In this week's Overdrive Radio podcast episode, we drop into October of 2017, a key moment in trucking regulatory history over the last several years, given demonstrations on both coasts and some points in between against the electronic logging device mandate. Generally, out east, those demonstrations were comparatively small, but you can tie a direct line between them and the next year’s pursuit by FMCSA of hours of service changes designed to enhance drivers’ scheduling options around the clarion call for rest-period flexibility that emerged in the aftermath.

Where those 2017 demonstrations were in fact not small, however, was out west, led by a coalition of Punjabi-American owner-operators, drivers and advocates. We told that story in brief in Overdrive at the time, and then again via the person of one Binda Atwal this past year in Episode 6 of the Over the Road podcast, produced in collaboration with PRX's Radiotopia. This edition of Overdrive Radio looks back at the tale, which ends up being a portrait not only of a demonstration, but of a close-knit community of U.S. truckers that, with visibility, changed more than a few minds and hearts around the industry.

Read Overdrive's contemporaneous account of the demonstration via this portrait of the Punjabi community out West and elsewhere: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14893823/into-the-limelight-sikh-truckers-in-america

Find more from PRX's Radiotopia network: http://radiotopia.fm

Also in the podcast: An intro to host and longtime over the road operator "Big Al" Weekley and the new "Overdrive's Music to Truck By" music show streaming live every Friday and in the wee hours Wednesday mornings via http://thebluegrassjamboree.com -- read more about it via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/article/15063917/bluegrass-jamboree-streaming-overdrives-music-to-truck-by