Overdrive Radio

This week’s edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast drops into Overdrive editor Todd Dills' interview with Overdrive June Trucker of the Month Greg Labosky, the man who is master of the machine, in some respects, that is the Amazon loads platform Relay: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15678623/careful-prep-the-name-of-the-game-for-june-trucker-of-the-month

Labosky’s operating with authority just a single truck in that system, which rewards those who maintain the highest percentile rankings for various service levels tracked therein. Labsoky’s consistently above 98 there, and that means he’s got early access to loads booked on time-based contracts to in essence guarantee revenue for extended periods in advance. That builds in plenty time for planning his schedule on runs mostly within a geographical orbit of his GDL Enterprise business's home base in New Haven, Connecticut.

Owner-operator Labosky’s just a few years into the journey of operating with authority, but as noted his trucking experience started in the mid-1990s, before the rise of the machine-assisted freight procurement world so many owners wrestle with today. As you’ll hear, though, it’s Labosky’s old-school knowledge that give him the ability to adeptly tinker around the edges to take full control of the center of his business, his veritable mastery of the machine. As noted, he’s our Trucker of the Month for June, putting him in the running as a semifinalist for the 2024 Trucker of the Year award, sponsored by Bostrom Seating: https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year

You can put your own business in the running, or that of another deserving owner you’ve learned from, via https://OverdriveOnline.com/toptrucker

This week's Overdrive Radio episode opens a window onto the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's virtual listening session held last week to discuss the agency’s efforts to potentially improve the safety rating system it uses for determining carriers’ fitness to operate in interstate commerce. Sit in on virtually the entire session, featuring a bevy of views from trucking stakeholders in response to chief areas of inquiry agency reps outlined near the top of the session.

Regular Overdrive readers will know the effort around the potential safety rating change has been a long time in coming. Since the CSA Safety Measurement System came into play a decade and a half ago, it's as if it's always been on the FMCSA's wish list to use roadside data, possibly even the SMS itself, to determine a safety rating. Yet past attempts to do so have faltered under scrutiny, with loads of pushback from carriers and owner-operators on the notion. This session was no outlier in that regard, it’s certain.

Commenter Daniel Shelton pointed out inadequacies he saw in a myriad violations used in parts of the CSA SMS that have really nothing to do with the bedrock indicator of safety in his mind, crashes that can reliably be shown as the fault of the motor carrier.

Shelton also questioned the agency’s Crash Preventability Determination Program and its efficacy in identifying nonpreventable crashes to exclude them from carriers’ records. Agency reps on the call noted that nonpreventable determinations would exclude those crashes from a safety rating, yet Shelton told a story about one such he’d seen up close and then attempted to use the DataQs system to remove from the record, only to find out it wasn't a crash type eligible for review in the preventability program. (Pending changes in that regard continue to be in limbo as the agency reviews comments on a 2023 proposal.)

All such issues, Shelton noted, will be big problems for the agency if it plans to utilize roadside and/or other SMS data in a new safety rating system.

Hear many more views and answers to questions about the effort in the podcast.

The virtual session last week was but one of two that are planned. You can register for the next July 31 session at this link: https://events.gcc.teams.microsoft.com/event/6d8b1246-2138-4ba9-821c-e926441fd2e1@c4cd245b-44f0-4395-a1aa-3848d258f78b

As also mentioned in the podcast, FMCSA changes to the CSA SMS methodology remain pending almost a year and a half since proposed: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15306821/fmcsa-launches-site-for-proposed-csa-carrier-sms-changes

More about those pending changes: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15352537/proposed-csascores-change-a-mixed-bag-in-hos-category-others

In this podcast, the voice of former FBI counterintelligence assistant director Frank Figliuzzi, in conversation with Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole about the new book, "Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers," a close look at the FBI's long investigation of almost 1,000 murders over decades collected and analyzed in its "Highway Serial Killings" database.

As Cole writes in a story that will go live with the post containing this podcast on OverdriveOnline.com Monday, June 24, "This, for all of us, is a tough subject to broach. Why? The killings caught the attention of the FBI principally because they all had enough in common that investigators could confidently say they appeared to have been committed by truck drivers."

