Overdrive Radio

Independent owner-operator Debbie Desiderato, long hauling with her authority as Walkabout Transport, probably needs no introduction to regular Overdrive readers. Her insight around customer relationships and so much more has featured in Overdrive multiple times through the years, and last year she was one of our Truckers of the Month in the Trucker of the Year program: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15541324

At the top of the podcast, Desiderato describes the seven years that have elapsed since she first met photographer/author Anne-Marie Michel. The owner-operator's one of 40 female truck drivers and owner-operators in America interviewed for the Britain-based Michel’s “Sisters of the Road” book. Long in the making, as owner-operator Desiderato made clear, yet it’s been out a couple of years now, and making something of a splash around the country right now with a photo-exhibit trailer being pulled behind Desiderato’s Western Star. She's run with the exhibit clear across the country from an origin point in San Francisco to start Women’s History Month on the way to the Mid-American Trucking Show, coming up here shortly, March 21-23 in Louisville, Kentucky.

Preview MATS happenings, and access coverage in the aftermath, via this collection: https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4372607

Overdrive Radio spoke with Debbie about the experience thus far on the tour, which to date has offered up no shortage of opportunity to school the uninitiated on the ins and outs, the struggles and triumphs, of truck drivers of all stripes. Plenty share-the-road talk, too.

"The blind spots," Desiderato offered. "and how I've got a hood on this truck. They can see now if they're by my passenger steer tire how I couldn't see them if they're driving a small car. They got a big education."

She was referring mostly to 100s of international and otherwise trucking-uninitiated attendees of FotoFest in Houston, where her Western Star was parked up with the exhibit trailer for plenty public interaction through Wednesday, March 13, this week. She's due to arrive in Louisville March 18 for MATS, with stops along the way in Arkansas at Uber Freight headquarters and Saturday, March 16, at the Idella Hansen Petro in Little Rock. All in all, she notes, the tour and her inclusion in the "Sisters of the Road" book has been an opportunity to sit right at the intersection between the business and work of trucking, and the wider U.S. and world cultures.

Read more about "Sisters of the Road" via Long Haul Paul's 2022 review of the book: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15296897/iconographic-fiercely-resilient-portraits-sisters-of-the-road

Also in the podcast: Owner-operators Lee and Lisa Schmitt detail recent similar share-the-road opportunities the pair of founding members of CDL Drivers Unlimited got with the entire Mudflap app staff. Revisit recent talks with the Schmitts about CDLDU's Driver Advocacy Network at this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15665521/truckers-new-chance-at-affordable-health-insurance

In this edition of Overdrive Radio highlighting February Trucker of the Month Doug Viaille, listeners get a clear sense for the understated, homespun sense of humor of the owner-operator today hauling as Goat’s Transport. Viaille’s been in business for himself as an owner-operator for most of his 30-plus years in trucking thus far, and was nominated for the Trucker of the Year award by a fellow owner who calls him "Mr. Overdrive," in fact, after we called on Viaille’s experience in years past in a couple of different features.

Owner-operator Viaille’s seen success particularly these last years leased to Oakley Trucking -- that’d be the Bruce Oakley bulk hauler based in Arkansas, where Viaille pulls a company hopper on a back-and-forth dedicated run loaded with industrial product for healthy profits.

He's banked plenty in the way of wisdom, too, enough to recognize his own shortcomings and lean into the areas where he’s top-notch, as was illustrated to an extent in the feature about him published last week: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15665049/trucker-of-the-month-banks-expensive-wisdom-profits-in-bulk

It can be "expensive wisdom," as he notes, learning from mistakes made, yet it's a hallmark of the best among owner-operators. Doug’s bounced back and learned plenty from more than a few, yet always with that dry sense of humor at the ready. Join us for this run through Viaille’s history going back to his pre-CDL Texas commercial license test in the late 1970s/early 1980s behind the wheel of a one-ton Chevrolet.

And: here’s welcome to a new sponsor for our Trucker of the Year award for 2024. It’s Commercial Vehicle Group, well-known amongst owner-operators for the Bostrom Seating brand, among many others. Contenders this year are in the running for a variety of prizes, including one of those seats to go to the winner. Put your own owner-operator business in the running via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

Indiana-headquartered owner-operator, and father of five, Dan Koors invokes a big number at the top of the podcast this week -- 27%, the approximate percentage of drivers running without health insurance. That's inclusive of company drivers, many with ready access to carrier benefits packages. Among owner-operators, the percentage is certainly higher than 27%. Overdrive’s most recent estimate with polling of the owner-operator audience this past month put the number at 40%.

