise in concern among industry associations, trucking companies, truck stops (a TA fitness room is ...
The next generation of trucking fanatics
November 20, 2011
Jeff and Lynette Lynd of Ft. Collins, Colo., sent in this picture of their six-year-old great niece, Zoe, relaxing before going to bed with her princess blanket, fishing pillow and her favorite magazine, Overdrive (our 50th anniversary issue).
"She got really excited when we got the current issue," Lynette says. "She had to read it while she was eating her cereal ...
John Deere pedal car grand prize in Trucker Charity benefit raffle
November 18, 2011
And what's best about it all is that the proceeds will go toward benefiting trucking families in need at Christmastime via Trucker Charity's Christmas Group. Tickets to enter the raffle for the car (pictured), which was donated by Freedom Air Filters, can be purchased through Paypal via the Trucker Charity website for $3 for a single chance to win, $10 ...
Heads-up on new partnership that could change the leasing game
November 17, 2011
This month in Overdrive, I examined a couple different alternatives to traditional leasing models carriers and their advisers are exploring for ways to avoid what some see as long-term growing challenges to the independent contractor business model.
Two models in particular stand a chance to take hold in the future, one being the conversion of a fleet of leased owner-operators to ...
Cabover extra in ‘Real Steel’ film to be auctioned Dec. 8
November 16, 2011
Joyce Smith, co-owner of Ron Smith Trucking of Breckenridge, Mich., shuttered the company about a year ago, a month after her husband passed away. The small fleet's equipment will be auctioned off on Dec. 8 at their place in nearby Wheeler.
Among the 17 tractors on offer (among livestock, flatbed and other trailers as well as other equipment) is the pictured ...
Stowaway diary: Keep an eye on your roof fairing in Laredo
November 14, 2011
What's wrong with this picture?
Taken by owner-operator Henry Albert, with whom we just checked in last week, it shows a desperate attempt by a couple to stow away on a rig on its way from the border zone into the U.S. interior.
A testament to the value of drivers looking out for each other, Albert posted it to his blog late ...
Mack Trucks on ‘Made in America’ TV Tues., Nov. 15
November 13, 2011
The Made in America series will feature Mack Trucks in an episode Tuesday, Nov. 15, at 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific. Mack continues to build every truck it sells in North America -- and every truck it exports -- in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Made in America host George Motz (pictured with a Mack Pinnacle tractor) and a Travel Channel video crew ...
‘Talented truckers’ TV show looking for … talented truckers
November 12, 2011
A television production company has a rather off-the-wall idea it's helping one of the major cable channels develop -- it wants to create a talent-competition-type series (a la American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, et al) that plays out on location at, well, a truck stop. And in the spirit of radio truck driver talent hours and other such showcases, ...
New vid for ‘I am the flag,’ by Ron Terry
November 11, 2011
On this Veteran's Day, a new video care of owner-operator Howard Salmon -- the tune, "I am the flag," appears on his and Ron Terry's "These Trucks Are Made of Gold" record and consists of a somber reading of the Terry poem by the poet himself. As its title suggests, it's a poetic narrative of the American flag's journey through ...
Jason’s Law: Time for action is now
November 10, 2011
Yesterday, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works unanimously approved a two-year transportation authorization bill (S. 1813, or MAP-21) extending current funding levels and making other enhancements that could lead, said Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, to new jobs. Of chief interest for trucking advocates is the inclusion in this bill of Jason's Law, intended to fund various initiatives to ...
Want a first look at TruckersEdge’s new mobile site?
November 9, 2011
All owner-operator subscribers to the TruckersEdge.net load-board service from TransCore can look forward to a new smartphone-optimized mobile site to launch officially late this year or early next, says Transcore product manager Scott McCollister.
The screenshots here from the html5 app that enables the enhanced look and feel of the board on all major smartphone platforms will give you an idea ...
Setting the pace with owner-operator Henry Albert
November 8, 2011
Sunday's post on Overdrive 2007 Trucker of the Year Henry Albert's blog caught my eye with what it says about thinking outside the box to ensure success in running an independent business. In the post, Albert visits an old haunt of his, Charlotte's Metrolina speedway (the old grandstands here pictured by Albert), shuttered long since the days he wheeled a ...
FCC continues hold on ‘Trucker TV’ exemption
November 7, 2011
Since 2004, missing persons advocate Marc Klaas of the Klaas Kids Foundation has been part of an effort by a company associated with Flying J travel plazas to get an FCC exemption to establish a low-power broadcasting operation at truck stops. The emphasis of the operation would be not only on entertainment but, most importantly for Klaas, information about missing ...
Tanking independent — Meet owner-operator Dan Bollinger
November 6, 2011
Hauling in a 2007 Peterbilt 379 (pictured) -- "one of the legacy class editions," he says, with a 48-inch flattop sleeper -- owner-operator Dan Bollinger just got his own authority early this year. He hauls dedicated for a liquid feed supplier to feedlots in Western Kansas, where he lives.
Formerly hauling under the feed company's authority but supplying his own cargo ...
Salve for your shifting hand…
November 5, 2011
And your soul, says the maker of a line of shift knobs built from precious rocks.
“If I’m ever stuck in traffic or I’m stressed out by circumstances in my life, the mere acts of looking at and touching one of these shift knobs drains away the stress,” the maker notes on its website, gemstoneshiftknobs.com. You may never need to buy ...
Truckers Against Trafficking: A cause we can all get behind
November 4, 2011
Truckers News Editor Randy Grider says it best in his column in this month's issue, titled "Your most important call" in reference to the Truckers Against Trafficking national hotline number for reporting incidents of child sex trafficking witnessed on the nation's highways.
"Each year in this country," Grider writes, "tens of thousands of kids are victims of human trafficking," a $32 ...
No-cost consultations for spine/lower back injury available
November 3, 2011
Back pain gotten out of control?
Dr. Richard Kaul of New Jersey Spine and Rehabilitation has teamed up with the St. Christopher Truckers Development and Relief Fund to provide no-cost consultations and MRI reviews for truck drivers whose pain problems have gotten out of hand. Dr. Kaul has seen many truck drivers who've suffered from spinal conditions or chronic pain conditions. Kaul, ...
Two calls this week highlight driver advocacy efforts in D.C.
November 2, 2011
Scott Grenerth with Trucking Solutions Group today
Those of you who've read this blog with any regularity are probably well familiar with Fikes-leased owner-operator Scott Grenerth (pictured with a new custom-designed bike at the Great American Trucking Show this past August -- Grenerth is also coproprietor of the rideandroll.me site cataloging biking trails in proximity to truck parking). I first ...
Truck-Lite goes gonzo with customer service in new YouTube series
November 1, 2011
"Customers often ask the same questions about the features and design of our products," says Bob Ives, Truck-Lite's marketing vice president. Coming upon a creative way to address those customer questions and concerns, the company has undertaken a series of YouTube vids that Ives says has proven an "excellent tool" to address "feedback and concerns with an entertaining and educational experience."
The ...
Jost to be featured today and tomorrow on Motorhead Garage TV
October 30, 2011
Tune into Fox Sports Network this morning at 11:30 in all time zones for an edition of the Motorhead Garage television series that features Jost International. The segment was filmed October 18 at the Jost U.S. manufacturing site in Greeneville, Tenn., and will air again tomorrow, Monday, Oct. 31, at 4:30 pm.
During the segment, Jost Engineering Vice President Greg Laarman ...
How to get — and keep — the contract
October 29, 2011
Success in hauling with your own authority often requires negotiating contracts directly with shippers and keeping those contracts when bigger competitors come prowling.
The father-son operation of John and Erick (pictured) Engbarth learned this by experience. Erick makes regular hauls from North Carolina to California loaded with plastics and usually carrying motorcycles back.
When Engbarth Trucking first bid on a key contract ...
Friday Channel 19 news round-up: Cross-border trucking; ‘driver shortage’; and the 1 on the 53 and the 99
October 28, 2011
Separate but not equal
That separation could be diminishing when it comes to U.S. and Mexican tucking, now that a new pilot program for cross-border long haul is under way. In the wake of the Oct. 21 border ceremony at Laredo, when the first Mexican truck crossed as part of the new cross-border pilot program, notes J.E. Dyer at the Hot Air ...
New freight-finding Android app from ATS
October 27, 2011
A new freight matching app for owner-operators and other carriers comes by way of Anderson Trucking Service's brokerage wing, ATS Logistics. It didn't arrive in time for my cover story in the November edition of Truckers News, a survey of on-highway apps making life easier for drivers on the road today, so I'm sharing here.
Similar to many of the other ...
Scenes of Chrome & Class
October 26, 2011
That's David Holbrook's 1986 Peterbilt 359, winner of both Working Bobtail and People's Choice awards in the second annual Chrome & Class Truck Show, held at the Rush Truck Center location in Smyrna, Tenn., on I-24 just southeast of Nashville. It was a much expanded show this year, with near double the number of entered show trucks and a lively ...
Get jiggy with your riggy and win $1,000
October 25, 2011
The website Jiggyjobs.com has a quirky contest ongoing in their "Get jiggy in your riggy" promotion. Potential entrants, be warned: it requires you to dance on a YouTube vid for the world to see. Check out the full rules at the end of the announcement company video below, and then to enter, post your 10-30-second vid as a response to ...
The limits of social media: More drivers needed in Washington meeting rooms
October 21, 2011
The final moments of the panel discussion between attendees and presenters during the Truck Driver Social Media Convention in Tunica, Miss., Oct. 15, brought the point of the whole enterprise into inspired relief.
Frederick Schaffner of TheAmericanDriver.com, whom you may be familiar with for his part in leading efforts with others to change the Virginia two-hour truck parking time limits at ...
A fine day for some trucking music, don’t you think?
October 20, 2011
A couple great vids to share today, folks. The first comes from an owner-operator born in 1934 who's been driving a truck for 63 years. "I've heard there’s two guys out here who are as old as I am, but they haven't been out here as long as I have," owner-operator/singer-songwriter R.C. Barnes (pictured) told me Tuesday.
Today leased to G&W ...
Memphis expo and Nashville show this weekend
October 19, 2011
Outreach, education in Memphis
I had the good fortune of meeting Niki Brown and her husband, independent owner-operator Steve Nelson, this past weekend at the Truck Driver Social Media Convention (if you missed my reporting from the event, find two stories here and here) in Tunica, Miss., due south of their Memphis home base. They're the pair behind Worldwide Transport ...
Rockin’ down the highway with new Bell seat covers
October 18, 2011
The Bell Automotive company is now offering seat covers that bring to mind my teenage trips to Myrtle Beach, S.C., state of my rearing, when I spent several years infatuated with the many (and I do mean many) t-shirt shops specializing in the heavy-hair-metal bands of the day. Some of those shirts survive buried in drawers in my house, and ...
Owner-operator wins Kronos side skirts at social media meeting
October 15, 2011
That's Memphis-based independent Steve Nelson, hauling van freight as Worldwide Transport, doing his best over-the-shoulder with a certificate for a brand-new set of Kronos Energy Solutions side skirts to improve his overall fuel-efficiency. "I will be down there tomorrow," he said of plans to make good on the prize, won as part of a drawing for drivers held at the first ...
Foiling the truckhackers, winning the triathlon
October 14, 2011
What's next, "Truckhacking?"
If this doesn't lend new urgency to the technical standards FMCSA's mulling for EOBRs, I don't know what does.
Craig Trudell reported yesterday in Bloomberg BusinessWeek on a team of "carhacking" researchers out of the University of California San Diego and the University of Washington, who found during a study that they were able to take control of a ...
Tony Justice among performers Saturday at driver convention
October 13, 2011
I'm excited about seeing East Tennessee-based B&B Transport driver and songwriter Tony Justice make his driver-event debut Saturday at the Truck Driver Social Media Convention in Tunica, Miss., on Saturday. I've heard him play before, as the vids below are evidence of, but at the show he'll be with a full band of seasoned Nashville players, and it's all leading ...
‘Trucker Tools’ app continues expansion from coupons to comprehensive on-highway resource
October 12, 2011
The Truck Stop Coupons app, which debuted for the iPhone and Blackberry devices quite some time ago, quietly gained more and more functionality as time passed by -- from real-time fuel prices for the comprehensive locator for diesel-fuel sellers embedded within it to searching functionality for truck stops according to their amenities offered. Now, the app, put together by Overdrive ...
Bob ‘Cowpoke’ Martin passes on
October 11, 2011
It is with sadness I bring news to you today of a longtime operator's passing. Though it's been years since I spoke to him -- and then only briefly -- the memory of the conversations I had with Indiana-based Bob Martin (on the occasion of his win of the 2007 $50,000 truck makeover on the occasion of the Shell SuperRigs ...
Blacked out for the night?
October 10, 2011
How long before Class 8 trucks come equipped with SmartGlass technology? Lately making inroads in concept cars at auto shows around the world, the SPD-Smart window-tint technology by Research Frontiers enables a vehicle's operator to, with the push of a button, apply varying degrees of tint to one or more windows to keep the outside out. I can't help but ...
Former Overdrive editor, actor Charles Napier passes on
October 7, 2011
Character actor and former Overdrive editor Charles Napier passed away at a hospital in Bakersfield, Calif., on Wednesday, Oct. 5. Napier's perhaps best known for his role as one of the Good Old Boys in the Blues Brothers film as well as an intelligence officer in the Sylvester Stallone vehicle Rambo: First Blood Part II. But he served as an ...
Truck Stop Missouri redux; American Trucker GATS episode tonight
October 6, 2011
Truck Stop Missouri a 'trucking ambassador' in reality?
After my interview posted yesterday with Joe Bechtold, General Manager of the Midway Truck Stop and Travel Plaza that is the subject of the Truck Stop Missouri TV show on the Travel Channel, a longtime commenter on the Channel 19 blog took issue with Bechtold's characterization of the show as a positive ...
A trucking ambassador: Interviewing ‘Truck Stop Missouri’ star Joe Bechtold
October 5, 2011
The Truck Stop Missouri series on the Travel Channel has been running for a couple of months now, featuring the goings on in and around the 12 business that make up the Midway Travel Plaza between St. Louis and Kansas City in Missouri, I-70 exit 121. Midway General Manager Joe Bechtold (pictured) has seen his expectations realized in many respects. ...
Fighting the ‘cold war’ with Ted Nugent
October 4, 2011
With winter weather well on its way, and with it the looming threat of a gelling stranglehold on your fuel tanks, Power Service Products hope's you'll take note of their "Buy American/Made in the U.S.A." winter campaign, featuring none other than rock legend Ted Nugent (pictured).
An "Uncle Ted Killer Offer" promotional campaign to help you fight the cold war is ...
Toolbox system made in the USA by and for owner-operators
October 3, 2011
Veteran owner-operator Jeff Zehrer of Minnesota (trucking since 1983) had long known the difficulty of finding the perfect-sized toolbox to fit in his sleeper's side compartment. After 28 years of frustration, he decided to rectify the situation by designing his own. He wanted a toolbox that was sturdy, easily accessible, and could hold all his important tools.
The first Cubby Buddy ...
Driver John Irish wins Carhartt sweepstakes
October 1, 2011
Remember the "Art you Carhartt tough?" sweepstakes? I wrote about the two finalists earlier this year, both of them with some behind-the-wheel experience. John Irish (pictured, middle), the ultimate winner, Carhartt announced, and his wife took the Grand Prize trip in August to Oregon for a competitive lumberjacking event covered by ESPN.
Working long days as a truck driver delivering shingles ...
New health audiobook, convoy for cancer cure, Project 351 gets low
September 30, 2011
Joe Martin, whom you'll no doubt remember as the operator behind the Truckercise DVDs I wrote about earlier in the year (Martin's pictured, right, with Alex Debogorski of Ice Road fame), announced recently that a new truckers' health strategies audiobook that he contributed a chapter to is out and available. The book, Truckers' Road to Health, is a production of ...
Citizen to accident lawyers: Lighten up on anti-truck ads
September 28, 2011
"How many times a day do you hear on TV ads from lawyers making statements such as, 'big trucks can cause serious injuries?'" So asked a reader, Bill Hughes, of the Tennessean newspaper, based in my home base of Nashville. I know the folks he's talking about, of course, as I'm sure do you in whatever television market you happen ...
Fitting insurance to the operator — trends in usage-based pricing
September 27, 2011
If you missed a feature about insurance costs I wrote for the August edition of Overdrive, it contained a brief item relative to how insurance companies determine customer risk -- and as a result of that risk determination, premium rate pricing.
Canal Insurance Chief Underwriting Officer Paul Brocklebank made brief mention in the piece about the fact that the consumer auto ...
Why is a JakeBrake important to you?
September 26, 2011
Answer the question by November 15 and you may just win a weekend in Las Vegas March 9-12, 2012, around the time of the NASCAR events. JakeBrake makers Jacobs Vehicle Systems, as I wrote in May this year, share a 50th anniversary with Overdrive this year. To celebrate and thank customers, via their Facebook page they're collecting drivers and owner-operators' ...
How high am I? AutoHaulerSupply.com has the answer
September 25, 2011
If you’ve ever asked yourself that question after loading a car hauler or an expensive piece of machinery on an open-deck trailer, Oregon-based Stephen Rowe (pictured: don't try this at home) has a tool to help you answer it.
His Auto Hauler Supply company’s new Life Saver Height Stick is made of durable bright-orange fiberglass and measures up to 15 ft. ...
A couple for the kids: Truck, stop! Truck, go!
September 23, 2011
On children's musician, author and childhood development specialist Jim Gill's most recent CD / DVD, "Music Play for Folks of All Stripes," an interactive tune called "Truck Stop" schools listeners in a fun way on the basics of the truck driver's work. As with most of Gill's tunes, adults are coached toward leading kids through imaginative play.
In this case, that means ...
Truckers lobbied to support National Pork Rind Day
September 22, 2011
This wouldn't be the salty snack's first appearance on the Channel 19 blog. For that, we'd have to go back to August 2010, when a driver choked on one and his rig left the roadway -- and didn't spur mainstream media calls for a ban on eating behind the wheel.
All the same, Ohio-based Rudolph Foods, makers of the pork rinds ...
Has CSA hit you? And: DeFazio’s cross-border backlash
September 21, 2011
Today, a novel suggestion from the folks at J.J. Keller, who conducted a webinar yesterday aimed at providing carriers large and small with tools to combat the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program, nearly a year into its history as the safety ranking system of record.
This one has to do with the so-called "interventions" FMCSA's been ...
New book explores first cross-continent truck trip
September 19, 2011
Many of you will be familiar with the 1919 military truck convoy that traversed the United States in an effort to test the efficacy of cargo trucks on the roads, or lack thereof, of the day. A Young Dwight Eisenhower was part of the convoy, and his experience of it is oft-cited as having a great deal to do with ...
Charlie Daniels: “We’re coming to rock ‘em” at Charlotte show
September 16, 2011
Charlie Daniels has been at making music for a half-century and then some, and he's still going strong. He turns 75 next month, and earlier this year he released a new track in "Let 'Em Win or Bring 'Em Home," a meditation on American service members and their families giving all for love of country. With, of course, an explicit ...
R&L driver Sam Spradlin runs for Congress in Illinois
September 15, 2011
Sam Spradlin (pictured), driver on a pickup-and-delivery route for R&L Carriers, is taking some time off this month, but it's no vacation.
He's gathering signatures needed to file to include himself on the ballot in the Republican primary for his home state's newly redistricted 13th congressional district. He'll be challenging 15th-district incumbent Republican Tim Johnson, who's been in that seat since the ...
New technology: Hydrogen-injection for fuel mileage boost
September 14, 2011
A Q&A in the Richmond (Virginia) BizSense magazine published Monday revealed an interesting new technology coming into the trucking world. Related to the hydrogen fuel-cell idea, the technology has been created by Marz Industries of Ashland, Va., BizSense reporter Michael Schwartz wrote.
Marz Industries president Eddie Miller has been working on it for several years now, the concept being to "take ...
Overdrive’s Lucinda Coulter on Big Al’s show this week
September 13, 2011
Tune into Big Al Weekley's Dipatch Me Home Radio streaming broadcast this week for an interview with Overdrive Managing Editor Lucinda Coulter about the magazine's 50th anniversary special coverage and her place in it. A prime place it is. Coulter headed up our Overdrive Retro website for more than a year preceding the anniversary issue, out this month. Along the ...
‘Where’s the love’ for truckers? Dr. Love has the answer
September 12, 2011
Or at least he knows where it's not: I-55 South into Hammond, La., from the No. 46 milemarker about 15 miles to I-12 (much smoother). Dr. Love, or truck driver B.G. Love, takes online viewers on a tour down this road in a video posted in June to the blog for his "Lovology" project, a personal philosophical journey the driver and ...
Remembering 9/11 as anniversary approaches: A trucker’s story from ground zero
September 9, 2011
This month's issue of Truckers News commemorates the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks with a look at how the trucking business has changed as a result of the disaster. The areas impacted largely include load security and driver background scrutiny, but also camaraderie, drivers looking out for one another, pay, and other factors.
A lot of the changes have been ...
Texting temptation: A little ditty — and more — to help you resist
September 8, 2011
A little good humor today -- with a safety message to boot.
Admit it: We've all been tempted when it comes to texting while driving, right? What will it hurt to answer the spouse's question with a quick "N-O" or, yes, the opposite?
Next time that thought fires in your head, Winnipeg, Manitoba-based high school science teacher and viral-video maven Marsh Carroll, ...
Diesel price is up: One operator’s response
September 7, 2011
Driving habits can do a lot for fuel efficiency, as we know, but there are other ways of dealing with the continued high cost of fuel, up another 5 cents nationally last week. Seeing the gross inflation of crude markets that has been part and parcel of the world commodities markets in the past four-five years, owner-operator Jim Schlise, leased ...
A novel ‘hot load’ strategy
September 4, 2011
Next time somebody tells you they've got a "hot load" and you best to do everything and more in your power to get it there on-time, you may do well to point the speaker in the direction of a new story in the National Law Journal. In it, plaintiff's attorney Kent Emison goes to great lengths to detail the vast ...
My talk with the $25,000-winning ‘Navigator of the Year’
September 2, 2011
I got the grand opportunity to meet an owner-operator at the Great American Trucking Show last week who holds something of a grand distinction of being the only OO I know who's had a $25,000 check written to him just for being who he is. That owner-operator is St. Louis-based Edward Crumer (pictured), leased to Allied Van Lines and hauling ...
Channel 19 news round-up: flooding, radio, TSE, petition…
September 1, 2011
Vid tour through I-680 flood damage
As Missouri River floodwaters receded from flood stage this month after a long summer of high water, Iowa DOT officials finally got a look at I-680 at the I-29 interchange, and the damage done to both roadways is just stunning (pictured courtesy of Iowa DOT; more info on detours/outlook available in our news piece here). ...
Freewheelin’s top 10 trucking songs after 1985
August 31, 2011
With Overdrive's September 50th anniversary issue hard on the way, and considering folks at the Great American Trucking Show got a sneak peak at the 50 top technical milestones John Baxter and oiur editorial crew put together, I thought I'd offer up a little for you. You'll recall our all-time top ten trucking songs, of course, a nice collection of ...
Electrification of truck stop spaces revives
August 30, 2011
As fuel prices spiked in 2007-08, a large majority of truckers' anti-idling interest was focused on dedicated auxiliary power units, which market expanded dramatically with a profusion of new manufacturers. This time around, with the economy still somewhat shaky, owner-operator and fleet interest in up-front investment in full-function APU technology may be taking a back seat infrastructure improvements and use ...
Say ____ to electronic logs, Take 2
August 29, 2011
It's time to play fill in the blank again on the Channel 19 blog. It's been nearly a year since the above headline graced this hall above a post about a rash of legislative proposals to mandate electronic logs for the entirety of interstate truckers and certain low-cost electronic logging options out there. In the meantime, of course, the Federal ...
Scenes from GATS
August 26, 2011
Great times abound in Dallas at the Great American Trucking Show, not the least of which is this nifty Plinko board at the Roady's/OTR Pro Fuel Card booth -- the new card offering flat off-the-top per-gallon discounts to small fleets and owner-operators (with a $4 a month membership fee) at more than 700 stops currently, and expanding. Stop by the ...
New health blog from the folks at Con-way Truckload
August 25, 2011
Attendant to news that Con-way TL-leased owner-operators will be able to access relatively low-cost health/dental and other insurance offerings via the carrier's new TrueChoices benefits program, the company also is highlighting drivers' and owner-operators' health needs via a new blog. Steering Your Health today features a great recipe for Mexican Crock Pot chicken, cooked in-cab, in addition to a welcome ...
Live load visibility with a simple, free smartphone app
August 24, 2011
Owner-operators, there's been no shortage of talk about the profusion of truck-tracking devices and the relative problems they could cause, given ongoing hours-of-service/EOBR issues and discussions. But the simple fact of the matter is that allowing shippers and consignees a real-time window into your location could be a quite simple way to engage potential direct-freight customers if you're using brokers, ...
Driver loses vital organ at Kentucky hospital
August 24, 2011
Trucker Philip Seaton is locked in a battle with a Kentucky doctor whom it appears may be attempting to cover his tracks after amputating Seaton's penis after finding cancer during a routine circumcision-type procedure to relieve inflammation -- doing so without, apparently, telling Seaton he was doing it.
That's all I'll say, aside from that folks all around the web are ...
From a left-coast operator on the Virginia quake
August 23, 2011
Thought I'd share a brief item related to the 5.9 magnitude earthquake centered between Charlottesville and Richmond, Va., and felt up and down the East Coast (including in my mother's office as far South as Rock Hill, S.C.). A west-coaster posted on Truckers News' Facebook page a couple reminders of basic advice to haulers worried about potential on-highway delays:
1. "I ...
Owner-operators remembering Chance Rogers at GATS
August 23, 2011
A fixture at truck shows for years with his owner-operator grandfather Jim Rogers, leased to Fikes, young Chance Rogers passed away July 11 after a long battle with bone cancer. Several owner-operators and drivers have banded together in the Truckers United for Charities group to honor Chance by raising money for a memorial fund in his name for the Doernbecher ...
Long-haul literary: Former owner-operator’s memoir of the life
August 20, 2011
Marc Mayfield (pictured) didn’t set out to write a book when, after a lot of college – “some of it was wasted time,” he says -- and several less-than-successful, half-hearted career choices, he jumped into a job choice he’d long ago entertained as a possibility.
“I really enjoyed driving big trucks,” he says, which is evident in the long-haul portrait – ...
Phone app for getting around GATS in Dallas next week
August 18, 2011
If you're saying "Man I sure could have used that last year," I can assure you you're not alone. The new Great American Trucking Show app for various smartphone platforms, put together by the show's owners (Randall-Reilly Business Media & Information, publishers of Overdrive) with Core Apps and sponsored the Cummins Engine Corp., puts an interactive, searchable map of the show floor at the ...
The future Lady McCartney’s trucking roots
August 17, 2011
Did you know the daughter of New England Motor Freight Chairman and CEO Myron Shevell also happens to hold the distinction of being engaged to none other than famous Beatle Sir Paul McCartney?
It's true, at least if we are to believe the New York Observer, who published a story about Shevell (pictured) and her engagement to McCartney last week. Check ...
Service deal at Midwest Pete dealer promotes safety with savings
August 16, 2011
If you missed the news yesterday, the network of Peterbilt dealers in Sioux City Truck Sales has jumped in with support of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's “Buckle Up in Your Truck” safety campaign. Big deal, right? Well, yes. The dealer is putting its money where its mouth is on this one.
In the coming months, owner-operators utilizing one of ...
The Keys Truckers’ ‘Letter to Capitol Hill’
August 15, 2011
File this one under "modest proposal."
Seems Keys Truckers Jan and James (pictured) McCarter are always involved when a nice slab of satire graces the blog here, not to mention good music. In any case, last week was a banner in both quarters. Amid the week's run of comments surrounding our top-10 trucking songs poll results, I found a vid I'd ...
The most important moment in owner-operator history?
August 14, 2011
Gearing up for next month here, folks, Overdrive's 50th-anniversary special issue, in which we'll look at owner-operator history, a significant portion of which is contained in the various legislative and regulatory developments that have underpinned the very ability of self-employed people to run the roads in big trucks. Today weekend we're asking you to name the most important among various developments ...
Koch & Sons driver’s adventure at Minn. driving championships
August 12, 2011
Driver John Borman and I haven't met in person, but via the monthly photo contests I help host for Truckers News and, before that, our monthly featured photo from the magazine's Flickr.com photo-sharing group, I've become well-acquainted with Borman as not only a great photographer but a consummate professional. When he asked if I'd be interested in including his narrative ...
One dispatcher’s public salute to the American truck driver
August 11, 2011
In case you've missed news of this one, which has made the rounds of various email blasts and blogs, it's one of the best high-profile salutes to owner-operators and drivers I've come across in mainstream media of recent memory. Written by Minnesota-based fleet manager Dan Hanson and published last week in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, it seems to stem from a ...
A window on FMCSA’s CSA driver-enforcement authority goals
August 10, 2011
I thought I'd share a document leaked earlier in the year -- specifically in May, and to the Transportation Weekly publication -- that purported to be a draft highway bill whose genesis was within the Obama administration. It contains a 12-page section headed by "Driver Safety Provisions," beginning on p. 366, that seems to further confirm Federal Motor Carrier Safety ...
Overdrive top 10 songs streaming online this week
August 9, 2011
Longtime trucking radio host "Big Al" Weekley have put together a two-hour program that will stream from the Dispatch Me Home Radio website 24-7 throughout the week. It's all starting, well, now, and featuring a run through trucking history via our Top 10 Trucking Songs of all-time poll. If you missed the polling results last week, find them with commentary ...
Scale It: The platform-scale axle-weights app, designed by a driver
August 8, 2011
John Christner Trucking driver Jerry Wilks is the programmer/developer of an application that, if you're packing an iPhone and find occasion to use platform scales, could be of great use. Launched early in 2010, the Scale It app for the iPhone is a quick cheat that allows you to input the different weight readings you get as you roll onto ...
‘A creep or crazy’: Roseanne Barr on today’s truckers
August 6, 2011
News today is that celebrity media, as usual, is having fun at the expense of the nation's haulers. You've got two choices, as I see it: go on and have fun with them or get madder than a hornet.
There's a poll over at the Hollywood Life site that asks readers to vote on whether a certain 90210 star's ball-cap look ...
Results: The top 10 trucking songs of all time
August 4, 2011
Before I get into the results of all your voting on our top 10 trucking songs poll, let me give a little nod to Big Al Weekley and the Queen B. at dispatchmehomeradio.com. This week they're streaming an ongoing program of trucking and trucking music history giving listeners a tour through the years. Big Al was kind enough to vet ...
‘Truck nuts’ in litigious fire in South Carolina
August 3, 2011
So-called "truck nuts" or "truck nutz," fake bull testicles that are available for purchase in all colors of the rainbow (including with a chrome finish), are a common sight hanging on the ball hitches of pickup trucks the nation over, not to mention in humorous pictures of pickup owners sitting on their back bumpers directly above a pair.
A case originating ...
Long-haul swimmer adds running, biking to his competitive repertoire
August 2, 2011
Siphiwe Baleka (pictured), whom you will remember as the Prime-leased owner-operator who competed and walked away with a couple titles in the U.S. Masters National Swimming championships I wrote about in May, has made headlines yet again -- this time not just for his swimming prowess. He placed 56th of 577 competitors at the Warsaw Optimist Sprint Triathlon qualifier for the ...
How to save fuel: ‘Fix the roads!’ researchers say
August 1, 2011
We all know the tire makers have done their due in improving truck-tire rolling resistance in recent years to help operators save fuel with tire choices. Two Auburn University researchers say it’s time for the paving industry and the governments that allocate funds for roads to step up to the plate. They located a holy grail of sorts in fuel ...
Pacific, Hayes truck enthusiasts gathering this weekend in B.C.
July 29, 2011
It's the first-annual Cache Creek Truck Show, a production of the British Columbia-based Hayes and Pacific truck clubs. Truck club member and organizer Wes Bergman, a former off-highway hauler now spending much of his time keeping the Canadian-made makes and their models alive, says they've got a good number of trucks set to show and are hoping for several more ...
Breaker-breaker: Thursday Channel 19 news round-up
July 28, 2011
Tonight on American Trucker on the Speed Channel: You
The third episode of the second season of the American Trucker documentary show on the Speed Channel is called, simply, "Independent." It will explore, well, guess who? The episode runs at 10p.m. eastern time, with replays throughout the week. See the full schedule. Or if you've as yet missed it, click ...
T370 Kenworth hits medium-duty landmark in Quebec plant
July 27, 2011
A Kenworth T370 was recently recognized as the historic 100,000th medium duty truck produced at the Paccar's Ste-Therese, Quebec, manufacturing plant. The plant, which opened as a brand-new facility in 1999, has clearly been hard at work during that time in the medium duty space. “The employees at the Paccar Ste-Therese are especially dedicated to building excellent medium duty trucks," said ...
Introducing a ‘Truck Drivin’ Mama’ in Annabella Wood
July 26, 2011
Though she's no longer a "gainfully employed trucker at this point" by her own estimation, Pennsylvania resident Annabella Wood continues to haul in a straight dump truck for a tree service company once a month or so to maintain her on-highway credentials. And she spent nearly 30 years -- 29 and a half to be exact; "I call it 30," ...
Calling all independents; New profile series seeks nominations
July 25, 2011
Are you an owner-operator running with your own authority? A two-three-truck fleet owner with a unique approach to trucking success? If you've been following Overdrive Dollars & Sense columnist and radio host Kevin Rutherford's columns over the past couple months, you know he's gotten into a series about taking your business to the next level with contemplation of adding a ...
Veteran long-hauler uninjured in run-in with 2009 Heisman winner
July 23, 2011
Lee Roop of the Hunstville (Ala.) Times yesterday reported, fortunately, that long-haul driver Paul Clewis was uninjured and will drive out the remainder of the 2011 season after an attempted right-side pass resulted in disaster for 2009 Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram's four-door Infiniti -- and Clewis' tractor's front end.
Clewis wasn't aware an incoming New Orleans Saints football personality had ...
Tony’s Convoy for Hope of a cancer cure in Alberta Sunday
July 22, 2011
The man it's named after wasn't a trucker, as notes Canadian Stouffville (Alberta) Sun-Tribune editor and columnist Jim Mason in the story he wrote about Tony's Convoy for Hope, published July 15. But thanks to his in-law oil-tank haulers, his "is is a big name in Western Canadian trucking circles," as Mason writes.
Rossi (pictured) passed away in September 2010, after ...
Tonight on American Trucker — Gully Transportation’s antique trucks
July 21, 2011
Gully Transportation will be featured on tonight's edition of the American Trucker television show. The episode will air on the Speed Channel at 10 p.m. Eastern. The program will show the production of one of the Quincy, Ill.-based regional hauler's newest trucks – a 2011 Freightliner Cascadia – in the manufacturer's Cleveland, N.C., facility.
“My father started the business with just one truck ...
Suspecting foul play in trailer deck collapse, car hauler vows vigilance
July 20, 2011
File this under "lessons learned," folks.
On May 9, 2011, after an afternoon loading cars in Shreveport, La., car hauler Marc Pogrebneak wheeled over to the Petro off I-20 for a quick shower, dinner and a call to his wife. He was set to roll into West Texas to stage near his load's destination, and after a walk-around inspection of his ...
Motorhead Garage TV’s ‘Big Rig Edition’ series continues
July 18, 2011
Hosts Sam Memmolo and Dave Bowman, formerly of such television shows as Two Guys Garage, Shade Tree Mechanic, and Crank and Chrome, have launched a series of "Big Rig Editions" of Motorhead Garage, Sundays at 11:30 a.m. on the Fox Sports Network, taking do-it-yourself maintenance and truck/trailer know-how from the shop to the small screen. This Sunday's show will feature Randy ...