Trucking professionals who pick up the book or listen to the podcast, furthemore, will have to get past the fact of Frank Figliuzzi’s frequent shorthand use the often honorific term "trucker" in reference to various perpetrators of violence in-cab and elsewhere out along the highways.

Reading the first parts of the book, Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills couldn’t help but think, "over and over and over again, 'Man, Frank, did you ever consider calling these folks what they are? Killers, maybe.' Or: 'Quite disturbed steering wheel holders?' Deserving of the 'trucker' label they are not."

At once, a big part ot Figliuzzi's engagement with the subject matter -- the book's dedicated in part to truckers generally -- is to emphasize on-highway pros' role combatting a central problem, namely sex trafficking, that leads to so many of the killings logged in the FBI’s HSK database, many of them unsolved.

Speaking directly to truckers, too, Figliuzzi hopes to inspire many to continue to be eyes and ears OTR, noting during the talk the Truckers Against Trafficking organization and all that organization’s done to marshal working owner-operators and drivers against sex crimes and violence. The organization was in part instrumental in establishing and promoting to the industry the National Human Trafficking Hotline well more than a decade ago now -- a good point of contact to this day for reporting crimes in progress, things that just don’t look right out on the road as well. That’s 888-3737-888.

More about Truckers Against Trafficking: https://tatnonprofit.org

Also discussed in the podcast -- Overdrive's 2023 "Trucking's State of Surveillance" series: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15541635/truckings-state-of-surveillance-inside-the-costs-benefits

Walking the giant hallway in the South Wing every year at the Mid-America Trucking Show, you’ll find benches that line the route, where people stop to rest. It's nice and quiet out there in general, compared to the show floor. On one Gary Buchs' walks down the hallways to or from this or that meeting, he happened to glance over and see four gentlemen chatting and smiling. (Those smiles stood out at this year’s show, as so many in trucking are struggling to keep their hope up for the careers they have chosen.)

Buchs, longtime Overdrive Extra blog contributor and business coach after a long career OTR as an owner-operator, then noticed one of the men was wearing a Landstar hat.

“Are you BCOs?” he asked, well-knowing Landstar acronym for Business Capacity Owners, of course, given his past 17 years as an owner-operator leased to the company. Turned out, yes, three of the four men were active with Landstar, and each of those three brothers brought 30 years and more of driving experience to the table. The fourth, and interestingly oldest, brother, Carlos, is meanwhile in the process of becoming an owner himself, with the mentoring help of his three younger brothers.

What a story they have to tell. The Marroquin brothers -- Ivar, Luis, Diego and Carlos -- immigrated from Guatemala beginning in 1989. The four are tightly woven together by experiences of hardship and challenges, including the death of their father when the oldest was only seven years old. They told me about their struggles to learn English effectively, something they strongly desired to accomplish, so much so they invested in college courses where lessons proved far superior than those they were initially steered to upon arrival in the United States with certainly less-than-perfect language skills.

They shared stories of sometimes rough treatment from native English-speaking counterparts, name-calling so hurtful it brought at least one to tears. All they desired, throughout the long journey to truck and business ownership, was a fair shake, opportunity to work, earn a living, and help their families be an integral part of the communities where they lived.

California’s AB 5 contractor law hasn't helped, it’s safe to say, as you'll hear in this podcast conversation with Buchs and the Marroquins. They all lived within 50 miles of Los Angeles when the law came into play. Life was good, all close enough to help each other and support family life. When AB 5 arrived, though, the three brothers decided to rent an apartment in Las Vegas, Nevada, where they established personal residency and their CDLs. That’s just to mention a couple disruptions the new contractor law brought to their businesses.

What shines through in the conversation, ultimately: good-natured debate over the right tack to take in business. Best brand of truck, right sort of transmission, benefits of pre-planning/booking loads versus boosted rates that come with waiting for the last-minute high-demand need. ... All are up for debate, and clearly the Marroquins' long history with one another other gives them the ability to cajole yet, at the same time, learn from and lean on each other.