While that’s not the absolute highest percentage we’ve ever seen, it’s a good measure above the rough third that was once a reliable poll result for the question of whether an owner was running with health insurance a decade ago: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14885028/tough-health-care-choices

This week on Overdrive Radio, we dive into a new resource for health insurance that is something of a new variation on an old theme. Like groups such as the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and the National Association of Independent Truckers, both of whom have health-insurance resources for members of varying types, the young CDL Drivers Unlimited group has dipped its toe, or sunk a whole foot into, the area with a new partnership with the Benefits Management Team, or BMT. They’re a health insurance consultant and broker who can work with a potential insured in any state and with knowledge of what’s available in the health insurance exchanges under the Affordable Care Act, how available premium subsidies work for individuals, and much more.

The company does quite a lot to really vet health-care bills, too, to be an advocate for patients through its MediShield service, examining itemized invoices for unnecessary charges in further efforts to save on costs. And it’s the long rising cost of health care, of course, that is a primary reason for the increasing numbers of those opting out of the health insurance system entirely, and a critical reason among small-business owner-operators.

Yet owner-operator Dan Koors is not one of them. He views the necessity of insurance as a business decision, ultimately, and crucial to protect the business from catastrophe.

So with a family of seven, including himself, to insure, how’s he done it? In this edition of Overdrive Radio we’ll hear that story, and another one. How the BMT company’s knowledge of the insurance markets and the Affordable Care Act exchanges, and how they work in tandem with available subsidies, led Koors to a strange realization. He’s now paying a little more in taxes than he might otherwise as a result, but he’s netting nearly $7,000 with a dramatic reduction in insurance premiums.

CDL Drivers Unlimited is making other strides, too, with what they’re calling the Driver Advocacy Network, aimed to, as Koors sees it, boost the efforts of men and women behind the wheel to make headway influencing local, state and national policy and law to the benefit of truckers.

We’ll also hear from CDL Drivers Unlimited founding members Lee and Lisa Schmitt, headquartered in Wisconsin, on that score, and the group's plans for MATS.

Other health-related resources from past coverage:

**Biz risk of failing health: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15302424/owneroperators-who-recognize-the-risk-of-failing-health

**Medicare: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15302142/nows-the-time-to-understand-medicare-if-getting-close-to-65

**Owner-op health-insurance gain in COVID-relief law: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15064881/health-insurance-savings-via-aca-exchanges-expanded

**Health-share plans: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/14972980/healthshare-plans-offer-insurance-alternative-for-ownerops

As mentioned in the podcast, Rudy Yakym Jr.'s reckoning with time pressures post-ELD mandate: https://www.overdriveonline.com/electronic-logging-devices/article/14895603/operational-challenges-to-ownerops-after-the-eld-mandate

"So we're going down the road, we've got a mudflap missing, and we've got an ABS lamp on the trailer lit up. What does that mean?"

This edition of Overdrive Radio starts with that question, leading to just a small bit of the wisdom of the many years of experience of former truck operator and longtime compliance consultant Jeff Davis. With his Fleet Safety Services business, operating out of a home base in Ohio, Davis has been a regular presenter at the National Association of Small Trucking Companies' annual conference now for years. At the NASTC show this past November he addressed a packed house of owner-operators and other small fleet owners on the topic of practical steps to take to avoid inspections.

The answer to his question, as duly, immediately noted by one of the owners in attendance: "Inspect me."

Regular listeners will recall those trailer malfunction indicators were a focus of the Roadcheck 2023 inspection blitz, and leading into the event Overdrive found that warning-light systems on trailers accounted for well more than half of all air-brake-related ABS violations: https://www.overdriveonline.com/csas-data-trail/article/15447541/toughest-states-for-securement-violations-get-roadcheck-ready

There’s a reason for that, as Davis noted. When something’s awry, that light comes on, giving an easy visual cue for an officer to inspect. And if you’re inspected, well, there’s a likelihood of violations, and issues then can compound for you or your small fleet. The downstream ramifications of any individual inspection were well evident in Warren McCurdy’s story from a couple weeks back here on the podcast: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15663474/truck-inspections-safety-scores-should-be-preventive-not-punitive

Any adverse roadside inspection will negatively impact all manner of things as it flows through the federal CSA Safety Measurement System and into the federal compliance review program and owner-operators and small fleets’ insurance rates, prospects for business and more.

