The May issue showed numerous examples of profitable niche short-haul operations. Read the piece online here.

Today we say “long live the owner-operator,” but 10 years from now will we be saying the same thing? Year after year, more owner-operators go out of business. Everyone is quick to jump in, pass judgment and say he or she didn’t know how to stay in business. This could not be further from the truth.

You have to look at the factors driving the owner-operator out: the high cost of fuel, insurance and trucks. Add to that the contracts for hauling goods. The idea of an owner-operator may be the only thing we have to hold on to.

Those of us leased to a carrier think we are an owner-operator, but we’re not. We are using the carrier’s authority to operate. Oh, yes, we pay for the fuel, the insurance, the truck and trailer and all the upkeep of the truck and trailer. We have the right to refuse a load, and we can shut down and take time off when we want. But we are nothing more than an extension of a company driver with options.

As an owner-operator, I chose early in my driving career to be a heavy hauler, and with that came good paychecks. I have retired after 48 years. My last yearly gross settlement was $275,560. After expenses, my profit was $155,060.

None of the equipment or shippers or receivers ever talked back to me about what I had on my trailer. I worked for me. Not everyone can haul heavy loads that high, wide and over-length. Nevertheless, if you think you’re cut out for it, take the chance. One day you could be making some good money for your services. How many of you can say that as you sit 16 to 24 hours at a shipper or receiver waiting to get loaded or unloaded?  –Mike McRae, Elkins, W.Va.

The most recent was filed by owner-operator Jerry Floyd in the Northern District of Florida and is a class-action lawsuit. Five of the previous six were also class-action lawsuits. Like the other lawsuits, Floyd’s relies almost entirely on a federal affidavit unsealed April 18 that alleges Pilot salespersons knowingly changed the rebates owed to Pilot customers to boost company profits and their own sales commissions.

Speaking last week to a gathering of fleet executives and representatives at the 2013 Scopelitis Transportation Seminar in Indianapolis, Pilot Flying J CEO Jimmy Haslam said that about 250 Pilot customers had their rebate amounts altered. He also said he had no knowledge of the scheme’s occurrence until the FBI raided the company’s headquarters April 15.

Floyd is suing Pilot for alleged fraud, violating deceptive trade practice laws, unjust enrichment, conversion, breach of contract and fraudulent concealment and is seeking judgement of compensatory damages, punitive damages, injunction barring continuation of the rebate withholding and costs incurred by Floyd in the lawsuit.

Like all of the other suits so far, Floyd is seeking a jury trial.

Click here to see the documents filed in the Pensacola court.

While driving intoxicated, Cleveland’s rig overturned and spilled the propane in McKinley County, N.M., resulting in a temporary closure of Interstate 40. The New Mexico Highway Patrol charges Cleveland with operating under the influence. “We are committed to taking unsafe truck drivers who endager the public off our nation’s roads,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

It is, obviously, against federal regulations to drive a truck under the influence of alcohol, FMCSA said it in its announcement. Cleveland’s imminent hazard out-of-service order is based on these regulations.

“It is unacceptable for a bus or trucking company, or any of its drivers, to disregard the law and put the safety of every traveler at risk,” said FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro.

House members sent HB 267 to the Senate following a 108-7 vote May 21. The bill stipulates if the U.S. Department of Transportation permits tolling on an existing Interstate, then the state must maintain the same number of general non-toll lanes on the affected segment that were available before the imposition of toll lanes.

The No Tolls I-95 Coalition, a grassroots organization formed to oppose recent efforts to toll the Interstate, backs the legislation. In January 2012, however, the North Carolina Department of Transportation released a study identifying tolling as the most feasible means for funding I-95 improvements.

“We don’t do DEF.”

“What? You’re an authorized shop. Why don’t you do DEF?”

“We don’t do DEF.”

This conversation could have continued for an hour or so, but the bottom line was they don’t do DEF.

Being it was Saturday night, we had no choice other than to wait in Big Spring until Monday morning, when another shop (that incidentally isn’t an authorized shop) opened. Because they did DEF.

It always seems like something tries to keep us from getting home, when all we want to do is go home. Another 36 hours without moving was going to be an eternity. I moped and pooped and displayed every symptom of unhappiness I could possibly display. George is awesome when I act like this, he never feeds into the mood, he always tries to divert me. Much like you would with a three-year-old.

“Let’s go in and eat. There’s a gift shop, we’ll look for something to take the kids.”

“We’ll never see the kids again. We’re going to rot in Big Spring.”