"The power demand, the power that's required to pull a truck down the highway ... the idea is to match the power that's produced by the engine to the power that's required." --Overdrive's May Trucker of the Month Alec Costerus on the bedrock principal behind achieving the best fuel economy

Alpha Drivers Transportation two-truck fleet owner and operator Alec Costerus launched the company just a couple of years ago from his Denver, Colorado, home base following about eight years trucking as an owner-operator leased to Landstar. The ADT company runs with authority two trucks today, with cofounder Joel Morrow behind the wheel of one of them out of Ohio, the other piloted by Travis Lauer, an operator Morrow trained himself on driving for max efficiency. ADT's the result of Costerus and Morrow becoming fast friends after "geeking out" for years over how to achieve better trucking efficiency, both when it comes to the equipment and the business itself, for certain.

Longtime Overdrive Radio listeners have heard Morrow on the podcast, when he was part of panel including past Trucker of the Year Henry Albert, among others, at the 2022 MATS, all about spec’ing and driver practice toward getting to 10 miles per gallon and beyond: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15383454/paths-to-10plus-mpg-in-a-class-8-diesel-truck

Alec Costerus himself turned heads among those in Overdrive’s audience about a month ago, detailing how he and Morrow did just that, a big part of the success of what they’ve built with Alpha Drivers: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15670289/controlling-fuel-costs-for-small-trucking-businesses

Principal reason for the head-turning? A 10.5-mpg average for their 2023 Volvo VNL760, spec’d to Morrow’s liking with what Volvo’s calling the i-Torque spec. Morrow had a lot to do with that spec, and today, we’ll hear more of that story from Costerus directly, and how Costerus’ efforts in concert with Morrow have resulted in what’s certainly one of the most efficient owner-operator businesses around. Costerus, with 15 years or so in trucking now himself, is certainly unique among Overdrive's Trucker of the Year monthly semi-finalists for plenty reasons.

Another: He’s mostly managing the now-two-truck business outside the bounds of a truck cab, by and large, though he does jump back behind the wheel moving mostly power-only loads when Morrow is called away to trade shows or the fleet’s other principal operator is down, and in other situations.

Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole, who you’ll hear asking the questions throughout the podcast, remarked early in his conversation with Costerus about the unique nature of the operation.

"A lot of people can drive and 'be a trucker' that way," he noted. Alternately, stick around a while, grow and learn and "you can take that experience and leverage it for the greater good, so to speak."

Costerus hopes to do that with Alpha Drivers, with a push to show just what can be done and bring the next generation up with him -- not to mention other owner-operators of his own generation who may not realize what can be achieved.

His long experience over-the-road helps mightily. Critical for any trucking company owner, he believes: "that you actually know how the freight is moved, what the drivers endure, familiarity with hours of service, all of that. I think it makes us more efficient."

It’s a fine balancing act whether you're behind the wheel or not most days, running a trucking business in pursuit of not only efficiency to contain costs but the demands of revenue, time, playing guardian of the bedrock safety of the motoring public around you. Costerus is managing it well with Alpha Drivers.

Enter Overdrive's Trucker of the Year contest: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

The Department of Justice’s Drug Enforcement Administration on May 20 officially published its notice of proposed rulemaking that, if finalized, would reschedule marijuana from a Schedule I controlled substance to Schedule III: https://www.regulations.gov/document/DEA-2024-0059-0001

The Biden Administration signaled its intent to move forward with such a proposal earlier this month, and the NPRM’s publication formalized that effort.

The DEA’s proposal said moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act would be “consistent with the view of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that marijuana has a currently accepted medical use, as well as HHS's views about marijuana's abuse potential and level of physical or psychological dependence.”

That, ultimately, is the difference between the two scheduling levels, as previously reported. Schedule I drugs are defined in the Act as “drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” Those include heroin, LSD, ecstasy and, at least for now, marijuana.

Schedule II drugs, in the terms of the legislation, show “high potential for abuse, with use potentially leading to severe psychological or physical dependence,” and are considered dangerous. These include combination products with less than 15 milligrams of hydrocodone per dosage unit (Vicodin), cocaine, methamphetamine, methadone, fentanyl and more.

Drugs classified under Schedule III, how DEA is looking to classify marijuana, are those “with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence,” and have a lower abuse potential than Schedule I and Schedule II drugs. Currently, these include products containing less than 90 milligrams of codeine per dosage unit, like Tylenol with codeine, as well as ketamine, anabolic steroids, testosterone and more.

