Driver training: Introducing Bryan Spoon, owner-operator on the rulemaking committee

Owner-operator Bryan Spoon, whom I’ve written about previously in last month’s feature on the Affordable Care Act.

As an independent owner-operator, Bryan Spoon holds the rare distinction of having been selected among many qualified nominees to serve on the Entry Level Driver Training Advisory Committee. Or, as he puts it in the podcast below, one of the only members who doesn’t typically “wear a suit and tie to work” every day.

I sat down for a conversation with Spoon before the second day of the first ELDTAC meeting around the end of February. (The second meeting gets under way today — follow progress via the ELDTAC website at this link.) Among the subjects discussed were logistical difficulties of serving on a committee with such a hefty out-of-town-meeting schedule (five meetings within the next three months) and the general importance of training standards.

With a background in training in the military, Spoon, as part of his efforts with the rest of the ELDTAC to craft a pre-CDL training standards rule, also stresses the part of his mission to highlight the importance of easing the transition from military work into CDL driving for veterans, among other priorities.

The current Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association board member and Grandy, N.C., resident independent flatbedder says he’s open to input from fellow owner-operators on the training issue, too. Find him via Facebook.

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‘What if it all just stops?’
According to the chuckler of a story at this link to the Onion satirical news site, Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx was thrown into a manic revel of worry over the notion that, well, the “American populace might suddenly decide not to travel anywhere ever again.”

As I read through the piece, I was tempted to fault Onion writers for not including trucks in their hilarious invocation of all the modes of transport “essential to American society and … modern life” — but then I got the end, and laughed contentedly away. Worth checking out if you’ve got a minute.