Vid with a onetime ‘Queen of the Road’
July 17, 2011
Remember 'Queen of the Road' Margarette Kirsch, the 82-year-old whom the Twilight Wish Foundation helped find her way into the passenger seat of a Penske International for a cross-country haul -- longtime dream come true? We came across video of part of her journey with driver/singer Anabella Wood behind the wheel at AARP's Youtube.com page and thought we'd share. It's embedded ...
Visit the trucking museum at Iowa 80 and download a new app
July 15, 2011
If it happens you're at the Walcott Truckers Jamboree at the Iowa 80 Truck Stop today, be sure to visit the trucking museum. If you're packing a smartphone, scan the QR code with the phone's camera at the front desk to download a new app and you can go back there anytime you like -- virtually, that is.
The Iowa 80 ...
Getting around ‘Truckermageddon’; American Trucker season 2 ‘gets hardcore’
July 14, 2011
California 'Carmageddon' also a 'Truckermageddon'?
NBC Los Angeles ran this report on truckers' plans for avoiding the I-405 shutdown this weekend -- the 405 will be shut down northbound in a 10-mile stretch between I-10 and U.S. 101. The southbound closure will begin at U.S. 101 and extend four miles to the Getty Center Drive ramps.
On Friday, the closure will ...
Truck parking casualties of the Minnesota government shutdown
July 13, 2011
As if drivers and owner-operators didn't have enough parking problems, the government shutdown in Minnesota will make it at least a wee bit -- if not more than that, of course -- more difficult to find a decent spot if taking off-duty rest in the state's borders. Monday, a state judge denied the Minnesota Trucking Association's petition to keep the ...
uShip’s Charles Myers details commercial freight online-auction opportunities, future
July 11, 2011
The online-auction model of the uShip.com system for retail freight is entering the commercial arena. Their new General Manager of Freight, Charles Myers (pictured), like you, is a veteran of that arena. While he’s most recently served in freight projects in China, his background also includes the Presidency of commercial load board service GetLoaded.com. “I’ve been around quite a while ...
Cast your final vote for the top trucking song of all time
July 7, 2011
You will recall I asked for top trucking song nominations oh a couple-few weeks back. Well, from said nominations, I took the top ten contenders, those with the most mentions, and have put together a final poll where you can cast your vote. That poll's here. Vote!
And I know, I know, many clear contenders have been left out. KRVN trucking ...
More tornado aid coming from the trucking industry
July 6, 2011
It keeps coming. If you missed the feature on the trucking industry's response to this spring's horrendous series of devastating tornadoes in Truckers News' current issue by Caroline Taylor, click through this picture from the magazine (taken in the city of the magazine's headquarters, Tuscaloosa, Ala.) for the full feature.
Since it was written, various other companies have teamed up to ...
New load board hopes to facilitate O/O-shipper connections
July 5, 2011
Valerie Hemmings is the spouse of an owner-operator running under his own authority -- she recently wrote in with something of a plea for owner-operators to stand together for better rates, with the ultimate goal of eliminating the many permutations of middlemen in the ultimate carrier-shipper transaction. "Owner/Operators," she wrote, are "gasping for financial air because of the middlemen like ...
Revisiting one owner-operator’s ‘No apology campaign’
July 4, 2011
It's more proactive attitude than reactive defiance, says Florida-based owner-operator Tim Philmon, leased to Landstar -- and let's just say for the record that I jumped the shark in my last post when I said I'd see you July 5: this one's for Independence Day, no doubt about it. Philmon's "No Apology Campaign" can be thought of as a personal ...
Worth more than 78 words
July 1, 2011
Custom Rigs Editor Bruce W. Smith took this fanciful pic of three hot haulers at the Shell SuperRigs event June 2-4 at the Kenly 95 Petro in Kenly, N.C., this year. The flattop's hauling gallon jugs of Shell Rotella products, the Big Lonestar a company display trailer. The mid-size Lonestar lookalike, well, you can check it out in action, below. ...
Mustang’s Trucking at the tattoo parlor
June 30, 2011
Last time we checked in with Overdrive 2010 Trucker of the Year Mike Crawford it was on the occasion of the death of his longtime trucking companion in his dog, Fred. This time round, Crawford stopped on his way through Nashville for a brief talk and photo shoot. Crawford, who recently got his DOT authority -- note the "Mustang's Truckin'" ...
Broker Trinity Transport seeking best driver nominations
June 29, 2011
On its website and Facebook page, broker Trinity Transport is seeking nominations for a competition for best truck driver held in conjunction with National Truck Driver Appreciation week, "dedicated to those who spend their days away from home to make it possible for others to live comfortably," as their site notes. A good description of the driver's job, and a fair ...
A trucking Western thriller ends run on Chicago stage
June 29, 2011
It wasn't exactly going for contemporary industry realism, but it's called "Mother Bear," named for the handle of a leader in a band of not-exactly-savory Utah haulers a young lawyer and "salt man" for an upstart truckers' union seeks out to enroll in his new organization, knowing minions will follow him. Rough-and-tumble Western in tone -- with truck drivers instead ...
Get your Ice Road Truckers DVDs while the roads remain
June 28, 2011
Yes, it was only a matter of time, I'd say, before a newspaper in the Great White North did a long feature on the potential impact melting sea ice in the Arctic and changing climate patterns due south of it could have on an important part of the Canadian economy -- and our own television viewing.
The Globe and Mail, Canada's ...
One trucker’s video of April flooding on I-29 in North Dakota
June 27, 2011
File this one under "Old news" if you like (or under "Don't try this at home" or "Not the greatest decision"), but to get the week started here I thought I'd share a vid from the April flooding of I-29 near the North Dakota/Minnesota border, as shared by the folks at the N.D. Grand Forks Herald newspaper's website. Purportedly shot ...
New speed governor: Public art on the roadways
June 24, 2011
No, it's not a joke the Kansas DOT is playing on truckers and motorists -- nor any kind of sophisticated speed trap. Click through the thumbnail of the picture at right here for a story from the Olathe News on the Kansas City Star's website about Gastinger Walker Harden architect Joel Marquardt's Art-n-R-Park public art project/series, of which this curious sign ...
Bank robbery: The things some will do for health care
June 23, 2011
Perhaps you've heard this story already -- desperate for something he thinks is totally out of his financial range, man does something over-the-top, creating a national media circus along the way.
The latest variant comes from Gaston County in North Carolina in the form of a former beverage delivery driver feeling so much in need of medical care and not wanting ...
‘Medically certified’ — join us for radio show Wednesday to probe driver health regs
June 21, 2011
At 7 p.m. Eastern time tomorrow evening (Wed., June 22) I'll join Truth About Trucking Live hosts Allen & Donna Smith as well as my colleague Max Kvidera for a special show probing the issues raised by the current, June Truckers News cover story Kvidera and I penned about state and federal regs for driver medical certification. Joining us will ...
What are the top ten trucking songs of all-time?
June 20, 2011
Planning for Overdrive's 50th anniversary this year, we want to hear from you with recommendations for a top-ten list of the best trucking songs of all time. Lest I unduly influence the process, I will refrain here from mentioning my own top-ten, but let's say potential contenders could range from classics by Red Sovine to "Eastbound and Down" to the ...
Jason’s Law national call-in day June 23; drivers urge action
June 16, 2011
Last year it came on the heels of calls for passage from often at-odds constituencies in the industry, and this year, drivers and other industry parties are following similar unity after Jason's Law's May reintroduction to the 112th U.S. Congress by New York Congressman Paul Tonko to urge drivers to make vocal their support next week, June 23. (For video ...
4 State’s Bryan Martin on Joplin rebuilding efforts in All Drivers Together conference call
June 15, 2011
In a conference call last week put together by the All Drivers Together group, a collaboration of owner-operators and drivers opening up a free conference line to drivers and others in the trucking industry around the nation to network and share information toward industry betterment, 4 State Trucks' Bryan Martin noted the shift in efforts around his home city of ...
82-year-old gets a trucking wish; Minnesota horse northbound and down
June 14, 2011
Queen of the road
A story in the Doylestown, Pa., Intelligencer newspaper details the Twilight Wish Foundation's efforts to grant a long-haul wish to 82-year-old Margarette Kirsch. In late May, she set out of a 15-day journey from Philly to California and back to her Merritt Island, Fla., home with trucker Annabella Wood at the wheel, the culmination of events Intelligencer ...
Transport for Christ truck rally this Fri-Sat
June 13, 2011
The Transport for Christ organization's efforts to connect with and spread the good news to and of the trucking industry extends far beyond their mobile chapels and efforts to unite drivers in the fight against humna trafficking, which I wrote about several weeks ago. They're rewarding the greater community of drivers and owner-operators again this year with their annual truck ...
Swift at the New York Stock Exchange
June 13, 2011
Get an eyeful of this pic, a Swift International Lonestar parked outside the New York Stock Exchange on May 25, when Swift management rang the opening bell on the exchange after a December initial public offering (NYSE-Listed SWFT) of Swift stock, which gained 27 cents a share that week.
Swift, "based in Phoenix, Ariz., operates 16,100 units comprised of 12,100 tractors, a fleet ...
Hardage custom combo unit gets final fix
June 9, 2011
You might remember Jeff Hardage, owner of the J&C Investments small fleet, based in Garland, Texas, if you've been paying any attention whatsoever to the news coming out of the Pride & Polish competitions at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas the past several years. Most recently, I wrote about Hardage's son Eric's 1963 Mack B83 with a winch ...
Custom rig as educational shuttle — a Mack contribution to the space program
June 8, 2011
It’s not as big as its sister ships. Nor has it ever gone into orbit. But for more than two decades, the Shuttle Blake has served a very important mission -- educating students about space exploration. Mack Trucks has been part of the story all along.
In the early 1980s Bob Boehmer, a teacher at Schnecksville Elementary school just outside of ...
Final season one episode of American Trucker on Speed Channel this Thursday
June 7, 2011
If you missed the news two weeks back, the final episode of the first season of American Trucker on the Speed Channel will features the production crew's documentation of the last mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery and, more particularly, the trucks that are front and center in preparations for the journey. Among them are some that have been present ...
Amsoil now on the marquee at Wisconsin dirt track
June 3, 2011
Synthetic oil manufacturer Amsoil, with a significant presence in the trucking industry, continues its support of dirt track racing in the Midwest as the new title sponsor of the Superior Speedway in its home city of Superior, Wis., at the Head of the Lakes Fairgrounds on the south end of the city. The sponsorship agreement includes naming rights to the ...
Driving Miss Crazy shoots straight
June 2, 2011
Just how Birmingham News "Driver's Side" traffic columnist Ginny MacDonald settled on the handle Driving Miss Crazy is something of a mystery. But like the friendship that evolved between the black chauffeur and the elderly Jewess in the film the handle plays on, the moniker smacks of a magnificent sense of humor. And that’s something all drivers can use, whether ...
New website aggregates links to free stuff
May 31, 2011
Ever wonder how you might get free coffee at McDonald's, Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts? Free Trucker Stuff, launched in May as a portal into free services useful to the American long-hauler, has the answer. Created by a truck stop manager to benefit drivers, the site aggregates various truck stop freebies, industry information, free entertainment and productivity resources such as various online ...
On Memorial Day: A trucker to remember
May 30, 2011
Minnie Spotted Wolf never encountered combat in World War II, yet she blazed trails as, most likely, the first Native American woman to serve in the Marines – as a truck driver, nonetheless.
A native of Heart Butte, Mont., she sits proudly atop a 1940s-era supply truck in a photo, courtesy of her daughter Gerardetta England, for a story in the ...
Trucking continues coming to Joplin aid
May 27, 2011
The stories about relief efforts in Joplin keep coming in. Before I get to a couple more, I thought I'd take a moment to note that I will be out of the office through June 7, though Channel 19 will continue to bring all manner of side routes and byways into the industry in my time away. Definitely keep ears ...
Driver accountability under CSA: a video talk with owner-operator Robert Shumate
May 26, 2011
I met Robert Shumate researching my two-part feature on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Compliance, Safety, Accountability program, in the April and May editions of Overdrive. In the vid, selected from the in-person portion of our interview, conducted at the Rush Truck Centers location in Nashville where Shumate had stopped in on his way home to Union City, Tenn., ...
Prime driver hauls in national swimming championship
May 25, 2011
Leased owner-operator Siphiwe Baleka, with Springfield, Mo.-based Prime Inc., won two national championships at the 2011 U.S. Masters Swimming Spring Nationals in Mesa, Ariz., on Friday, April 29. Baleka, who joined Prime three years ago, won first place in both the 50-yard and 100-yard freestyle with the second fastest times of the year. He also placed third in the 100-yard ...
Keys Truckers on Joplin relief mission; Open weather webinar tomorrow
May 24, 2011
Last time I saw Keys Truckers Jan (pictured, with Rocky) and James McCarter they were right here in Nashville for the grand reopening of the downtown TravelCenters of America location, which had been closed since the flooding last May. Today, the Keys sent word out I thought Midwest haulers may well be able to act on. They posted to their ...
Driver rides out Joplin tornado at Flying J
May 23, 2011
You've probably seen the pictures from the horrific tornado that rammed through Joplin, Mo., hitting the Pilot Flying J off I-44 at U.S. 71 yesterday. Ozark Mountain Leasing driver Todd Arnold, who lives far northeast in Maine, just weeks after missing the Glade Spring, Va., tornado that devastated the Petro Stopping Centers location there by three hours, was sitting in ...
Mack Pinnacle powers Hollywood ‘Cars 2′ tour, with some home time
May 23, 2011
A Mack Pinnacle tractor is leading the way in State Farm’s “Agents on a Mission” tour for the Cars 2 movie from Disney-Pixar, which hits theaters June 24. It stopped in early May in Allentown, Pa., to show off life-size models of three of the film’s main characters – Lightning McQueen, Mater and, new to Cars 2, British super spy Finn ...
Mexico’s big human-smuggling bust; Truckers Against Trafficking makes industry headway
May 20, 2011
Technology makes a dent
As this photo, released by the Mexican state of Chiapas and making news around the nation yesterday, makes abundantly clear, the issue of human smuggling is a multivalent and complex one. The photo shows would-be migrants to the U.S. in a van trailer in southern Mexico, caught in Mexican authorities' X-ray imaging devices. All in all, ...
Prize-winning trucking photo, very happy geese at Wyoming TA
May 19, 2011
In April, Robinson Transport driver Bob McGilvray claimed his second top spot in Truckers News' monthly photo challenge with this shot, "Bedtime at Sideling Hill Plaza," taken on a quiet night at the Sideling Hill service plaza on the Pennsylvania Turnpike last summer. I wrote about the big win here in Truckers News. (This month's contest, open through end of ...
Trucker Weather Watch storm spotters want you
May 18, 2011
Former long-hauler and current Traffic Control Supervisor/Driver for Stripe Rite, based near Seattle, Sean Kiaer in April 2006 was a front-line witness to the formation of a tornado in Tennessee. He called 911 from the cab at the time to report the storm, which was headed directly for the town of Newbern, Tenn., but realized his own and the 911 operator's ...
Truckercising through the years with FedEx Freight driver Joe Martin
May 17, 2011
It's been a long time since I was introduced to driver Joe Martin (pictured, with Ice "Road Trucker" Alex Debogorski), creator of the Truckercise DVD. My colleague at Truckers News Carolyn Magner wrote about Martin in 2008 as part of a series of health profiles that year. Martin produced the DVD based on exercises he'd been doing in the cab "for ...
Utility plant back in action after Va. tornado
May 16, 2011
You'll no doubt recall the Petro Stopping Centers location in Glade Spring, Va., that was hit by a tornado during the big outbreak back in late April. (Find information about it in my post from April 28, in the comments section.) Less-remarked-upon in driver forums and the trucking press was another industry-related business also hit there.
Utility Trailer's Glade Spring plant ...
Unity diaries: Jason’s Law lives
May 12, 2011
It's been more than two years since New York trucker Jason Rivenburg was slain in South Carolina after being held up while parked at an abandoned commercial property. It's also been two years since House member Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) introduced the bill named for Rivenburg, "Jason's Law," to provide boosted funding for states to expand secure truck parking along freight ...
‘The center cannot hold’ — FMCSA’s hours quandary
May 11, 2011
There is a growing feeling among industry watchers that in order to fully settle the decidedly unsettled regulatory situation surrounding the hours of service, Congress is going to have to legislate a solution.
That sentiment has come to me from industry executives, consultants, former regulatory types and, in some senses, drivers. Comments from owner-operators and others to the federal docket for ...
Ferro on detention: ‘Shippers should be held accountable.’
May 10, 2011
If you missed the open call the Trucking Solutions Group's member owner-operators held with FMCSA administrator Anne Ferro last week, you missed a lot. The wide-ranging conversation ran the gamut of topics from cross-border trucking to hours and detention concerns. About the last of which, it was heartening to hear, Ferro noted that she in essence agreed with the concerns ...
Channel 19 Monday: Fallen log hauler gets send-off; Court to Tiger Truckstop: ‘Set Tony free’
May 9, 2011
Last ride for Maine log hauler 'Mackie,' R.I.P.
The Central Maine Morning-Sentinel news site reported late last week on the Skowhegan memorial-service convoy that was reportedly "one last ride" for area log-hauler Maxell C. "Mackie" Moore. Around 20 trucks joined the ride, including Mackie's own, piloted by Tim Clements, best friend to Moore's youngest son, Matt, who now operates the ...
Mack in Hagerstown, Jacobs share 50 years with Overdrive
May 6, 2011
Mack Celebrates 50 years of Hagerstown powertrain assembly
In a ceremony Wednesday at the plant in Hagerstown, Md., where its powertrain components have been assembled since 1961, Mack Trucks paid tribute to the past, celebrated the present and cast a positive eye to the future, just as we've been doing (well, mostly my colleague Lucinda Coulter) here at Overdrive as we celebrate ...
Analyst: Blame Fed’s liquidity flood for high oil/diesel
May 5, 2011
The good news is that skyrocketing oil prices, like slasher movies, are truly frightening only the first time you watch one. They get less scary with repetition. But being less scary doesn't change the basic facts. Markets need both hedgers and speculators to function properly. When they lose balance, they no longer function according to true supply and demand. --journalist ...
Open call Wed. with Anne Ferro hosted by Trucking Solutions Group
May 3, 2011
Rick Ash, chairman of the driver/owner-operator-led Trucking Solutions Group -- with members ranging from such Channel 19 familiar faces Jeff Clark (Truckers News Marathon Trucker columnist), Henry Albert (Overdrive's 2007 Trucker of the Year) and Linda Caffee (team expedited hauler with her husband, Bob) -- reports the TSG will host a call tomorrow, Wed., May 4, at 3 p.m. Eastern ...
Ohio small fleet providing tornado relief
May 3, 2011
Buddy Allen of the 15-truck New Era Trucking fleet in North Ridgeville, Ohio, is calling on Northeast Ohio residents to help fill a 53-foot dry van's worth of non-perishable food, water and other goods to haul south to assist residents affected by last week's tornadoes. WKYC-TV News Channel 3 in Cleveland, Ohio, reported yesterday on Allen's effort, to which he'll ...
A message from Randall-Reilly president
May 2, 2011
The below comes from Overdrive and Truckers News publisher Randall-Reilly's president and CEO Mike Reilly (pictured), a good man I've gotten to know over my years with the magazines. Thankfully, all Tuscaloosa- and other Southeast-based Randall-Reilly employees survived the storm. My thoughts continue to be with, as Mike well puts it, "many in our community and other areas of the ...
Penske Logistics IndyCar debuts third; ‘Trucker bombs’ a misnomer, police say
May 2, 2011
Penske Logistics IndyCar debuts in third
A Penske Logistics-sponsored IndyCar, driven by Ryan Briscoe, made a position 4 start and no. 3 finish yesterday in the Itaipava Sao Paulo Indy 300, presented by Nestle, on the exciting street track in the Brazilian capital. The new car's shown here undregoing "final preparations for shipment to Brazil at the world famous Penske Racing facility in ...
Tornado caught on owner-operators’ webcam
April 29, 2011
Owner-operators Randy Moyano and Ann Burt (pictured) run in a 1998 Peterbilt pulling a Fontaine RGN with Superior stinger axle for heavy/overdimensional loads, leased to Greentree Transportation. I met the pair a week ago today in Lebanon, Tenn., where I took this picture. They were deadheading west then all the way to Oklahoma to pick up an oversize load that ...
Braving the storm — two haulers’ Birmingham tornado stories
April 29, 2011
"I just spent all day yesterday cleaning up tornado damage," Overdrive Trucker of the Year Dan Heister told me this morning.
Heister (pictured) was loaded heading south on I-65 bound for Saginaw, Ala., Wednesday afternoon, when he could see the big tornado that made its way into Cullman, Ala., around 3 p.m. that afternoon. "I kept the hammer down and got ...
CSA: Compliance plus or safety politics?
April 28, 2011
Below, a new vid below from my reporting on the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program. But first, a note about the storms that ripped through the Southeast yesterday, with a particularly large tornado moving straight through the southern part of Tuscaloosa, Ala., the town where Overdrive and Truckers News offices are located. I'm based off-site in Nashville, so my read on ...
Popular Mechanics seeks ‘Worst Road’ nominations
April 27, 2011
Make your voice heard! No, I'm not talking about the proposed mandate of electronic onboard recorders for hours of service compliance (for more about that: comments are open through May 23). Popular Mechanics editors are seeking out the "worst road in the USA," they say at the magazine's website. Who better to nominate it than the truckers of the USA? ...
Freight on your smartphone: TransCore app on the way
April 26, 2011
Coming in just a couple weeks is the My DAT Truck Stop app (pictured) from freight matching service provider TransCore, operator of the oldest load-board service out there in the DAT boards. My DAT will be initially released for Android phones, providing drivers and owner-operators up to 25 nearby loads per search from Transcore’s DAT network, in addition to convenient access ...
The great tomato heist — Cargo thieves still operating in plain sight
April 25, 2011
I missed this report from the New York Times a week and a half back, about a sophisticated cargo-theft ring operating a seemingly legitimate trucking company in Florida, with a twist. The freight targeted wasn't consumer electronics or cigarettes or pharmaceuticals. "The high price of produce, especially for tomatoes after the deep winter freezes," reporter William Neuman leads the Times ...
EOBRs controversy over the national airwaves missing extant/emerging solutions
April 22, 2011
Wednesday, National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" program ran this piece on the issue of the proposed federal mandate for electronic on-board recorder use for hours-of-service monitoring. If it goes into effect, virtually all interstate haulers will be required to use an EOBR for logs. You can still comment on the proposed EOBR rule, through May 23.
In the NPR piece, owner-operator ...
Waste-haul fleet — and more — featured in latest ‘Severe Service’ Overdrive supplement
April 20, 2011
Bridgeport, Conn.-based Enviro Express, providing solid waste collection, transfer and recycling services for several area municipalities, is in the process of converting most of its fleet of tractors to liquefied natural gas (LNG) power with a recent purchase of 18 Kenworth T800 LNG tractors. A dozen of the fleet’s trucks were displayed at the December opening ceremonies for a LNG ...
Truckster app ‘by and for drivers’
April 19, 2011
From the Maine Morning Sentinel newspaper comes news of the former hauler, 42-year-old Leigh Gagnon, who created and launched in 2009 the Truckster app for the iPhone and Android phones. Available for $3.99 in the Android market and iTune App Store, the multifunction app provides a searchable platform to the majority of truckstops the nation over, with current fuel prices, ...
TA Petro: ‘For drivers by design’
April 18, 2011
Last week when I wrote about my brief meet-up with expediters Phil and Diane Madsen, I mentioned the pair's assessment of updated showers at TravelCenters of American locations systemwide, with particularly high marks for the La Vergne, Tenn., location where we met. As I noted in that post, the improvements were begun last year, as TA Petro had noted them ...
Rhetoric on Tony the Truckstop Tiger boils over into truckstop villification
April 15, 2011
It's been a little while since I checked in on the efforts by animal-rights activists and others -- including a large coterie of truck drivers -- to force owners of the Tiger Truck Stop in Gross Tete, La., to give up their caged Bengal tiger, Tony. The latest efforts including a lawsuit filed this week whose plaintiffs are the "Animal ...
‘Something new every day’: Meeting Phil and Diane Madsen
April 14, 2011
Phil and Diane Madsen haul expedited in this 2006 Volvo with 132-inch ARI sleeper and 16-foot box. Over the past several years, I've called on the pair several different times for perspective on all manner of topics, from truck maintenance/warranty issues to unique hauls to examples of the many owner-operators out there taking to the web to write and publish. ...
‘Is it a 10-speed?’
April 12, 2011
What's that line at the end of the Canadian slapstick classic Strange Brew? It's on the tip of my tongue...
Oh wait, I remember. The McKenzie Brothers, Bob and Doug, played by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, are given the keys to a big rig loaded with beer after saving the brewery's day by averting an evil brewmeister's plot toward world domination. ...
UPDATE: ‘Hats for heroes’ special delivery, take two
April 11, 2011
You will recall my story here about the genesis and progress of Marten Transport driver Candy Bass' "Hats for Heroes" program of providing an outlet for a wide array of trucking industry participants to honor the sacrifices of U.S. soldiers. Well, the past year's volume of hats was significant enough to require more than just a single load of donated ...
New Frito Lay trailer wrap supports Women in Trucking
April 7, 2011
Last week in Louisville, the Women In Trucking Association went for the Guinness World Record again for the largest gathering of female truck drivers with their second annual Salute to the Women Behind the Wheel. You may recall my reporting on last year's unsuccessful attempt. This year, the gathering drew 204 professional female drivers (last year, the number was just under ...
Back to the past: $4 diesel returns
April 6, 2011
Well it's official, folks. The Energy Information Administration's weekly diesel report this week showed the national average with 3 cents of the $4 mark, reaching the highest point yet in the now near nine-month run-up in price we've seen since last August, by now oh-so eerily reminiscent of the 2007-08 run (an Overdrive headline in April 2008 read, "No April Fool's joke: ...
‘Truck spotting’ takes off in England to industry image benefit
April 5, 2011
Remember the oft-described "good ol' days" of the 1970s? When truck drivers were portrayed by the movie stars of the day and lionized by the public as hardworking heroes of the American way? The image of drivers and public interest in trucking may never have been higher on this side of the pond, it's certain, and the recent success of ...
Outside the truck: Ultrarunner to tame the ice roads
April 4, 2011
Starting Wednesday, reports the Toronto Sun, ultrarunner Alicja Barahona will attempt a 240-mile round-trip haul between Inuvik, north of the Arctic Circle, and Tuktoyaktuk on the shore of the Arctic Ocean on the ice road that is the frozen McKenzie river in Canada's Northwest Territories. Made well-known for the truck travel there when the History Channel series Ice Road Truckers filmed ...
Owner-operator Jerry Kissinger named to new Shell ‘Million-Mile’ club
April 1, 2011
His is a familiar face -- to me, anyway. At MATS this week, Jerry Kissinger was named to Shell Rotella's new Million Mile Haul of Fame, introduced to honor drivers who respect their rig and its engine, and take pride in a job well done. Kissinger, owner-operator of a 1991 Mack Superliner, was honored as the first U.S. inductee. He has more ...
Kenworth T700 on Speed
March 31, 2011
We're talking the Speed Channel, of course. The aerodynamic Kenworth T700 (pictured), equipped with the fuel-efficient MX engine, will be featured at 9 p.m. Eastern on April 14, a Thursday, on the new Speedmakers television series on the Speed Channel. The one-hour program was filmed at the Kenworth plant in Chillicothe, Ohio, where Kenworth trucks are assembled.
“Speed is a well-respected ...
Blood drive joins health walk among driver-led initiatives at MATS
March 30, 2011
"Give so that others may live" runs the tagline for the Friday blood drive (11 a.m. to 4 p.m., booth #91470 outdoors) to be held at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville this week. It's an initiative led by the Driver Health Council of the Trucking Solutions Group, a crew of owner-operators initiating dialogue about all manner of trucking topics. ...
Vids of the new Caterpillar truck — the CT660
March 29, 2011
"No one knows heavy-duty like Caterpillar," says the official promo vid for the new Class 8 from Caterpillar, the CT660. Long-awaited in the wake of Cat's announcement that the company was getting out of the on-highway engine market, and entering the truck market, the new truck is here (pictured), built in partnership with Navistar.
For several separate video glimpses of it, ...
Tools for trucking career, issues advocacy at social media meeting
March 28, 2011
Making the wider world work to your particular advantage, whatever you choose that to mean, has always been the goal of the more ambitious among us -- in today's world, the tools toward making that a reality are multiplicitous and downright confusing in the pace at which the written and unwritten rules for their use change, typically via automatic update ...
Overdrive’s Coulter remembers Fred…
March 25, 2011
Another fond memory here of Mike "Mustang" Crawford's trucking companion, Fred, who passed on early the morning of Thursday, March 24, 2011. The memory and the wonderful picture here come from Lucinda Coulter, Overdrive's managing editor, who met Crawford for the first time in person during a photo shoot to accompany our Trucker of the Month feature about him in ...
Latest distraction: Hauler takes on-highway health to new heights
March 25, 2011
Some truck drivers in Germany are on a health kick perhaps more extreme than that of their U.S. counterparts. Near the western city of Munster, the website of Germany's English-language daily the Local reported, a hauler was spotted on the autobahn weaving as he overtook vehicles ahead. As police gave chase, the unmistakable glint of chrome dumbbells was observed reflecting ...
Fred: Memorializing one long-hauling dog
March 24, 2011
Condolences to Overdrive 2010 Trucker of the Year, owner-operator Mike "Mustang" Crawford, whose dog Fred passed away early this morning. She was 12 and some years old.
"It's a rough day for me, " Crawford said. Fred had been running freight for Prime Inc. with Crawford for the better part of 2 million miles, all logged in Crawford's 1994 Freightliner. "I ...
Diamond Heavy Haul rig/driver appearing on ‘American Trucker’ this week
March 23, 2011
When I interviewed the Speed Channel's 'American Trucker' program host Robb Mariani back in January, he was “on set” in the passenger seat of a Diamond Heavy Haul driver’s rig, hooked to a “huge electrical component” en route south across Ohio to an Ohio River port. “I think it’s probably the heaviest haul I could have imagined – the rig ...
Language lurking in GAO’s CSA report to Congress: FMCSA hopeful to make driver data public
March 22, 2011
Tonight, a major with the Colorado State Patrol I've spoken with on a couple different occasions about his work implementing the CSA Behavioral Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories at the roadside inspector level will be delivering an hour-long presentation as part of Overdrive/Truckers News webinar series. It's called "CSA: What it means to you," and features Major Mark Savage at ...
Greatwide owner-operator pens one rad read in ‘Collinstown’
March 18, 2011
Greatwide-leased owner-operator Bob Grantham, based in San Antonio, Texas, calls the evocative writing in his literary Western Collinstown an “unintended consequence of being a truck driver.” At least in part, anyway.
Out now from Treble Heart Books, the novel follows the intertwining lives of a current and former Texas Ranger just at the outbreak of the Civil War. Bob Cory, the elder ...
New diesel thieves; ‘American Trucker’ visits the custom shops
March 17, 2011
High-tech diesel thieves
You know fuel prices are bad when you start seeing reports such as the one published yesterday via the website of Central Florida's WFTV. "Some long-haul truckers found a new way to steal diesel, Marion County deputies said Wednesday," WFTV reported. Deputies apparently arrested three separate haulers who were passing off a gagdet to hijack fuel pumps at ...
‘Deadliest Catch’ star to sign autographs at Louisville trucking show
March 16, 2011
The "Deadliest Catch" TV show on the Discovery Channel, chronicling the lives of fishers on Alaskan King Crab boats, might seem as far removed from the world of long-haul trucking as it's possible to be. But in a short couple weeks at the Mid-America Trucking Show at the Chevron Delo booth No. 14140, drivers from around the country will have the ...
‘Here comes plug-in diesel!’
March 15, 2011
So gushed the website and weekly update of the group Hybrid Owners of America about several automakers' concept cars on display at the Geneva Auto Show last week. But in some sense, freight movement by plug-in powertrain is here, if not in the Class 8 realm, without even the diesel. Navistar recently announced expanded service points for its eStar (pictured) ...
Kentucky hauler stars on History Channel w/ Larry the Cable Guy this Tuesday
March 14, 2011
Tomorrow, Tuesday, March 15, at 9 p.m. ET Murray, Ky.-based driver Ben Brumley (pictured) will take Larry the Cable Guy part of the way through a tour of the long-haul life at the mammoth Iowa 80 Truck Stop in Walcott, Iowa, an episode in Mr. Cable Guy's "Only in America" series. In it, Larry sets out to explore "all that’s ...
Is large truck lemon law needed?
March 11, 2011
There's only a couple effective lemon laws in the country that actually provide protection from "defective" Class 8s for buyers. If you've as yet missed my March cover story in Overdrive on the subject, click on the images here to read, or access the text version here. Among sources was Mike Noll, a retired owner-operator in Sun Prairie, Wis., whose ...
A few extra horses power rig through snow
March 10, 2011
Sometimes, the best solutions to problems are the simplest. Or that's one way of looking at the vid below, posted to YouTube by user roush61799 on Feb. 21 and purporting to come from Amish country in Central Pennsylvania. Four horses and a farmer's cart tied to the front end of a big Peterbilt pulling a tanker were more than enough extra ...
News bytes: Diesel prices, Driving sans pants, Willie’s Place to be Petro
March 9, 2011
Commodities speculation back in the spotlight
The commodities futures positions limits problem is back in the TV news via a series on liberal populist host Ed Schultz' "Ed Show" this week. The first spot in the series distilled the history of the elimination of position limits that I've written about some over the years, most recently in a discussion of the ...
Happiness; UK producers seek ‘World’s Toughest Trucker’
March 8, 2011
Happiness
There's no other way to describe this picture, eh? It's Virginia Kirk, general manager of the TA C-store and fuel islands in Nashville, Tenn., during the location's grand reopening last week. It's "awesome" to be back up and running, she told me Friday after being closed for nine months.
Kirk's addition of the "Welcome to Music City" tag above the front door ...
Inbound/outbound: Trucking news Monday
March 7, 2011
Strange days on the road
A New Jersey-based driver last Thursday jackknifed his rig under murky circumstances on I-805 during rush hour in San Diego, Calif. He then exited the cab, laid down on pavement just next to the center highway divider and, when police arrived, asked to speak to President Obama, reported Hailey Persinger of the San Diego Union-Tribune. ...
FMCSA listens: PSP update clarifies co-driver inspection violations
March 4, 2011
While I'm on the subject of CSA, I thought I'd share a bit of an update to this month's Truckers News CSA cover story. In it, during dicussion of the DataQs system and Ed Webb's case (which I wrote about yesterday), OOIDA's Joe Rajkovacz raises a very particular problem with Pre-Employment Screening Program driver inspection/crash history reports that team drivers ...
One driver’s war: Taming CSA and the DataQs challenge process
March 3, 2011
I finally got the the opportunity to meet Boonville, Ind.-based driver Ed Webb (pictured) in person yesterday afternoon at the newly reopened downtown TA here in Nashville (speaking of which, Aaron Tippen's performing tomorrow morning there at 10 a.m. and 12 noon if you're headed down Tennessee way today). Webb was a source in my reporting for the Truckers News ...
Truckstops = Coffeehouses with copious rig parking?
March 2, 2011
A new index tracking sales of goods and services at highway truckstops, the McLane-NATSO quarterly index, recently tracked an interesting rise in the sale of hot beverages like coffees, cappucinos and teas at truckstops. That category of sales jumped 34 percent in 2010 compared to the previous year, suggesting to me at least a little more than freight picking up.
Turns ...
‘American Trucker’ rebroadcasts; my interview with the host
March 1, 2011
If you missed the debut episodes of the "American Trucker" series last Thursday on the Speed Channel, it's being rebroadcast tonight at 8 and 11 p.m. ET, and 8 a.m. tomorrow. The next new episodes follow on Thursday, with "Bandit and the Snowman" and "Robb and the Bear," the latter likely to include sneak-peek material about Paul Sagehorn's B.J. and ...