“C’mon, babe. We’ll get home. Let’s eat.”

I drug myself out of the bunk and joined him for the dusty, hot walk to the restaurant. When we got inside, George and I split to go to the restrooms. I finished first, and was waiting outside for him when I noticed the boots. When I say “the boots,” I mean the weirdest color gray boots I had ever seen. I don’t usually talk to strangers, because I’m not good at making friends, but I had to comment to the guy wearing them.

“Nice boots. I like the color.”

“Thanks, they’re dog skin.”

Wut?

Apparently, my face reflected my horror. He laughed.

“I got ‘em in Korea. You’d be surprised at how nice dog skin tans up.”

“Uh, so do humans, but we don’t go around making boots out of ‘em. Unless you’re Hitler, of course. They say he had lampshades made of people. I’ll bet they smelled weird when they got hot.”

It was his turn to be horrified. He got a weird look on his face, tipped his hat and basically ran away from me. George walked up as he was leaving.

“Do I want to know what you said to him?”

“He started it with his dogskin boots.”

“Aaannnd that answers my question. Let’s go eat.”

Sometimes, it’s hard to make friends on the road.

The declaration provides broad regulatory exemptions to CFR Parts 390-399 for truck carriers and operators providing emergency relief materials and services to Oklahoma customers. Drivers for motor carriers operating under the declaration must obtain and keep a copy of the declaration in their possession. Carriers, drivers and vehicles currently under an out-of-service order are not eligible for the exemption.

Download a copy of the declaration here.

The declaration will be in effect “for the duration of the emergency or 15 days (June 5, 2013), whichever is less.”

Overdrive editors have pinned a post to the top of the Facebook page readers can feel free to utilize as a place to share availability for relief efforts to Moore as the week goes by. Consider it an initial-response sort of sounding board to communicate to and about organizations that expect needing haulers in the coming weeks. 

OOIDA has said that applicant Servicio De Transporte Internacional y Local did not disclose in its application for U.S. authority that an affiliated carrier did not comply with the alcohol and drug testing rules.

The association commented May 13 on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s publication of STIL’s Pre-Authorization Safety Audit, which applicant carriers must clear to participant in the pilot program.

RAM Trucking — another applicant — did not disclose affiliation with two other carriers, said the Teamsters and the Truck Safety Coalition. These affiliate carriers did not have good Compliance, Safety, Accountability scores in driver fitness and vehicle maintenance categories.

Also, Transportes Monteblanco a current participant, despite having received a less than satisfactory rating in the agency’s Compliance Review, the organizations added.

OOIDA, in joining the groups in a May 15 public statement, said the FMCSA’s agenda is for large economic interests and smaller trucking businesses will pay the price.

On May 9, a Hamilton County Criminal Court jury returned a guilty verdict for Joseph John Volpe, 46, of Rossville, Ga. The jury also found him guilty on two counts of aggravated assault and three counts of reckless endangerment in connection with the 2010 incident. Sentencing is set for June 17, according to county records.

Volpe, who was hired by carriers to report unsafe truckers, was filming a trucker on Interstate 24 in Chattanooga.

Volpe said the trucker tried to run him off the road after realizing he was filming him, according to video clips of the trial provided by WTVC-TV News Channel 9. The trucker said he then heard gunfire and a bullet entered his sleeper.

Volpe’s attorney Sam Robinson III countered that Volpe had a handgun permit, but the trucker did not actually see his client shoot the truck. The shooting occurred near an exit where shootings are not uncommon, he said.

If I’m remembering it correctly, Albert was making an almost weekly turn from Charlotte, N.C., down to Laredo and back that typically put him home in the wee hours, whereupon he shut down for the following day and much of the next, then headed out in the evening to load for another turn.

Under the rules coming July 1, that downtime wouldn’t count for a 34-hour restart, given it didn’t include two 1-5 a.m. periods. But just as so many operators in similar situations, such as Solliday, have concluded, there was a simple-enough answer to it — the recap. Since the restart was added as an operational-flexibility option for haulers with the 2003 rewrite of the hours rules, running on a constantly rolling set of 70 hours in eight days (or 60 in 7 days if you run for a fleet that shuts down at least one day of the week) has become something of a rarity.

With the new rules, it may well become more of a standard practice, given the new restart limitations (restarts are also limited to one per week, measured from the beginning of the last restart).

Company driver Todd McCann blogs about various trucking topics via his AboutTruckingDriving.com site, home to his blog and podcast. His piece on the 34-hour restart you can find here.

