Year 2025 is in the rear view, just back there behind the trailer. With any luck at all, owner-operators are making good time outrunning all that happened during what was some kind of a momentous year in and around trucking. As my colleague Alex Lockie put it in his year-in-review last week just ahead of New Year celebrations, 2025 may well go down as the year when the you-know-what truly "hit the fan" in trucking.
Among surprises, though, was real engagement from regulators in response to longtime asks of small-business trucking. That's even as owner-operators’ hopes for economic improvement at the beginning of 2025 with the second Trump administration went largely unrealized by the time the clock wound down on the year.
Ongoing surveying of Overdrive readers shows a majority reporting income tracking along at levels either worse than or similar to those seen in the very-sluggish year 2024. Results below are shown as of January 5.
As of this writing, too, only just more than a third of readers are expecting 2026 to fare better on that score.
[Related: POLL: Owner-ops, what's your biz outlook heading into 2026?]
Howes sponsors Overdrive Radio. The longtime trusted provider of fuel treatments like its Howes Diesel Defender all-weather mileage booster and winter Diesel Treat anti-gel / Lifeline rescue treatments to get you through the coldest temps. Find more information about all of Howes' products at the company website.
Run back through the year this week with me here:
The episode starts with two "honorable mentions" for podcasts just outside the top 10, which start the playlist below counting from No. 12 to the No. 1 most-listened-to episode of 2025. Happy New Year!
[Related: Overdrive's top 10 trucking stories of 2025]