Notable independent Colorado truck stop closes shop; chance encounters on the road
February 25, 2011
The Rocky Mountain Travel Center just north of Pueblo, Colo., on I-25 exit 110 closed up shop yesterday, reported Carlos Mora of the Pueblo Chieftain newspaper. According to Mora's report, the owner cites a confluence of factors for the demise of the near-half-century-old family business that was the truck stop and travel plaza. Chief among them appeared to be large ...
Correcting the ‘B.J. & the Bear’ truck replica record
February 24, 2011
When I wrote about the new "American Trucker" TV series, premiering tonight on the Speed Channel, I mentioned their sample episode, in which host Robb Mariani runs through the build/restoration process on Paul Sagehorn's original "B.J. & the Bear" Kenworth K100 and matching trailer, and included a photo of Paul with his other, 1984 Kenworth K100 painted as a replica ...
Mack CEO shined as plant worker on ‘Undercover Boss’
February 22, 2011
This past Sunday, as we wrote here last week, Mack Trucks CEO Denny Slagle appeared on the popular CBS show Undercover Boss disguised in a mustache, cap, and toupee. Slagle (pictured, right) struggled to install front covers straight on 11-liter engines at the Hagerstown, Md., engine plant, took corners too fast driving a high-lifting fork truck while picking parts at ...
South African driver strike approaching closure after a violent week
February 21, 2011
Always a shame to see haulers around the world taking out their on-road frustrations on their peers. The news in South Africa this morning (photo of striking drivers by Lerato Maduna) is that, after a week of work stoppage by drivers' unions in that nation that saw more than a little violence perpetrated on haulers who kept running during the ...
Have you seen your CSA scorecard?
February 18, 2011
Back just before the new CSA Safety Measurement System went live in December, I reported on a driver-focused CSA scoring service upcoming from the folks at CSA data mining firm Vigillo, which has been working with carriers for a long time now to develop in-house systems for tracking the progress of their efforts at improving and managing their SMS percentile ...
Owner-operator John Crozman emerges from Dakota blizzard hailed a hero
February 17, 2011
"I’ve been doing this a long time, 30 years," says owner-operator John Crozman (pictured) of his long trucking career, for the past two years leased to Albertville, Minn.-based Long Haul Trucking. Over those three decades, like so many haulers, he's seen his fair share of on-highway rescue action. "It’s not a problem. You come upon accidents and try to maybe ...
Interviewing Dan Heister, Overdrive’s Trucker of the Year
February 16, 2011
In this month's issue of Overdrive, I wrote about the recession-surviving prowess of Boyd Bros.-leased owner-operator Dan Heister (pictured), whose mastery of his short-medium haul niche in Boyd's self-dispatch/percentage-pay Independent Express program brought him through the really bad times in 2008 to ever-greater success this year. In addition to recently purchasing what amounts to a small farm in Erin, Tenn., ...
Nashville downtown TA back open after flooding
February 15, 2011
Since Feb. 3, haulers traversing the north side of Nashville's downtown mini-loop coming from I-40 or I-24 West may have noticed a special postcard (pictured) delivered to them in the form of a billboard just ahead of the I-24/I-40 split. For nine months, the old TA billboard there displayed the message you see below, which was changed to a "coming ...
Mack CEO on ‘Undercover Boss’ this weekend; Overdrive editor on magazine’s 50th anniversary
February 14, 2011
Mack prez works from the trenches
Class 8 trucks come to CBS reality-TV series Undercover Boss this weekend, featuring Mack Trucks President & CEO Denny Slagle. The broadcast will be from 9-10 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 20, Eastern and Pacific. In making the episode, as with others in the series, the company president went undercover to work side-by-side with Mack employees at the Macungie, Pa., ...
Android ‘Freight Finder’ app from TQL
February 11, 2011
ATTN: Owner-operators.
Yesterday, Total Quality Logistics announced functionality and availability of a new "Freight Finder" app for Android-based smartphones. The free application enables quick searches from current location or other location of available loads, by trailer type and within an adjustable radius of up to 300 miles. I've downloaded and done a quick run-through with the app, and a particularly nice ...
‘Safety Belts Save Lives’ — an art contest for the kids
February 10, 2011
Here's an opportunity for the arts-prone grade-schooler in your life to show his/her stuff to the Commercial Vehicle Safety Belt Partnership, a wide a collaboration of the FMCSA and various work safety and law enforcement organizations. The “Be Ready. Be Buckled” art contest for children is now in its fourth year, asking children to enter with some kind of expression ...
700,000 prophylactics yanked from cargo container
February 9, 2011
You just can't discount the humor in some cargo thefts -- long as, of course, it's not your load getting boosted. While in the cases of the zoo-bound camels and tiger heisted in Quebec or the stolen load of green highlighters in South Carolina there was at least a probability, albeit a small one, that a reader may have felt ...
‘Showing Severe’ w/ Texas dump fleet
February 8, 2011
I met the Redwines of Nederland, Texas, at the Great American Trucking Show last year by the back bumper of Jerry Redwine's prize-winning 2007 Peterbilt 378 tri-axle dump (pictured). The labor of love is a hardworking truck in Redwine construction business. Powered by a Caterpillar C13 boosted to 600 hp and an Eaton 8 LL off-road transmission, the tri-axle main ...
International, Kenworth dealership owners give name — and more — to medical tower
February 7, 2011
A $5 million gift from Marshall and Katherine Cymbaluk of Everett, Wash., owners of the Motor Trucks three-location International dealership in Western Washington state and Kenworth Northwest, with six locations in Washington and Alaska, made possible the new medical tower of Providence Regional Medical Center in the Cymbaluks' hometown. The center thanked them for what ranks as the largest philanthropic ...
Best jobs of 2011: ‘Truck Driver’ ranks 171st
February 4, 2011
And that's out of a total 200, listed from "best to worst" by the folks at careercast.com and publicized in a Wall Street Journal piece early in January. They claim to have based their rankings on five separate factors -- physical demands, work environment, income, employment outlook, and stress -- and "Truck Driver" ratings in those categories all stand at ...
International ocean carriers, truckers, navigate trouble in Egypt
February 3, 2011
When I made a brief note about unrest brewing over rising food prices and the general employment situation in the North African states of Algeria and Tunisia in my post about the 2008 oil bubble (and current one, if we can consider it such -- final word still out on that), little did I know how much would change in ...
Snow, snow, more snow; making the most of it
February 2, 2011
A Pilot Flying J stop on I-70 in Warrenton, Mo., is the subject of reporting on National Public Radio today, and I'd bet you can guess the subject matter. Hear audio of the story, which will be available at about 7 p.m. ET this evening. Suffice to say that truckstop employees Terri Brackney and Greg Stratton have quite a story ...
‘Carhartt Tough’ contest finalists include two truckers
February 1, 2011
Not exactly long-haul drivers, John Irish from West Allis, Minn., and Bubba Peters from Seattle, Wash., are two of 12 finalists in the national Are You Carhartt Tough? Contest. Voting will continue from today through Feb. 28 at www.CarharttRental.com, and two grand prize winners will be selected based on the public’s votes.
The contest began a year ago and asked for nominations, ...
Curtain falls on new scale house inspection technology, opens on EOBRs
January 31, 2011
I just finished a visit with Lieutenant James A. McKenzie and troopers at the Greene County, Tenn., scales on I-81, where among other events I had the perhaps unfortunate occasion to witness an oversize hauler being put out of service due to a brake inefficiency. But perhaps more interestingly, today is the day, McKenzie said, that the pilot program the ...
TyroneMalone.net adds a Facebook page; more on driver pay
January 28, 2011
Since I wrote about TyroneMalone.net site proprietor and owner-operator Ken Harris in the October edition of Truckers News and in Overdrive in smaller form around the same time, Harris has continued to make strides keeping the memory of onetime diesel showman Tyrone Malone and his apocryphal Bandal Diesel Racing Team alive. Most recently, he's launched a Facebook page for fans to ...
Willie’s Place to be Willie’s no more
January 27, 2011
Perhaps you've heard the news. On Jan. 31, the Willie's Place truckstop in Carl's Corner, Texas, will reportedly see it's last day under current ownership. The stop filed for bankruptcy last year, and since then efforts to refinance a large loan with a New Jersey bank have failed, resulting in the impending transfer of ownership to SBL Capital Funding.
I talked with ...
Does less mean more? Driver pay in the CSA era
January 26, 2011
My feature in the January edition of Truckers News investigated a dynamic more and more fleets and their drivers are seeing coming to fruition as freight markets slowly return and, consequently, recruiting staffs expand and fleets begin to hire again. Nothing new there during a recovery, particularly, and the slow pace of this one might seem in direct contradiction to ...
Whole ‘lot of squealing’ on Missouri highway ramp
January 25, 2011
Yesterday, reported KMBC TV in Kansas City, Mo., a highway resounded with "a lot of squealing" after a hauler on the ramp from I-435 North to I-35 turned over rounding the curve, spilling a load of live pork. A few of the pigs reportedly perished but a larger number escaped the trailer's confines. KMBC gave the subsequent long capture efforts ...
Trucking effort in Wash. state to find child
January 24, 2011
As we know, dry vans have uses ancillary to hauling freight, not least among them their advertisement potential. You need only look to this month's Overdrive to find evidence of that in a pic of sister mag CCJ's yearly Five Flashiest Fleets' winner. A fleet headquartered in Washington State is using a similar tactic toward less commercial purposes, though.
Gordon Trucking ...
Making your voice heard on roads, hours
January 20, 2011
ROADS | The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), a group whose name pretty well describes it, is calling on highway users to add input to their preparations to take highway/transportation funding recommendations to Congress. Yesterday, they began a six-week campaign via their Facebook and YouTube pages to collect ideas/input from "travelers, truckers, commuters, cyclists – anyone ...
Introducing the ‘American Idol of clean energy’
January 19, 2011
Not the first time the budding-popstar world of American Idol has crossed paths with trucking in this blog, the singing competition, a veritable reality-television institution now entering its 10th season, has gotten so entrenched in the cultural imagination that it's already in the business of showcasing the kitsch items marking its history, an area once the province of, well, country ...
Moving business headed South
January 18, 2011
That's not as bad it sounds. Van operators, take heed. Today's news comes on the heels of a blog post by the folks at Penske Truck Rental, detailing the top 10 moving destinations in the country. Two of them are places I've left in the past -- Chicago (in 2006) and Charlotte, N.C. (1998). I don't know what exactly that ...
Toll evasion = life sentence for Chinese ag hauler
January 17, 2011
After public outcry over the severity of the life prison sentence handed down to a hauler of agricultural commodities for evading road tolls in China, the Chinese government is reportedly revisiting the sentence and has put court officials who handed it down under investigation themselves, according to this AP report on the subject.
The hauler, Shi Jianfeng, had apparently gotten around ...
Michelin Iphone, Android roadside service apps join Blackberry functionality
January 14, 2011
The further CSA gets in ongoing rollout, the more critical repairing noncritical vehicle defects is going to get for both owner-operators and company drivers, potentially counting as they do against the former's safety ranking in the Vehicle Maintenance BASIC and the latter's employment history. More and more, service shops and OEM parts manufacturers are making it easier to efficiently obtain ...
Revisiting the oil bubble, as diesel continues up, up, up
January 13, 2011
In the July 2008 issue of Truckers News, I reported on huge and speculative, long-only investment positions in commodities markets then contributing to the dramatic rise in crude oil and other commodities prices. Oil topped off at an historic high of near $150 a barrel that month, and if you were around trucking then I don't need to tell you ...
Got snow?
January 12, 2011
Here in the Southeast (though in Nashville I'm approaching the region's northern edge), it's been uncommonly wintry this week, as you can see from this pic, taken at the Love's on Trinity Lane at I-65. Further South, things have been much worse, though, evidenced in part by Myrtle Beach, S.C.-based driver Vernon Cook's 24-hour wait at an I-285 junction with ...
Fair or foul?: A trucking story on Onion satirical news site
January 11, 2011
Sandwiched between satirical headlines like "Fully Validated Kanye West Retires to Quiet Farm in Iowa" and "Virgin Mary Statue Crying for No Good Reason" today on TheOnion.com was this one: "Modern-Day Cowboy Rides 18-Wheeler Full of Entenmann's Products Westward."
Satirical newsmag The Onion has long been known for its lampooning of the mainstream press and, by extension, the dedicated members of ...
‘Recognition from the DOT’: uShip’s viral parody of ‘Social Network’ movie trailer
January 7, 2011
Perhaps you've seen it. The Social Network film about Facebook's founding told the story of company cofounder Mark Zuckerberg's success "taking the entire social experience of college and putting it online." The film's trailer, which pairs a choral version of Radiohead's "Creep" with scenes from the film, was expertly parodied by the folks at uShip with the title "The Shipping ...
‘American Trucker’ premieres on SPEED channel Feb. 24 — with a familiar face
January 6, 2011
Imagine my surprise when, upon clicking over to a YouTube preview of SPEED's upcoming "American Trucker" series, I came upon a familiar face within the first several seconds. That face was Sparta, Wis.-based Paul Sagehorn (pictured here with his father, Craig), owner-operator of two classic pop-culture Kenworths, one employed in the filming of the Movin' On TV series in the ...
Hats off for heroes at Fort Sam Houston. . .
January 5, 2011
My Truckers News Exit Only column this month details the long efforts of Marten Transport driver Candy Bass to grow a program she designed several years ago to send a positive message to wounded veterans of U.S. wars -- namely, that American truck drivers haven't forgotten about them.
This year the annual program of hat donation, as I detailed in ...
Skydiving to the ark: A Channel 19 2010 ‘Year in Review’
December 31, 2010
It's been a banner year for dramatic, contentious, weird and/or humorous trucking news here on the Channel 19 blog. I can't possibly predict how 2010 will be remembered years down the line, but read through the lens of this blog, well, it was nothing short of tumultuous, containing the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. (Readers, an informal ...
Truck Centers Inc.: ‘We have a winner’
December 30, 2010
Remember the "12 Days of Truck Centers Christmas" sweepstakes I posted on back in late November? Well folks, we have a winner, the Illinois-headquartered dealer network reports. Or "winners," I should say, as the grand prize winner was chosen from a month's worth of daily giveaways to drivers from 12 different states stopping into any of seven Truck Centers Inc. ...
New trucking thriller from former tank-hauler manager
December 29, 2010
Set in Charleston, W.Va.'s "Chemical Valley" just after deregulation of the trucking industry, former Quality Carriers and Mason & Dixon lines (among others) rep Rowland Henry Judge's Acid Stained Steel is a murder-mystery thriller of a novel, says Judge.
But that's not all, he adds. It combines those page-turning attributes with an examination of "the effect of deregulation on old-line tank trucking companies ...
Driver hours changes: Bummer of a proposal?
December 28, 2010
Expectation among many haulers leading into FMCSA's Dec. 23 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to change drivers' hours of service regulations was that at least some larger degree of sleeper berth flexibility would be reintroduced in order that, as so many have put it to me over the past year's worth of debating the issue, "truck drivers can sleep when they're ...
Former long-hauler makes N.Y.C. Met opera debut
December 27, 2010
Carl Tanner (pictured) worked as a long-haul driver before making moves toward pursuing a career in what New York Times writer David Belcher painted as his calling in a piece published in the Times yesterday, available online here.
Tanner, by the terms of his contract as stand-by in the role of Dick Johnson in Puccini's "La Fanciulla del West," will perform ...
‘Twas the Night Before Christmas — truckstop edition
December 24, 2010
"The only real difference between you and me -- I do it in one night; you do it constantly."
--Santa Claus at the truckstop, to a fellow hauler in the fuel line
Merry Christmas, all. Here's a little vid from the folks at driver training outfit Driver Solutions to give you a little holiday chuckle.
Thanks for doing what you do. ...
Texas technicians rope Rush rodeo grand prizes — vids and more from the event
December 22, 2010
Sorting though the rich experience that was Rush Truck Centers' Tech Skills Rodeo, held last week in San Antonio, is I've found a task best approached over weeks rather than days. If you missed the results, read on, or see my story from last week here. It's impossible to get it all into the space of a single post or ...
Auto-texting, safety-minded app available for Android, Blackberry
December 21, 2010
On the heels of the Department of Transportation's proposed rule to ban handheld cell phone use by commercial drivers, I've been hearing from haulers who object to being singled out on the issue, as seems to be the modus operandi of this department when it comes to driving behavior of late. Given the predominance of texting and talking four-wheelers on ...
Three weeks: FOIA turnaround for PSP information
December 20, 2010
On November 23, I made note of an avenue toward gaining access to crash and inspection information contained on drivers' Pre-Employment Screening Program reports. Working through the official FMCSA contractor, the fee to obtain a copy of the report to guarantee quality of the information is $10, but in my November 23 "Save $10 on CSA 2010" post I made note ...
Truck stop operators Sapp Bros. pen autobiography
December 17, 2010
Sapp Bros. Travel Centers' Bill and Lee Sapp have penned their collective autobiography, out now from Addicus. The book follows from their youth among seven Sapp children in southeastern Nebraska to the near-present, with the Sapp Bros. name a veritable legend among longtime haulers, particularly in the Upper Midwest.
In the year 1971, Bill and Lee, with brothers Dean and Ray, after ...
Positives in trucking dog days in Truckers News — and more
December 16, 2010
Since I blogged about musician Susanne Spirit's weekly shows at the TA East in Ontario, Calif., back in March, Spirit has continued to make great strides in combining her trucking-music act with her concern for the welfare of abandoned dogs in kill shelters. Her "Musical Truckin' Dog Adoption Program," conducted in concert with the Ramona Animal Shelter of Riverside County, ...
Scenes from the 2010 Rush Tech Skills Rodeo
December 14, 2010
I'm in San Antonio, Texas, this morning at the site of Rush Truck Centers' fifth annual Tech Skills Rodeo, which pits 65 (out of more than 700 entering) of the truck dealer/service center network's best diesel technicians against each other and a set of bugged vehicles. On the heavy-duty side of the competition, 15 techs each trying to beat the ...
Top road-trip songs at Custom Rigs, from Pioneer
December 13, 2010
Overdrive custom Class 8 dedicated magazine Custom Rigs recently reported news of Pioneer Electronics' first-ever poll of its customers that asked for the best "Road Trip" song. Willie Nelson's "On the road again" took top billing, while Pioneer reported, the guys were more likely to choose the the no. 2 track, "Born to be wild," while unmarrieds the nation over ...
‘Who’s inefficient?’ Four wheels or 18?
December 10, 2010
So asks New Cumberland, Pa., resident and owner-operator Tom Bowers in a letter to the editor published in the Harrisburg, Pa., Patriot-News, in response to a letter from another area resident heaping the bulk of energy inefficiencies in the transportation arena on the back of the big rigs of the trucking industry.
Bowers' argument for the comparable inefficiency of the auto ...
Custom Volvo Class 8 VHD pickup makes splash
December 9, 2010
Volvo Trucks is offering customers the experience of a lifetime at the company's New River Valley manufacturing plant in Dublin, Va., a little more interesting with the addition of a severe service model VHD built in modified pickup truck form.
The bright orange, one-of-a-kind Volvo VHD chassis has a full-size crew cab and a pickup bed. The four-door, five-seat vehicle is powered by an ...
Fair or foul? Self-examination via the four-wheeler perspective
December 8, 2010
We've brought it up from time to time here, no doubt -- no secret that the large majority of on-highway accidents involving large trucks follow an initial mistake made by the driver of a four-wheeled vehicle of one sort or another. By and large, truck drivers are justified in holding a desultory opinion of the piloting abilities of the motoring ...
Wikileaks offers window into Iranian trucking community
December 7, 2010
However you feel about the WikiLeaks organization's recent and ongoing release of classified U.S. diplomatic cables, there's no doubt that many of the releases offer fascinating windows into the ways of world power -- and more. Not least among the latter was the view a series of cables detailed at the Eurasianet.org site, dedicated to dissemination of news from Central ...
Tony ‘the truck stop tiger’ — calls from the driver community to uncage him
December 6, 2010
Nearly two years have passed since I first wrote about efforts by animal-rights activists (post from January 2009 originally on old Channel 19 blog home on Blogger.com) to require Gross Tete, La., Tiger Truck Stop owner Michael Sandlin to relocate the caged Bengal-Siberian tiger on the site of stop. It's been there as an attraction to curiosity seekers for years, and ...
Over the canyon rim — a grand, prize-winning truck driver’s photo — and more
December 3, 2010
This stunning view off the U.S. 89 bridge over the Colorado River near Page, Ariz., was shot by Gordon Trucking company driver Ron Nikirk, based in Oakland, Ore. Gordon becomes our fifth winner since we launched the contests in July via The Photographer: Truckers News Photo Group on Flickr.com, a development that followed nearly three years of slow build in ...
Rotella SuperRigs calendar now available…
December 2, 2010
On the cover of the annual Shell Rotella SuperRigs calendar this year is the custom 2007 Kenworth W900L of Myerstown, Pa.-based Scott Diller. Featured also on the December 2011 page in the calendar, Diller's clearly going for an old-school '70s hot-rod look with the truck's mods, which include 34-inch quarter fenders and smooth side panels. The photo's tranquil setting is ...
Retired long-haulers make folk-art metalwork strides
December 1, 2010
Long Neck, Del.-based Judy and Lou Hagen, according to the latest in the Delaware Cape Gazette's "Saltwater Portraits" series of profiles of community residents, came to their current metalwork artistry while running long-haul through Georgia in 1999. They saw "a piece of crude metal art," writes reporter Ron MacArthur.
"We came home and did some Christmas pieces,” Judy (pictured, photo by ...
Street-sign replacement program put on hold for 45-day comment period
November 30, 2010
Federally mandated changes to the design of local/state governments' corner road signs -- requiring mixed capital/lower-case type treatment with more reflective lettering, in effect a complete overhaul of existing signs the nation over by 2018 -- have been in the spotlight over the last couple days as a prime example of a wasteful culture in action.
"The federal government says THIS ...
Combating cargo theft: An interview with Schneider security director Walt Fountain
November 26, 2010
When I visited Schneider National’s Green Bay, Wis., headquarters in June for the carrier’s 75th-anniversary celebration, I got an up-close look at one of many efforts the company’s put in place over the years to enhance the security of its customers’ cargo in transit and at each of its 15 domestic facilities. Gate-security ground zero in Wisconsin allows 24-hour surveillance ...
Lisa Kelly to make appearance at bowl game Dec. 18
November 25, 2010
Whether you're getting opportunity to spend some relaxing time today with family around a dinner table, with friends at a football game, or you're out on the road, here's wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving from myself and the folks at Overdrive and Truckers News.
Speaking of football, keep the uDrove Humanitarian Bowl on your radar if you live in ...
Save $10 on CSA 2010
November 24, 2010
How to request your Pre-Employment Screening Program data from FMCSA without paying the PSP contractor.
Visit http://fmcsa.dot.gov/foia
Make your request in writing and include your name, address, and a telephone number via the snail mail address noted on the above web page or via fax at (202) ...
‘Bird Business’ with owner-operator Larry Leckrone
November 23, 2010
32: The percentage of truckers who said in a recent poll that they would choose a carrier based on its ridealong pet policy. The number tracks closely to the 42 percent of haulers who said they did in fact run with a pet of some kind in the truck -- computed as part of Truckers News' research into its most ...
Sweepstakes: Twelve days of Truck Centers Christmas
November 22, 2010
Headed through Illinois or Missouri over the next couple weeks? Here's some fun news to start the Thanksgiving holiday week about Truck Centers Inc.'s "Twelve Days of Christmas" sweepstakes promotion. Stop by any of their locations -- in St. Louis and St. Peters in Missouri and Troy, Morton, Springfield, Mt. Vernon and Decatur in Illinois -- to register free by ...
Hauler of U.S. Capitol Christmas tree on national tour
November 19, 2010
Owner and part operator Jeff Underwood of Jeff Underwood Trucking is on the haul of a lifetime. Read Underwood's story, published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Wednesday ahead of his planned stop in his hometown of Dahlonega, Ga., next week, and you'll come away feeling the same anticipation and pride it's clear he does for his role in moving the U.S. Capitol ...
Sioux City Truck Sales’ Peterbilt calendar
November 18, 2010
A Network of four Peterbilt dealers in the Midwest -- Sioux Falls, S.D.; Council Bluffs and Des Moines, Iowa; and Norfolk, Neb. -- is distributing a custom 2011 calendar called "Working Trucks of the Midwest." Customers may obtain the free 2011 calendar at any of the group's stores, while supplies last.
But the photos are available online, too, in full at the Sioux ...
CSA 2010 Driver’s Handbook now live
November 17, 2010
You may have seen it out at the truckstops already, but if not, I thought I'd take a moment today to alert you to our CSA 2010 Driver's Handbook, now online in an interactive digital version. Combining reporting from Overdrive and Truckers News editors (from myself to Overdrive Managing Editor Lucinda Coulter and others) with information provided directly by the ...
Helpful partner — Western Express driver Derek Dorsey
November 15, 2010
Not only is longtime Western Express driver Derek Dorsey a great asset to the Nashville, Tenn.-headquartered fleet -- company recruiting director Matt Neal calls him "our go-to guy, great with customers, great with training new drivers” and "one of our absolute best" -- he's also quite accommodating to everyone he meets, including writer-photographers like me. When I rode along with ...
‘Alcolocks’ coming to U.S. Class 8s?
November 12, 2010
In the area of emissions, the regs tend to roll from California to the rest of the country; in safety/in-cab technology, though, quite a lot has sailed west across the big Atlantic pond in recent years, from EOBRs to governors and more....
Soul/funk icon Syl Johnson started with a solid foundation
November 11, 2010
I bet you can guess just where, right?
Syl Johnson (pictured) is a Mississippi-born singer-songwriter who came of age in the late 1950s and 1960s in Chicago -- he's perhaps best known for the "Is It Because I'm Black?" single penned and released in the wake of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in the late 1960s but today has fallen into ...
Growing mode for cartel drug trafficking: Class 8 trucks, says NPR
November 10, 2010
In a story that aired on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" program Monday, John Burnett dropped what is to my thinking a recently developing bombshell on hopes from some that a resolution to the U.S.-Mexican cross-border trucking stalemate would be soon in coming. "In Nuevo Laredo," he wrote, site of the high-volume trade border crossing in the World Trade ...
Women in Trucking go for Pepsi Refresh grant
November 9, 2010
In a presentation at the Truckload Carriers Association/ACS "Perfect Storm" conference in Nashville, sponsored by Overdrive's owners, Randall-Reilly Business Media and Information, Women in Trucking's Ellen Voie (pictured) talked about her organization's work identifying and remedying difficulties some women, particularly new entrants, face in the industry, in particular opportunities for harassment that arise in training situations. "We are working with ...
Living with diabetes — behind the wheel of new book ‘A Life of Control’
November 8, 2010
November is national diabetes month, and as such today we bring you a story included in a new book about the difficulty of living with the disease, Published by Vanderbilt University Press. The excerpt -- from A Life of Control: Stories of Living With Diabetes, by Alan L. Graber MD, Anne W. Brown RN and Kathleen Wolff RN -- tells ...
CSA 2010 to bring increase in driver pay?
November 5, 2010
The news over at the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday included a release from editors at J.J. Keller, emphasizing the reach of CSA 2010 beyond just for-hire truck carriers. "When the term 'motor carrier' is used," says Transportation Management Editor Robert Rose, "many people immediately connect this to mean only 'trucking companies.' In actuality, applies to all carriers with a ...
Tow-truckers echo long-haulers on Discovery’s ‘Wreck Chasers’
November 4, 2010
In many ways, tow-truckers are the absolute opposites of long-haulers. The tow-truckers of the Discovery Channel's new "Wreck Chasers" series, on a three week trial run that began with two half-hour episodes Monday, are trying to beat their competitors to the sight of a wreck, of course. In Philadelphia, among whose tow-truckers the story is set, all still operate on ...
Reefer-unit pioneer to be honored tomorrow
November 2, 2010
News from Thermo King today is that Frederick McKinley Jones, a company pioneer in the development of portable refrigeration units, will be honored for his contributions to science and technology at the Tekne Awards gala Wed., Nov. 3, at 7 p.m. at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Jones passed away in 1961, but his "invention of portable refrigeration systems for the transportation ...
Trucking up out of the water with Nashville fleets
November 1, 2010
While the story of the disastrous flooding my hometown experienced last May is still being written in many respects (the downtown TravelCenter of America location, as you'll note from the picture, is still closed), there have been some recent bright moments. Vice President Tim Smith with TCW told me a couple weeks back his carrier's terminal on heavily-affected Visco Dr. ...
Collective trucking effort donates caps for wounded soldiers
October 29, 2010
When Marten Transport driver and 3 milion safe miler Candy Bass (pictured) saw a documentary on the Walter Reed Army Medical Center a few years ago, she was so affected by the scenes detailing the lives of wounded veterans that she determined to do her part:
1) She wanted to do something that would be of practical benefit to soldiers dealing ...
YouTubing truckers hit NPR Charlotte station
October 28, 2010
Julie Rose of Charlotte, N.C., NPR affiliate WFAE.org (a voice I remember from my times south of the city in Rock Hill, S.C.) picked up on the phenomenon of the YouTube community of truck drivers with a story, available at the WFAE.org site this past Monday, that features some familiar faces. Among them was included good ol' Bobbie Boofay and Keys Truckers ...
Trucking to the Bowl Championship Series
October 27, 2010
Five trucking sponsors have partnered to make possible a college football bowl game to be held on December 18 in Boise, Idaho, with a 5:30 p.m. ET kickoff on ESPN. With the Truckload Carriers Association, broker organization the Transportation Intermediaries Association, the Healthy Trucking Association of America and Women in Trucking, uDrove, a provider of smartphone-centric trucking software, gives its name ...
Trucking’s newest competitor: Rail? Forget it. . . .
October 26, 2010
A new competitor in the freight market is emerging. We've written about them from time to time, of course, from all the attention the railroads are getting on Capitol Hill and on the airwaves to those nifty cargo bikes eating into local delivery drivers' payloads.
Enter the pedestrian. The Super Power Pusher (pictured), say makers NuStar, Inc., "has the muscle to ...
Allen Smith, others at Memphis Trucking Expo Oct. 23
October 22, 2010
It's a banner month for first-time trucking shows in my home state of Tennessee. After Nashville last week, not to be outdone, of course, is Memphis, the site of the first annual Memphis Trucking Expo, presented by the folks at Worldwide Transport and Permit Service. If you missed Jan McCarter and Doug Jones (pictured) in Nashville last week, tomorrow (Saturday, ...
How much of your business goes to the trash?
October 21, 2010
The folks over 40mpg.org, the site of an advocacy organization working to make "40 miles per gallon the standard for all automobiles in the United States," makes note of recent automakers' trumpeting of operations changes making certain of their U.S. plants zero-waste facilities, most notably Subaru and Honda.
Which sent my computational brain into immediate overdrive, no pun intended. Bear with ...
Novelist takes literary achievement to the truckstop
October 20, 2010
Beyond the spotlight of trucking industry news in July this year a novelist was hard at work promoting a book, her first, in which one of four main characters is a long-hauler turned local delivery driver struggling to maintain a connection to his son. What's more is where the writer was promoting the novel.
Making three stops from July 23-39 between Salt ...
Nashville Rush Chrome & Class show winners
October 19, 2010
Friday I reported from the site of the first annual Chrome & Class Truck Show at the Nashville location of Rush Truck Centers just east-southeast of downtown in Smyrna. If you missed it, read about the first day at Nashville Rush, a story largely about the Eady family of truck owners/builders from Hillsboro, Ala., and their custom 1996 Peterbilt 379, ...
‘Workin’ Class’ — a new trucking tune from Leland Martin
October 18, 2010
It's named after owner-operator Colin Stuart's "big ol’ Peterbilt all decked out and tricked out with beautiful murals of horses on the sides of the trailer," country crooner Leland Martin told my colleagues over at Custom Rigs magazine -- "Workin' Class" is the latest in Martin's catalog, written after meeting owner-operator Stuart and posing for a photograph with Stuart's eponymous ...
Live from the first-annual Nashville “Chrome & Class” truck show
October 15, 2010
Rex (left) and Hayden Eady are the father (owning and operating) and son (building, along with Hayden's older brother Hayward) pair behind the 1996 custom-built Peterbilt 379 pictured. The Pete, powered by a Caterpillar 3406B and 15-speed tranny, was responsible in large part, says Hayden, for the rechristening of the latter's Hillsboro, Ala.-based Hayden's Truck Repair business as Eadybilt Customs ...
Oh driver where art thou?
October 14, 2010
Dear driver, I have been hearing there is a shortage of you. Is it because all the owner-operators are succumbing to that CSA 2010 bug and electronic logs? Or are all those newfangled hybrid trucks themselves cross-breeding with a new monster species of broker to drive them out of business?
Or, just maybe, since whether by virtue of force or choice home ...
Vitality in strange cargo — operating tables, diners, sea turtles and more. . .
October 13, 2010
If you haven't seen it out on the truckstop racks, check out the digital edition of the October Truckers News for a fun feature profiling several haulers who move some of the more unique truckloads out there, including honeybees, Lance Armstrong's prize-winning bicycles and two of my contributions to the package, loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings in a Gulf of Mexico ...
Haul Road to the Himalayas: Interviewing Lisa Kelly
October 11, 2010
The current "IRT: Deadliest Roads" season of the "Ice Road Truckers" reality-TV series franchise on the History Channel aired its second episode last night, after a launch the previous Sunday that garnered 3.4 million viewers. It pits North American drivers from past seasons, as well as a new face, against the incomparably rugged terrain and chaotic cities of the Himalayas.(Read ...
Complimentary advertisement… and: PSP unlikely to be the new DAC
October 8, 2010
Driver with a lens-load of cool
It's been a few months since we checked in with on-road crooner Howard Salmon, so he checked in with us, sending along this picture he happened upon recently, with a pre-emptive answer to the obvious question.
Yes indeedy, he wrote, "I am also sending this to Geico Insurance."
He caught the gekko, he says, chewing on ...
‘Personal and poetic meditation’ on American trucking
October 7, 2010
The creators are art photographers Frank Tribble and Tracey Mancenido, a husband-wife team who a couple years back, NPR reported last week in their "Picture Show" feature, took up the trucking life for a time to get a clearer understanding of the world. The result, a photographic exhibition at the Sasha Wolf Gallery in New York City perhaps appropriately dubbed ...
Pre-employment screening in the CSA 2010 era
October 5, 2010
It's not all about DAC anymore. With CSA 2010 carrier scores in six of the seven violation categories in CSA 2010 set to go public beginning in December, carrier attention to inspection reports has ramped up to a high level -- for drivers, a primary piece of the regulatory puzzle in all of this is the somewhat new Pre-employment Screening ...
A coffee for St. Christopher
October 4, 2010
What says trucking more than a good cup of coffee? Though I haven't done much coffee-related reporting since the March 2008 Truckers News story probing haulers' coffee preferences, I suspect that with the turmoil we've all seen in the economy since that time, the 16 percent of drivers reporting they made their own brew on the road have been joined ...
A driver so good the shipper gave him his own desk
October 1, 2010
Talk about burying the lead: The Osakis Review, a paper published from Osakis, Minn., ran a great profile of resident Larry Herzog (pictured, by Greta Petrich), who runs beef destined for McDonald's customers' stomachs for carrier Hensley Trucking, also of Osakis. In the profile, Herzog spends due time stressing the difficulties he faces daily in unscrupulous motorists, congestion headaches, parking ...
Say ____ to electronic logs
September 30, 2010
Outside of leased owner-operators reacting to strong encouragement, for lack of a better phrase, from their lessor fleets, I've yet to actually speak to an owner-operator who's voluntarily adopted an electronic logging platform that conforms to the federal definition of an EOBR, i.e. essentially an electronic logging system that is tethered to the engine's electronic control module. Not to say ...