Typically, according to Brandon Wiseman, attorney and president of Trucksafe Consulting and guest for this week's Overdrive Radio podcast, Schedule III drugs “are still controlled in the sense that they require a prescription.” As such, having a Schedule III drug in your system is not necessarily a disqualifying factor in DOT drug testing. The driver must have a valid medical prescription for that drug, and the medical review officer (MRO) that validates the results of the drug test has to be comfortable that the use of that drug won’t impact the driver’s ability to safely operate a truck.

“Some prescription drugs will inhibit a driver's ability to safely operate a truck,” Wiseman said in the podcast. “And so we just weed those drivers out. Those drivers aren't going to be physically qualified. They're not going to be able to get a med card, for example, to be able to operate.” Hear much more from Wiseman in the podcast, and read Matt Cole and Alex Lockie's reporting on the rescheduling subject via these links:

Cole: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15676307

Lockie's early two-part feature:

**https://www.overdriveonline.com/15670141

**https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15670542/marijuana-legalization-trucking-and-the-future-of-drug-testing

As promised two weeks back, here's Part 2 of our talk with May Trucker of the Month Gary Schloo, longtime owner-operator leased to Long Haul Trucking for the last three decades of a five-decade trucking career. Schloo here tells a can't-miss story about how he and his wife and business partner, Terri, met. It' the "classic trucker-and-the-waitress thing" at a late-night diner early in Schloo's time as an owner-operator.

And as most listeners are well aware, a big part of the Trucker of the Year competition, featuring owner-operator semi-finalist candidates throughout the year (including Schloo), hopes to lend useful perspective to all of you, ways to sharpen the operation, button up the business for long-term success. Owner-operator Schloo’s answer to a question I’ve asked most of our Trucker of the Month candidates – namely what their advice to any new or prospective truck owner might be – in many ways comes back to insurance. Build the nest egg early for the down cycles. Put a disability/income-replacement insurance policy in your back pocket for the things that happen to all of us -- whether illness or injury, a crash... The list could well go on. It's saved him over 50 years over-the-road more times than he can count. Hear much more on that score in this episode, likewise a special treat:

A rundown with the Semi Casual custom shop's Brian Bourke detailing the work put into two custom-built 2024 Peterbilt Model 589s the shop showed at MATS and on the scene of the Large Cars & Guitars truck show in Tennessee, where we caught up with Bourke.

Catch the Semi Casual video mentioned in the podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOrbebJWQsI

Also mentioned -- enter yourself or another deserving owner-operator (up to three trucks) in the Bostrom Seating-sponsored Overdrive's Trucker of the Year program via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

Finally, a big happy birthday to Gary Schloo on May 26! We hope it's a great one.

After years of scheduling needed preventive maintenance and sitting out the Roadcheck blitz, last year Mike "Mustang" Crawford hauled through his first Roadcheck in years. As we did after last year's 72-hour inspection blitz, we’ll be riding along again in this Overdrive Radio edition through three days’ worth of scale reports from our friendly on-highway chicken-house correspondent. Regular listeners may well recall that last year on runs from the Midwest all the way down to Florida, Mustang didn’t cross a single open scale.

Can’t say that’s the case this year, though.

And, for the balance of the episode, shift into high gear with our talk with Sharon Lee, owner of the High Road small fleet headquartered between Nashville, Tennessee, and Boston, and making a name for themselves in the concert tour-trucking world. Lee jumped on our radar after her involvement with the Academy of Country Music’s "ACM Lifting Lives" program, through which she partnered with the Mechanics on a Mission organization as well to surprise a touring professional with the gift of an automobile at a TCW event early this year -- TCW's the Touring Career Workshop, and small fleet owner Lee serves as a board member for the organization.

Since founding High Road in 2016, she’s made big inroads with customers in the music industry here in Nashville, but it turns out her trucking history is just as deep, stretching all the way back to childhood, when her father was an owner-operator in New York State and involved in tour trucking himself. Working with one-man, one-truck operations holds a special place in her approach to this day.