Davis further emphasizes all kinds of ways you can minimize the likelihood of getting sideways with auditors and roadside officers, without just bypassing the scale houses altogether.

More on getting Roadcheck-ready (the annual inspection blitz is upcoming in mid-May), and generally ready for any inspection that might come your way:

**Roadcheck 2024: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15664708/roadcheck-2024-inspectors-guidance-on-drugs-and-alcohol

**Roadcheck 2023 -- how to avoid/ace inspections: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15383460/how-ownerops-can-avoid-or-ace-inspections-at-roadcheck

**Overdrive long-running CSA's Data Trail series: https://overdriveonline.com/csas-data-trail

The mood among truck owner participants in Peterbilt's sixth-ever, invite-only Pride & Class parade event and truck show in Denton, Texas, this past October might have been marred by the freight demand situation.

As Texas fleet owner and custom-truck builder Troy Massey of Massey Motor Freight put it, "If you're not struggling in trucking, you better be real quiet about it."

Certainly don’t tell anyone just how you're achieving your success, Massey went on from there to say. If you do, chances are they’ll be coming for your business soon enough.

Yet the mood at the Pride & Class event for truck owners was upbeat, for Massey too. "This is a pretty prestigious event" for Peterbilt owners and enthusiasts, he said, and represented his first invite. "I'm pretty excited."

The same was true for two other owners featured in this edition of Overdrive Radio. Settle in for a tour through history via three models in a long lineage of Petes, from a 1984 vintage Peterbilt 359 custom restored by owner-operator Greg Crispell: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/video/15661158/ownerop-greg-crispells-finely-tuned-flattop-1984-peterbilt-359

To oil and gas pipeline professional Jarrett Landry’s “oversize dually,” as he quipped about the single-drive-axle former daycab 1988 379: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15636541/peterbilts-sixth-annual-pride-class-parade-kicks-off

And, finally, Troy Massey’s latest custom creation, moving well forward to model year 2022 of the 389. With the 589 taking that model’s place in the long-hood genre for Pete this year, consider this edition something of a tribute to all that’s come before, and all that remains well-entrenched in the present through the work of these owner-operators.

Stay tuned for video looks at both Landry's and Massey's rigs, and catch a few more views of each via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15636541/peterbilts-sixth-annual-pride-class-parade-kicks-off

Owner-operator Crispell's rigs is featured in full here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/video/15661158/ownerop-greg-crispells-finely-tuned-flattop-1984-peterbilt-359

With this week’s installment of Overdrive Radio, hear the story of Overdrive's first Trucker of the Month for 2024. That’d be owner-operator Leslie Bitterman, who’s remade the independent Bitterman Trucking in her own image since the passing of her business partner and husband, Dale Bitterman, in 2010.

Voices you’ll hear telling just a small part of Leslie Bitterman’s story are her own, but also that of Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole, who’s detailed the Bitterman history in more depth in the recent profile of the owner-operator at OverdriveOnline.com: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15663104/bitterman-trucking-back-to-building-on-long-trucking-legacy

Owner-operator Bitterman was nominated to contend for the 2024 Trucker of the Year award by her daughter, Ashley, who’s long been inspired by the toughness and strong no-frills handle on business that the owner puts into action. With the nomination, Ashley noted some of her own involvement in the business today, likewise her diesel mechanic brother, Dale Jr., who takes charge of maintenance. Yet it’s Leslie that is the "Spirit of Bitterman Trucking,” as Ashley put it. “Her grit and determination to take care of business makes her a success. She is our hero!”

We want you to get involved in this year’s Trucker of the Year award program, too. Nominate your own owner-operator business, or that of another exceptional owner, via the quick entry form at https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

Leslie Bitterman hasn't always been a truck operator. She's got off-and-on large-vehicle driving experience in a school bus for special-needs children, a history unique among Trucker of the Year contenders of the last year or so that she's carried forward into the business of owning and operating trucks. Pulling for direct customers during Washington State fruit harvests out of her native Wenatchee in the central part of the state, and the occasional broker, Bitterman’s overcome quite a lot in recent years, including a near-death experience with COVID-19 in early 2022. Yet she keeps trucking. It's another aspect of her story that led her daughter to nominate, and all of us here at Overdrive to recognize, her as January Trucker of the Month. Grit? yes. Determination? Indeed, as you’ll hear.