Still ‘dressed for success’ — Henry Albert’s opening salvo at GATS PIB
September 29, 2010
Overdrive 2007 Trucker of the Year, independent owner-operator Henry Albert (pictured, right, with our current Trucker of the Year, Mike Crawford), delivered an opening salvo at Overdrive’s Partners in Business seminar Friday, Aug. 27, at the Great American Trucking Show in an address that elucidated the effects of a very-small adjustment in his business that, Albert said, led to “increased ...
Dangerous roads — for animals — cataloged in California, Maine
September 29, 2010
The last time Truckers News addressed the subject of dangerous roads, you might forgive us for having focused on the obvious, the treacherous mountain passes, cold and snowy winter roads and congested urban centers that make the job of the nation's truck drivers a sometimes harrowing adventure. Researchers and other users of the California and Maine Roadkill Observation Systems, though, ...
Having the cake and rolling it too
September 27, 2010
You may remember our reporting on the "Biggest tractor-trailer cake in the world" on the occasion of Iowa 80 Truckstop's Walcott Truckers Jamboree's big anniversary more than a year ago now -- the confection, an 8-foot-long creation, still probably holds the title, but we've gotten word via the Birmingham News of another (pictured, by the Bham News' Michelle Campbell), a ...
One week left in Sept. Truckers News photo contest
September 23, 2010
The contest asks for pictures of "Truckstop scenes," such as this night shot I took in the early a.m. Wednesday, at a Georgia Pilot on the way back from Atlanta with Western Express driver Derek Dorsey. The prize, in addition to publication in Truckers News, will be something of a "field guide" to the basics of shooting, by Bryan Peterson, ...
Former Arrow Trucking driver advocate Donna Creekmore needs your help
September 21, 2010
At the collapse of her employer, Arrow Trucking, just days prior to Christmas in 2009, she was there when stranded drivers the nation over needed her help getting home -- Arrow driver advocate "Momma" Donna Creekmore was up for much of four days straight in those heady times, though her own troubles were beginning as well. Creekmore, in addition to ...
The case against locking the trailer; Sioux City salute
September 20, 2010
Cargo theft is on the rise, we report this month in Truckers News, and truckers using rear adjustable bar locks on their vans may be an ever-more-frequent reality. But for every argument there's an at least somewhat valid counterargument, and one hauler's unfortunate truck fire on I-70 in Indiana near Terre Haute points to the, at least occasional, potential beauty ...
It’s true — ‘Sexiest Trucker Alive’ did go to the Himalayas: ‘IRT: Dealiest Roads’ premieres
September 17, 2010
They were speaking truth over at Esquire mag when, as I wrote here in June, they noted that their annointed "Sexiest Trucker Alive," Ice Road Truckers star and Alaskan Dalton Highway hauler Lisa Kelly (pictured), was in the Himalayas filming a television show. It was announced today that the new History Channel series "IRT: Deadliest Roads," in which Kelly and ...
NASCAR truck series driver Caitlin Shaw honoring truckers going ‘green’
September 17, 2010
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver Caitlin Shaw, pictured, at 21 years old has taken on quite a task that is also something of a promotion and meant specifically to honor the nation's haulers -- particularly, she says, those many individuals "who have made a difference in the environment, whether it be a large change, or something as simple as ...
Brit newspaper catches hauler unawares, mouth (and hands) full
September 15, 2010
Yes, the photo is real, the driver moving quickly down the M25, which circles London, and yes, he appears to be eating cereal, using both hands. As Ted Thornill of the Metro free newspaper (available in 16 British cities) wrote, "He clearly doesn’t care much for the Highway Code. It firmly states that you should ‘avoid distractions when driving’ such as ...
Small-biz trucker finds his niche with versatility in Battle Creek, Mich.
September 14, 2010
Jim Wood of Maverick Express in Battle Creek, Mich., was interviewed by the Battle Creek Enquirer newspaper, the talk published in the exceedingly rare (in newspapers) Q&A format. Remarkable results for the trucker, whose boss at the carrier he worked for in his mid-30s told him, as he told the story to Enquirer reporter Andy Fitzpatrick, "'Jim, big companies don't ...
Congestion diary: And you thought we had it bad. . .
September 13, 2010
Next time you're sighing or beating your steering wheel over some mammoth traffic jam on your way into Atlanta, Chicago, L.A. or other American city, consider this: Two successive 60-plus-mile traffic jams, some lasting more than an entire week, have plagued the Beijing-Tibet Expressway into China's capital city in the past month, highlighting some congestion woes that, well, make our ...
‘Never forget’: 9/11 remembered by owner-operator Dick McCorkle
September 10, 2010
Perkins Specialized leased owner-operator Dick McCorkle (pictured) was there, or at least within a few miles of there, when jet airliners were flown into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center complex on Sept. 11, 2001. Specifically, he'd just delivered to a trade show at 42nd St. and 7th Ave., near Times Square. "I was delivering New ...
Speeding ticket insurance?
September 9, 2010
A new service offers "Prepaid Traffic Tickets," investments as a sort of hedge against the likelihood of getting a speeding or other ticket in a specific amount of time in the future -- all while stressing that it does not in fact condone or encourage folks to speed.
Basically, the company issues a voucher to an individual for a specified price ...
APU rebates, Leslie train horns for East Tennessee’s Sams Trucking
September 8, 2010
Check out my story in the September Overdrive magazine on various financial incentives -- rebates, grants, various low-interest loan programs -- state governments are making available to owner-operators and carriers to encourage the purchase of idle-reduction technologies like APUs, cab heaters and the like, and you'll find in the lead this pic of the new Thermo King TriPac unit on ...
Massachusetts soda delivery driver bags $50,000
September 7, 2010
His name is Scott Matthews, and in case you missed the original television airing Sept. 1, you can check him out competing with a game partner in Atlanta Falcons cheerleader and Georgia state senate deputy press secretary Natalie Strong on the online broadcast of NBC's Minute to Win It show. A company driver in the private fleet of a soda ...
Driver ‘health movement’ hitting stride
September 3, 2010
On the blog of the U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a shout-out was posted yesterday to the Heathy Trucking Association of America and the Trucking Solutions Group 61+ Driver Health Advisory Committee's health walk at GATS last week, which I wrote a little about in advance of the show. Held at the Dallas Convention Center on Saturday, Aug. 28, the walk ...
Stand-up treadmill desk begs question…; cargo theft connection to Jason’s Law?
September 2, 2010
In the P.R. copy blasted out with announcements about the new TrekDesk Treadmill Desk, the company talks about the dangers of the "sedentary lifestyle," noting studies of various characters that have probed "rising obesity rates and ill health caused by 'Sitting Disease' (a term given to the multitude of syndromes and diseases caused by sedentary lives)."
Though I imagine the flatbedders ...
Getting bolder with her shoulder
August 31, 2010
Three years ago, when Ellen Voie (pictured) launched the Women in Trucking organization, she boasted that she'd be so happy when membership levels reached 1,000 that she'd get the org's logo tattooed on her body. On Aug. 26, the first day of the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas, she followed through on her boast live before listeners of the ...
Reporting cargo theft — balancing act in more ways than one…
August 30, 2010
Tune in Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern for the Truth About Trucking online radio program with host Allen Smith. My fellow Truckers News/Overdrive Senior Editor Max Kvidera and I will be guests on the subject of cargo theft, the topic of note in the latest, September edition of Truckers News, out now in digital format and hitting the truckstop racks as ...
Rolling out to Dallas ‘Too Hot to Trot’ 5K
August 27, 2010
Well, folks, I finished -- no surprise to regular readers, I'd guess, since you've seen a little proof I can do some long-distance running. Get over a couple miles, though, for me, and it hurts. Add to that the constant walking around the show floor at the Great American Trucking Show (picture from the bobtail lot) here in Dallas I've been doing for past ...
Put your CD player in ‘Overdrive’ — hauler Joe Lee Smith reissues record
August 26, 2010
Sitting outside Overdrive sister mag CCJ's Commercial Vehicle Outlook Conference in Dallas yesterday and typing away on a story, one of the presenters, with whom I've talked in years past, walked by and nodded my way with a quip I've heard near countless times over the years from folks who know who I work for. "Put it in 'Overdrive,'" he said. I ...
In defense of food transport
August 24, 2010
Tip of the hat to Marathon Trucker Jeff Clark for this one (and, readers, if you'll be at the Great American Trucking Show, beginning this coming Thursday, join Clark and I and Jazzy Jordan, among so many others, at Truckers News' Fit for the Road program's Too Hot to Trot 5K Friday morning).... Self-described “liberal curmudgeon” and historian Stephen Budiansky, ...
Tune in tonight!
August 23, 2010
It's going on a year since I chatted with Daniel Audet of Truckstar Radio for my Truckers News "Exit Only" piece about TruckStar Radio, his online radio show. Audet, formerly a hotshot boat hauler and industry blogger, is still going strong with TruckStar, and tonight I'll visit with him on his show to talk about my August Overdrive story about ...
Wiper blades with a cause
August 20, 2010
The folks behind the AutoTex Pink wiper blades tell me the blades are sized to fit 85 percent of heavy-duty trucks on the road, as well as all manner of autos -- but that's not the most interesting thing about them.
The idea behind the blades comes from wiper-blade manufacturer Wexco Industries cofounder Paula Lombard, who wanted to create an automotive ...
Honeybees get revenge on bear
August 19, 2010
North Carolina Wake County Sheriff's Deputy Brandon Jenkins had to sit in his cruiser for upwards of 15 hours yesterday after a truck driver under a load of honeybees had been disabled west of Raleigh. "The truck driver," CNN reported, was on his way to Rocky Mount, N.C., and "had been hauling the bees at night, when they are quiet ...
Ice roads to Dallas; truck lot entertainment schedule for GATS
August 18, 2010
Next week, it's safe to say that all roads in the North American trucking world lead to Dallas, even the Canadian ice roads -- or at least those typically run by Yellowknife, Canada's Alex Debogorski, past "Ice Road Truckers" star, who will be on hand at the Dallas Convention Center for the Great American Trucking Show Aug. 26-28 at the ...
WNBA star and her mother, a former trucker, recognized by industry organization
August 17, 2010
Did you know that the most decorated player in the WNBA (and a four-time Olympic gold medal winner besides), former L.A. Sparks star Lisa Leslie, grew up the daughter of a career truck driver? I didn't, that is, until last week, when at the Staples Center in Los Angeles during a game between the Sparks and the Indianapolis Fever Christine ...
Live online CD release party for ‘When the Big Rigs Don’t Roll’
August 16, 2010
Join the www.AsktheTrucker.com proprietors this Wednesday for a live online exclusive release event for a new record aimed squarely at the politically conscious among you. "When the Big Rigs Don't Roll" is its title, and the country musicians/songwriters behind the 10 songs on the CD, David Ayers and Barry Allen, have birthed several winners in songs like the title track, ...
Trucking shutterbugs bring it in Truckers News first photo contest
August 13, 2010
Photographers brought pretty stunning images to the online photo forum we host at the the Flickr.com photo site for the first, July contest on the theme of "Junked or Forgotten Trucks/Trailers." Check out Bob McGilvray's runner-up "Rusy" here to see the quality of the work sent in from around the nation (McGilvray's been featured in Truckers News before, actually, when ...
Fitness and health to be big themes at GATS
August 11, 2010
Named for the laudable goal of launching truck drivers writ large past the statistical driver's average age of death (less 61 years, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 16 years younger than the average American), the 61+ Driver Health Awareness Walk of 2010 will take place Aug. 28 at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas, one ...
Original ‘Vince and Larry’ crash test dummies donated to Smithsonian
August 10, 2010
The U.S. Department of Transportation last month donated a number of “Vince and Larry” crash-test dummy costumes and related auto safety items to the Smithsonian Institution. You probably remember the PSAs from the 1980s, such as this one in which Larry convinces Vince to get out of bed in time for a crash test by noting that Barbara Mandrell was ...
New ‘gold trucks’ vid from owner-operator Howard Salmon
August 9, 2010
Remember that little mention I made a few weeks back about my serendipitous meeting with past Overdrive Trucker of the Month Howard Salmon (pictured), the one where I talked about participating in a bit of a video experiment with him singing at the fuel island (I held the camera, don't worry; he did all the singing)? Well, you can get ...
12 big legs on 18 wheels
August 6, 2010
Cargo thieves in Quebec didn’t waste much time dumping a truck and trailer they lifted while in transit to an Ontario zoo June 18. Just 25 miles from where the rig was stolen, the trailer was spotted. The truck was found a few miles down the road. Ron Petrie creatively reconstructed the scene in the Regina, Sask., Leader-Post: “Only when ...
NPR looks at truckers’ health issues and regulation
August 4, 2010
A radio story on regulators' scrutiny of truckers health aired last week Friday for a larger than usual audience -- on NPR by reporter Frank Morris out of station KCUR in Kansas City, Mo.
He introduced the heart -- or stomach -- of the story quickly: "Outside the Iron Skillet restaurant on I-70 east of Kansas City -- where you can ...
Punt on the spicy pork rinds
August 3, 2010
Add pork rinds to a haul in the Pacific Northwest and you might find yourself with a sore foot and back and a charge of “driving with wheels off the roadway,” or such was the case for a Mt. Vernon, Wash., hauler in July, Washington State Trooper Keith Leary told reporters at the Bellingham (Wash.) Herald. And that’s not to mention ...
Custom heavy haul: Introducing Modern Machinery Movers
August 2, 2010
Clark Tucker opened his Indianapolis-based small fleet Modern Machinery Movers as a single-truck operation in 2002 to capitalize on heavy-haul opportunities in the wind-energy sector, a move that has proved fruitful. Today he employs 10 drivers. “Growing up on a farm, I bought my first truck, a 1946 Dodge, and never looked back,” says Tucker. “I’ve been both a heavy-haul ...
‘No Zone’ redux
July 28, 2010
Speaking of the "No Zone" trailers I mentioned in my post from yesterday, about Con-way Truckload driver Toby Bogard's new Semi Aware book, I encountered this one (pictured) at the Green Bay, Wis., Driver Training Center of Schneider National when I was there in June for the fleet's 75th anniversary celebration. Dan Pearle, Schneider Director of Loss Prevention, told me ...
Con-way Truckload driver pens ‘Semi Aware’ book for teen drivers
July 27, 2010
But it's not just for teens, Toby Bogard says. The Crossville, Tenn., resident and seven-year Con-way Truckload company driver was approached in a truckstop not so long ago by a woman whose question left him at once baffled and moving toward something of an epiphany. She asked him why, if tractor-trailer rigs have 18 wheels, they weren’t able to stop ...
‘Nice mouse, driver’
July 26, 2010
The folks at Avant Garde Gifts, LLC, offer the MotorMouse, a computer mouse of wireless design and in varying colors -- and that looks like a sports car, as you can see (that the Porsche 911 you recognize). As company reps have it, it might well be a "great gift" for car lovers at Christmastime or for a birthday, is "perfect ...
From homeschooled in the cab to Harvard Law
July 23, 2010
Kerry Anderson may someday be the President of the United States. She's got the educational pedigree, at least, having graduated from Harvard and now contemplating law school -- what's interesting about all this is that according to the feature interview NPR All Things Considered cohost Michele Norris conducted with Kerry Anderson Wednesday, Anderson is the daughter of a long-hauling mother who ...
Suvey says DOT’s happy, how ’bout you?
July 22, 2010
We couldn't help but chuckle here at Overdrive HQ when we saw a particular press release blast from the U.S. Department of Transportation's halls a couple weeks back now. Its title, "Latest Survey Shows DOT Employee Satisfaction on the Rise," read to our trucking ears like a piece of news full of all manner of comic, satirical potential, given the daily ...
A Jazzy Jordan racecar design; more from the run
July 21, 2010
Since Jasmine "Jazzy" Jordan completed her run across the United States to benefit the St. Christopher Truckers Development & Relief Fund, haulers around the nation have used the internet to send out mini-tributes to her historic effort, from posted pictures (such as the one here from Robert Curran, of Jazzy signing his flatbed) and anecdotes on blogs and more; others ...
U.S. Army’s self-driving truck a long way from the action
July 19, 2010
Check out the latest edition of the DTI, or Defense Technology International, journal, and you'll get an electronic whiff of the latest experiment in a self-driving truck -- this one from Lockheed Martin and steered by the company's Convoy Active Safety Technology, or CAST, being employed on a few prototype U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center trucks ...
News flash: Owner-operator likes electronic logs
July 16, 2010
Jeffersonville, Ind.-based owner-operator Perry Famularo says he "was one of those guys who said, 'If you make me go to electronic logs, I’m out of here.'" Leased to Dart Transit, though, he was presented with the opportunity a couple years ago to try out one of the PeopleNet eLogs units the mostly owner-operator carrier was beginning to test and offer its contractors. As Famularo tells it, "Dart ...
Former trucker walloped by ‘double rainbow’
July 15, 2010
It was probably only a matter of time before a driver produced one of those viral videos that tickles the funny bones of million of users worldwide -- Paul Vasquez, described as a "former trucker" (according the Vasquez interview in the Merced Sun Star, he drove until about 2004, when his weight forced him off the road) who lives in ...
SuperShowRigs.com documents truck show stars — the rigs
July 13, 2010
If you missed it, get over to Overdrive sister magazine Custom Rigs' website for John Riccio's story about the recent Transport for Christ Truck Rally at the Lebanon Valley Expo Center in Lebanon, Pa., which "has rocked Lebanon for the past 29 years," Riccio wrote, himself the proprietor over at SuperShowRigs.com, a veritable treasure of Riccio and fellow photographers' work ...
‘No Parking’ — another day in the trucking headlines
July 12, 2010
As the folks with AsktheTrucker.com report a soon-to-be-released musical paean to the truck parking legislation known as Jason's Law, there are at least two new blows to truck parking availability worldwide:
The first comes from Arnold, Mo., where state rep and former truck driver Tim Meadows was on record supporting an aggressive local ban on truck parking on on- and off-ramps in ...
‘There Is a Cure’ — new song written for breast-cancer-awareness convoy
July 9, 2010
It's coming up Oct. 16, 2010, following the success of last year's inaugural U.S. event in Texas. At the TravelCenters of America location in Terrell, Texas, on I-20 at exit 503, the Convoy for a Cure for breast cancer will bring together truck drivers for a good cause, keeping alive and spreading the tradition of the initial 2008 convoy of the same name in Ontario, ...
Walcott Truckers Jamboree — starting now…
July 8, 2010
As I write this, driver attendees and others have no doubt begun to file into the big show, the Walcott Truckers Jamboree, at the Iowa 80 Truckstop in Walcott, Iowa. After noting this pic from last year's Thursday-night fireworks show and "Lights at Night" custom truck lighting competition, I'm wishing I could be there. As always, the Walcott show is ...
Dentistry: latest in driving distractions
July 7, 2010
It's been texting for a couple years now, after it was CBs and Qualcomm units and cell phones, and now DOT is reportedly eyeing other in-cab distractions for potential regulation beginning later this year. Then there was that rash of ugly outcomes after haulers either choked on or were otherwise distracted by food -- oh a-and there were those reports of ...
Another familiar name on the 2010 NTPA tractor-pull circuit
July 6, 2010
Mobil Delvac isn't the only top diesel oil name you'll see on the tractor-pull circuit this season. Since I blogged about Delvac's involvement as sponsor of the big Tomah, Wis., tractor pull in June, I've taken note of another on-highway oil mainstay's sponsorship of the high-profile Koester Racing team. Pictured are the Shell Rotella-sponsored pullers of father-son team Larry (black) and Adam (white/black) Koester. The Koesters came ...
Need a light load?
July 2, 2010
What's 9 ft. tall, 3 ft. wide and weighs 180 lbs.? We're not talking about the Sasquatch here, but rather the collective dimensions of these three roosters, posted Wednesday on the uShip site needing transport from Hesperia, Calif., to Virginia Beach, Va. The receiver? Well, a little informed guesswork tells me it's none other than the Pollard's Chicken restaurant locations opening this ...
Owner-operator keeping alive legacy of a frozen sperm whale — and so much more
July 1, 2010
Did you know there once was a trucker who started his career as a showman by hauling the frozen, preserved body of a sperm whale in a reefer around the country? If owner-operator Ken Harris is doing what he sees as his job, you do, and you'll remember him for a long time to come.
Tyrone Malone is the man in question, and Harris is ...
Meet the North Carolina ‘Swamp Loggers’
June 30, 2010
Working his operation from Jacksonville, N.C., Bobby Goodson, owner of Goodson's All-Terrain Logging, is one of several pioneers of the method of "shovel logging" he's become somewhat famous for today, thanks to the Discovery Channel's "Swamp Loggers" series. The reality show, depicting Goodson and crew's work in the low-country swamps, helped propel the Discovery Channel to near the top prime time cable network ratings earlier this ...
Jason’s Law support continues to grow
June 29, 2010
Monday, June 28, was the day supporters of the Jason's Law trucking parking safety and security legislation were calling for a united front from the community of drivers and others in the industry toward its passage; I was on the road most of the day, and I'd be willing to bet others were in similar situations and missed that call.
Among those requesting truck drivers to contact their legislators ...
Good to the last drop with trucker-invented Bottle Buddy
June 25, 2010
A story in the Akron Beacon-Journal from last week detailed the inventing prowess of dump-truck driver for Barbicas Construction and former long-hauler Charlene Cook, of Akron, Ohio. She unveiled her gizmo, the Last Drop Bottle Buddy, at the Invention and New Product Exposition, or INPEX, outside Pittsburgh June 16-18. The Bottle Buddy is essentially a sturdy stand and a cup on which you ...
‘Sexiest trucker alive’ goes to the Himalayas; more from Alaska
June 23, 2010
According to an interview published at the website of Esquire magazine, Ice Road Truckers star and Alaskan Dalton Highway hauler Lisa Kelly (pictured; photo by Rick Gershon of the History Channel) is not only the “sexiest trucker alive.” What’s more, she was speaking w/ Esquire writer Erik Price on sat phone from the Himalayas in Southeast Asia. “I'm shooting for another ...
My first run behind the wheel
June 22, 2010
Next time you ask if I've driven before, I can at least say "yes" before the qualifiers (well, "at 40 mph, if that," "with an automatic transmission," "no trailer on") begin. A visit to Schneider National headquarters in Green Bay, Wis., to bear witness to the truckload carrier's 75th Anniversary celebration June 10 yielded unexpected delights, let's say.
First, though, I got to try out one ...
Champion sumo wrestler/Idaho potato hauler
June 21, 2010
If rumored body-mass-index caps ever become a reality for interstate truckers (however doubtful that is), 420-lb. Kelly Gneiting (pictured, as featured in a Feb. 2009 edition of ESPN magazine) may well be there to prove the regulatory faults. As a sumo wrestler, he's in top shape, he said in this recent story, on the website of the Denver Post. You might not know ...
‘Big Cat Trucker’ offers new-driver advice at Great West
June 18, 2010
Rick Sylvester (pictured) started making videos at his hometown church in Houston about five years ago. From there, he says, his online productions “just took off.”
Shortly after he started his trucking career, Sylvester launched a YouTube channel documenting his first year and a half as a driver, shooting, editing and posting his own videos about trucking school and time on ...
Familiar name added to tractor-pull nationals’ list of sponsors
June 17, 2010
The team behind Mobil Delvac heavy duty diesel engine oil will sponsor the 35th annual Budweiser Dairyland Super National Truck and Tractor Pull, June 24-27 in Tomah, Wis. The event boasts six sessions of action-packed pulling over the course of the four days, and it's one of the largest motorsports events in the Midwest.
This year's competition is the only event on the ...
Celebrating Jazzy Jordan, round-up and recap
June 16, 2010
As I noted in my brief post yesterday, it's wonderful to see Jasmine "Jazzy" Jordan looking as happy as she does in this photo, taken just after her 3,162-mile run's finish yesterday in Times Square. Jazzy's father, Lee, had this to say about his daughter's happiness: "She deserves to be that happy. It’s tremendous that she made this."
Here here. As ...
Congrats, Jazzy
June 15, 2010
Jasmine "Jazzy" Jordan's father, Lee, forwarded this pic my way, taken after her finish just a couple hours ago in Times Square. Doesn't she look happy? Yes, I'd say she does.
For my story about her run, check out this month's cover story in Truckers News.
Talking recession, recovery and history in Oklahoma City with Marvin Rush
June 15, 2010
Amid recent headlines trumpeting growing manufacturing activity, freight volumes and truck and trailer sales, it’s tempting to look at Rush Enterprises’ expansive new facility in Oklahoma City off I-40 at the Council Road exit as yet another sign of the growing consensus that the Great Recession is either over or nearing its close and the trucking industry is in full-bore recovery. ...
Close encounters on the Alaskan ‘Haul Road’
June 14, 2010
Carlile Transportation driver Jim "J.D." Dobbs sees "a lot of wildlife" on somewhat regular runs on the Dalton Highway in Alaska to and from the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. "Moose, caribou, things of that nature," he says. "Some are close calls – when you come over a hill on the way to Prudhoe Bay and a large herd of caribou may be crossing ...
SpongeBob Squarepants underwear OK in truckstop coffee line
June 11, 2010
If you know Mike "Mustang" Crawford, Overdrive's 2010 Driver of the Year, you probably hear from him from time to time with an epic, often quite hilarious story. Last time we checked in on the Prime-leased Missouri owner-operator here Crawford told of his rig's accidental involvement in the Miami MLK Day parade.
Just yesterday, though, he called with another heck of a tale while I waited for an Omaha Orange-painted Bluebird bus ...
New Truckers News photo contests starting in July
June 10, 2010
In July, Truckers News, via its photo group on Flickr.com, is embarking on a new monthly series of photo contests -- the winner will have his/her photo published in the magazine and will receive an instructional book on photography. Each contest will be themed, so it may require a little looking around/searching -- I'm posting this early on so you can ...
3,000 miles for you
June 9, 2010
Jazzy Jordan reached the 3,000-mile mark yesterday as I was working on the story and vid below -- check it out for her father's call for all able truckers to join the run as it heats up to the finish line in Times Square next week. Photo courtesy the Jordans.
Jazzy Jordan approaches the finish line
June 8, 2010
Turns out Lee Jordan's early-May prediction that he and his daughter, Jasmine "Jazzy" Jordan, would be making their Times Square, New York City, finish point of Jazzy's run across the U.S. to benefit the St. Christopher Fund by a week from today was on-the-spot correct.
I spoke with Lee (pictured) yesterday and he said the pair were in Joppa, Md., approximately 170 ...
Good ink on Missouri truck driving championships
June 7, 2010
Among drive-image-building efforts that are decades-long institutions are the yearly state truck-driving championships, which in 2010 will culminate in the final national competition Aug. 3-7 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. The efficacy of the championships in the image arena was on full display in this story, published Sunday in the Springfield, Mo., News-Leader, about that state's own championships, held ...
From fuel price ‘nightmares’ to trucking book
June 4, 2010
Writer Mary Richardson, whom Atlanta-based Creative Loafing describes as a former editor with the Truckers Connection publication, had what she describes as "nightmares" during relatively modest spikes in fuel prices during the year 2006, shortly after she started working there. She "was having these apocalyptic nightmares about fuel prices getting so high that trucks would stop," she told Creative Loafing's Wyatt Williams, "causing ...
Mack TerraPro refuse truck ‘Sliced’ on History Channel
June 2, 2010
The star of last week’s episode of the History Channel television program Sliced was “tough, rugged and good-looking,” said makers of said star, a Mack TerraPro refuse truck that the show’s host, John McCalmont, showed backed up its exterior with EPA 2010 emissions-certified power in the guts.
Each week, the Sliced host uses a bevy of tools to slice objects apart, ...
Las Vegas newspaper columnist delivers ‘half-hearted’ trucker salute…
June 1, 2010
It's not exactly a big 10-4, but in her "Road Warrior" column in the Las Vegas Review-Journal a week ago, Adrienne Packer detailed her state's latest addition to the growing nationwide effort to pair state troopers with truckers to target four-wheelers' unsafe maneuvers around big trucks for citation. While Packer reflects a somewhat common feeling among the motoring public when ...
Ode to a well-stacked weekend warrior
May 28, 2010
As we head into Memorial Day weekend it's likely some of you out there will enjoy a rare round of golf with a friend or relative in town for once in a while. My father's coming to town, so I know I will, and it will be a perhaps more-than-rare round indeed. I don't play much -- or well -- ...
Grascals tour bus driver ‘Stubob’ Myrick’s Nashville flood tale
May 27, 2010
Stuart "Stubob" Myrick (pictured) of the Gallatin, Tenn., area paid his driving dues behind the wheel of several dump trucks, in the late 1970s, then logging miles over the road with a grocery-distribution outfit pulling vans and, most recently, a flatbed loaded with empty containers in the private fleet of a container refurbishing company. In short, he's well earned his current gig: "semi-retired," he says, ...
Latest in distractions: One word, three letters, rhymes with ‘text’
May 26, 2010
Earlier this week, as Kansas became the 26th state to enact a behind-the-wheel anti-texting law applicable to all drivers, the folks at hands-free headset-maker Jabra released results of a survey/study conducted in April that threw a little wrench (and more!) into all the late discussion of worrisome activities drivers engage behind the wheel of fast-moving vehicles.
While 28 percent of survey respondents admitted to text-messaging ...
Trucks on Pakistan’s Grand Trunk Road
May 25, 2010
If you missed National Public Radio's recent reporting along the Grand Trunk Road, an historic connection between far eastern and western sections of the Indian subcontinent, from Bengal to Peshawar in Pakistan, you probably missed this report by John Poole from a truckstop outside Islamabad. The stop, a rather informal spot on the Grand Trunk Road from his description of it, ...
Colorful codriver, trucking blues, health care reform and more in this month’s Truckers News
May 24, 2010
If you've missed the May edition of Truckers News on the racks out at the truckstops this month (I know copies in the more popular stops tend to go quickly), check it out online. Many great stories therein, including an examination of the health-care reform bill (the upshot: jury's still of course out on how the bill will affect the ...
Hauler narrowly averts disaster at I-24 Middle Tennessee sinkhole
May 21, 2010
As if the Tennessee Department of Transportation didn't have enough problems already, considering the damage recent flooding did to infrastructure in the middle part of the state, Tuesday earlier this week a reportedly 25-foot-deep, 40-foot-wide, 18-foot-long sinkhole opened up on I-24 eastbound between Nashville and Chattanooga (pictured, Courtesy TDOT) that nearly swallowed up a big truck, folks on the scene reported.
Luckily, TDOT employee David Shelton was in the ...
Mission USA’s July I-75 “Tour of Hope”
May 19, 2010
Ed Eubank, pastor of a nondenominational church in northwest Martin, Tenn., is hoping he can "make a better connection with truckers so that we can better serve the people out there in genuine need." Eubank, see, is also the primary man behind the humanitarians at Mission USA (www.missionusa.org), an organization providing relief to families and individuals displaced on the nation's roadways.
"We’ve got a 40-foot ...
Running below the E-O-B-Radar…
May 18, 2010
In my research for the cover story of the current edition of Overdrive, "Getting on board," about the growing use of electronic onboard recorders for logging among many major carriers throughout the United States, I had a conversation with expediting husband-wife team Bob and Linda Caffee about curiosities of their electronic logging system.
“We drove to a military base,” Bob said of ...
To toll or not to toll: In PA I-80 controversy’s wake, debate over road privatization re-emerges
May 14, 2010
When a Devon, Penn., lawyer representing big commercial construction contractors insists that "Nobody's against this," referring to tolling major interstates as a method of funding their upkeep and expansion, I suspect he's not talked to anyone among the nation's long-haul owner-operators and drivers. Opposition to tolling, in my experience, is near universal among the former, particularly, and it's no surprise: the diesel ...
Quebec filmmaker debuts ‘Vapeurs diesel (Diesel fumes)’ documentary web series
May 13, 2010
Quebecker Alain Fournier (pictured, of a fashion) is a filmmaker focusing his efforts on fantasy work and -- this is where we come in -- online documentary. His first big web series, on YouTube and titled "Vapeurs Diesel" or "Diesel Fumes," looks at long-haul truckers, among them the character of "Big John," featured in the snapshot you'll see below. Though ...
Doggie online social networking; Nashville flood update
May 12, 2010
Let's put the disclaimers up top, how bout?
"No humans were harmed in the making of" the www.k9friendsunited.com doggie social-networking website, says founder Diarmuid Scullin, a long-hauler who started out with a simple, if somewhat off-the-wall idea. "Have you ever noticed that the vast majority of dog owners tend to be warm, open and friendly people but maybe because of time ...
Country artist showcased on Texas fleet’s reefer vans
May 11, 2010
Baldwin Distribution Services of Amarillo, Texas, launched its refrigerated operation in 1981 with 5 tractors and 7 trailers. Today, Baldwin boasts more than a dozen times those numbers, and operates nationwide -- lucky for them, and also country artist Brian Milson, whose new "Saltwater Cowboy" single is being promoted nationwide with floor-to-ceiling billboards on the sides of many Baldwin dry vans.
Milson ...
Pink truck more than just pretty
May 10, 2010
When Daren Parker prepared to ask a senior driver in his Raleigh, N.C.-based Parker Gas propane-delivery fleet to drive a new medium-duty Kenworth T370 straight tanker, all bets were off as to what kind of reaction Parker could expect from said driver. The truck, after all, was painted pink. "You don’t see many trucks painted in pink," he says, "so some ...
Owner-operator assesses options for rig flooded at TA
May 7, 2010
The Cumberland River in and around Nashville, Tenn., Thursday, May 6, finally dropped below flood stage, and for many affected in the area, the cleanup process, if not already well underway, began in earnest. At the now-dry site of the inundated TravelCenters of America location downtown (the clean-up there, said sources at the site yesterday, could take up to six weeks), ...
Jazzy and Lee rear-ended in N.C.
May 6, 2010
In Burlington, N.C., on highway 70 yesterday, Lee and Jazzy Jordan were rear-ended "just as we were coming to a stop right around her J" to get ready to run, says Lee. "I had the four-ways on, and I guess this woman she didn't even look."
Jazzy has made great progress on her truckers' benefit run across the United States since ...
UPDATE: Scenes from Nashville trucking central
May 5, 2010
There's been little to no coverage of a big portion of Nashville's industrial and transportation base, much of it situated along rail tracks north and south of the Cumberland River and east of downtown, that was still, as of yesterday, under water.
In my last post, I mentioned Vitran Express and intermodal carrier TCW, both situated, along with other truck operations, Hascall Steel ...
More from greater-Nashville flood
May 4, 2010
Things continue wet, here, for anyone near the banks of the flooded Cumberland River, which reached levels not seen since well before flood-control efforts largely made it manageable since the last major event in the 1930s, which means that the flood level might easily be described as "100-year" or some longer period -- "epic" is probably good enough, I imagine.
The situation ...
Flooding in Nashville, from basements to truckstops
May 3, 2010
I spent a large part of the afternoon Sunday shop-vaccing close to 40 gal. worth of water from the basement of my East Nashville home, unplugging overwhelmed gutters and generally through it all trying to stay dry. I got off pretty easy. At least some of the many stranded over-the-road drivers around here today are able to make the most ...
Flatbedders, had enough of tarping? . . .
April 30, 2010
You might recommend the folks at Fast Wrap to your shipper customers, who do the kind of work you see in the picture here, a wrap of a jet engine. They've got mobile crews in more than 60 locations around the country who do the work, and the wrapping material is then recycled by the folks at Fast Wrap themselves. They typically ...
Models of efficiency: Introducing Fikes O/O Scott Grenerth
April 29, 2010
Finley, Ohio-based owner-operator Scott Grenerth, 40, I met in Nashville the day I ran with Jazzy Jordan (she's nearing Statesville, N.C., now -- go go go!). He was in the area headed to a pickup and brought his cycle out (pictured) to ride along as we ran. Turned out he was in the area frequently, and he's lately discovered the great Shelby Bottoms Greenway, ...