More about High Road: https://highroadusa.com

More about concert/show tour trucking in Overdrive:

**Mobile TV production: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15634571/a-unique-beast-behind-the-scenes-in-mobile-tv-production-trucking

**Events-haul in general: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14894405/how-event-hauling-stands-out-in-the-trucking-industry

**Clark Transfer's Broadway show hauling: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15294151/guaranteed-revenue-for-owneroperators-clark-transfer-commits

"Time is money," as the old saying goes, and as such "time management is money management." That was how the great Red Eye Radio host Eric Harley put it near the beginning of this our last in a series of Partners in Business short podcasts on Overdrive Radio, talks excerpted from a long roundtable conducted at the Mid-America Trucking Show this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khKP2WHZjfg&list=PLc1lg9rs1dUBRbJKjvc7UUcJRRd4iI2v3

Time should be a factor in your analysis of any load to truly assess the potential for profit. Overdrive released a bit of a tool to help in that process -- it's a custom spreadsheet that was made available for download around the time of MATS and the big update to this year's Partners in Business owner-operator handbook: https://www.overdriveonline.com/partners-in-business/document/15666632/evaluate-any-loads-cost-in-relation-to-time-not-just-miles

The tool clearly illustrates how added time within any load's schedule dilutes revenue and adds costs per mile as fixed costs continue to mount with any delay. It offers a way for you to calculate that impact more or less at a glance, with the input of just a few of your own numbers. The tool was developed by Overdrive contributor Gary Buchs in his efforts coaching individual owner-operators through business decisions large and small.

In this episode, voices you’ll hear, in order of appearance, are that of our moderator Eric Harley, setting us up for discussion of time management, followed by myself, then ATBS Vice President Mike Hosted expanding with some market timing insight, and Overdrive contributor and now longtime business coach Gary Buchs, previously mentioned.

Through to the end, all stress, too, the fundamental value of re-engagement with business fundamentals possible with the PIB program. Here’s hope the talk and broader program both give you plenty to chew as you assess prospects and performance of your own business throughout the remainder of the year.

The educational program this year is sponsored by the great folks at the Rush Truck Centers dealer network, who share our vision for your success: https://rushtrkctr.com/4bLxbR4

As mentioned in the talk, Matthew Mickenberg's story of valuable timing: he saved $50K on the price of a new truck purchase on account of it: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15659622/its-a-deal-50k-saved-on-a-new-truck

This week's Overdrive Radio podcast edition features primarily the voice of Overdrive April Trucker of the Month, owner-operator Gary Schloo. The three-decade-plus owner's headquartered in Austin, Minnesota, leased to Long Haul Trucking out of relatively nearby Albertville.

Today, Schloo runs dedicated to a particular customer in Long Haul Trucking’s network and can make a regular round in a day’s time, keeping him not far from his two-acre property throughout his week. It’s been his bread and butter now for nearly two decades, hauled since 2014 behind a Peterbilt 386 glider powered by a 12.7 Detroit Series 60 he bought new at the time.

Ever with an eye on ways to save, the owner-operator adjusted his physical damage insurance shortly after the purchase, limiting the radius of his coverage to 500 miles with Great West Casualty, outside the policy he'd previously purchased through LHT. That's just one example of moves made and routines built through the years that have delivered long-term stability and profits for Schloo. Current LHT CEO Jason Michels, in Overdrive's prior story about the owner-operator, told of meeting Schloo early in his own trucking career, when he was just getting started with LHT as an owner-operator himself: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15669324/effective-insurance-exacting-analysis-deliver-gary-schloos-success

Schloo and Michels met in West Virginia as both owners loaded there for a run back to Minnesota, then talking along the way. Schloo's generous with his time with young owners, Michels noted, and certainly was on that run where the pair met. Schloo schooled him on the importance of paying taxes so as not to get behind the eight ball with penalties and other wasted money, tracking and analyzing cost and revenue performance closely, and saving plenty as insurance against the rainy days.

A lot of Schloo’s success comes back to insurance, in fact, building the business nest egg and other practices to guard against the unexpected: https://www.overdriveonline.com/partners-in-business/video/15667833/stock-your-trucking-pantry-against-famine-before-any-feast-ends

That extends to health and disability. He’s carried a disability insurance policy for decades, and it’s proven plenty effective, particularly when 15 years ago now he had a heart attack that threw everything he’d built into question. Take a run through Schloo's story for more in this week's podcast.

Owner-operator Gary Schloo is in the running for Overdrive's 2024 Trucker of the Year award, sponsor by Bostrom Seating. You can enter your own or another worthy owner-operator business for a chance at a new Bostrom seat among other prizes and recognitions, via https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker