From the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Kentucky, this week's Overdrive Radio edition kicks off continuing coverage as all of us here spent the show fanning out across convention center grounds to cover just as much of MATS as possible. The fruits of that labor you’ve seen just a small sampling of to date, the lot of it collected with the MATS tag here at OverdriveOnline.com.
Today, drop back to the very beginning of the show for an 8 a.m. Thursday, March 27, panel discussion that set the issues stage for the remainder of the event. It was moderated by Brent Hutto, former longtime Chief Relationship Officer at Truckstop -- now a senior advisor for the load board as he’s joined the staff of the Truck Parking Club company.
[Related: Truck Parking Club turns free spaces paid: Is this the future of truck parking?]
You’ll hear a variety of voices in the panel discussion, touching on freight market dynamics, small business struggles and ways to overcome, predatory towing, insurance, parking, fraud in the brokered-freight marketplace, cargo and payment theft and so much more. Panelists included:
- Jason Cowan, leader of 45-truck Silver Creek Transportation, named Overdrive’s Small Fleet Champ in 2021, since which plans for growth have come to fruition.
- Hell Bent Xpress owner Jamie Hagen, whose all-Mack fleet operates out of a South Dakota headquarters and which was one of two finalists in the 3-10-truck division of the Small Fleet Championship last year.
- Jessica Dotson, co-owner-operator of Dotson Transportation with her husband
- Tyler Johnston, Mercer Transportation's director of operations
- Lewie Pugh, Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association executive vice president
Hutto started the discussion with a question directed to business challenges, and the podcast ends with an audience member's query as to just what organizations like OOIDA or regulators might do about "what I call 'predatory parking,'" the leased owner-operator said, with truck stops and other parking facilities locations raising prices or increasing the percentages of their lots devoted to paid spaces.
Overdrive Radio's sponsor is Howes, longtime provider of fuel treatments like its Howes Diesel Defender all-weather mileage booster and winter anti-gel treatements to get you through the coldest temps, the Howes Multipurpose penetrating oil, and other products.
[Related: Get $755 million truck parking bill across the finish line: Truckers to Congress]
Therein, too, lies part of a solution for those opposed to paid parking, Pugh noted: "If the bill passes and that money is used, whether by a truck stop, or a city or a municipality or a state, it has to be free, because it's your money in the first place."
Take a listen:
As mentioned in the podcast:
**Overdrive's recent insurance renewal-related feature
**Post-crash litigation series from 2022
**Tow companies' domination of 2024 DOT listening session
**Overdrive's revamped Partners in Business start-to-finish playbook for owner-operator careers