Yesterday afternoon I had a conversation with company driver Todd McCann, who blogs over at the “Trucker Dump” blog on this site. He shared an analysis of his current restarting practices in this post  to the blog and associated podcast April 19. Of the most recent three restarts he’d taken, none would have been legal come July 1. A couple weeks later, he says, “I did a 34-hour restart, and it would have been effective come July – so 1 out of 4 would have been effective in July.”

In the three situations detailed in McCann’s account on the blog, he would have had no problems making his appointments without the restart, but at once he “couldn’t have delivered any earlier.” Generally, he says, “As long as I can keep running, I’ll keep running – I don’t want a 34-hour if I don’t have to take one. The only time I stop [for the restart] is if I might as well.”

For him, the problem not having the option of the 34-hour restart in those instances is simply a matter of reduced flexibility for him down the line. “There would have been no benefit for sitting for 34 hours straight,” he says.

If he’s grateful for anything in the new rules, it’s that FMCSA didn’t get rid of the option of splitting 10-hour sleeper-berth periods into one 8-hour and one two-hour period. But FMCSA has changed on-duty definitions in other ways that could prevent drivers and owner-operators tied up at shippers and receivers from maximizing their on-duty hours, making running on the recap a potentially more flexible, possible proposition. You’ll now be able to legally log time resting in a parked vehicle as off-duty, thus some of that detention time won’t eat up your on-duty hours.

Hopefully, companies don’t turn around and use such as justification for not collecting/paying driver detention time (such as they do collect it now, in any case), but that’s a topic for another post.

What do you think? Have you been testing the new hours rule in your operation? Tell me in the comments or shoot me an email: tdills [at] randallreilly.com.

OK tornado update
We’ve pinned a post to the top of Overdrive‘s Facebook page readers can feel free to utilize as a place to share availability for relief efforts to Moore, Okla., as the week goes by. Consider it an initial-response sort of sounding board to communicate to and about organizations that expect needing haulers in the coming weeks. If past experiences are any indication, the needs will be great for quite some time to come.

Also, if you’re with a relief coordinating organization, feel free also to utilize me to help get information out to truckers as you need to. I’m sure I can speak with the rest of the staff here when I say that we’re happy to help in any way we can to get the word out. My email, again: tdills [at] randallreilly.com. Our hearts and minds are with the people affected there.

“Drivers across the nation have responded to Lisa Kelly’s down-to-earth, magnanimous personality and the story the series has told of a young woman growing into the nerves-of-steel work ethic required to run where she does, typically on Alaska’s rugged Dalton Highway – the ‘Haul Road’ in local parlance.” –from Overdrive‘s cover story about Kelly, upcoming in the June 2013 issue. Stay tuned.

Since her Season 3 debut as part of the long-running History Channel television series Ice Road Truckers, Lisa Kelly has become “arguably the U.S. trucking industry’s most recognizable face for the American public,” writes Overdrive Senior Editor Todd Dills in a story slated for the magazine’s upcoming June 2013 issue. The reporting comes amid the History Channel’s announcement of a new season of IRT set to begin airing June 9 at 10 p.m. EDT/PDT.

A History Channel press release described the new season as one of old rivalries hitting “an all-time high as two different companies with legendary truckers go head-to-head and try to put each other out of business” in Manitoba, Canada. After quitting Polar Industries, series veteran Hugh Rowland “sets up his own shop right down the street. Bound and determined to reclaim his crown as ‘King of the Road,’ he poaches Polar’s dispatcher, intent on landing as many loads as he can to force his old company into submission. Hugh rounds up the toughest truckers he can find,” but Polar’s not down yet. “They enlist some of Hugh’s biggest rivals. Ice road legend Alex Debogorski signs on,” likewise Kelly, who told Overdrive the filming for this season on Canadian ice roads, the first such experience she’s had, was the most fun of all her experiences filming with the production crew.

In the meantime, the Esquire-dubbed “Sexiest Trucker Alive” is appearing in the third and fourth installments of a special series on SiriusXM’s Road Truck Trucking Radio Channel 128 this weekend, May 25 and 26, at 8 p.m. EDT both days. In “On the road with Lisa Kelly,” she gives “a behind-the-scenes look at tales from the deadliest roads” around the world, experienced firsthand in the IRT spinoff that put North American haulers on rugged terrain in India and Bolivia, respectively, SiriusXM says.

Also: “Lisa will detail the many challenges she faces being a prominent woman in a trucking man’s world, sharing the life-changing lessons she’s learned and crazy trucking stories from all over the world.”