Tonight: CSA 2010 round robin, webinar on gaining authority
April 28, 2010
A message yesterday from the folks with AsktheTrucker.com about their online radio show, Truth About Trucking, scheduled for 5 p.m. EST this afternoon, detailed the 40 questions the program hopes to answer about CSA 2010 (see below for a full list), delayed from July implementation for carriers to November but no less fraught with complexities and, yes, areas provoking all ...
Animal magnetism, or lack thereof, on the road
April 27, 2010
Sarah Nielson, writer of the "That's What She Said" entertainment/pop culture column at In Utah This Week claimed yesterday that she was, and I quote, a "Turn On for Truckers...", right there in the title of her post about the perceived phenomenon. (Here's Nielson's bio, with picture, at her home site.)
But I imagine the men among you might not take too kindly to the ...
Captain Kirk, owner-operator
April 26, 2010
The parallels between space travel and trucking have not gone unremarked-upon in recent times -- you might recall a blog post from a year and more ago I made about an online video game whose concept was cargo hauling in deep space -- and considering the decades-long phenomenon that has been the Star Trek TV series and movies, it was probably only a matter of ...
Lester “Buckshot” Winfree rises from owner-operator to 2010 person of the year
April 23, 2010
Lester "Buckshot" Winfree (pictured) has come a long way from his start in trucking in the 1960s. When he launched the Winfree Cattle & Rice company with two trucks late that decade, writes Record Newspapers reporter Robert Hankins in a story accompanying the newspapers' naming of Winfree as Orange County, Texas, "Person of the Year" for 2010, Winfree couldn't have imagined that he would ...
Flex time — ATA lays down support for sleeper berth/HOS flexibility in comments to feds
April 22, 2010
The latest wrinkle in the ongoing debate over potential changes to trucking hours-of-service regulations, for which so many drivers have offered various proposals for injecting flexibility into the system, is the biggest trucking-company organization in the nation's support for codifying split rest in the sleeper berth. "Allowing shorter documented sleeper berth periods would promote safety and health," ran a portion ...
Introducing Wayne Dollar, a story-telling quilter who loves trucking, too
April 21, 2010
Though he perhaps needs no introduction, since you may have met him at his booth at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas last year, owner-operator Wayne Dollar (pictured), 54, not only stitches his own quilts, he's been winning awards with three of his uniquely themed creations since he started making them last summer. A trucking-themed quilt, with the moniker "Trucking Around" ...
Truck driver for governor: “Singin’ Sam” Little’s Alaska campaign song
April 20, 2010
Since I blogged about "Singin' Sam" Little's campaign launch for the governship of the northernmost U.S. state, Little (pictured, left, with his wife, Denise, and Pat Holt) has been laying the groundwork for the run, part of which included a visit to my home city of Nashville, Tenn., where he met Tennessee's Lieutenant Governor, recorded a new campaign record at Pat Holt's studio and ...
Joy of sharing — win some diesel oil, Nascar VIP tickets, maybe a portable toilet?
April 19, 2010
A new sweepstakes put on by Shell Rotella opened today and is asking drivers to share what they feel is the toughest road in America by the end of August. The company's "Road-Tested Challenge," in exchange for operators' stories, offers a chance for drivers to win a VIP NASCAR experience with Richard Childress Racing, along with hundreds of instant prizes, including Shell Gift ...
A modest proposal for hours flexibility: ‘Gold Card drivers’
April 16, 2010
Trucker/marathoner/blogger Jeff Clark offers a well-thought-out idea for hours-of-service flexibility, giving the stellar, safe drivers out there a new name and the freedom to use their status to run how they please: "Gold card drivers" are "drivers who do not get into accidents," he says. "They don’t get moving violations. They don’t get out-of-service violations, and they do not do ...
Grassroots victory over proposed NY truck ban
April 15, 2010
Since the New York State protest convoys of November 2008, organized in part by the Mohawk Valley Truckers and Citizens United chapter, the issue of a big plan of truck-route restrictions on state highways in New York has seen growing opposition, with large groups among various industries joining trucking groups in decrying the state's plans to get as many through ...
Doyle Blackerby writes his life in trucking
April 14, 2010
The Gadsden Times in Alabama published a rich story this past Sunday by correspondent Harry D. Butler about a great American original in Doyle Blackerby, 38-year commercial hauler, born in lower-state Leeds, Ala. His career followed the development of the interstate highway system, beginning just out of the Army in 1950 (where he'd served as a driver) with a small company based ...
New video: The perils of promising to run with Jazzy…
April 13, 2010
"Promising to run with Jazzy is like making a promise to God, but God will forgive you if you break your promise." --Lee Jordan, small fleet owner and father of 17-year-old runner Jasmine "Jazzy" Jordan, currently running across the U.S. to benefit the St. Christopher Truckers Development and Relief Fund
And so, for those who might have needed it, below find ...
Newton’s laws of motion at work on NYSE?
April 12, 2010
Every driver knows, at least intuitively, Newton's third law of motion, right? Or is it the first? In any case, it typically runs something like "for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction," and is meant to describe momentum and the interaction of objects. The wheels and tires, propelled by the truck's engine, give it momentum enough that the ...
Amid industry discussion of EOBR rule, smartphone logging apps proliferate
April 8, 2010
Though the FMCSA's just-published limited-mandate and performance-standards rule for electronic onboard recorders (EOBRs) for logging did next to nothing to open up the market for tools beyond the paper log and expensive devices tethered to the truck's ECM, smartphone applications with similar functionality continue to proliferate.
The UDrove app and online storage service, released earlier this year (functional on iPhone, Blackberry and Android devices) enables ...
Third time’s the charm? Feds say no to tolling I-80 in Penn.
April 7, 2010
A development that could mark the end of a long saga (you could make a case that it goes back to the 1980s -- heck, even that it begins prior to the establishment of the Interstate Highway System itself) happened yesterday with the third federal rejection of an application by the state of Pennsylvania for authority to toll Interstate 80 within ...
In praise of a good scale
April 6, 2010
A scale can be the bane of a truck driver's existence, turning a long-held friendly rural-shipper relationship sour when an inaccurate estimation of cargo weight is found faulty 50 miles down the road at the nearest weigh point. That 50-mile return trip gives a driver a lot of time to think about just who is at fault.
Though I imagine some ...
Trucking through hours-of-service flexibility and EOBRs
April 5, 2010
With a new rule mandating electronic on-board recorders for a boosted number of hours-of-service (HOS) noncompliant carriers, the ongoing HOS listening sessions and FMCSA review of the current hours rule and the expectation among industry parties that an across-the-board EOBR mandate may be in the offing several years down the road, the issue of work time and outside control of that ...
Mack plant on ‘American Loggers’ tonight
April 2, 2010
The Discovery Channel's 'American Loggers' series, as you may remember, features in part the Pelletier Logging family, whom I last wrote about here when their friendly business rivals the Crawfords' played one particularly funny battery-powered prank on them of an early March morning.
Before that, I happened upon pictures from the Discovery crew's filming at Mack's Macungie, Pa., facility, as they ...
New play brings ‘respect’ for drivers to the stage
April 1, 2010
"It's been more than 30 years since Hollywood had White Line Fever," wrote Denver Post Theater Critic John Moore in this article, "'Diesels' Fuels Respect for Truck Drivers,' about the Denver Center Theatre Company's production of their in-house-written new play, "Mama Hated Diesels," that premiered March 25 and is running through early May at the Stage Theater in Denver.
And, Moore adds, it's taken an equivalent amount ...
J marks the spot: Running with Jazzy in Nashville, Tenn.
March 31, 2010
Or, actually, Donelson and Hermitage, both part of Metro Nashville, and then into Mt. Juliet briefly on a trek that was a personal best for me in terms of uninterrupted, long-distance running. I achieved 4.6 miles over the course of the first 50 minutes Jasmine "Jazzy" Jordan ran Tuesday morning. The 17-year-old is on her way across the United States to ...
Long-haul quilting bee
March 29, 2010
This blog, in addition my Exit Only column in Truckers News, has been in part devoted to the off-highway pursuits of the nation's haulers. It'd be impossible for me to count the drivers I've talked to engaged in advocacy, trucking image-buiding efforts, music, arts, new-media activities and so much more. But the Wall Street Journal has just scooped me big-time by ...
Don’t miss the ‘Class Act’ on the show lot at MATS
March 27, 2010
“Class Act,” a 1995 Peterbilt 379 (pictured) in the Paul K. Young Memorial Truck Beauty Show competition ending today in Louisville, isn’t your typical truck show entry. It’s not the creation of an owner-operator, custom shop, fleet or dealer. The folks who beautified this truck, in some cases, don’t even have their driver’s license.
“Class Act” was restored from scrap condition ...
Highlighting cargo theft
March 26, 2010
One week after St. Patrick’s Day, on Wednesday my hometown newspaper, the Rock Hill, S.C., Herald, reported that a locked trailer hooked to driver Barry Cousar’s tractor, parked at the Lake Marian Truck Stop on U.S. 21 at I-77, was burglarized. Bandits made off with $28,000 worth of green highlighters, prompting reporter Kimberly Dick to ask the obvious question of the thieves' ...
Volume 3 of ‘Truckers Tracks’ — and a new song for Jazzy Jordan — debuts
March 24, 2010
When Doug Jones moved to Nashville, Tenn., from Delaware in the 1990s, he was a musician, but the guitar and harmonica player was in town at the invitation of longtime friend and former late-80s-era Allman Brothers keyboardist Johnny Neel, who had launched his Straight-Up Sound Studio on Nashville’s south side to do session and production work. “I was a musician,” ...
Local fame for Goodyear highway-hero finalist
March 23, 2010
The Gloucester Times of Gloucester, Mass., reported on the heroic achievements of one of the town's own this weekend -- Stephen Page, driver for Pit Bull Trucking, was on I-80 July last year near Clearfield, Pa., when he noticed fire along the roadside and inspected it to find a tractor pulling doubles on having run off the road and burst ...
Monday-morning wake-up call
March 22, 2010
I imagine many readers will have already taken note of the horrifying video of the Rona Williams' Renault Clio hooked sideways to the front bumper of a big Arclid Transport cabover running at highway speeds on the UK's A1 freeway for a minute or more before the rig's driver noticed he'd been involved in an accident, as reports have said.
If you ...
Beating the Dutch — women truckers fire at Guinness World Record
March 19, 2010
I'd bet you didn't know it, but the Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of female truck drivers was set by an all-woman truck convoy held in 2004 in the Netherlands. At least so say the folks trying to beat it at the Mid-America Trucking Show next week. As reported on several blogs and industry sites in the past ...
‘A door just opened’: Jason’s Law gains steam
March 17, 2010
What might well go down in history as the biggest trucking story of 2009, at least as goes drivers' efforts to push for industry change for the better, is that of Jason's Law, named after N.Y.-based driver Jason Rivenburg after he was robbed and gunned down while parked at an abandoned grocery in South Carolina. I've written about it here ...
The 5,000-mile pet-rescue haul
March 16, 2010
Musician Susanne Spirit's shows three times weekly at the TravelCenters of America-East location in Ontario, Calif., are a combination of country performance and public outreach to and from the nation's truckers, with one of their prime components offering pet-adoption services to drivers, finding loving, rolling homes for those cast away.
Spirit and co. recently found a high-profile pet of its own in ...
Anonymous trucker heroism after officer’s high-speed injury
March 15, 2010
When Eastern Adams County, Pa., officer Richard H. Phillips, 40, caught the back end of a tractor-trailer at the intersection of U.S. 30 and state road 94 south of Harrisburg in rural eastern Pennsylvania, he was in pursuit of a small car flying eastbound on 30 for unreported reasons, and when his vehicle burst into flames he suffered what is being ...
Allis-Chalmers on-highway engines? — Ted Streit’s restoration adventures…
March 12, 2010
Mercer leased owner-operator Ted Streit also happens to be the owner of a shop doing custom and restoration work in Suring, Wis., called Fast Transport. More than a year ago, he called me up after seeing some coverage of fellow Wisconsin resident (Sparta) and owner-operator Paul Sagehorn's restoration of two original TV KWs, one from the Movin' On series and the other ...
Driver-led health walk at MATS; video interview with O/O Dick McCorkle
March 11, 2010
At the "It's a Teams Life" blog home of expediters Bob and Linda Caffee, you'll find all manner of good information about the business of trucking, from the singular point of view of this versatile and experienced couple.
But a recent item caught my attention, as it reminded me of three fairly recent conversations I've had with the Caffees, 2007 Overdrive Trucker of the Year ...
The grand gesture — rival Maine log-hauling families spar
March 10, 2010
The Pelletiers and the Crawfords of Maine are known far and wide for their success in the log-hauling business in the north woods, the Pelletiers the subject of the Discovery Channel's American Loggers series, which I wrote about in December when they took delivery of a couple new Mack Titans.
The Crawfords, meanwhile, deserve and have gotten plenty recognition of their ...
Watermelon Slim’s on-the-road ‘Escape From the Chicken Coop’
March 8, 2010
Clarksdale, Miss., resident, longtime Oklahoman and North Carolina-reared blues musicmaker Bill "Watermelon Slim" Homans plays a mean slide guitar. And "I was an above-average harp player," he says of his early years making music, his first record of work-song blues coming out in 1972. But when he hears what young blues players like Craig Lawler and Jason Ricci can do with the harmonica today, ...
Staring down coming CARB regs
March 5, 2010
A great story in the California-based Porterville Record highlighted the difficulties being faced by a particluar 5-truck fleet in Ducor, Calif., Andromeda Transport, owned by Dave Schwartz. Schwartz (pictured, right, with his mechanic), as he told reporter Sarah de Crescenzo, considers himself a "modern-day environmentalist" in his commitment to keeping his older trucks in tip-top operating condition, thus enhancing their longevity, ...
CSA 2010 — questions of accountability, fairness
March 4, 2010
A video interview with driver Steve Bugg about this Georgia-based carrier's experience in the CSA 2010 pilot test program. CSA 2010, set to go online nationwide, changes the model for safety rating and enforcement in many ways for both carriers and drivers. Bugg questions the very basis of the program, at the same time acknowledging the legitimacy of his carrier's ...
Saying goodbye to Michigan’s Te-Khi and Tekon independent truckstops
March 3, 2010
Soft freight and high fuel got you down? You're not alone. Though business for the nation's truckers has picked up since the extremely slow period we all saw last year, difficulties continue for many, and for two independent truckstops in Michigan the pressures were just too much. Writing in the Battle Creek Enquirer, Andy Fitzpatrick told a story today at once of ...
Runner for truckers’ health passes halfway mark
March 2, 2010
It's been a wild haul for Jasmine "Jazzy" Jordan, the 17-year-old Olympic-caliber cross-country runner who recently reached the halfway, 1,500-mile mark in her run across the U.S., carried out to raise awareness for truck driver health and health-insurance availability. You will remember Jazzy from my post in November, about her appearance on the Internet radio show TruckStar.
She's on her way to Memphis ...
The costs of waiting out the storm
March 1, 2010
Beth Brelje, writing in the Pocono Record of Pennsylvania, visited with several truckers waiting out a snowstorm in a Wal-Mart parking lot off I-84. Such waits have been legion for the nation's haulers this season, with record amounts of snowfall hitting places where a snow deluge is not such a common thing. It may be common enough in the northern ...
Truck driver/author Tim Costello remembered in NY Times
February 26, 2010
I missed the news of the passing Tim Costello (pictured) in late December last year. Coming across it via the website of the New York Times, which had ran a nice roundup in the paper of his life and work, I'm struck as always by what so many individual haulers are able to accomplish in addition to keeping American supplied in their long ...
Ruan Transport founder remembered at memorial ceremony
February 25, 2010
The $2 bill, you may not have known, was a calling card of Ruan Transport founder John Ruan, who passed away at age 96 on Sunday, Feb. 14, and was remembered fondly by many in a lighthearted tribute ceremony in Des Moines attended last week Thursday by more than 600 people.
After the celebration, reported David Elbert in the Des Moines ...
Word from the Magic Man: ‘Let’s get this show on the road’
February 24, 2010
In the November issue of Truckers News, my editor and colleague Randy Grider wrote about Michael Mooney (pictured) in his lead column, "Magic Man." Mooney, a performer based in Cartersville, Ga., is deft with all manner of magician's tricks, but he also has a compelling story to tell, which he never misses the opportunity to do.
One of his regular haunts, the TravelCenters ...
Piling on — overweight fines reaching new heights
February 23, 2010
If the headline seems too outlandish to be true of a truck that actually had some sort of permit -- "Truck bound for drilling site 49.7 tons overweight" -- think again. Enforcement officers in Towanda, Pa., reported the Star-Gazette of Elmira, N.Y., have cracked down hard of all manner of weight infractions due to, some in the trucking business suspect, ...
Nashville driver reaches out to targets of hate graffiti
February 22, 2010
This story, published in the Nashville, Tenn.-based daily City Paper, highlights the efforts of a truck driver to represent the best of his community to a group of Somali immigrants and their house of worship. When the Al-Farooq Islamic Center, a community meeting hall and mosque, was tagged with the words "Muslims Go Home" and a cross symbol on Wednesday, Feb. 11, ...
Remembering a genuine American — Yellow Freight driver Karl Krueger
February 19, 2010
It is with sadness that I that I relay news reports that confirm the death of a true American -- Karl Krueger of Sioux Falls, S.D. (pictured), a union driver for Yellow Freight who made his mark on the trucking world and general public with a campaign for the presidency of the United States. A five-rig crash near the end of ...
Another drop in the ‘No Truck Parking’ bucket
February 18, 2010
Fayetteville, N.C., Observer reporter Myron Pitts put out a clarion call in a recently published editorial for the North Carolina DOT to do the prudent thing to increase safety outside the Motiva Enterprises fuel terminal in the area and add at the least a turning lane for trucks backing up waiting for entry on Shaw Mill Road.
The article, "Truckers say no-parking zone means trouble," revealed ...
Baltimore columnist: ‘Can’t avoid jackknifing? Don’t be a truck driver’
February 17, 2010
Michael Dresser, writing in the Baltimore Sun after the deluge of snow that blanketed the East Coast over the Super Bowl weekend, singled out several jackknifed rigs and their drivers in the Baltimore area as "Public Enemy No. 1." One such jackknifing incident, he writes, turned I-95 into a parking lot for the entirety of that Saturday afternoon.
In a more ...
Trucking industry self-policing, Montana-style
February 16, 2010
How's this for taking matters into your own hands?
After a few truck accidents on Montana highways 93 and 35 around Flathead Lake in the western section of the state, one of which spilled several thousand gallons of gasoline into soil precariously near the body of water, the public called for a ban of all truck traffic on the north-south routes, ...
Olympic downhill skiing, brought to you by dump trailer
February 15, 2010
Ice road trucking it isn't, but I couldn't help but notice in opening television coverage of the Winter Olympics, ongoing around Vancouver, B.C., an exceptional shot of a tractor pulling a dump trailer loaded with nothing but pure white snow. That's right, while the U.S. has had no short supply of the white stuff this year, getting the slopes around Vancouver in working ...
Continental HSR rides well on uneven terrain in Super Bowl ad
February 12, 2010
If you saw Budweiser's "Human Bridge" ad during the New Orleans Saints decisive defeat of the Indianapolis Colts to claim victory in last Sunday's Super Bowl contest, you may have missed one key piece of the spot, a split second shot of a Bud truck's tires rolling over the human bridge (pictured). Says Continental Tire's Jackie Pobiega. "We were pleased to see ...
Owner-operator’s record hits Roots Music charts
February 11, 2010
I'll bet Overdrive October 2009 Trucker of the Month Howard Salmon, an independent you may likewise remember from a couple posts (here and here) late last year about his part in the Convoy for a Cure festivities in Texas, is having a good old time watching news of all the snow folks all over the country are suffering through. He is, after all, out ...
OO dispatcher takes on truck brokerage industry
February 10, 2010
Straight into battle with a large piece of the trucking world goes Mr. Paul Todd, an Augusta, Ga.-based owner-operator dispatching service provider and the subject of my February Exit Only column "Surrounding the Middleman" in Truckers News (follow that link for the story). Todd's the author of the Industry of Thieves book. Released last year, Todd's book makes the case for excessive truck brokerage charges ...
FMCSA finally listening to drivers?
February 9, 2010
On the subject of the hours of service, my entire time covering the trucking industry has been to the ever-more-visible backdrop curtain of calls (to really mix metaphors) to introduce some sort of flexibility into the current, rigid 14-hour window for drivers to take short sleeper berth periods and not risk losing valuable driving hours. The current FMCSA administrator, Anne Ferro, ...
Interviewing Overdrive 2010 Trucker of the Year Mike Crawford
February 8, 2010
Always a pleasure, it is, to get a call from Mike "Mustang" Crawford (pictured), the Prime-leased owner-operator who is Overdrive's 2010 Trucker of the Year (follow that link for my story about him in our February edition). I got one such call just last week. Crawford told me about his truck's recent inadvertent inclusion in preparation festivities for the Martin ...
Wild game cooking classes spawned by ice-roads coincidence
February 5, 2010
As Todd L. Disher quipped last week in the lead of his piece for Alaska's Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman newspaper about Carlile Transportation driving instructor Phil Kromm, "it’s only natural an episode of 'Ice Road Truckers' would spawn a series of culinary classes focused on gourmet wild game."
Kromm, see, is an avid propane griller of wild caribou and other Alaskan delicacies, which he butchers ...
Truckers key in averting mix-up in Granite Falls, Wash., bypass
February 4, 2010
In the Everett, Wash., Daily Herald newspaper late last week a story appeared about two roundabouts being constructed on a new bypass of the growing Granite Falls, Wash., community in the central part of the state, very near vast National Forest areas. According to the story's writer, Bill Sheets, truckers were instrumental in pointing out a fatal flaw for any bypass route, for ...
Fillmore, Ill., trucker carves wooden truck models with lifelike detail
February 2, 2010
Profiled last week in the Dectaur, Ill.-based Herald-Review, Jeff Miller is a truck driver with his family's Miller Lime Service. He also wields a wood-carving knife with considerable skill, a fact he's turned to building wooden models of classic truck-tractors and farm tractors for many a year. Unlike more well-known model builders in the industry, such as De-Elegant Model Truck Fleet, who use polyurethane molds for ...
Satirical news mag picks up on texting ban ironies
February 1, 2010
Humor mag The Onion is known for picking apart the news of the day, and the news business, in often satirically cutting fashion -- in a story published years ago in its pages it ran a picture of an orange-jumpsuited prisoner wearing a crown of thorns with the headline "Christ kills two in abortion-clinic bombing." It picked up on the ironies ...
Conway Truckload VP Randy Cornell jumps out of plane
January 29, 2010
Though it's unclear how exactly this is a safety-improvement motivator, Randy Cornell, safety VP with Joplin, Mo.-based Con-way Truckload, sky-dived from 10,000 feet after the fleet's drivers met a safety challenge to get its "accident rate down by a creditable 34 percent in just five years," as reported at HandyShippingGuide.com and elsewhere. "The figure equates to less than 8 accidents per million miles driven according to ...
More local fame for driver/songwriter Larry Morris
January 28, 2010
The Missouri-based Daily Dunklin Democrat newspaper once again featured a driver I had the pleasure of meeting in Nashville late last year. Campbell, Mo.-based Double G Trucking hauler Larry Morris's "Cotton Fields to Nashville" song was selected as the title track for a Johnny Cash tribute record, a coproduction of TRS Music Group and Plush Records. The companies' heads, A.J. ...
Ban eating while driving too?
January 26, 2010
Though the writer played it as an example of distracted driving, could it be an argument for more flexibility in the hours of service? Whatever the case, given today's news that a nationwide texting-while-driving ban is in the offing, I guess it couldn't be helped that Joseph Rose of the Oregonian newspaper wrote on the Hard Drive blog of 45-year-old Los Angeles-based trucker ...
Blow dealt to industry ‘bad actor’
January 25, 2010
As someone who talks to proud and professional owner-operators and company drivers on a daily basis, I'm no stranger to a particularly common sentiment: the notion that the actions of a very few within the trucking industry strike huge blows to the collective image of the many. Whether it's a criminal broker-fraud scheme, a big mistake that leads to a ...
25-year-old trucker makes it past ‘American Idol’ judges
January 22, 2010
At American Idol auditions in Orlando, Fla., 25-year-old Matt Lawrence breezed past the judges with a soulful rendition of Ray LaMontagne's "Trouble." What most viewers might not have noticed was Lawrence's occupation -- he's a manager with his father's trucking company in Starke, Fla. Less sanguine, perhaps, is the fact that he's also done time for bank robbery (at age ...
New indexing tool helps OOs/carriers determine what freight rates ‘should’ be
January 21, 2010
Tools like Transcore’s Rate Index Pro and Internet Truckstop’s Fuel Desk Plus have in recent years offered for users of the load board services and other subscriber owner-operators access to real-time load market data along individual lanes and in specific regions, leading to a broker-carrier negotiation situation where, for the first time in history, individual owner-operators and larger carriers can ...
‘Truck’ front and center in MA Senate victory
January 20, 2010
National media, at the behest of the candidate/soon-to-be-senator himself, are putting a GMC Canyon pickup at the center of his (some say) upset victory over the Democrat running against him for Senator Edward Kennedy's former Senate seat in Massachusetts. If eTrucker.com polls we conducted in August and December are any indication, it's appropriate that a truck (if, admittedly, only a ...
Have truck, can’t hunt
January 19, 2010
Over-the-road drivers deal with all manner of annoyances, some rising to the level of outright injustice -- I think immediately of the numerous times I've watched a fellow auto-driver cut across three lanes of traffic at 70-plus mph within mere feet of a rig's front bumper, to name just one -- but writing in the Montana newspaper Billings Gazette, reporter ...
iPhone app as dealer lot
January 15, 2010
The folks at CommercialTruckTrader.com have introduced the latest in iPhone apps from the heavy duty trucking industry, and with it comes the following slick, simple, well-soundtracked video, detailing the app's truck-searching and social functionality. And thinking about on the past year or so, which saw at least three trucking-related iPhone apps detailed in these pages -- the most interesting being the ...
One Arrow driver’s story, through the eyes of the Schneider National hauler who picked him up
January 13, 2010
Nacogdoches, Texas-based Schneider National driver Robin Reese recently told me a story that ranks among the absolute most positive I've heard to come out of the bankruptcy of Arrow Trucking, which before officially filing as bankrupt late last week abruptly ceased operations a few days before Christmas, leaving drivers the nation over in the lurch and wondering just how to proceed. ...
UPS hauler weighs in on foggy driving
January 12, 2010
In Gary Richards' Monday "Roadshow" column in the Silicon Valley Mercury News paper, Richards called on Aptos, Calif.-based UPS trucker Dan Casas to help answer the question of a writer about the safety of closely following a big rig in fog to get through a dangerous drive. Casas was gracious and knowledgable in his reply.
South Pole ice roads redux
January 11, 2010
More pictures from South African Antarctic research expedition -- now that's extreme intermodal.
Owner-operator ‘Singin’ Sam’ Little launches campaign for governor of Alaska
January 8, 2010
“Singin’ Sam” Little has dedicated one of the Kenworths in his Little Country small fleet to pull parade floats and other materials during his own 2010 campaign for the governorship of Alaska. The sometime country singer Little has also issued a new record, "Truck Driver for Governor," that features a tune updated from his original penned during the national independent ...
Cranking up the new year — queue everbody’s favorite Sammy Hagar tune, will you?
January 6, 2010
With unfortunate toll hikes in New York, haulers got another late Christmas gift with the new year in the implementation of an Illinois state law that raised maximum interstate speed limits, formerly split between 55 and 65 mph for trucks and cars, respectively, to an even 65 for both.
Introducing the ‘ice road truckers’ of the South Pole
January 5, 2010
South African Times-Live correspondent Tiara Walters is the first female writer-in-residence with that country's team of research scientists probing the barren landscape of the South Pole, and her Pole Dancing blog recently chronicled the team's trek across what many Americans will be familiar with from the History Channel's Ice Road Truckers series. " Challenger drivers from the defence force ...
Best coffee on the road?
January 4, 2010
The Knoxville News-Sentinel newspaper reports that Pilot Travel Centers is launching several new marketing campaigns in our new year, including not only a new Facebook fan page but an extension of the one suggested by the image included here. As News-Sentinel reporters put it, "The company’s fleet of 325 tanker trucks now display the message 'Best Coffee on the Interstate' ...
New vid: an interview with Truckstar Radio host Daniel Audet
December 31, 2009
A video interview with Truckstar Radio host Daniel Audet
Permitting Tony the truckstop tiger
December 30, 2009
After a year and more of challenges to the legality of Tony the truckstop tiger's residence at the Gross Tete, La., Tiger Truck Stop by animal rights activists, the AP reports the owners have obtained necessary permits from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to keep the tiger. South Carolina-based hauler Kris Ewing took the opportunity of a Christmas run ...
‘Most Wanted’ lumper apprehended in Phoenix
December 29, 2009
After a twisting series of events that included a reported call from an over-the-road hauler stating a fugitive featured in August on the 'America's Most Wanted' television program was in the cab of his truck, the Phoenix New Times reports that Michael Chaves (pictured), wanted for questioning about the April 2009 murder of then-fellow lumper/sometime driver Dale Anderson at a truckstop ...
Helping friends in need: Arrow drivers find support among fellow truckers
December 28, 2009
Over the Christmas weekend, legions of truck drivers reached out to help former employees of recently closed Arrow Trucking get home. After the company announced its closing Dec. 22 and reportedly instructed drivers to turn their trucks in at dealerships around the country, offering $200 or a bus ticket from there, the mammoth effort of getting drivers home wouldn't have ...
Canadian cube van driver’s three Santas
December 24, 2009
A heartwarming trucking Christmas story, via Canadian news site Canoe.ca.
One hauler’s early Christmas at the truckstop
December 23, 2009
Trucker Jeremy Holley blogs at www.jholley.wordpress.com, and his post from Wednesday, Dec. 22, was a gem of a story from "about five years ago," he wrote, "something that I’ll never forget because it really made my day."
Mother Nature Network covers California dray operators’ New Year’s gift from CA
December 21, 2009
California-based drayage truck owner-operator Filiberto Cervantes is quoted in this recent story, part of the Mother Nature Network's coverage of news relating to the environment, reacting in dismay to California's drayage rule, which sees at yearend a deadline for compliance for the many trucks serving the ports through the state. Essentially, trucks with powertrains older than model year 1994 will ...
Trucker asks: ‘Who moved my cheese?’
December 18, 2009
Why it's a bad idea to leave loads unattended.
Mack Titan to be featured in ‘American Loggers’ TV series
December 17, 2009
When the Discovery Channel was looking for a company to feature in its new "American Loggers" television series, they turned to Gerald Pelletier Inc., a family-owned and operated business that’s been working the rugged and remote North Maine Woods for three generations. This season marks the second for “American Loggers” and the Pelletiers. Airing on the Discovery Channel on Friday ...
Tire termites?
December 16, 2009
The termite-damage-like crevices in this tire are the result of extreme voltage, “electricity that ‘burrowed’ through this tire” when a boom truck hit a high wire and the electricity made its way through the frame on its way to the ground, wrote the editors of Real Answers, where the pic first appeared. If you think of rubber as the ultimate ...
Road rage on the letters page
December 15, 2009
A recent back-and-forth in the Everett, Wash., Herald newspaper's letters section highlighted the need for more than a little civility to be added to the public conversation between four-wheelers and their 18-wheeled counterparts.
Disney predicts the future of highways — circa the late 1950s
December 14, 2009
So how many predictions for the future of the nation's highway system did the Disneyland TV Show get right when it aired the following fanciful segment in 1958? Well, I can tell you what it got wrong: multicolored highways, for one, do not "enable the motorist to reach his destination by following the correct color strip," as guessed at in ...
Owner-operator channels spirit of the season, pays it forward
December 11, 2009
Bob Ruckman of Charleston, S.C., will donate his truck and time to further an Ellicott City, Md., woman's goal of providing holiday assistance to needy families. As reported in the Howard County Times here, Andrea Ciniero has been conducting her donation drive since 1998, but this year encountered hurdles in funding for the drive that put the entire enterprise in ...
Elvis has left the trailer…
December 10, 2009
The Courthouse News Service reported earlier this week that an apparent dispute between two moving companies has led to the disappearance of a California woman's collection of valuable Elvis memorabilia from the trailer her valuables were loaded into for a move to Austin, Texas. After Beaumont Trucking, the company contracted to do the move, stored the locked trailer on the ...
The future of the inner-city courier business…
December 8, 2009
Need a workout to help accomplish that pesky New Year's Resolution peeking over the horizon? Yesterday, NPR's Morning Edition ran this story about the growth of interest in cargo bikes like the Bullitt S7 (pictured), which allow the human-powered haulers to transport up to 600 lbs. of cargo in a small package. All depending upon, of course, your ability ...
Wedding air horns are sounding…
December 7, 2009
From the website of the British Evening Star daily come the pictures here, of Robert White (in the first one) and his bride Kathleen and her father, Bernard Martin -- and, of course, the on-highway tractors that served in lieu of a limo in the service. As Kathleen told the newspaper, "It was Rob's idea -- he absolutely loves lorries. ...
Correcting the record on DWT
December 4, 2009
That's "driving while texting," of course, the latest and greatest among local and national media fouls when it comes to trucking. Fortunately, yesterday South Dakota Trucking Association President Myron L. Rau took the time to correct the misstatements made by Dustin Murphy in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader newspaper about the apparently increasing number of truck-attributable crashes in recent years, ...
Reckoning a ‘tsunami of freight’ as a very bad thing
December 3, 2009
I don't intend to do so, fyi, just passing on a bit of eye-opening reporting that recently appeared at the website of the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper. Even as freight volumes around the country are at extremely low levels, putting the hurt to trucking companies small and large, reporter James Pilcher (or, more likely, his editor) chooses the unfortunate 'Tsunami of ...
Is there a ‘war on trucking’ afoot?
December 2, 2009
Such was the question Michael Regan, board member of the National Industrial Transportation League (NIT is primarily a shippers' group), aimed to answer in his piece in Logistics Management magazine. There, he detailed a recent conference call about the state of freight transportation with logistics professionals. Is there a war? he was asked on that call.His answer is yes. "Beyond ...
‘Going Wrong’? — what Sarah Palin’s autobiography has to do with you
November 30, 2009
Not much, really, unless you happen to be reading it and enjoying its critique of media lassitude and political bias, with the exception of a mention of VHF radios and conversations with truckers held from Palin's Alaskan back porch. The mention of truckers comes via Craig Medred, who offered this critique of Palin's "Going Rouge" autobiography. The critique takes the ...
Songwriter Larry Morris drives big trucks to Nashville
November 25, 2009
Campbell, Mo.-based trucker Larry Morris (pictured), who drives for small fleet Double G Trucking, is also a songwriter, and his crowning achievement in that arena is now available -- "Cotton Fields to Nashville" is the name of the tune, which you can hear here: http://www.cottonfields2nashville.com/>. I wrote about him in the December issue of Truckers News, which you probably haven't ...
NPR correspondent gets "worst roads" lesson from owner-operator
November 24, 2009
Yesterday on National Public Radio's banner afternoon news program, All Things Considered, correspondent Ina Jaffe detailed her ridealong with one Randy Park, who drives for Apex Logistics. They ran down a stretch I-10 in California that Overdrive readers last year named among the worst in the country, singling out the state for No. 4 in our annual survey for Worst ...
Texas trucker narrowly escapes the ultimate disaster
November 23, 2009
I may have spoken too soon, Friday, when I made reference to one Brazilian truck accident as one of the most bizarre of truck crash results ever photographed. A Nov. 12 story in Wyoming's Powell Tribune newspaper included a picture equally terrifyingwe-inspiring. The piece told the story of Texas-based hauler Otis Hall, whose wrong turn led him on a harrowing ...
