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Voices: Page 74
Voices
POLL: What was your level of mechanical experience when you started as an owner-op?
Owner-operators, when you launched your business, what level of mechanical knowledge and/or experience did you have — whether the required basic knowledge or more in-depth professional experience or education?
August 21, 2017
Overdrive Radio
Rebuilding: From bulk dedicated to a base of direct flatbed customers with owner-op Tim Klaus
On Overdrive Radio: Flatbedder Tim Klaus re-entered trucking and found himself at the center of the natural gas drilling boom, hauling frac sand. It dried up earlier for him than for many, and since then he’s made several moves in freight, trailer spec and more to build a core of direct customers to keep brokered loads to a minimum.
August 18, 2017
Voices
An ELD rate boost? Maybe, but look out for the safety banana peel
“The real tragedy is the runaway economic and safety burden will fall on an unsuspecting public at a time when economic stress has been at an all-time high since the Great Depression.” –reader and truck owner Gary Carlisle
August 17, 2017
Overdrive Radio
The mechanical prowess — and ELD trials and tribulations — of Randy Carlson
Owner-operator Carlson’s approach to the business follows an early career as a mechanic, learning from his father, who also trucked, then in trade school and on the job at an International dealer — a solid basis on which to build an owner-operator business. Is it less common than it used to be?
August 10, 2017
Voices
Barry Moore presents ‘Near miss’
Watch: A view from the dashcam of trucker Barry Moore, who says he was on “Ohio 13 just north of Mansfield” when a “passenger van loaded with 6 or 7 people passed me on curve, almost colliding with an oncoming car.” …
August 9, 2017
Electronic Logging Devices
POLL: What’s your level of concern over hacking/security risks and ELDs?
This poll probes the extent of worry over the outside potential for a truck’s computer-system infiltration through an ECM plug-in device, like an ELD. Reports and device makers suggest risk is minimal without physical infiltration, though malicious programmers abound …
August 8, 2017
Overdrive Radio
Podcast: Step deck owner’s journey into mobile information tech, more
How to build an effective organizational system for your smartphone apps — and just what apps are showing plenty utility for step-deck hauler Joey Slaughter. In this Overdrive Radio edition, also, the operator’s thoughts on ELDs (he’s still on paper), broker relationships and more.
August 4, 2017
Voices
Arizona Trucking Association uses grant money to educate teens on driving around trucks
The goal is to educate motorists about sharing the road to reduce truck-involved crashes; expand public awareness of sharing the highways with trucks with oversized loads; and reach out to young drivers, senior citizens and others to educate them on how their driving actions around trucks can create unsafe traffic conditions.
July 25, 2017
Voices
Voting open to name Trucking Moves America Forward mascot
The final five names are Axle, Bob Tail, Safety Sammy, Seymour S. Miles and Wheels.
July 24, 2017
Overdrive Radio
Freight niche transition — HHG to expedited with owner-operator Greg Huggins
Podcast: A talk with Greg Huggins, currently leased with a 2015 Cascadia straight truck to Landstar Express America, about his transition three years ago from two decades and more of household-moves hauling. And: A prediction on scale house inspectors after the ELD mandate.
July 21, 2017
Voices
POLL: Do you run with a dashcam or other camera on the truck?
Do you run with a dashcam or other camera system on the truck? Weigh in here.
July 20, 2017
Channel 19
Voices on ELDs, hours, pay as grassroots efforts begin to bear fruit
As news out of Congress shows some of the results of anti-ELD mandate forces speaking out, this voices round-up brings commentary under Max Heine’s July “Pulse” column on what one reader dubbed “the real problem” at the root of ELD issues, hours. Not everyone agreed, some seeing rates/money as the more bedrock issue in all the back-and-forth over ELDs and hours.
July 18, 2017
Overdrive Radio
Podcast: ‘Make mad money! Be a freight broker!’: Independent James Woods on a culture of dishonesty among middlemen
The push for maximum profit, whatever the cost in toil or honesty be damned, clearly infects some corners of the trucking industry, to the detriment, too often, of those doing the work of hauling the freight. That’s the message of independent James Woods, who spoke for this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast on subjects of transactional transparency, fair dealing and more.
July 13, 2017
Voices
A back-handed compliment is still back-handed
Senators deliver industry compliments for trucking efforts to combat human trafficking before proposing truckers convicted of aiding human trafficking have their CDLs revoked for life. “Wait. What?”
July 12, 2017
Voices
Truckers divided on Republicans’ go-it-alone Obamacare overhaul
A slight minority (47 percent) of readers noted general support for current efforts, while an exact half of poll respondents either urged Republicans to go back to the drawing board or leave the current system in place.
July 11, 2017
Overdrive Radio
Making the e-log switch: The evolution of small fleet Old Time Express
“I know a lot of people, and especially a lot of drivers, would like to cut my head off when I say this …” — that’s Old Time’s Mark White in preamble to some perhaps underappreciated e-log lessons he delivers toward the end of this week’s Overdrive Radio podcast. File under: things people might not want to hear.
July 7, 2017
Voices
Between cynicism and hope: Readers, associations weigh in on ramifications of CSA study
While many readers were cynical about the entire project, associations from OOIDA to ATA were hopeful that the National Academies’ CSA revision recommendations would be taken seriously by the FMCSA.
June 30, 2017
Electronic Logging Devices
POLL update: What’s your most likely response to the ELD mandate?
With the principle legal challenge (OOIDA’s court battle) to the ELD mandate at an end, assuming the end-of-year enforcement deadline remains, what’s your current plan for dealing with the mandate? Weigh in in this poll.
June 29, 2017
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