Voices: Page 93

Voices
Be heard: Engage your representatives directly
“If you don’t get involved, then as my dad and grampa would tell me, you don’t have any reason to complain when things are not going the way you think they should.” –Owner-operator (retired) Mike McRae
October 8, 2014
This editorial’s author, retired owner-operator Mike McRae, hails from Elkins, W.Va.
Voices
POLL: Which of these industry concerns is most important?
Following the release of the American Transportation Research Institute’s critical issues report, this poll probes Overdrive readers’ own prioritization of ATRI’s top ten carrier concerns.
October 8, 2014
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Channel 19
+25 percent: What double the liability insurance coverage will likely cost
One insurance rep cites a likely 25 percent increase in premiums for independent owner-operators boosting $1 million liability coverage to $2M. More on FMCSA’s expected insurance-hike proposal here.
September 30, 2014
Current insurance coverage amounts
Voices
Owner-operators, what’s your current fuel mileage?
What kind of mileage are you getting currently? This poll probes the variation in fuel economy around the industry among Overdrive readers.
September 29, 2014
trucks-port fueling
Channel 19
Big G Express’ ‘Drive it off’ Taylor Swift parody
Tenn.-based Big G Express’ entry in the driver-appreciation-week festivities: a music-video parody of Taylor Swift’s rather goofball “Shake it Off” entry into the dance-music canon, featuring Big G driver Keda White in the starring role — with arguably better dance skills than Ms. Swift.
September 29, 2014
Big G Express taylor swift parody (2)
Voices
‘Mike’s Law’: National ‘business carry’ draft language and reader reaction
The Small Business in Transportation Coalition’s petition to Congress for a federal ‘business carry’ program for interstate drivers had garnered 1,423 signatures as of this morning, and SBTC had drafted text of potential “enabling legislation” and filed it with Congressional representatives.
September 26, 2014
Gun Control Hot Button
Custom Rigs
Out from behind the camera: Big Rig Videos’ Chris Fiffie
Florida-based videographer and former truck driver Chris Fiffie has been turning heads over the past year with his vid series of Rolling CB Interviews with owner-operators.
September 24, 2014
Fiffie, picture above by Cheri Kimball at the Mid-America Trucking Show, has found a home covering the trucking world, he says. He got his start in video production with an early interest in cameras that ultimately led to a small business producing television commercials and variety of other work. Before that, though, he needed seed money to invest in the necessary equipment, well before digital video made that at least somewhat less cumbersome of a prospect. “I looked for a job,” he says, and “worked for my father as a mechanic” in his auto-repair shop in South Florida. Cue then a story in the local newspaper comparing various income numbers for particular professions, in which truck drivers and machine operators ranked quite high. “My next-door neighbor was a truck driver,” Fiffie adds. “I went for a ride with him once and then got my Class A, taking the money I made and buying video equipment with it.” Over four or five years, he’d built his arsenal “and was able to transition to a business doing video production.” Along the way, though, he never lost the interest in trucks and trucking. In 2006 he moved from South Florida to the West Coast of Florida to a small town with no video services. But “I wanted to explore,” he says. “I thought I’d take a driving job,” his first operating a Peterbilt, a 2006 triaxle 379 with 500 horses. “I really got hooked.” His video business hit hard locally by the economic crash a few years later, a friend mentioned the Chrome Shop Mafia was looking for “someone to come up to the Mid-America Trucking Show in 2012” to film the show for a DVD. That’s where the 4 State Trucks DVD series got its start, and with all the extra footage, Fiffie took to Youtube and Facebook, further developing ideas like the Rolling CB Interviews series.
Voices
Readers split over militarized police force
With mainstream media disseminating images of police employing military-style armor and weaponry during rioting in Ferguson, Mo., this summer, a debate over the militarization of local police was revived.
September 20, 2014
hotbuttons
Voices
POLL: Where do you stand on U.S. strategy against ISIS?
The United States has telegraphed a strategy of coalition-building in the region around Iraq and Syria and elsewhere to support U.S. role, primarily in a training/air capability as most recently expressed, in the fight against ISIS, aka ISIL or Islamic State. Do you support?
September 18, 2014
hotbuttons
Voices
‘Most Beautiful’ dustup
In the wake of Overdrive’s second annual ‘Most Beautiful’ program recognizing female drivers, readers offer criticism of — and some kudos for — the effort.
September 17, 2014
Emily Weymouth hauls for Dennison Lubricants in Massachusetts.
Voices
Independents: How much liability insurance do you carry?
With FMCSA preparing a rule to increase the minimum level of required liability insurance for carriers, this rule probes current levels of coverage among owner-operators with their own authority.
September 16, 2014
Insurance That Fits
Voices
Driver appreciation, year-round
“Here’s to a deep and sincere appreciation for all the truckers out there doing it right, every day of the week, every month of the year. Your commitment and sacrifice keep people who don’t even think about what you do comfortable and safe. There’s a lot to be said for that, and it should be said every day.”
September 15, 2014
Western Express driver Derek Dorsey
Voices
The best advice I ever got about trucking
Wendy Parker runs down some answers to the question, including this nugget: “Listen to the old-timers in all their trucking BS — there is always a grain of truth, and you learn something.”
September 11, 2014
This story’s author, Wendy Parker, writes the George & Wendy Show blog, appearing several times a week on OverdriveOnline.com, dispatched from her ridealong position in the truck (though not this particular one) with her owner-operator husband, George.
Channel 19
Report: Air horns for four-wheeler safety?
More and more, drivers are taking the issue of four-wheeler distraction (chiefly by cellphones) into their own hands….
September 11, 2014
Marshcarroll1
Voices
POLL: Do you use your truck’s horn to call out distracted drivers?
This poll follows reports of a growing tendency among drivers calling out unsafe behavior among motorists and other truckers on-highway, particularly cell phone use behind the wheel.
September 10, 2014
Cell-phone-texting
Channel 19
OOIDA’s new NCRME survey; Benefits of apnea treatment for one operator
Independent owner-operator Joe Bielucki’s sleep apnea story — results following his preemptive strike of sorts relative to the condition two years ago.
September 8, 2014
Joe Bielucki after losing 40 pounds edit (794×800)
Voices
The most memorable haul of your life
While the question has been asked in various forms over the years here and elsewhere — “your most memorable haul? — this round’s responses yielded no small amount of tales and tall and/or solid in stature. Take a run through some of the best here.
September 2, 2014
highway hills (800×532)
Channel 19
Speed limiters not ‘worth the hassle’: More voices on potential mandate
Michael Goodman, among others: “Forcing speed limiters will make roads less safe and be another unnecessary cost to the millions of truck owners in the United States.”
August 29, 2014
Joey Slaughter at the Great American Trucking Show TSG health walk
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