Bridges and trucks colliding, around the world
November 20, 2009
This scene at this link might take the prize for most bizarre of truck accidents, at least those photographed for posterity. Thankfully, looks like the driver was rescued. It's a scene on a Brazilian bridge sent my way from photographer Igor Alecsander (he didn't take the accident pictures), whose acquaintance I made while researching part of Truckers News December feature ...
Do you have Zonkatude? New novel by trucker chronicles band’s 40-year career
November 17, 2009
Jim Funkhouser, aka J. Gale Morrison, has been a truck driver "for 22 years," he says. "I am thinking about making a career out of it!"All the same, via the website thezonks.com, he's begun to market his first novel, We Were the Zonks, about the career of a lately reunited band, first active in the 1960s. Described as the "'60s ...
Trucking stars on the rise through running — and talking
November 13, 2009
In October, Truckers News Editor Randy Grider wrote about the extraordinary saga of one Jasmine "Jazzy" Jordan, a 16-year-old Olympic-caliber runner who began a cross-country run Sept. 1 to bring awareness to the difficulty many truck drivers experience in obtaining proper health care. This month, she was a guest on boat hauler and internet-radio host Daniel Audet's Truckstar Radio call-in ...
Four-wheelers get their fair share
November 12, 2009
In all the hubbub surrounding the CSA 2010 safety initiative from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which the agency hopes will improve safety among motor carriers and drivers of large trucks when fully implemented, an only tangently related program has gone virtually unnoticed in trucking circles. And no, I don't think it's a looming threat to your business or ...
Poetic salute from unlikely quarters
November 11, 2009
Ann Campanella (pictured) is a journalist-turned-poet whose collection Young amp; Ripe, published by the folks at Charlotte-based Main Street Rag this year, chronicles via short verse the spirit of youth. Her "Six Days on the Road" poem was featured Oct 9 this year in the daily Writer's Almanac from National Public Radio, read by Garrison Keillor. It chronicles a trip ...
Owner-operator takes delivery of first Lonestar Harley special edition
November 10, 2009
Twenty-year trucking veteran and current owner-operator Chris Hawker, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle enthusiast, took delivery in late October of the first Harley special edition of the International Lonestar Class 8 tractor (pictured). In a ceremony in Milwaukee, Wis., Hawker was presented the keys to the first production unit and launched on the "maiden voyage" in Navistar's new "Drive for Jobs" program; ...
From outside in: Top 10 things learned in a rig on the highway
November 6, 2009
Joan Duggan Connell (pictured) penned this lead letter in the Speakout department of this month's edition of Overdrive. While we had to run it in short form due to space limitations of the section, for my money its original form is worth some additional attention, likewise the unique character of its author. Connell's more an office type than a trucker, ...
Latest stowaways in UK
November 5, 2009
The London-based Sun newspaper reported last week on seven men and likewise seven teenagers reportedly from Iraq and Afghanistan discovered in a tanker full of corn starch bound for a town in the Wiltshire region. The story -- headlined "Trucker's a-maize-ing find" -- is played for its shock value, hinging on the stunning photograph of one of the illegal immigrants, ...
Trucking; the key to Afghanistan stabilization
November 4, 2009
At least economically, anyway -- such is the viewpoint of Washington Post defense correspondent, ForeignPolicy.com blogger and Fiasco author Tom Ricks, expressed in a relatively recent missive on the subject here, titled "Keep on Trucking, Afghanistan.""The key to economic reconstruction in Afghanistan," Ricks writes, "would be restoring its traditional role of carrying goods from South Asia (full of nice cheap ...
I-80 tolls in PA: Third time’s a charm?
November 3, 2009
News surfaced last week that Pennsylvania had once again applied for federal approval to add tolls to I-80 within the state's borders under a pilot program for tolling existing interstates (as a means of road funding when all other options for road rehabilitation were exhausted). The Pennsylvania Fifth District congressional seat, formerly occupied by John Peterson (pictured, flanked by OOIDA ...
Klos Custom Trucks photo book
November 2, 2009
It makes a great coffetable book at "280 photos splashed across 112 glossy pages," says photographer Robbie "Dingo" Rose, whom we've written about in this hall previously (you'll remember this post about Dingo's YouTube resume shot to further his down-under trucking career). These days he drives for McColl's Transport in the Australian state of Victoria, and the Klos Custom Trucks ...
Convoy for a Cure postmortem — a resounding success
October 30, 2009
With $13,000 raised and more than 30 trucks and many good times, the Convoy for a Cure event, dedicated to breast cancer awareness and fund-raising, at Willie's Place last weekend can no doubt be called a success, says Overdrive's October Trucker of the Month Howard Salmon. Salmon (pictured here with fellow country singer Kathy White) performed songs from his "These ...
Launch of YouTubeTrucking.com
October 27, 2009
Texas regional hauler Texomatic (www.twitter.com/texomatic, http://www.texomatic.com/>) is fed up, he says. "I am sick and tired really of minimal, zero, exposure on the national, regional or industry stage for all of us drivers...who make videos and put them out on YouTube." Minus a story he says appeared in Road King magazine, little industry attention has been paid to a growing ...
New iPhone app from trucking insurer
October 26, 2009
Since the introduction of the iPhone Trucker app earlier this year, more trucking-related endeavors have entered the area where mobile communications technology and business intersect. The latest iPhone app is Trucker1, what developer 1st Guard Corporation is calling "the first mobile application developed specifically for owner-operators," now available via the iTunes App Store. And, significantly, it's free. 1st Guard is ...
Draggin’ wagons — the music video
October 22, 2009
Blast from the recent past, today.You might remember my post about trucker and frequent YouTube video-er Stephen Adams, aka TruckerSteve: In it, I remarked on TruckerSteve's sometime associate in YouTubing DriverGeoff, a hauler whose Twitter posts were marathons in repetition and general good humor -- blasts about his location, generally -- that took the form of "I'm draggin' my wagon ...
Remembering bygone days
October 21, 2009
Mike French, 25-year veteran of Dart Transit, recalled vivid memories and colleagues of days long gone in the October issue of Advantage Digest, the fleet’s newsletter for their owner-operator contractors.Contractors, as a good-natured work force, are some of the constants in a changing world, he writes. "Contractors even connected to my family. I don’t have the exact details, but another ...
‘Hags’ won’t rag fleet by name
October 20, 2009
"Highway Hags" Stace and Hedon, company team drivers for a "super-large-mega-important transportation firm," blog on anything from mechanical how-to to more standard blog fare at highwayhags.com. Their employer decided "they would rather not take advantage of all the free publicity to be gained from being mentioned prominently in drivers’ blogs," writes Hedon on highwayhags.com. "On the one hand, I really ...
That great vinyl sound — in the cab
October 19, 2009
Ever wished you could dust off those earthy old Hank Williams 45s your dad left you and take them for a spin pulling produce cross-country in the old Pete? And, of course, actually listen to them? For a while in the 1950s, then again in the early 1960s, the folks at the ookworld.com site tell us, spinning vinyl in your ...
Trouble at ground zero for economic recovery
October 15, 2009
This week, two new wrinkles quickly scaled over and cracked along the surface of what many have seen for some time now as the forefront of economic recovery and roadway safety -- bridge infrastructure and the potential to both expand and maintain it as our roads age.1. NEW YORK. That's right, the state that's given us so much -- from ...
Ochs Trucking driver channels his inner Ken Patera
October 14, 2009
If you're younger than, say, 35, it's doubtful you remember the finishing move of professional wrestler Ken Patera, active in the 1970s, '80s, and into the '90s. Suffice it to say that Missouri-based Ochs Trucking driver Jason Poirrier is at least old enough to deploy Patera's signature full nelson, minus the pro's classic swing, as the Southeast Missourian newspaper recently ...
Driving while smoking: the cutting edge of in-cab distractions
October 13, 2009
Not only did one truck driver in Ontario this weekend likely enter the history books as the first hauler ticketed for smoking in his cab in contravention of a provincial piece of legislation-turned-law called the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, he may well stand at the vanguard of the recent hyper-attention to in-cab distractions provided by the profusion of communications gadgetry.Driving while ...
October Trucker of the Month live at Convoy for a Cure USA
October 11, 2009
In all the effort spent to get to the reality of one particular independent owner-operator's business and life as a musician, I somehow missed one important detail: Overdrive October Trucker of the Month Howard Salmon, whom you'll remember from this post from last week, is performing live at the Convoy for a Cure for breast cancer event at Carl's Corner ...
‘Trucker’ released in theaters Oct. 9
October 8, 2009
Friday, Oct. 9, is the release date for "Trucker," a so-called "small indie film" that thus will see a limited release, but perhaps it's in your area. The press for the movie, at least as run with in many outlets, traffics in some stereotyping -- "Michelle Monaghan is transformed from a hard-drinking, hard-living trucker" into a mother, said one online ...
Texting re-redux — new consumer survey on DWT
October 7, 2009
That's right: it's just a hash mark away from DWI, and according to DOT, reaction times are roughly equivalent to those of a driver at the 0.08 alcohol limit. A study by the online electronics retailer and product-review site Retrevo puts the share of automobile drivers who frequently "text, use Facebook, or Twitter" while behind the wheel at a minuscule ...
Going back to Cali
October 6, 2009
A little California dreaming today, folks. A new story in the Riverside-based Press-Enterprise details the low volumes of pre-holiday freight coming through the L.A./Long Beach ports this year, but that's just one of the state's many trucking-related problems. The reefer unit and port-serving trucks emissions rules come online at the end of the year, and many fleets and owner-operators are ...
Trucker appreciation at Johnson’s Corner Truckstop
October 1, 2009
Apologies to haulers who passed through Denver yesterday for not catching this earlier -- I was undoubtedly distracted by other things on my computer. In any case, the Loveland, Colo., truckstop Johnson's Corner celebrated their driver-appreciation day by offering various entertainment through the day and, most significantly, doling out free dogs, burgers and soft drinks to commercial drivers stopping in. ...
Getting out of hand?
September 30, 2009
When I wrote Friday about the media ramp-up to the U.S. Department of Transportation's so-called "distracted driving summit," which begins today, noting the broad definition of on-board technology in some safety groups' analyses of in-cab distraction, little did I know that the New York Times would follow with a more supposedly in-depth look at the subject on Sunday that, well, ...
Prominent coverage of truckstop chaplain
September 29, 2009
Chaplain Joe Hunter's Truckstop Ministries, Inc., organization just got a bump in attention -- at least from people outside the trucking community. CNN ran a story about Hunter and his ministry on their site, part of their "Road Warriors: Traveling Tactics" series of special reports. Read it here; it's an interesting piece about an exuberant industry character ("Chaplain Joe," as ...
Ohio owner-operator drives away with sweepstakes rig
September 28, 2009
It was quite the scene at Randally-Reilly Publishing headquarters in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Friday. The publishers of Custom Rigs magazine -- whose parent mag is Overdrive -- flew in the winner of its first-ever sweepstakes, John Lacusky of Ohio, to pick up the Chrome Shop Mafia-detailed Sequel, a 1998-model International 9400 he won when his name was drawn from thousands ...
Commercial driver texting ban gets media legs
September 25, 2009
In advance of U.S. DOT's finally scheduled "distracted driving summit" next week, it might come as no surprise that the alliance of safety groups known as Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (saferoads.org) held a press conference and announced their petition to DOT to restrict or outright prohibit the use of electronic devices while running down the road. Most of ...
Meet TruckerDesiree
September 24, 2009
The subject of my "Exit Only" column in this month's Truckers News was one among many lights of a new cadre of social-media-savvy advocates in the trucking community. Desiree Wood (pictured) is her name, and though she sometimes (somewhat -- but only somewhat -- facetiously) calls herself a renegade, she's got her own and other drivers' interests in mind when ...
Truckers pitch in to foil suicide attempt
September 23, 2009
In Overdrive's home base of Tuscaloosa, Ala., yesterday, several truckers pitched in to help police foil a suicide attempt on the I-20/59 bridge over MacFarland Blvd. A nice gallery of pictures from the scene show, among other choice images, police unrolling an inflatable catch device atop two dry vans parked under the overpass.Picture here courtesy Tuscaloosa News. Photo by Michael ...
Lighthouse comes to N.C. truckstop
September 22, 2009
If the shine on the stainless in their new chrome shop wasn't enough to get your attention, the Kenly 95 TA Truckstop in Kenly, N.C., has unveiled a 65-ft. lighthouse to send a beacon to all haulers traversing the highly trafficked I-85 corridor in the Southeast. Part of the Iowa 80 Group, Kenly 95 continues to grow and remodel on ...
‘Horsepower’ host tries hand at diesels
September 21, 2009
Navistar's Maxxforce engines and their 2010 emissions technologies might be the only heavy-duty diesels to have ever had their own television show -- the new Maxxforce TV website debuted in the last couple weeks and features Qamp;As with drivers around the country in quiz-show style, complete with cash and prizes.In the first episode, one Illinois hauler named Sal gets quizzed ...
And you thought CA was tough on diesels
September 18, 2009
With all the fire on owner-operators of diesels coming out of the Golden State, one wouldn't be unjustified in feeling a little picked on (the skinny on upcoming California deadlines for reefers and trucks serving ports you can find here). But perhaps you can take heart (or bile, depending on how charitable you're feeling today) from this latest announcement from ...
‘Truckin’ Life’ magazine founder remembered
September 16, 2009
Truckin' Life is Australia's premiere trucking magazine for owner-operators: in certain ways, it shares with its American counterpart in Overdrive a defining mission, clear from the tagline that adorns its cover, "The voice of the Australian trucker." Truckin' Life's founder, Malcolm B. Johnson (pictured, courtesy Truckin' Life), suffered a heart attack July 31 and passed away in early August.According to ...
Blind driving just around the next corner?
September 15, 2009
Today's topic of note calls for a modification of the last line of novelist Ralph Ellison's 1950s book Invisible Man, which concludes with the book's protagonist a little closer to visibility perhaps than when he started setting down his story. In this case, a technology may well make the revised sentiment a possibility, which has all to do with bringing ...
Air cargo pilots looking for the bathroom
September 14, 2009
Pilots for air-cargo company Amerijet are on strike, alleging already bad and deteriorating working conditions. Among those conditions, detailed by a couple striking pilots interviewed by an independent journalist in the video below, via YouTube, is the fact of the small bags the pilots must use to relieve themselves, then storing the bags at the back of the cockpit for ...
Latest engine-brake quandary
September 11, 2009
Engine brakes -- followed in a close second by idling -- might be the No. 1 bugaboo of localities around the nation when it comes to trucking. They're loud, residents say, a veritable scourge to peaceful living, and have been approached occasionally by attempted bans of trucks from long-used routes in different areas around the nation.The latest controversy brakes was ...
One truck cranks with football season
September 8, 2009
The equipment truck for the University of Alabama football team, a 2004 International 9900 decked out with Crimson Tide insignia, triggered almost as much hoopla as a season-opening kickoff when it pulled into a dealership in the veritable heart of the heart of Crimson Tide country (and the home of Overdrive offices), Tuscaloosa, Ala., for a needed part last Thursday ...
Convoy for a Cure, across North America
September 7, 2009
The Convoy for a Cure organization jumpstarted last year on the efforts of a Quebecker long-haul driver looking to raise money and awareness, respectively, for breast-cancer research and the challenges of its sufferers. The first, all-female-driver convoy subsequently took place in Ontario, Canada, and inspired others in both Canada and the U.S. Upcoming this October are three more Convoy for ...
Owner-operator couple raises money for breast cancer victims
September 4, 2009
Owner-operators Tom and Debbie Berkel (pictured) had the only truck at the Great American Trucking Show festooned with hot pink roses and sugar-pink ribbons. The couple’s 1995 Kenworth W900L was a popular exhibit that ended up enlisting $825 in raffle ticket donations for the American Cancer Society’s breast cancer awareness campaign.The Berkels, leased to Mercer Transportation as team drivers together ...
Learning to conduct — on the rail trail
September 3, 2009
My "Learning to drive" post from last week about the then-upcoming Blueprint America series special on the rail/truck debate garnered thoughtful comments that, since the special's release, appear that much more prescient. "Little" David Obermark, who blogs here, noted the historical precedent for the inadequacy of rail to handle increased volumes of freight -- at least with the dollars it ...
Behind the superhero — trucking minds at work
September 2, 2009
Brothers Nick and James Ventrillo are a pair of former truckers -- they ran XX Trucking, out of Las Vegas, earlier this decade -- at opposite ends of the IQ spectrum. The longer-term hauler of the two, Nick, has an astoundingly high 200 score. In the pair’s first work of fiction, part of their self-styled "Rick amp; Bobo" adventure series, ...
What do stimulus money and beef jerky have in common?
August 31, 2009
We're not exactly sure of the answer to this pressing question here on the Channel 19 blog (other than, perhaps, that both come with a large dose of time in the preparation), but here's what prompts it: I blogged last December about a Colorado program to provide haulers stranded in the state's mountain passes in winter with emergency rations to ...
Trucks ‘Made of Gold’ by Hawaiian owner-operator
August 27, 2009
When we wrote about country singer Leland Martin in July and his partnership with the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association to raise money for care packages to send to U.S. troops stationed overseas, little did we know that Hawaii resident (though he runs the lower 48 through most of the year) owner-operator Howard Salmon's These Trucks Are Made of Gold record ...
Overdrive editor gets blogged
August 26, 2009
If you think you're into your equipment, get over to the blog of Minnesota-based photographer Chris Grey, a friend of Overdrive contributing editor Paul Hartley, the best big-rig photographer I know. Grey recently got a taste of Hartley's work shooting heavy trucks in his photo business on a dual shoot at a Minnesota International dealership. And as Grey puts it, ...
Truck driving championships like life, really
August 25, 2009
Werner driver Timothy Dean told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the "hardest part" of competing in the American Trucking Associations-sponsored National Truck Driving Championships, held last week in Pittsburgh, was the wait. Like a hauler sitting outside a shipper's gate, or on a dock waiting to get loaded, the competitors' anticipation of of their turn to do the various maneuvers required ...
Learning to drive
August 24, 2009
New York PBS station WNET correspondent Miles O'Brien (pictured, right) recently went through the motions of learning to drive a tractor-trailer at Shore Tractor-Trailer Training in New Jersey. He wasn't out to probe the intricacies of training or the flood of new trainees from other industries in a down economy, though. His piece in the Blueprint America series, which airs ...
Media shoutout to independent high-dollar car haulers
August 21, 2009
Last week in Monterey County, Calif., enthusiasts and wealthy buyers flocked to the area for Classic Car Week events, and among the out-of-state revelers were the truckers who brought various collectors' items to the event. Monterey County Herald reporter Laith Agha took the occasion to write an appreciative story about a few them, a group of longtime enclosed-car haulers who've ...
Seatbelt turns 50
August 19, 2009
A week ago today was the 50th anniversary of what Volvo is calling the "most important automotive safety device ever, the three-point seatbelt." It was first used in a Volvo four-wheeler, a PV544 delivered in Karlstad, Sweden, five decades ago and today -- because the company gave free use of its patent from the time of its first use to ...
Honor and goodwill in a placemat
August 17, 2009
Independent Amarillo, Texas-based owner-operator Buster Beverly Jr. designed the placemat pictured here to cover a circumstance that became increasingly common after he and High Plains Tire amp; Diesel in Amarillo began to turn his trailer into a rolling "thank you" to returning vets of current U.S. wars and other survivors of battle. He tells the emblematic story of a Vietnam ...
Great Recession = ‘Wealthy free spenders’ learning from the majority
August 14, 2009
Truckers tuned to National Public Radio's Morning Edition program Wednesday heard a newsy repetition of the reality they've been coping with for more than a year in reporter Frank Morris' "Economic slump hits nation's truckers" story from KCUR in Kansas City. In the story, veteran truckers Dee Jones and Mac Shepherd weighed in on the status of trucking and freight ...
Penske tractor hauls U of M solar car racing team
August 13, 2009
A Penske tractor is the truck of choice for the University of Michigan Solar Car team. The UM Wolverines, of the famous Maize and Blue, are based in Ann Arbor, Mich. Students prepared for the World Solar Challenge (a five-day race across the Australian Outback to be held in October) by conducting a U.S. mock race through the Midwest, about ...
Russian immigrant sentenced in large trucking fraud case
August 12, 2009
Monday via Wired magazine came a story about the sentencing of 34-year-old Russian immigrant, hacker and Asberger's syndrome sufferer Viachelav Berkovich, who managed to operate a profitable but fraudulent trucking business "over a three-year period," wrote Wired reporter Kevin Poulsen. Berkovich and his codefendant in the case, Nicholas Lakes, also a Russian immigrant, had managed to hack DOT site Safersys.org ...
A recovery of one’s own — grassroots indicators
August 11, 2009
Fort Gratiot Express owner-operator Cliff Hagedon was featured last week on Public Radio International and WNYC's The Takeaway program in a segment on economic indicators with a human life behind them. Hagedon noted increasingly favorables ratios of available trucks to available loads on public load boards in any given area as evidence that the economic slump was at least beginning ...
Waupun Truck-N-Show celebrates 20th anniversary
August 10, 2009
The Beaver Dam, Wisc., Daily Citizen newspaper reported on the successfully pulled off 20th installment of the Waupun Truck-N-Show in Waupun, Wisc., this weekend. Part of the draw of the annual event is the Ride of Pride convoy of trucks that hits the streets of the small town Saturday. This year, the parade included nearly 200 trucks from around the ...
Distracted transport secretary announces distracted driver summit
August 6, 2009
In the wake of the publication of results of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute's analysis of long-haulers' texting behavior while driving, the calls for a nationwide ban on the practice have now reached the metaphorical level of deafening, one might say. It'd be pretty easy, thus, for you to have missed a somewhat timid announcement from the U.S. Transportation Secretary, ...
Obama ‘on Ice Road Truckers’
August 5, 2009
Unless you're talking about dissatisfaction with rising government expenditures, such as the prevailing view over on CDLofit surrounding pending health care/insurance legislation, or Teamsters' campaigning efforts, you don't hear the words "Obama" and "truckers" associated in media very often. Late-night comedy shows are another story. Check out this post on PurePolitics.com detailing a night's worth of jokes after Obama's health ...
Pure Grain — "Truckin Song" video redux
August 4, 2009
Since we reported on Pure Grain front man and sometime trucker the 'Carolina Kid' Chris Taber here at the blog, the band's made its trucking show debut at the Expedite Expo in Wilmington, Ohio; released its second record, Out of the Storm; and re-shot the video for their "Truckin Song," which you'll find below, in case you didn't get enough ...
Vintage Kenworth motor coach returns to Mt. Rainier
August 3, 2009
Two men from Gig Harbor, Wash., have rescued a 1937 Kenworth Motor Coach from the rust heap of history. So reported the Seattle Times newspaper July 21. Art Redford, 69, "who founded Honey Bucket, the portable-toilet business with the instantly recognizable name," reported the Times, even remembers the vehicle's original purpose: to drive tourists to and from Mt. Ranier. Kenworth ...
Interviewing the 2009 Great American Trucking Family
July 29, 2009
This month's issue of Truckers News features the Great American Trucking Family for 2009, the Valdepenas of San Bernardino, Calif., who've been trucking for four generations. Truckers News editor Randy Grider took footage of part of his interview with Ralph Valdepena Jr. on his visit with the family out west earlier in the summer. The resulting vid is below. For ...
Study probes trucker talking and texting
July 28, 2009
Results from a study released today by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, and financed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, made their way into the New York Times and numerous other mainstream media outlets yesterday. One upshot?: texting while driving should be illegal, said researchers, no exceptions.The study tracked more than 100 drivers with video cameras in their cabs ...
Whoops!
July 27, 2009
Will Climb for ReceiptA coal hauler filed suit against his fleet, claiming they pressured him to fake his scale receipts by performing a complex climbing maneuver, during which he was injured. "On the day in question," reported the West Virginia Record newspaper, " Calhoun says he pulled up on the automated scale to find it showing his load was 148,000 ...
‘My Truckin’ Luck’
July 24, 2009
Such is the name of a new boardgame designed by Blackfoot, Idaho, resident and potato hauler Randy Cox. The Idaho State Journal reported on Cox earlier this month, and in that story Cox described what amounts to a $45,000 investment in the project. Players likewise roll the dice to see how far they can advance on a trek across a ...
Virginia rest area closures hit the mainstream
July 23, 2009
The long-planned Virginia rest area closures, which began last week, have been on the trucking radar for months now, ever since the tragic murder of N.Y. hauler Jason Rivenburg in South Carolina focused driver efforts on raising awareness about the dearth of overnight parking in spots nationwide. But yesterday, July 22, a feature on National Public Radio's afternoon All Things ...
Truck stop chain CEO’s vacation home featured in ‘Traditional Home’
July 21, 2009
iBy land, sea or air/i could be the motto of Pilot Travel Center CEO Jimmy Haslam III. Not only does the truck-stop tycoon know a lot about trucking lanes, he also has a bird's-eye view of one of American history's great maritime centers. Featured in the June/July issue of iTraditional Home/i magazine, Haslam's vacation home (pictured, with interior detail) rests ...
Latest at-fault auto
July 20, 2009
Thursday last week a pretty common thing with uncommon results happened on I-75 on the "9-Mile Curve" section through Detroit. A wreck ended up destroying a Honda Civic, a tractor pulling a tanker, another tractor-trailer and a large section of bridge over the freeway, which succumbed during the subsequent fire. As the Detroit Free Press reported the story, "Saied Haidarian-Shahri, ...
A salute from Good magazine
July 17, 2009
With the first of the month came this post to the website of Good magazine -- a charitable magazine about "good" things, generally (they match subscription prices with a contribution to the charity of your choice) -- about photographerrtist John Bakos' series of truckstop portraits (one is pictured here) taken mostly in the Northeast. It's a small paean to the ...
If you thought our roads were bad…
July 16, 2009
A fascinating look at the state of roads in Russia comes this week from span style="font-style: italic;"L.A. Times/span writer Megan K. Stack -- link here -- and it's told largely from the point of view of that country's truckers, who paint a picture of a world where, once you leave major cities, you're running on bone-jarring two-lane multi-patched pavement that ...
The truck-grinch that crashed Christmas
July 15, 2009
Shoppers at the back of a Christmas supply store in St. Pete Beach, Fla., may have wondered if Rudolph's nose was off-track yesterday afternoon when they heard what must have been a one big noise. It could have sounded like a deer-guided sleigh and a jolly old elf gone wrong, but it was really a white county utility truck that ...
When the white collar turns blue
July 14, 2009
This AP Story, picked up by the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper, drips with the sort of unintended condescension often seen in mainstream media's brushstroke treatment of the subject of working, but all the same it presents a fascinating portrait as its jumping-off point: a Bear-Stearns purchasing manager laid off in July of last year after that company's rescue from implosion ...
Now that’s a ‘hot load’
July 13, 2009
A story in the July 5 Leaf Chronicle, the newspaper of Clarksville and Fort Campbell, Tenn., gave new meaning to the term "hot load," oft used by dispatchers to the chagrin of truck drivers certain to be waiting in line outside a shipper's facility in the near future. As intrepid Leaf reporter Ann Wallace wrote, a Montgomery County Sherriff's Department ...
Biggest tractor-trailer cake in the world
July 10, 2009
In celebration of two anniversaries at the Walcott Truckers Jamboree today, an 8-ft.-long cake built as a semi will be served up to an estimated 2,000 people at 2 p.m. The anniversaries: the Jamboree's 30th, and the 45th of location for the mass mastication event: the "biggest truckstop in the world," Iowa 80 in Walcott.The cake, sources report, took more ...
Give that man a CDL!
July 9, 2009
Little did South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford know how common was the feeling he revealed to his Argentinean mistress in one of several e-mails released by iThe State/i newspaper in Columbia, S.C. Describing an early morning excavator session on his farm in one, all of which are available here, he wrote, "To me, and I suspect no one else on ...
Good Karma
July 8, 2009
Birds aren't the only animals who tweet. Karma, perhaps the most popular trucking dog on social microblogging site Twitter, has drawn quite the following. At last count, the young German shepherd had 1,150 followers, thanks to his aadoption by trucker/blogger Desiree Wood (@truckerdesiree on Twitter). Donna Smith of the askthetrucker.com posted in May about Wood’s adoption of the young German ...
One fine RV
July 7, 2009
Talk about a final ride in style. Recently retired owner-operator Howard Brinson, who worked up to and beyond his 80th birthday, with the help of an owner-operator friend and colleague turned his vintage 1984 Peterbilt 359 (pictured) into a motor home of absolutely stunning character, wouldn’t you say? Yes, that’s a 1976 Airstream travel trailer mounted as a body behind ...
Got wheelbase: Project 351 redux
July 6, 2009
Since I reported on Anthony Fischkelta's Project 351 Kenworth W900 in October last year, the 351-inch wheelbase tractor has made the rounds of various shows and has gotten the YouTube treatment yet again. Here's the latest, a pass-and-salute on the freeway that will give you an idea of what this big truck and its reefer really look like going down ...
Not your father’s air-cleaner canister
July 3, 2009
Though the urns resemble somewhat scaled-down versions of the chromed canister you’ll find on either side of the cowl of classically styled Petes and Kenworths, they’re sealed to protect your loved one’s cremated remains from the elements as you "keep their memory alive and in the wind," says biker and Final Ride Urns proprietor Steve Radz. Created with enthusiasts of ...
Optimus Prime returns flame-heavy as ever
July 2, 2009
Fans of classic big rigs, the first Transformers movie or both may be thrilled to find out that Autobot leader Optimus Prime returns to Earth in heavy metal as a blazingly blue Peterbilt with hot-red flames in his summer’s sequel, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," to save Sam Witwicky from the evil Decepticons. Peter Cullen is back as Prime’s voice, ...
On-highway politics, take two
June 30, 2009
When the Springfield, Mo., neo-Nazi National Socialists group moved to adopt a section of the West Bypass around the town from Farm Road 142 to West Sunshine (and thus have their organization's name plastered on signage along the road), state legislators exercised a tactic they'd employed before, as evidenced by this "Rosa Parks Highway" sign on a section of I-55 ...
J.B. Hunt driver John Coster-Mullen on film
June 29, 2009
Since I wrote about the J.B. Hunt driver whose book Atom Bombs essentially reverse-engineered the first atomic bombs in the May edition of Truckers News and in this space here, John Coster-Mullen has made some strides getting the book out to the scientific community, and the bombs' designs thus in the historical record. Featured in the final section of the ...
‘Ice Road Truckers’ iPhone app now available
June 26, 2009
The Truth About Trucking folks don't have the only truck-driving-related app for the iPhone anymore: the folks behind the 'Ice Road Truckers' television reality drama have released a lite version of their own app (out in full version June 28), which admittedly probably isn't of much use to you as a diversion or much else. The ice-road app engages users ...
Australian trucker’s resume includes more than just hauling
June 25, 2009
This 1989 Kenworth W900L is one of a few built and painted to resemble a KW used in the filming of the James Bond flick "License to Kill," brought back up to pristine condition and customized by the folks at Klos Custom Trucks in Geelong, Australia, and photographed by Truckers News Photo Group member and down-under trucker Robbie Rose. Rose ...
Trucking from the roots up
June 24, 2009
Score an at least partial victory for drivers and owner-operators this week. Many had a whole lot to do with the Virginia Commonwealth Transportation Board's recent decision to go ahead with proposed closures of 19 rest areas in the state but to suspend the two-hour parking time limit, which has seen truckers hassled on their 10-hour federally mandated breaks in ...
Trucker a ‘walking miracle’
June 23, 2009
Local refuse hauler Robert Jay Leffer (pictured with his son, Robert Jr.) of Sanford, N.C., is slowly getting better in the North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center in the Triangle area, where he's being treated for wounds sustained during a January accident when a reckless driver caused his truck to overturn and catch fire on I-40 in the state. The Raleigh ...
Hometown Spreckels, Calif., cafe not just for truckers
June 22, 2009
But I'm sure they're happy, if the Tamp;A Cafe in Spreckels, Calif., just south on Salinas on the Tanimura and Antle produce company's campus is anything like it was described at TheCalifornian.com by food writer Ricardo A. Diaz. Diaz was writing for the local news audience -- "...today my Volvo is darting around semis and trying to negotiate a parking ...
Urine disposal, or ‘P bottle’ redux
June 19, 2009
Trucker Fernando Rimando puts a cap on an ongoing back-and-forth on the Truckers News letters page we noted in this post from March, about proper disposal of bottles of urine at truckstops. Rimando's e-mail to the office spells his process out in detail, and came with this quite illustrative picture. I read a lot of articles regarding pee bottles, ...
Truck fleet combats high diesel prices
June 18, 2009
In case you needed a reminder as diesel prices inch upward, at the the Northeast Pennsylvania Logistics amp; Transportation Industry Partnership's Go-Green Seminar today (held at Sands Spring Country Club in the town of Drums) Marketing VP Gerry Coyle for the intermodal, LTL and flatbed truckload carrier companies of the Evans Network offered further evidence of results obtained from basic ...
Traffic blows up
June 17, 2009
Mathematicians at MIT have built a model to describe "how and under what conditions" so-called "phantom traffic jams," those without any obvious cause like a wreck or disabled vehicle, form on the roadways. An article about the research into "jamitons," as the researchers dub traffic jams of this type , appeared at the MIT news site here after the researchers ...
Border backups
June 16, 2009
A recent report in the Maktoob Transport Business journal noted a huge hold-up for truckers driving into Saudi Arabia from the United Arab Emirates as Saudi officials reportedly began fingerprinting all drivers coming into the country, allegedly part of ongoing Saudi efforts to stem drug-trafficking.It was interesting in light of ongoing congestion issues on the U.S. southern border (northbound trucks ...
A great guy still going
June 15, 2009
Overdrive Trucker of the Year for 2005, Ted Chapman (pictured), made it into print again -- this time for his adoration of the Peterbilt trucks he has driven in his more than 7 million accident-free miles and 50 of the 70 years the company has been in business.Chapman, along with owner-operators Ronald Colvin, Steve Cudeck and Anthony Goolesby, are featured ...
N.H. ‘truck museum’ puts classics up for auction
June 12, 2009
Heavy-equipment operator Richard Kemp of Hillsborough, N.H., passed away in September of 2007 at age 76, but his informal truck museum, with a collection of seveal vintage Macks, Internationals, Sterlings and other trucks and pieces of equipment, lived on past his death as a stopping point for collectors and part-time truck and vintage equipment enthusiasts in the northeast and beyond ...
‘Our trucks can move a ton of freight…’
June 10, 2009
You've heard the ads, running typically something like this: "our trains can move a ton of freight 436 miles on just a single gallon of fuel," as goes a frequent one aired on National Public Radio by CSX. I've tried to reverse-engineer what I've guessed to be the logic in the underlying calculation here and came up with one for ...
NASCAR = Medieval Joust?
June 9, 2009
I've heard the old "modern day gladiator" description of a NASCAR driver, a comparison that calls up ancient Rome, but Wall Street Journal writer Amy Chozick in May called attention to Northern Michigan University prof Karyn Rybacki's essay in the book The Sporting World of the Modern South in which she makes a perhaps more valid comparison between NASCAR and ...
The aggro lead — USA Today’s latest
June 8, 2009
"Debate is heating up over an issue likely to strike terror in the heart of any driver," wrote Larry Copeland in the lead of a USA Today story last week. He wasn't talking about terror among truckers, though, only those who had ever "spied an 18-wheeler looming in the rearview mirror as into the slow lane."While the truck-driver community ...
One for the little guy
June 5, 2009
From the blog of Bruce Smith, editor of Overdrive sister magazine Custom Rigs, Wednesday came this piece about the Bow, New Hamphire, Berube's Truck Accessories 6th Annual BBQ and Truck Show-Off, upcoming June 28, 2009. "They tell their customers to leave their wallets in their pockets," Smith writes, "and the trailers parked at home. Just bring your tractor, the family, ...
Sleep apnea, trucking and Swift driver Kenneth Armstrong — at MSNBC.com
June 4, 2009
Swift driver mentor Kenneth Armstrong is the lead source in JoNel Aleccia's story this week on MSNBC.com about fleet efforts to address sleep apnea among their drivers to face down what many see as coming government regulation of drivers with the condition. The story, not a bad look at the subject in spite of its woefully exaggerated title ("Heavy, drowsy ...
Cross-border trucking — a ‘comical tragedy’?
June 3, 2009
So says San Antonio Express-News columnist David Hendricks, finding hilarity in the fact that current transportation secretary Ray LaHood and U.S. President Barack Obama (as they attempt to restart some version of U.S.-Mexican cross-border trucking) both voted against the cross-border demonstration project while in Congress; tragedy in the fact of the hurt U.S. exporters are feeling at Mexico's retaliatory tariffs, ...
Thomas the truckstop dentist
June 2, 2009
A special to CNN by author Bob Greene celebrated the ingenuity of one Dr. Thomas Roemer, a dentist formerly in private practice in Davenport, Iowa. Roemer, Greene wrote, has managed to survive the downturn and the attendant downward pressure of dental demand through what Greene dubs "individual inventiveness and ingenuity." Roemer’s dental innovation was to set up practice in the ...
Rotella show hits the road
June 1, 2009
The Shell Rotella road show launched this past week with an appearance at the Great Lakes Truck Show in Dundee, Mich. The company’s tractor-trailer (pictured) will be making stops in several locations through the spring and summer. Among the highlights:**The Shell Rotella SuperRigs truck beauty contest, June 18-20, at the Oak Grove 70 Petro, I-70, Exit 28 in Oak Grove, ...
Trucker of the year
May 29, 2009
It's not often a trucker gets the front-page treatment in a mainstream newspaper's business section, but such was the case for James Loveland, Willie Shaw Express driver and 2009 Truckload Carriers Association Company Equipment Driver of the Year, an award partly sponsored by Truckers News, after Loveland appeared on the cover of our May issue. In a story in his ...
TruckerSteve and friends
May 28, 2009
Trucker Stephen Adams (pictured) -- also a seasoned blogger, podcaster and videographer -- posted this short film (below) to YouTube recently. He describes it as a project embarked upon to "practice working with my new equipment," basically, but the suspense created is nearly palpable. There's quite a bit of humor at his site, TruckerSteve.org, of the occasionally off-color variety, be ...
GeoWoodstock VII
May 27, 2009
This past weekend at the GeoWoodstock VII event in Bell Buckle, Tenn. (my first-found personal cache, let it be known, an "event cache" the 3.5-inch Teletype WorldNav GPS navigator led me to without flaw), I got to meet one of the biggest trackable "travel bugs" out there. Pictured, it's the Freightliner driven by Wisconsin-based D.J. Christie and Frank Williams, TwoTruckers ...
Bringing a trucker home
May 22, 2009
Shawna Hicks wrote us last week with a request. Her father, Allen, of Orem, Utah, was missing. Before we could get word out about the search, he was found deceased in a Hagerstown, Md., truckstop. She asks that able parties donate to a fund that has been set up to bring him home to be buried: the Wells Fargo Allen ...
Bring on the COEs
May 21, 2009
The show-truck landscape in the United States is undoubtedly dominated by the conventional tractor. By and large, too, though aerodynamic packages have seen play in some recent custom creations (perhaps most notably in the International ProStar Mayh, customized in large part by the folks at Elizabeth Truck Center in New Jersey), these trucks tend to conform to the ever-popular Outlaw ...
Video blogging to lose weight
May 20, 2009
Trucker Steve Jennings of LaFollette, Tenn., is on a quest to lose weight, he tells us -- and not just us. He's chronicling said quest on YouTube. Follow his progress here on his channel or on his profile pages at CDLofit.com and facebook.com. The first such vid (below), posted just last week, follows Jennings on a protracted walk around his ...
Music for ‘Hard Times’
May 19, 2009
Volume 2 of the CD series Truckers Tracks, dubbed "Hard Times," is out now from Nashville's Spec Records, brainchild of musician and producer Doug Jones. When Doug Jones moved to Music City in the 1990s he was following the tracks of his friend Johnny Neel, the famed keyboardist who did a stint with the Allman Brothers starting in the late ...
New Autocar/White antique truck books
May 18, 2009
divdivFrom the folks at Iconographix in Wisconsin come two new collections of photography of, respectively, Autocar and White trucks of the 1950s, both out last week. Large-format perfect bound softcover books with excellent photo reproduction quality, the books, says Nichole Schiele of Motorbooks, the primary distributor, says the collections are great for enthusiasts of trucking and automotive history. Both ...
The Channel 19 counting method
May 14, 2009
Local news outlets around the nation have been full of them lately, stories detailing the difficulties for drivers and owner-operators far and wide. You've seen some mentioned here (extended wait times between loads and the attendant difficulty keeping up with truck payments, operators shut out of ports), and the stories are remarkable to my mind for the operator persistence they ...
Fuel surcharge, anyone?
April 9, 2009
Since this blogger noted his book here, Shane Hamilton keeps making headlines. It's no wonder. An excellent history of the forces at the heart of the long-term 20th-century move toward the deregulatory political climate we've all seen in the past 30 years, his Trucking Country book spells out the central role of independent truckers and agribusiness in said political climate. ...
Washington Post backs truckers?
April 3, 2009
An online chat between readers and Washington Post blogger and columnist Marc Fisher about a column he wrote on the March announcement of plans to close several rest stops in Virginia yielded this remark from the driver, no doubt, of a four-wheeler:br Marc,You missed out on a little yet interesting aspect of the Virginia rest stop debate. Truckers are not ...
Pure Grain’s ‘Truckin Song’
April 2, 2009
Headed up by OTR driver Chris Taber, the Cincinnati by way of Nashville band Pure Grain blends honkytonk with traditional country, blues and rock 'n' roll toward a hard-driving sound exemplified by "Truckin Song" (check out the video via the link or embedded below, featuring Taber in a Freightliner). The song is from their upcoming record ">A Fine Blend," ...
Wacky world trucks
April 1, 2009
British auto insurance portal Quotezone.co.uk hosts a list of the "10 Wackiest Trucks in the World," which include this "Big Rig Jig" sculpture by New York artist Mike Ross, built from two repurposed tractors and tankers and displayed at the 2007 Burning Man Festival in Nevada. Also included in the list, notably, are a shot from Japan's equivalent to a ...
Long-haul heist
March 31, 2009
Well, not exactly, but what might be the next best thing is the story of 43-year-old tow driver Ollie Ray Whitworth of Fort Worth, Texas, and his 18-year-old son, Ollie Ray Jr., who were directed out of their two truck at gunpoint in the yard of Abandoned Vehicle Enforcement, 6831 Old Randol Mill Road in Fort Worth during a robbery ...
New highway hero
March 30, 2009
"I don't wear a cape, I don't have a mask. I can't leap tall buildings in a single bound. I'm no hero." Such were the words of Pennsylvania-based trucker George Lantzy in a March 18 broadcast segment from ABC 7 news in Arlington, Va. (video is embedded below). He was responding to reports hailing him as a hero for ...
Ice road drivers on ‘Today’ show
March 27, 2009
Seems no one can get enough of the truckers who run the ice road to diamond mines in far northern Canada. If you hadn't gotten enough of the ice road truckers via the History Channel's TV show, check out the video below, which ran on NBC's Today program this morning. Follow this link if the video doesn't load.br frame src=">http://www.msnbc.msn.comd/22425001/vp/29911988#29911988"> ...
New ‘Trucker’ app for iPhone
March 26, 2009
Allen Smith, webmaster of the TruthAboutTrucking.com site/blog and author of the e-book of the same name, has introduced the Trucker app for the iPhone, now available in a ">Lite" version via Truckerapp.com and the Apple online store. The app combines social and business functions, including a Twitter button, mileage and routing applications, a special trucking Youtube channel and more. Widely ...
No ‘speeding ticket frenzy’ in Michigan
March 25, 2009
Contrary to the dire warnings of a widely circulated e-mail, says the Michigan Department of Transportation, there is no 31-day speeding-ticket bonanza in the offing on the Great Lakes State's highways. The e-mail is a version of a sort of serial hoax foisted upon truckers and other citizens as early as 2005, according to Snopes.com. Follow that link and you'll ...
Local news
March 24, 2009
Draeger Oil Co. fuel hauler Bob Stickney of Antigo, Wis., was featured in the "Day in the Life" series of reports on local WSAW news channel 7. Right with him throughout the story, in which reporter Liz Hayes got the opportunity to ride along in his daycab, was his dog Willow, a bernice mountain dog puppy. "Pretty much sleeps all ...
For fear of a turkey
March 23, 2009
On authority of the Associated Press, turkeys have turned into trucker chasers. See this report in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune about a recent incident in Jackson, Mich., in which a trucker falls just short of chicken-dancing away from three uncommonly aggressive birds outside the Tri-County International Trucks dealership and service location. As the AP reports, ">Tri-County International Trucks employee ...
What’s your mpg walking?
March 20, 2009
Brad Templeton, founder of Internet publishing pioneers ClariNet Communications Corp., recently posted to his blog about research geared toward quantifying the mpg of all sorts of transport activity -- not just those requiring diesel or gas engines. Yes, we're talking about walking, riding bicycles, running, etc. The post -- "Holy cow: Walking consumes more gasoline than driving!" -- elucidates the ...
Spring greening
March 19, 2009
I'll be away from the computer today, folks, gone to NYC to (hopefully) claim an award with Truckers News editor Randy Grider in the Neal Awards best special issue category -- our "green issue" is one of three finalists. Wish us luck, eh?Since we're talking about green trucking... As part of the package of stories we planned and published for ...
Worst roads redux
March 18, 2009
This message incoming from owner-operator Zak Hargraves, who I talked to about the problem of roads in America on the occasion of Overdrive's 2008 Worst Roads survey and attendant story (out this past January), which begs the quesiton: did we miss it?">The worst road in the U.S.?" Hargraves asks. "For sure it is I-78 in New Jersey, mile marker 1 ...
Driver featured in Denver Post
March 17, 2009
Independent owner-operator Jorge Orozco Sanchez of Firestone, Colo. (pictured with his wife in a Denver Post file photo), was featured Saturday in the Post in a story about nominations for this year's Goodyear Highway Hero award, to be awarded at MATS Thursday. The Post wrote about Sanchez in October last year, when he rescued four-year-old Peyton Nicklas and her one-year-old ...
‘Truck stop from the future’
March 16, 2009
The March edition of tech magazine Wired featured this photoshop creation by Daniel Salo -- the first in the magazine's long-running ">Found" series, in which Wired editors presented their ">best guess at what lies over the horizon," since they turned the concept over to enterprising readers (follow this link for several of the other design ideas). This artifact from the ...
Trucker’s tragic death highlights parking need
March 13, 2009
The day prior to the Thursday funeral of Jason Rivenburg, the Schoharie County, New York, trucker felled last week by a bullet in an apparent robbery while he was parked off I-26 in South Carolina, a sizable convoy of trucks was escorted by police around the New York state capitol building in Albany. The convoy rolled, according to Albany's Capital ...
Stretching stereotypes
March 12, 2009
Grammy-winner Marcy Marxer wrote her 1997 “Ballet Dancing Truck Driver” song as part of an educational package encouraging children to develop worldviews devoid of stereotypes. Elementary school teachers have sung the ballad at education conferences with sing-around-the-campfire enthusiasm. But a steel-toed boot-wearin’ honky-tonk-blues-loving lumper of the Red Smith era might switch radio stations before he hears all nine verses and ...
‘I love Jerry Reed, man!’
March 11, 2009
Such were the words of HBO's Eastbound and Down comedy series' cocreator Danny McBride when asked about the show title's connection to the recently deceased singer in an interview with Ign.com. About Kenny Powers (played by McBride), an out-of-work MLB relief pitcher who becomes his hometown high school's PE teacher, Eastbound and Down is set in Shelby County, N.C., due ...
UK truckers dance
March 10, 2009
After one Romanian trucker defied logic when he shot a video of himself dancing (quite excitedly and nimbly) about his cab while barreling down a Dutch highway, then sending the video out to media, apparently, and prompting a police search for him, London's Mirror newspaper solicited other ">dancing trucker" videos, some of which are now online here in a ">Top ...
Dream spills?
March 9, 2009
It's no laughing matter when a truck tips onto its side, but since two February accidents in Utah saw the rigs' drivers walk away uninjured, we couldn't help but note the timing of the accidents -- within hours and miles of each other around Salt Lake City -- and the definite harmony of their spilled cargos. As reported by the ...
‘Never in trucking history’
March 6, 2009
Such was the estimation of Jerry Spires of Spires Trucking in Miramar in South Florida, when he was called on by Associated Press reporter Scott Sonner to comment on a Golden Eagle that crashed through the windshield of one of his trucks. Piloted by Matthew Roberto Gonzalez of Opa Locka, Fla., the rig was rolling down I-80 in Nevada, ">about ...
This look scary to you?
March 5, 2009
Trucker Jeff Clark sent in a note to Overdrive and Truckers News' offices objecting to what he called National Public Radio's Here amp; Now program host Robin Young's ">unabashed usage of the term scary trucks"> in a segment Wednesday discussing expansion of rail infrastructure capacity. Young was interviewing Philip Longman, senior fellow of the New America Foundation, who repeatedly profferred ...
New vistas, old practices
March 4, 2009
p align="left"/ppNew Zealand postgraduate student in Antarctic geology Kurt Joy took this pic while on location on the frozen continent. It pretty much sums up life for the researchers there, he says: ">I spent a month down there working on the glaciers about 300 km south from McMurdo Station. P bottles in Antarctica are a way of life in the ...
Side-view writing
March 3, 2009
Vanessa Leigh Hoffman (pictured, below) began her new book, Rear View Mirror, in the cab of her fiance Joe Cicciaro's 1988 Peterbilt. On runs with tomatoes originating near Cicciaro and Hoffman's home in St. Pete Beach, Fla., to Texas, where Cicciaro loaded beef in his 53' spread-axle reefer to take back east, Hoffman encountered several situations that inspired her fictional ...
Update: Tony the tiger will stay
March 2, 2009
Owners of the Tiger Truck Stop in Gross Tete, La., have won their battle at least temporarily to keep their tiger on the premises. Since we blogged about the case in January, Iberville Parish councilmembers voted 11-1, FoxNews.com reported, to allow truck stop owner Michael Sandlin to qualify for ">a permit from the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries that will ...
Channel 19 live on national TV
February 27, 2009
From Comedy Central's satirical news and commentary show the Colbert Report With Stephen Colbert comes the video below, based on a incident I blogged about in October, when Texas-based Dan Linscomb was arrested after being charged for a second meal because he allowed a companion to have a few bites of his food from the buffet. If the embedded ...
Memorializing the Alaskan ‘haul road’
February 26, 2009
In a Feb. 12 report for the Fairbanks, Alaska, Daily News-Miner, Jeff Richardson tells the story of a commemorative plaque dedicated to the truckers of the Dalton Highway, or the ">haul road," as it's known to most residents, connecting Fairbanks with the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. The commemoration now graces the site of the Fairbanks Hilltop Truck Stop, listing the ...
‘Virtual deputies’ log long border hours
February 25, 2009
South Texas-based truck driver Robert Fahrenkamp made an appearance on National Public Radio's All Things Considered news program yesterday in a piece about Blueservo.net, the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition's effort to ramp up illegal immigration enforcement along the border by enlisting citizens. Fahrenkamp, a regular watcher of the Blueservo.net webcams (a still from one is pictured), set up at various ...
Kenworth featured in ‘Fortune’ mag
February 24, 2009
Fortune magazine's Tech Transformations series last week detailed the supercomputing power harnessed via the web as part of truck maker Kenworth's efforts to design the ultra-fuel-efficient T660 tractor currently on offer. Senior writer Jon Fortt leads with a chronicle of the exposure of the seemingly mundane mudflap to intense design effort. ">Most people don't spend much time thinking about mudflaps ...
Monster mash
January 30, 2009
Considering that a majority of truckers polled recently at eTrucker.com think space aliens may have visited sections of U.S. highway, it's easy to imagine that a few drivers in big rigs may have felt an energy rush Monday morning when they and other motorists along Lamar Boulevard in Austin, Texas, slowed down after seeing digital roadsigns that warned, ">Zombies in ...
High-culture sailing… I mean, trucking
January 29, 2009
It's not often truck drivers and truck driving show up in the New Yorker, a magazine associated most often with upscale urban types and lonely fiction writers. Until recently, the last time to my recollection was writer John McPhee's ride with tank-hauling owner-operator Don Ainsworth, published in February 2003, which later was included in McPhee's great book about various transport ...
A long-haul legend
January 28, 2009
A new book by former Truckers News staffer and contributor James Beach chronicles the history of Peterbilt trucks, from the birth of the diesel engine to the recent end of production of the flagship Model 379. Featured on the hardcover's front is the Outlaw Customs "Dead Man's Hand" 2001 custom 379, which won best limited mileage truck at the Great ...
Poetry of the road
January 27, 2009
The Huffington Post has this story about the Australian Red Room Company poetry group's search for three Australian haulers to collaborate with three mainstream poets on poems about life on the road. Red Room's "Dust Poems" project hinges on a live event at the Overflow in Olympic Park in Sydney March 21 and, according to the organizers, is aimed at ...
Tippin tips his hat
January 23, 2009
Aaron Tippin's new record, featuring covers of various trucking songs, puts a shout out to the magazine this blogger is dispatching from. In Overdrive, available for preorder here, has been in the works for a while, says Tippin. ">I’ve had my heart set on doing this album for a long time. Now, with the current economic state, I’m reminded of ...
Tipping the tax man
January 22, 2009
With President Barack Obama's nominee to head the Federal Reserve having made a mistake that most owner-operators could have helped him avoid, we pause now before the impending vote by the Senate Finance Committee on whether to confirm Timothy Geithner to the post to issue a recommendation and a question:br /br /1. Truck owner-operators or other self-employed citizens have for ...
One day later
January 21, 2009
It's official, folks. Though most truck drivers, according to our eTrucker.com polls taken just prior to the election, didn't expect to vote for Barack Obama, he's taken the reins of the government. However, if like that of many of your fellow citizens your mood is upbeat a day after the inauguration, we thought you might get a kick out of ...
New trucking novel
January 20, 2009
Inge Auerbacher, author of several memoirs relating to her survival of the Terezin concentration camp in Nazi Germany before and during World War II, is now the author of a madcap trucking suspense novel, Highway to New York: A Lady Truck Driver Adventure. The story's protagonist, Lisa Stack, drives a Freightliner and runs with the handle ">Asphalt Angel," though "deep ...
Can you tell the difference?
January 16, 2009
If it weren’t for Chicago’s United Center behind Terry Berry’s 1990s-era Passport auto-hauling Peterbilt, it’d be pretty difficult to determine which pic showed a 60-footer and which a mere five-footer. What started out as “a hobby” of one Chicago Class 8 truck enthusiast, says De-Elegant Model Truck Fleet founder Kuenn McClinton, is now a family business that got its start ...
Rhapsody for rerouted rigs
January 15, 2009
The shortest truck bypass on record may be the 0.9 mile route connecting U.S. 441 South around Micanopy, Fla. Denizen and archivist Diane Cohen, who waged a 6-year grassroots campaign to preserve the antebellum brick buildings on the town square, persuaded the state legislature to approve the bypass, built in 1992 for $425,000. Prior to its construction, the downtown intersection ...
Beverage preferences
January 14, 2009
The same year that a renegade truck owner-operator hauled a load of Coors beer to Georgia for the benefit of moviegoers in iSmokey amp; the Bandit, the AFL-CIO, joined by the Teamsters union, launched its 1977 boycott of Coors beer, citing antiunion practices. Joining that boycott at the behest of then San Francisco Teamsters local president Allan Baird was none ...
A tiger in Louisiana — and we’re not talking LSU football
January 13, 2009
Louisiana scored a threepeat first in the Worst Roads category in Overdrive's Highway Report Card survey this year, mostly for the reported awful condition of many sections of I-10 within the state's borders, where recent battles of animal rights activists have hit the highway running. At exit 139 on I-10 sits the Tiger Truck Stop of Gross Tete, home for ...
Bama-magic, or lack thereof
January 12, 2009
Alabama state troopers teamed up with over-the-road truckers in the state in December to enforce highway laws. According to perennial results in Overdrive's Highway Report Card survey, the latest out this month on p. 24 of the magazine, the effort was a long time coming. Alabama, with only a single full-service scale house (on I-20 westbound near the Georgia border, ...
Keystone confusion
January 9, 2009
In last year's Highway Report Card survey, the watchword on the highways in the Keystone State was drama, as the perennial Worst Roads winner in Overdrive's annual survey waged a much-protested campaign to toll the second major east-west thoroughfare through the state, I-80. This year, the feds denied the state its application to toll the road under a federal pilot ...
Don’t mess with Texas
January 8, 2009
Texas has been on a five-year winning streak in the Best Roads category in Overdrive's Highway Report Card survey, out this month (in the digital magazine, flip to p. 24). That doesn't mean, however, that its high-traffic highway network hasn't seen a disproportionate share of controversy in recent years. Just a couple days ago, though, the Texas Department of Transportation ...
One jarring ride through Detroit
January 7, 2009
It's January, which means it's ">Worst Roads" time for us at Overdrive, and ">Worst Roads" week here at the Channel 19 blog. Our yearly Highway Report Card survey, approaching its second full decade of existence, gives our owner-operator readers the chance to rank states and segments according to their level of washboarding, hobby-horsing, potholes, tolls, you name it. Michigan was ...
‘Trucker’ somersaults truck — on purpose
January 6, 2009
The BBC reported this weekend that New Zealand-born Rhys Millen, 36, was the first "trucker" to "back-flip an off-road truck in the air." Turns out that Millen is not our kind of long-hauler, but the nephew of IMSA GTS racer Steve Millen and son of Rod, both well-known in the European racing world. Rhys is likewise a ">drifting" champion himself ...
Diesel’s not down everywhere
January 5, 2009
International news has centered this weekend and today on a large driver strike -- involving ">tens of thousands," according to Reuters -- that began Monday in India, driven by the Indian trucking industry's demands for cheaper diesel (by 10 rupees per liter, about 21 cents), reduce taxes and equal treatment as India's government bails out other industries there. ">India ...
Smokestack blues
January 2, 2009
In the trucking business, diesel stacks can come in many shapes and sizes --modified, chromed-up, hidden behind fairings, and all sorts of things. From the factory these days, though, they all share a common attribute -- the gas coming out of them holds little resemblance to the sooty, particulate-laden belching commonly seen in all sorts of television broadcasts about coming ...
Jim Harper could have been Ron Carey?
December 31, 2008
When former Teamsters president Ron Carey passed away earlier this month, reading the obituaries I was struck by the differing trajectories of two men whose beginnings closely resembled each other. UPS driver Carey rose to the position of Shop Steward in his Queens, N.Y., local in 1956 looking to improve member services (a decade later he'd become secretary of that ...
Double-mind the blind spots in Houston
December 30, 2008
"What Do They Call 'Chutzpah' in Texas" is the title of a blog post from a week or so back over at the Social Services for Feral Children blog about a case against Texas box-truck driver Lance Bennett recently filed by a woman convicted of DUI after a crash she and Bennett were involved in. Elizabeth Shelton, the woman in ...
Breaker breaker
December 29, 2008
Anybody hear this blogger this morning, 8-9 a.m. EST with Mark Willis on the "Loading Dock" show, Sirius Channel 147? (It immediately precedes, incidentally, the ">Freewheelin'" show with Meredith Ochs we blogged about last week.) Thanks to all the folks who called in to talk about year-end maintenance and tax issues, the subject of Truckers News' December cover. We also ...
Meredith Ochs talks big trucks on NPR
December 26, 2008
Meredith Ochs, known best for her cohosting slot with Chris T. on Sirius Road Dog's "Freewheelin'" show, talked a bit about her love of rolling in rigs on NPR's Fall Music Preview back in September. (We've gotten behind a bit on our All Songs Considered free podcast subscription, sorry.) She and Chris have in fact broadcast their show live from ...
Merry Christmas from Paul Hartley/ADD Media
December 24, 2008
You might recognize the credit in the title from the pages of Overdrive. Hartley's our resident photographic genius, the man responsible for the Pride amp; Polish beauty shots you'll find most years in our calendar. The image above is his specially designed Christmas card, the text of which reads, ">Visions of sugar-plums might be fine for some, but we ...
Dressed for success
December 23, 2008
It's been a while since we checked in on Overdrive 2007 Trucker of the Year Henry Albert (pictured with his wife, Karen), who's in a yearlong test-drive of the Freightliner Cascadia and is blogging about his experiences here. Along the way he's gotten upwards of 7 mpg on certain legs, stopped in at the great Dee's Diner on route 33 ...
Amen
December 22, 2008
For this salute in the Amarillo, Texas, Globe-News, we give the big thumbs-up. The editorial, posted Friday to the newspaper's site, narrates a recent emergency at a TravelCenters of America location on I-40 in North Texas where truckers played a large part in coordinating search-and-rescue efforts as a TA employee looked for her missing daughter. ">The situation drew ...
DOT special treatment for Christmas
December 19, 2008
The U.S. Department of Transportation reported Thursday on Transport Secretary Mary Peters' announcement that U.S. military airspace lanes will be open to St. Nick this Christmas Eve. “We know Santa Claus must adhere to a really tight schedule to get to every house on his list,” said Secretary Peters as she presented Santa his Christmas Eve flight certificate at Andrews ...
Christmas bonus
December 18, 2008
It's official: one week prior to the arrival of one large bearded man in a red hat and hauling a grab bag of stuff for the nation's citizens, the number one request from the truck drivers of said nation cuts to the core of the trucking business. That's right, lower fuel prices topped our eTrucker.com poll probing the desirability of ...
Fun with spammers
December 17, 2008
"Beer Runner," a regular poster to Truck.Net, has been having some fun with spammers. And ">no I don't have anything better to do," the poster wrote yesterday. All the same, the fun sounded quite fun: "Last night I got another spam asking me for all my information just so I can collect millions of dollars. Normally I delete them but ...
Book by Chilean truck driver’s son takes on border violence
December 16, 2008
Amid ongoing examinations of life and violence along the U.S.-Mexican border and the shifting relationships among warring drug traffickers, regular folk and the symbiotic economies of both nations, a novel by the son of a Chilean truck driver that many are calling the best book of 2008 has ignited the imaginations and hearts of readers around the world. 2666, by ...
Give the gift of hauling
December 15, 2008
">Trucker gifts abound online" is the headline of a recent short piece by Jill Dunn at Overdrive sister news site eTrucker.com. The story catalogs several online spots offering some trucking-related gifts and/or inexpensive items. Among the retailers mentioned is GlobalTrucker.com, which has available a wide array of 12-volt items (heating pads, chargers, electronic and kitchen devices), various sports merchandise, and ...
‘Energy for sale’ redux
December 12, 2008
A new energy drink is billing itself as a healthy alternative to the old standbys of coffee, colas, cigarettes, sharp pinches to the cheek or thigh. It's called "Big Ol' Trucker Energy Juice," and it's aimed directly at you, in case the name wasn't explicit enough. With a active-ingredient makeup somewhat similar to the ubiquitous 5-Hour Energy, though without the ...
And you thought you had it bad
December 11, 2008
Next time your dispatcher dictates a route to you, thank heaven you're talking to a human who can, theoretically at least, be reasoned with. Some of the nation's cattle ranchers are experimenting with a device similar to an electrified dog collar to eliminate the expense of building long fences to keep their herds within the ranch's borders. These "GPS-enhanced cows," ...
The one that got away comes back
December 10, 2008
In Buna, Texas, mechanic Joe Richardson's high-school ring was found last week inside the gullet of an 8-pound bass caught in Lake Sam Rayburn, where Richardson lost the ring while fishing just a couple weeks after his graduation in 1987. The fisherman who who pulled up the catch tracked Richardson down after examining the engraving of his name on the ...
Bless the Virgin, bless the truck
December 9, 2008
Chicago owner-operator Freddy Lagunes, pictured, dressed up his white 1994 Freightliner to give a frigid yet festive commemoration parade with close to 80 of his fellow Hispanic truckers to the day of ">La Virgen de Guadalupe" this Sunday in the windy city. The celebration, whose central day is Dec. 12, originated in Mexico when -- according to tradition -- in ...
The perfect diet for stranded truckers
December 8, 2008
">I-70 in Eagle County was closed over 43 times last winter" due to snowy conditions, according to a report from the Vail Daily published Friday. The Colorado DOT, accordingly, has finished the first phase of a series of new parking facilities along the corridor that, including the basic facilities, come with ">gift bags" for stranded truckers. "If truckers are ...
Coop back open
December 5, 2008
Louisiana's I-10 westbound scale between Lafayette Parish and Breaux Bridge in St. Martin Parish is now back open after almost two years' and $200,000 worth of repairs, reports Steven Landry (not to be confused with the well-known custom-truck owner-operator of the same name) at the site of Baton Rouge's WBRZ TV. Consider it the price of improved roads -- Louisiana's ...
A little ‘anarchic neopopulism’ goes a long way
December 3, 2008
In an article posted to the History News Network, University of Georgia history prof Shane Hamilton looks at last month's presidential election through the lens of themes hit upon in his new book about the 20th century coalition of independent truckers and agribusiness that contributed largely to the deregulatory political climate of the 1970s and '80s. That book, Trucking Country: ...
In case you didn’t know already
December 2, 2008
The How'd They Build That? DVD series launched Nov. 18, with the first two behind-the-scenes documentaries' subjects self-evident from their titles. Big Truck and Fire Truck offer, respectively, a ">visit the International Truck Assembly Plant in Springfield, Ohio, which has been in operation for over 100 years and has built more than 5 million trucks," and a "tour of the ...
World’s sexiest truck
December 1, 2008
Car-maker Maserati is hyping itself as the "world's sexiest car, scientically speaking," on the back of results of a recent study, conducted by British luxury car insurer Hiscox, "in which participants were asked to listen to the sound of a variety of cars, from exotics to economy models," says the company. "The sound of a Maserati engine was shown to ...
Another sort of parade
November 28, 2008
Vincent Gramuglia, a Fultonville, N.Y., truck stop owner, was back in the New York press this week talking of plans for a peaceful protest convoy through the village of Skaneateles, scheduled for today. The New York state Department of Transportation has recently planned restrictions on large trucks in the town. Skaneateles sits in the path of U.S. 20, which serves ...
Time to think about Christmas
November 27, 2008
On this Turkey Day, you might want to think ahead to the next big holiday dinner and look for ways to minimize the gut-breadth bump -- or, if you're partial to LEDs, to Dec. 6, date of the upcoming Ukiah Truckers Light Parade, when local and regional owner-operators, the local fire department, various motorcycle clubs and others light up and ...
Got the shutter bug?
November 26, 2008
Country Music: The Masters is a new book of behind-the-scenes portraits of country stars from musician and self-proclaimed shutterbug Marty Stuart -- and if you missed him on National Public Radio's All Things Considered program yesterday, click back on that link and enjoy. The cover of the book, pictured, is a candid shot of the Man in Black taken on ...
No parking
November 25, 2008
The Clinton Diner, an inner-city Queens spot made famous for its appearance in Martin Scorsese's Goodfella's and for its popularity with truckers both local and long-haul, made the New York Times last Friday. The primary subject: ">Where Have All the Big Rigs Gone?" as reads the story's subtitle. A relatively recent rash of fines for trucks parking in the area ...
Big surprise
November 24, 2008
Con-way Freight linehaul operator Dennis Day, based in Georgia, is now on YouTube, in a video taken after he met with a variety of judges and lawyers at the National Judicial College in Reno, Nev. It was part of his outreach efforts as captain of America's Road Team, a project of the American Trucking Associations that Day is a part ...
Time to laugh or cry?
November 21, 2008
Vincent Gramuglia, owner of the Betty Beaver Truck Stop in Fultonville, N.Y., Exit 28 on the New York Thruway, made a brief appearance in the Albany Times-Union Thursday in a story about the dramatic decline in fuel prices. Gramuglia, the Times-Union reports, was one of the organizers of the New York owner-operators' protest convoy this past June, as diesel soared ...
Dually v-chip
November 20, 2008
A safety technology set to debut on the 2010 Ford Focus and being touted by the auto manufacturer as a way for parents to keep their teens within strict operational limits to enhance safety and fuel-efficiency is also being lauded for the control it offers fleet owners and managers over its drivers. So-called "MyKey technology," Ford says, "will be available ...
The ‘Annie Leibovitz of the trucking world’
November 19, 2008
An obituary in the Philadelphia Daily News yesterday told the story of Bette Garber, the renowned trucking photographer who passed away last Thursday. In case you missed the two-hour memorial on Sirius last Friday, follow the above link for more. She would've been 66 years old yesterday.Garber was the artist behind a vast catalog of trucking photography in magazines and ...
Salute
November 18, 2008
Musician Matt Alber, posting to his blog and the AmpedOut site, says ">LA Truckers Love Gay Marriage." His recent post details his participation in a Los Angeles march in support of gay marriage rights and against Californians' recent vote on Prop 8. "We came upon the 101 Freeway overpass and saw a crowd of celebrants draped over the railing," he ...
Truck makers on leading edge
November 17, 2008
Paccar, Inc., maker of Peterbilt and Kenworth trucks, is singled out in the current edition of IndustryWeek magazine (story available here) for their achievements in the hybrid drivetrain space in commercial truck development and production. Both Peterbilt and Kenworth rolled out hybrids this year for pickup and delivery and regional haul, from Kenworth's T370 Class 7 model to Peterbilt's 367. ...
The old o’er-hasty all-clear
November 14, 2008
In a short surveillance video recently posted on Yahoo's Butterfinger Comedy Network, a group of men are denied their opportunity to close the doors on a dry van full of shopping carts at a loading dock. One long-expanding shopping cart accordion is the end result as the driver slowly mosies his rig prematurely away from the dock. Too bad you ...
Gear up and ride
November 13, 2008
Rockwood Products, the custom truck component manufacturer, and Nashville's Spec Records have teamed up to offer a compilation of fresh country and Southern rock tracks called ">Truckers Tracks, Vol. 1 (Saddle Up and Ride)." Among notable performers/writers on the CD is Johnny Neel, formerly of the Allman Brothers band.">This is an absolutely wonderful collection for truckers, families of truckers, country ...
Ocean’s Eleven, anyone?
November 12, 2008
In last week's edition of the alternative newsweekly the Nashville Scene, one of the feature stories told the tale of an area long-hauler who, in a move somewhat reminiscent of the plot lines of certain Hollywood crook-as-ingenue-type flicks, attempted to sell two big-box casinos a major fix to a security problem. As writer Brantley Hargrove tells it, that long-hauler, Jeff ...
A modest proposal
November 11, 2008
The state of California's Air Resources Board made headlines recently when proposals for new truck, bus and greenhouse-gas-emissions regulations were announced, posted to CARB's website and opened up for comment. "California has posted proposals online that, if passed, will impact more than 400,000 state-licensed trucks, 500,000 out-of-state trucks operating in California and more than a half-million trailers," Jill Dunn reported ...
Guitar man, take 2
November 10, 2008
Cliff Douglas doesn’t call himself “Guitar Man” on the CB for nothing. The 49-year-old former long-haul driver, based near Vail, Colo. -- now a driver for the Colorado DOT -- this summer released a batch of inspired tracks on his “Truckin’ Country” CD (http://www.cliffdouglas.com/>). “I did love Jerry Reid,” he says of the famed “East Bound and Down” singer, who ...
Just deserts for Brit TV personality
November 7, 2008
UK truckers get their revenge on BBC2 talk show host Jeremy Clarkson in a new computer game, out from Glasgow-based development company T-Enterprise. Clarkson, the host of auto-news show Top Gear, caused a stir of controversy among UK truckers this week after running a tractor-trailer through a brick wall for a stunt on the show. Trucking's a hard job, he ...
Trucker for pres… excuse me, state assemblyman
November 5, 2008
Owner-operator Bill Ingram, leased to Meyer Bros. in Elk Mound, Wis., earlier this year transformed his 2001 Freightliner FLD (pictured) into a sort of campaign bus as part of his efforts to win the presidency of the United States. As with most such small independent runs, there was a YouTube video to go along with it. In the waning weeks ...
Joe the trucker?
November 5, 2008
While John McCain chose an aspirational plumber as his campaign's last prevailing symbol, he might have been better served by choosing a small-business owner-operator. Freight's down, credit's tight, and the independence most operators cherish is falling out of reach for many. Take Colorado trucker Brian Johnson, who ">didn't vote early because he was on the road," reported Denver's Rocky Mountain ...
Necessary intervention
November 4, 2008
The 60 Minutes "Coming Home" segment Sunday concerned vets returning from overseas to find their jobs disappeared, in contravention of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, or USERRA. Con-way Freight vice president Dave Miller was interviewed about the strain the company's support of its 50 called-up reservist and National Guard drivers and other employees puts on its ...
Eastbound and down
November 3, 2008
Either Illinois Senator Barack Obama or Arizona Senator John McCain is on his way to the White House, folks, it's sure. If truckers had their choice, they'd send McCain, according to a poll of eTrucker.com readers, more than 60 percent of whom said in recent weeks that they'd likely vote for the Republican. Tracking the movement of trucking opinion since ...
Truckstop gourmet: take two
October 31, 2008
After blogging about the public radio program The Splendid Table's laudatory remarks on the cinnamon rolls at Johnson's Corner in Loveland, Colo., this latest bit of news feels perhaps more down to earth. At an Iron Skillet restaurant on the other side of the country -- in the Petro at I-285 and Bankhead Hwy. in northwest Atlanta -- the Atlanta ...
A little hanky tanky
October 30, 2008
“Hang 12” is the motto behind the new Hanky Tanky clothes hanger, a 12-garment hanger aimed in part at long-haul truckers looking to maximize cab storage space -- and keep the jeans wrinkle-free. As for the name, it springs from the hanger’s origins in the mind of one Chrissie (pictured, with hanger, and truck) wanting a place to neatly hang ...
E-mail is the new CB?
October 29, 2008
Tired of Inbox SPAM telling you the Swiffer kills your cat, or forwards from friends you thought you knew pledging belief in the Skunk Ape? Ohio trucker Suzanne Roquemore recently joined the Facebook group ">Check snopes.com before you send me this crap!">, which brings together a community of SPAM and disinformation-weary humans. "I HATE getting that crap. Especially the election ...
Trucks of Hollywood
October 27, 2008
With the late-September announcement of an impending second season of NBC's Knight Rider television actiondventure show, after the 1980s show of the same name, a flurry of hunting activity has been ongoing at Overdrive HQ. We wondered: Where'd the auto carrying rig that the original show utilized, with Michael Knight's K.I.T.T. car ">disappearing" up its rear robotic ramp often at ...
Casualty of the day
October 27, 2008
The health-care advocates folks at GuaranteedHealthCare.org, a project of the California Nurses Association and the National Nurses Organizing Committee, last week highlighted the story of Dallas-based owner-operator Lyle Schiele (pictured), who lost his health insurance after illness led to surgery led to downtime and loss of a lease contract. ">In February 2006," Schiele wrote as part of the organization's "Health ...
PBS redux
October 24, 2008
All week long, the folks at the News Hour With Jim Lehrer have been airing their "America in Gridlock" series on infrastructure issues in America, offering a good look at what your elected officials see as the road toward renewal of battered highways, ports and airports. Follow that link to watch.The ">Price of Decay" segment focuses in part on the ...
Frontline cameo
October 23, 2008
Specialized auto hauler Reliable Carriers makes a cameo appearance this week in PBS Frontline's two-hour ">Heat" documentary -- airing this week, on most stations this past Tuesday, and you can watch it online here (the segment in question is No. 7). The doc, about global warming, doesn't mention the trucking industry directly, but a Reliable hauler is seen quite capably ...
Turns out we don’t have a monopoly on heroism
October 22, 2008
Peter Hanne, a New Zealand teenager, is being commended in that country's press for his dramatic rescue of truck driver Paul Clarke, whose tractor-trailer combo had been pushed by mighty winds in the Waioeka Gorge, south of Opitiki, into a mishap that had it hanging on the edge of the Gorge for a full 45 minutes, poised to fall into ...
Got wheelbase
October 21, 2008
New Jersey-based truck tricker Richie Acosta of East Coast Large Cars tooks 1st place in working bobtail at the truck beauty contest at Mid-America a couple years ago. The winning rig was his Project 350, named after the 2005 Pete 379 extended hood's mammoth double-frame factory wheelbase (photo courtesy Acosta here). This year, Anthony Fischkelta at Grand Street Warehouse in ...
Where did you learn this one?
October 20, 2008
The Billings, Mont., Boy Scout troop 9's website pays tribute to the Trucker's Hitch rope knot, or Lorry Knot in the UK, offering clear instruction, too, perhaps for any of you with a loose load and an emergency dearth of straps or chains. Marked by its strength and ease of untying, the troop 9 site administrator says that the ...
One man’s bailout plan
October 17, 2008
No, it's not a nationwide fuel reimbursement plan, rather a novel approach to ad sales. Hauler Patrick Kane has put his International tractor's exterior space (pictured) up for bid on eBay for presidential ads ">in the Key States of Ohio, Penn, and New York, plus other east coast states," as reads the post. He also "could be willing to concentrate ...
A clatter in the town hall
October 16, 2008
A victory for defiance? Westford, Vt. (population 2,086, according to the 2000 census) is the latest municipality to take up the issue of truckers' Jake-brake use and the attendant noise. The town council shelved an ordinance that would have forbidden the use of Jakes in the town center on Vermont highway 128, reports Joel Banner Baird at the Burlington Free ...
Heads up
October 15, 2008
As if high fuel prices, diesel shortages in the southeast and a financial crisis the likes of which we've not seen since the 1930s weren't enough, four northeast haulers found themselves in the literal line of fire last week on Western New York's Southern Tier Expressway, or I-86, near Ellery. The Buffalo News website reported Thursday on the four, who ...
Remembering a rebellion
October 13, 2008
When Overdrive magazine was founded in the early 1960s as a fledgling magazine for the independent owner-operators of the American trucking industry, the Teamsters union was at the zenith of its power on the national stage as a labor union representing mostly company truck drivers. One of them, Jim Harper, found his calling behind the wheel of a 1950s-era Autocar, ...
On the scene
October 10, 2008
Paul Hartley, a former Overdrive editor and renowned trucking photographer (he's responsible for our Pride amp; Polish show-truck calendar shots), alerted us to some recent local fame he caught while shooting a new International Lonestar daycab (pictured, courtesy Navistar International) on a main thoroughfare in Wilmington, Ill. While he was shooting, a Wilmington Free Press photographer was shooting him. A ...
Blogging from the cab
October 9, 2008
The Cascadia, Freightliner's newest on-highway tractor model (pictured), is getting the reality-show treatment with the company's new Slice of Life campaign. Follow the link for blog posts from three owner-operators given the opportunity to spend a year in a new Cascadia, outfitted with Detroit's new DD15 engine, the operators' only down payment a pledge to write about their experiences in ...
Now that’s a captive audience
October 8, 2008
According to South Africa's Independent Online, some tow truck drivers have resorted to a sort of ">captive marketing" (my words) to potential towees. Reporter Natasha Joseph writes, "Some of Cape Town's tow truck drivers are almost certainly using sophisticated 'cellphone jammers' to ensure that accident victims cannot contact other tow truck drivers or even emergency services." Joseph's report, ...
Who’s your copilot?
October 7, 2008
Either the producers of Bill Maher's satirical documentary Religulous have memory/note-taking problems or a GPS unit in their production van led them three hours due southwest of their intended target, a purported ">Truckers Chapel" referenced in their production notes and in the film's PR as being in Raleigh, N.C. However, Raleigh News-Observer reporter Matt Ehlers says it's actually in Charlotte. ...
Truckers get the bypass in new highway report
October 6, 2008
The Congress for New Urbanism has released a report called "Freeways Without Futures," a look at ten limited-access highways that run through urban areas that, according to the report's authors, should be replaced with surface boulevards to encourage urban devlopment. They are:1. Alaskan Way Viaduct, Seattle, Wash.2. Sheridan Expressway, Bronx, N.Y.3. The Skyway and Route 5, Buffalo, N.Y.4. Route 34, ...
Popping the cork
October 3, 2008
Inadvertently making the case for proper truck maintenance this week was Miami, Fla.-based trucker Luiz Ramirez, who suffered his first-ever cargo theft. While he splashed around in the shower in the wee hours at a truck stop in Ft. Myers, Fla., according to a report filed by Rachel Myers of the Ft. Myers News-Press, somebody was getting drunk on his ...
No use crying over this
October 2, 2008
What began as a contest between brother and sister to find “the strangest items to be spilled on the road” has now taken on a life of its own, says Dave Ference, operator of truckspills.com. Alligators, bees, lots of beer and milk (pictured) are among the more interesting. The most recent calamity involved a truck that overturned in August ...
Down the road, feeling good
October 1, 2008
">Sticker Steve" Stone of Barstow, Calif. (928-899-1771), sketched this patch design for members of the Road Dogs on Hogs truck drivers/motorcyclist group, which began with one woman's desire to jump out of the box and live life to the fullest. That woman is ">White Rose," aka Cynthia Morgan, who organized the Dogs, and the crew of truck drivers on Harleys ...
Our way or the highway
September 30, 2008
A new Ontario Trucking Association vehicle sticker (pictured) encourages highway safety by taking aim at aggressive motorists, reports CityNews.ca. The new sticker comes in part at the urging of Debbie Virgoe, the wife of trucker David Virgoe, killed in an accident after he swerved to miss a pair of highway-racing four-wheelers that had crashed. Part of a larger OTA campaign, ...
Learning by example
September 29, 2008
How Not to Respond to Towing Companies, and Police1. A Portland, Ore., tow-truck driver got the angry towee of a lifetime in a local woman who -- after a crowd surrounded the driver's truck one recent eventful night at a Portland apartment complex as he attempted to make away with the woman's vehicle -- responded to the driver's offer to ...
Chasing the tailgaters
September 26, 2008
One of Columbus Dispatch political cartoonist Joe Stahler's June 2008 sketches sends up motorists' unsafe driving habits, love of NASCAR and concern for fuel mileage, not necessarily in that order. It features a highway patrolman standing just outside a four-wheeler driver's door writing a ticket. The speech bubble extending from the driver and floating above the roof of his sedan ...
Tale of two headlines
September 25, 2008
Contrast these two headlines, both above stories detailing the group Truckers and Citizens of America's protest convoy to the U.S. Capitol Tuesday, Sept. 23:"Trucker Protest Runs Out of Gas" --at the website of third-party-logistics focused magazine Traffic Worldand"Truckers Come Together to Protest Fuel Prices" --at the website of the Washington PostWhile both stories are pretty even-handed, the headline of the ...
On a more serious note
September 24, 2008
Today, Tennessee DOT workers killed in the line of duty are honored at the Tennessee Smith County Welcome Center off I-40, as Tennessee Department of Transportation Commissioner Gerald Nicely joins family members at 10:30 AM, Central time, to dedicate the brand-new Highway Worker Memorial. The new black granite memorial honors the 106 highway workers lost on duty since 1948. Following ...
Beats ‘Where’s the Beef?’
September 23, 2008
Overdrive Editorial Director Max Heine's wife, Edie, shot this quite unique advertising slogan -- ">DRINKAMUGAMILKAMEAL," just right of the cow -- on a tank trailer while in Oregon, hiking the Cascades. Turns out the tanker's one of a fleet of stainless milk (duh) tanks owned by Milky Way, a division of Lynden Tank Co. of Lynden, Wash., milk delivery ...
What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen on the road?
September 22, 2008
This thread on Prime's driver forum is more than a little hilarious, we do say (go, Prime drivers!), particularly in light of our recent Bigfoot post. The Prime forum thread details various strange things seen on the road, including a nugget from our neck of the woods: Brian Baine notes, ">You can't beat seeing the 60+ year old lot lizard ...
Do they look like truckers to you?
September 19, 2008
The southern rock outfit Drive-By Truckers -- led by Patterson Hood, son of soon-to-be Musicians Hall-of-Famer David Hood of the infamous Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section -- is back from its first European tour, co-headlining with Brooklyn-by-way-of-Minneapolis, Springsteen-like rollers the Hold Steady. And now they head out on the U.S. highway. Tonight they're in Norfolk, Va., at the NorVa, Saturday in ...
Blame the Brits for ‘gear change hall of shame’
September 18, 2008
Big rigs with 18 wheels, and sometimes just as many gears to change, take the heat in name only at the website Truck Driver’s Gear Change Hall of Shame. The site lists sudden and sometimes startling musical key shifts in nearly 50 years of pop, rock, country and Motown by song title, year and composer. British radio host Siegfried Baboon ...
Keystone no-toll party
September 17, 2008
Today is Constitution Day, the 221st anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution, which happened in the great state of Pennsylvania, home to one of the oldest tolled roads in the nation, the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Penn's also home to perhaps the most controversial toll-road proposal of the century (outside of the as-yet-not-built Trans-Texas Corridor system, but that's another story). ...
‘Somebody’s $%! could get whupped over this’
September 16, 2008
divMade in the late 1970s and early ’80s and popular the nation over with “truckers, country stars…record shop employees” and many a teenage boy, the prank calls on the formerly underground “Redneck Tapes” -- now officially “The Real Leroy Mercer,” recently issued on CD by Nashville’s Dualtone Records -- were the work of Knoxville, Tenn., resident John Bean. ...
North of the border
September 15, 2008
In echoes of the McCain/Obama/Clinton spat over the idea of a diesel tax holiday for the summer months -- long dropped from the political grandstanding in the U.S. presidential contest due largely, we presume, to Mother Nature and her inexorable charge toward autumn -- the Canadian diesel tax has entered the debate between candidates for that nation’s highest office. While ...
Truckers the movie, Truckers the book
September 13, 2008
According to the UK's Digital Spy site, acclaimed British director Danny Boyle (emTrainspotting, 28 Days Later, et al) may adapt Terry Pratchett's Truckers novel -- about ">a group of tiny people called 'nomes' who live under the floorboards of a department store," four-inch-tall stowaways on a truck, hence the book's title -- to the screen. The book was the first ...
No four-wheelers up there
September 12, 2008
In case they didn’t have enough obstacles in their way, owner-operators using Apple’s newish and quite expensive iPhone or iPod Touch can now take advantage of a new opportunity for dodging in Space Truckers. The game, developed by the folks at iMakeApps specifically for the Apple devices, is available for a few bucks and puts such things as “asteroids, planets ...
Truckstop gourmet
September 11, 2008
It's not often a truckstop is singled out for exceptional cuisine. Overdrive Managing Editor Lucinda Coulter alerts us to the spot about Johnson's Corner in Loveland, Colo., on American Public Media's Splendid Table program. Program contributor Jane Stern, in a quest for the best cinnamon roll in the country, called Johnson's Corner's the ">biggest, largest, and possibly the best" (pictured). ...
No foolin’
September 10, 2008
Public radio program Marketplace, in a Monday spot about this summer's boost in public transit ridership, dropped this nugget in the segment's lead: ">Last time oil prices were this low it was April Fool's Day." True, but diesel's average for last week, down more than six cents from the previous week, was still a dime or so above the April ...
The more-than-hungry among us
September 9, 2008
Talk about some hot pie: The Associated Press reported Sunday on the arrest of a truck driver, Anthony Herbert Lee, of Hammond, Ind., not far from his home after Lee reportedly ran into mechanical trouble and tried to offload a reefer full of frozen pizzas on a cargo-salvaging company, for cash. The pizzas, of course, didn't belong to him -- ...
UPS van driver reaches million mark
September 8, 2008
Congratulations to UPS veteran Brent Boyd, who, according to the Associated Press, "surpassed one million miles on his UPS delivery van," the same 1987 GMC he's driven for 22 years in East Texas. Boyd told the news service that he has replaced the engine three times and repainted his van.br /br /He joins the legions of long-haul owner-operators, of course, ...
Biden on the boards / Teamster at the DNC
September 5, 2008
Joe Biden's remarks over the years have included references to the truck driver who was driving the tractor-trailer that collided with his wife's car in the early 1970s, killing her and Biden's daughter and injuring their two sons. Some drivers were surprised to learn of the reality of that wreck from Inside Edition's August 27 story on the incident. Biden, ...
Have you seen this sasquatch suit?
September 4, 2008
According to a recent eTrucker.com poll that probed truckers’ experience of the supernatural, 5 percent of drivers reported having at one time or other seen a “Bigfoot” out on the road. In July, Clayton County, Georgia, sheriff’s deputy Matthew Whitton was shot in the wrist while pursuing a suspect into a wooded area after said suspect robbed a Krystal burger ...
Google targeting truck customizers?
September 3, 2008
Attendees of and participants in Overdrive's Pride amp; Polish truck beauty competitions -- or readers of our new Custom Rigs magazine -- might have raised an eyebrow or at least ground a gear or two at the news of the name of Google's proprietary browser, now officially out in an open-source beta version for Windows Vista and XP users. ">Google ...
Snowman, R.I.P.
September 2, 2008
It's a sad day. From the wires...: The Snowman has passed.pAccording to AP writer John Gerome: NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Jerry Reed, a singer who appeared in the 'Smokey and the Bandit' movies, has died of complications from emphysema at age 71, his longtime booking agent said Tuesday. Carrie Moore-Reed, who is no relation to the star, said Reed died ...
A vote for stool consistency
September 2, 2008
The latest factors proclaimed to increase “the odds ratio for a car crash,” according to a report from Melbourne, Australia, newspaper The Age titled "Truckers ignoring their mental health," are depression and other brain issues. The Australians’ concern over depression as a crash-risk exacerbater seemed to one-up late U.S. worry over sleep apnea, use of the drug Chantix, road rage, ...
Fill in the blank
August 28, 2008
strongIdeal mate/strongstrong/strong“I’ll admit it: I like a guy who drives a big ____.” -- Cathy Day, a University of Pittsburgh assistant English professor, writing in her memoir, “Comeback Season: How I Learned to Play the Game of Love,” Free Press, 2008. If you guessed “tank,” you guessed wrong. Guys, reports suggest she’s still single.strongRoad rage /strong">My major problem with ______ ...
When Overdrive (briefly) went Hollywood
June 3, 2008
Now on DVD is perhaps the oddest trucking movie ever made: iMoonfire, the long-unseen low-budget 1972 release written, produced and directed by iOverdrive founder Michael Parkhurst. Hard to follow and hard to forget, it’s about a lost space capsule, a gang of Mexican bandits and a fortune hidden inside a load of lettuce.The DVD has no audio commentary track, ...
Truckers’ proposals "range from useless to harmful"
April 29, 2008
USA Today on recent trucker fuel-price protestsIn an election year, the pressure on Congress to do isomething about energy prices is growing. Proposals are spouting like a Texas gusher. They include giving drivers a summer holiday from the federal gasoline tax, suspending efforts to fill the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and forcing shippers to pay truckers a fuel surcharge.All have ...
"God has a plan"
April 28, 2008
The February 2008 issue of iOverdrive reported on the problems faced by truckers involved in fatal accidents that were not their fault. That the four-wheeler was to blame, not the trucker, doesn't spare the professional driver the consequences of a horrific wreck.Another such wreck seems to have happened April 22 in eastern Howard County, Md., when a Nissan Altima ...
A quicker trillion barrels
April 28, 2008
Astronomer Bob Doyle writes a weekly science column for the iCumberland Times-News in Maryland, often addressing energy issues. Here's a startling statistic from his latest columnSince the first oil well in Titusville, Pa., in 1859, humans have extracted a trillion barrels of petroleum. Conservative estimates suggest that there’s about that amount of petroleum in existing reserves. ... At our ...
Missouri diesel plant raises a stink
April 28, 2008
A Missouri legislator has introduced a bill aimed at forcing a renewable-diesel plant in Carthage to shape up or shut down. The problem, says the legislator: It stinks.Here are two 2004 reports on the operation, one from iNewsday and one from iDiscover magazine. The plant's intake isn't soybeans or corn but all the leftover turkey parts from ...
Big rig successfully performs Heimlich maneuver
April 28, 2008
We recently heard about a golden retriever successfully performing the Heimlich maneuver, but our "Ripley's Believe It Or Not!" calendar just alerted us to an even more amazing news story we missed back in 2004: The Heimlich maneuver successfully performed iby a tractor-trailer.The short version: The driver of a Ford F-350 on eastbound I-40 near Hickory, N.C., choked ...
Monday, Monday
March 5, 2008
Our "Ripley's Believe It Or Not!" calendar reportsYou are most likely to be injured at work on a Monday!We can't immediately find any confirmation of this, but if anyone knows of any -- such as a press release summarizing a report that examined workplace injuries, perhaps from an agency such as the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration -- please ...
Idiots and maniacs
March 3, 2008
This newspaper editorial about people who drive slowly in the left lane invokes an old George Carlin routine that surely resonates with truck driversHave you ever noticed that when you're drivin', anyone goin' slower than you is an idiot? And anyone goin' faster than you is a maniac?">Will you look at this idiot!" "Look at him! ...
"Anyone out there have a ten-twenty on Smokey?"
February 26, 2008
This Feb. 15, 2008, installment of Chip Sansom's comic strip ">The Born Loser" suggests that we're not the only ones reminiscing about the 1970s CB craze.Channel 19 is the blog version of the column of the same name featured in Overdrive: The Voice of the American Trucker. Todd Dills (tdills@rrpub.com) is its author.
If at first you don’t succeed
February 25, 2008
Our "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" calendar belatedly alerted us to the case of Seo Sang-moon, a South Korean who in 2005 passed the oral part of his driving test -- on his 272nd attempt. Here's the BBC News writeup.Presumably Seo has passed the behind-the-wheel part of the driving test since then, as his ability to drive never was ...
Sticker disappointment
February 22, 2008
Gasoline Alley Antiques in Seattle just e-mailed usThanks for visiting our website. Unfortunately, we just sold the last set of the CONVOY stickers we had in stock, in our store the other day. We will try to notify you, if another comes in, in the near future.Oh, well. At least the subject line didn't say, ">Negatory, good ...
Local man makes good
February 22, 2008
Steel hauler Ronnie Baker of Franklin, Ohio, iOverdrive Trucker of the Month for February 2008, got this nice writeup in the iMiddletown Journal. You can read our full profile of Baker here in the iOverdrive digital edition.Channel 19 is the blog version of the column of the same name featured in Overdrive: The Voice of the American Trucker. Todd Dills ...
Remember these stickers?
February 21, 2008
In a drawer full of forgotten childhood items, we recently found six of Donruss’ CB Convoy Code stickers, published in 1978. (All images copyright Donruss.)Sticker #4: Bear in the AirSticker #15: Six WheelerSticker #30: Night HawkSticker #31: Feeding the BearsSticker #38: Asphalt PilotSticker #40: BearAccording to trading-card and gaming expert Allen Varney, the CB Convoy Code set included 44 ...
Bite Me, that’s where I live
February 19, 2008
John Latta took this photo in summer 2007 at the Petro in Joplin, Mo., but we've met ilots of people who live on this corner. It must be the site of a high-rise apartment complex with room for thousands.Fans of iDirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel will remember Struemph Charcoal from host Mike Rowe's visit during the show's first ...
Light the Highway
February 19, 2008
Todd Dills pointed us to this National Public Radio report on the Light the Highway movement, which began with Christian prayer requests specifically for the I-35 corridor but now has gone nationwide.Channel 19 is the blog version of the column of the same name featured in Overdrive: The Voice of the American Trucker. Todd Dills (tdills@rrpub.com) is its author.
No, that’s not a dummy
February 18, 2008
When John Latta forwarded us photos purporting to depict the aftermath of a motorcycle-truck collision -- the motorcyclist dangling from the back of the truck with his head driven through the steel -- our first thought was, "That ihas to be a dummy,"> some sort of movie special-effects shot. Alas, no, as this article explains at the invaluable Snopes.com. ...
Speed of the sound of loneliness
February 18, 2008
According to researchers in the journal iPsychological Science, lonely people are more likely to believe in the supernatural, including God; and to attribute human qualities to pets, toys and vehicles.Since truck driving is one of the world's loneliest occupations, this has us thinking about all the truckers we know who are fervently religious, or who carry on ">conversations" with their ...
Calling Berkeley’s bluff
February 18, 2008
The article "Berkeley vs. the Marines" at the invaluable Snopes.com is about the 8-to-1 vote by the City Council in Berkeley, Calif., Jan. 29 to tell the U.S. Marines that its downtown recruiting station was ">uninvited and unwelcome" and to call upon Berkeley citizens to hinder the Marine recruiting effort. The council also guaranteed antiwar group Code Pink a parking ...
The Silver Bridge, 40 years later
December 17, 2007
Dec. 15 was the 40th anniversary of the rush-hour collapse of the Silver Bridge into the Ohio River between Point Pleasant, W.Va., and Kanauga, Ohio, killing 46 people. Reading accounts of the disaster, such as those linked from this Wikipedia entry, is depressingly like reading accounts of the 2007 I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis. Through Feb. 29, the River Museum ...
Virtual trucking
December 17, 2007
By "virtual trucking" we don't mean computer games or training simulations, and we don't mean ivirtuous trucking either, as in the iOverdrive Knights of the Road feature. In this CNN interview, business consultant Amy Zuckerman uses ">virtual" to mean "online and networked" and says truck drivers are examples of employees "operating virtually" in America's "hidden tech" economyThe truck ...
Garage poetry
November 27, 2007
iThe safety valve aloneKnows the worst truth about the engine.-- From the poem ">Your Teeth Are Ivory Towers" (1940) by William Empson (1906-1984)(According to critic John Holbo, that's pretty much the best line in the poem.)Channel 19 is the blog version of the column of the same name featured in Overdrive: The Voice of the American Trucker. Todd Dills (tdills@rrpub.com) ...
TRUCKER ABDUCTED –RETURNS WITH ALIEN PROSTATE!
November 27, 2007
No way we could improve on that headline, in the now-online-only iWeekly World News. ">It was a gland finale to an amazing adventure," says the trucker.Do you suppose Dr. Nolan Lloyd, the investigating physician quoted in the story, resembles the late actor Lloyd Nolan, who played doctors in the movie iPeyton Place and the sitcom iJulia?Channel 19 is the ...
Just another day in the cab
November 27, 2007
Next time you're moved to complain about the hardships of being a truck driver, think about the lot (pardon the pun) of the guy who impounds and repossesses cars for a living. AOL Autos talked (anonymously) to one such guy for this article. Once ">Dan" ran afoul of some guys who didn't want their cars towed"I was trying to ...
Cool Tools
November 27, 2007
The new TV series iCool Tools, Thursday nights on the DIY Network, is aimed at homeowners and not the maintainers of Class 8 trucks, but any do-it-yourselfer will enjoy learning about Thomas' Liquid Stainless Steel; or Mechanix Glove Lights, with a built-in LED flashlight on the back of each glove; or the Bootie Butler, which automatically wraps your dirty shoe ...
Building bridges (or not)
November 27, 2007
This short item in the Nov. 25 issue of iParade magazine rightly castigates congressional spending priorities. We especially like the headline.To remind you of the urgency of the issue, here's a photo of the collapsed I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, taken Aug. 5, 2007, by Todd Swain of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Why, after this, are our bridges not ...
Looking a gift card in the mouth
November 27, 2007
The increasing tendency of shoppers to give gift cards as Christmas presents -- or, as some cynics would argue, iinstead of Christmas presents -- is hurting trucking, as Bob Costello, the American Trucking Associations' chief economist, noted in October in this eTrucker storyThe fall bump in demand related to holiday spending has greatly dissipated, said Costello, who argues that the ...
The gullible 3.2 million
November 16, 2007
You may ask yourself, as you're deleting yet another junk e-mail about a foreign-lottery windfall, "How many people actually would fall for this?" Well, the Federal Trade Commission has an answer for you: approximately 3.2 million Americans, according to its recent consumer fraud survey, announced here.The invaluable Snopes.com offers this fine explanation of the foreign-lottery scam.Channel 19 is the ...
Brother of the Bridge to Nowhere
November 16, 2007
Now that Alaska apparently has given up on its federally funded Bridge to Nowhere, a.k.a. the Gravina Island bridge, iParade magazine has christened another proposed span in Alaska the ">brother of the Bridge to Nowhere": the Knik Arm Bridge that would connect Anchorage with Point MacKenzie, population 232, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. Here's the Nov. ...
Built by the New Deal
November 16, 2007
Five former Civilian Conservation Corps members, all in their 80s and 90s, attended their annual reunion at Maryland's Gambrill State Park, reports iThe Frederick News-Post in this story.How does this pertain to trucking? As Americans debate how best to get our 21st-century roads and bridges built, it may be worth remembering that a lot of the national infrastructure we ...
The world’s most famous trucking executive …
November 13, 2007
... is suddenly Nancy Shevell, a 47-year-old vice president at New England Motor Freight, because she reportedly is dating Paul McCartney. Check out her Google News roundup.The news was broken by the iThe Sun in Britain, with one of the all-time great tabloid headlines:br MACCA'SSMACKERWITH AMARRIEDCRACKER(In tabloid-speak, ">Macca" is short for McCartney; in British slang, a cracker is an ...
Writers and teamsters
November 8, 2007
In this IGN Entertainment article on the Hollywood writers' strike, Judd Apatow, writer-director of the movies iKnocked Up and iThe 40-Year-Old Virgin, explains why writers are sore they aren't getting money from new media such as digital downloadsHere's how I would explain it. If you're a teamster, you get paid to drive a truck. But if someone invents a new ...
Fat Mudflap Girl
November 5, 2007
Today some stickers and T-shirts arrived from the folks at FatMudFlapGirl.com -- all of them, unsurprisingly, featuring Fat Mudflap Girl.My wife was there when I pulled them out of the envelope. Her initial remark was unprintable. (Actually, it's printed all the time. I should say I prefer not to publish it on this blog.) Her second remark ...
Twinkie reassurance
November 5, 2007
If you've heard the truck-stop legend that Twinkies last forever, don't believe it, says the invaluable Snopes.com. This article explains that Twinkies actually have a shelf life of 25 days.The company that makes Twinkies, Interstate Bakeries of Kansas City, Mo., concedes that more than three weeks of freshness is unusual for baked goods, but says that's because Twinkies contain no ...
The Federal Trade Commission isn’t after you
November 5, 2007
If you receive an e-mail purporting to be from the Fraud Department of the Federal Trade Commission, claiming a customer has filed a complaint against you, don't worry. Thousands of people are getting the same e-mail, but it's a fake, and its attachments contain a computer virus, the FTC says. In this warning about the virus, the FTC ...
On the Road
July 26, 2007
In Chapter 3 of Jack Kerouac's novel iOn the Road/i, Sal Paradise is hitchhiking outside Davenport, Iowa:blockquoteHere the big trucks roared, wham, and inside two minutes one of them cranked to a stop for me. I ran for it with my soul whoopeeing. And what a driver -- a great big tough truckdriver with popping eyes and a hoarse raspy ...
Blue-ribbon truck art
July 25, 2007
In the kids' art exhibit at the Allegany County Fair in Cumberland, Md., this past week, we were pleased to see that Darrell Stonestreet won first place for this painting of a dumper at work. Seems too active to be a "still life," but hey, art resists category.Darrell also got a second-place ribbon for this pen-and-ink work. Clearly he's ...
Mowing down those orange cones
July 25, 2007
At the Allegany County Fair in Cumberland, Md., this past week, we noticed that the cartoon backdrop of a kiddie ride named Truck Stop depicts happy truckers in the act of mowing down panicked construction workers and their equally panicked orange cones -- which have faces like pets, or familiars. If you want to see Truck Stop for yourself, it's ...
1943 Autocar ad
July 25, 2007
In an antique store in Adamstown, Pa., we found this 1943 magazine advertisement for Autocar, then based not far away in Ardmore. The ad says wartime specialty trucks such as this U.S. Navy tanker are "heralds of increasingly finer Autocar trucks to come."Today Autocar is based in Indiana and makes only state-of-the-art refuse trucks, its slogan ">Every day is trash ...
Sort-of-reassuring math
July 25, 2007
In her July 1 "Ask Marilyn" column in iParade magazine, Marilyn vos Savant says that while you are more likely to have a wreck if you're on the road a lot -- as professional truck drivers are -- the likelihood of a wreck on, say, your 100th run is no greater than on your 20th run, or on your first. ...
A mysterious disappearance in Spain?
July 25, 2007
iFate/i magazine, an occult monthly founded by the late Ray Palmer in 1948, is still around and is still enjoyable reading for devotees of Bigfoot, UFOs and the like, if you keep many grains of salt handy. (We recommend, in fact, several bowls full.) Here's a trucking-related tidbit from the February 2006 issue, from Scott Corrales' article "Removed from ...
Imagine her at Lindsay Lohan’s age
July 23, 2007
The Orange Beach, Ala., police say the drunk driver who led them on a 100 mph chase before flipping her car ... was 11 years old.Channel 19 is the blog version of the column of the same name featured in Overdrive: The Voice of the American Trucker. Todd Dills (tdills@rrpub.com) is its author.
Some things never change
July 23, 2007
From iRailroad Fever: Songs, Jokes Train Lore/i (1998) by Wayne Erbsen of Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, N.C.:blockquoteOperating on the premise that "Cleanliness is next to godliness," many communities in the early days of railroading forbad trains from running through town for fear that the soot from passing locomotives would foul windows. Special teams of horses stood ready ...
The ballad of Customer Fred
July 17, 2007
TruckDown.com, PartSeek.com and TruckPartsInventory.com (its slogan ">Expose Your Parts to the World") have debuted a promotional cartoon from the Terry Gilliam school of cutout animation, set to the tune of "Achy Breaky Heart," with parody lyrics by Scott Tetz of PartSeek.com. Here's the link. Be sure to wait around for the parents of ">Customer Fred." The point, of course, is ...
How intrastates can be interstates
July 16, 2007
Marilyn vos Savant, in her "Ask Marilyn" column in the July 15 iParade, answers a perennial question: How can Hawaii have interstate highways?Channel 19 is the blog version of the column of the same name featured in Overdrive: The Voice of the American Trucker. Todd Dills (tdills@rrpub.com) is its author.
That’s determination
July 10, 2007
A woman was charged in western Maryland with driving away from the scene of an accident in West Virginia -- on only three tires. Since it was late at night, the shower of sparks must have made the car easy to spot.Channel 19 is the blog version of the column of the same name featured in Overdrive: The Voice ...
Bob Evans (1918-2007)
June 25, 2007
Bob Evans, founder of the sausage company and restaurant chain that bear his name, died June 21, 2007, from complications of pneumonia at age 89.According to the Bob Evans website, Evans often said his empire was founded on the tastes of truckers. After World War II, Evans worked for the family meat-packing company, but in 1946 he opened ...
Bubba the Million-Mile Cat
June 19, 2007
At the CNN website, under ">Watch Video" in the center, is a June 1 segment from Sacramento TV station KOVR about truckers Wayne and Kathy Wiedman and their "million-mile cat."Bubba, the Wiedmans' black ">Attack Cat," has left the cab only twice since the Wiedmans found him years ago. Bubba likes to ride on the dashboard, draped across the ...