Nominate yourself or another owner (up to three trucks) for Overdrive's 2024 Trucker of the Year award: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

Owner-operator Warren McCurdy, headquartered with his wife and business partner, Susan, in La Crosse, Wisconsin, has a bone to pick with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's CSA scoring program and all its ripple effects throughout trucking and roadside inspection systems. After a trailer tire lost air in transit sufficient to take the tire off the rim -- the trailer empty, the tire problem unnoticed by McCurdy before inspection -- the owner-operator's leasing carrier assessed points for the violation modeled on the FMCSA's internal Driver Safety Measurement System nearly enough to void McCurdy's lease.

This sort of "accountability" isn't, the owner-operator felt, what roadside inspections were designed for. The inspector in this case in Washington State did his job to the letter, and caught the in-transit flattened tire in plenty time to save any real damaging outcome.

For all that, McCurdy is thankful. "I think that these inspections are good. They should be preventative things," he said. "Nobody wants to go down the road with flat tires."

Yet, he added, "I don't think we should be penalized for something that is not something that you did intentionally." That goes for the motor carrier as well. There's a reason carriers like his own assess those points -- because they are incurring the same level of severity weighting in the Carrier SMS.

Potential changes to the Carrier SMS notwithstanding (FMCSA isn't looking at those same changes for the Driver SMS), the podcast this week dives back into what’s at issue in cases like these, in which carriers subject to the severity weighting system for violations pass that on, with their own systems to hold drivers and owner-operators to a degree of accountability themselves, relying on the federal points system to assess and prevent damage to their own scores.

Susan McCurdy tried her hand at the DataQs system in a vain attempt to contain the damage in this case by challenging the violation. But given the inspector was doing what he should have done here -- alerting McCurdy to the problem tire on his trailer, conducting an inspection, then reporting the results into the federal system as required -- there was nothing DataQs was going to be able to help correct about the fundamental nature of the situation.

More fundamentally, though, it’s the very nature of the CSA scoring system that makes accountability problematic for owner-operator McCurdy here. Nobody indeed intends to run around with flat tires. With respect to any violation, McCurdy urges regulators take a long hard look at what they’re holding carriers and drivers accountable for by scoring them as they do.

More in Overdrive's long-running CSA's Data Trail series: http://overdriveonline.com/csas-data-trail

In this episode, dive into the nitty gritty around the notion of "predatory towing," whether after a crash or disabling event at the roadside or in a parking-lot trap. The episode continues the conversation following the relatively new trucking resource you heard about a few weeks ago – the American Transportation Research Institute’s big report on the commonality of outsize tow bills and unethical practices, including ways to combat them: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15660783/predatory-tows-bigdollar-trucking-impact-postcrash-or-parking

The Truckload Carriers Association held an online seminar earlier this week in an effort to raise awareness among carrier members there but also highlight some recent-history legislative victories, particularly in Maryland. You'll hear today from Dave H:eller, a Senior Vice President at TCA, about that event and ways anyone can engage and inform themselves on the issues to potentially effect change for the better.

Yet also: Dive into the work of Overdrive’s own Alex Lockie, who’s been covering the rise particularly of parking-lot-trap-type situations since early last year, all of which has brought a big response from readers, as he details in the podcast. Likewise, owner-operators have delivered plenty advice to glean about tackling problematic tows, as did the ATRI report, underpinning a new step-by-step guide Lockie authored on how to play defense against predatory practices, published here a few weeks back: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15660104/how-truckers-can-fight-predatory-towing-bills

That’s not the end of the story, by any means, though. Stay tuned for further reporting suggested in some of the conversations throughout the podcast.

Other towing resources/stories mentioned:

**How one small fleet owner marshalled local laws against a parking-lot trap: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14894396/truck-booting-and-towing-traps-in-light-of-eld-mandate

**Detail on Maryland towing legislation: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15542568/maryland-mtas-predatory-towing-bill-explained

**Detail on Colorado booting/towing legislation: https://www.overdriveonline.com/parking/article/14897263/parking-perils-the-increasing-cost-and-risk-of-booting-and-towing

If you're not filing to FMCSA's DataQs system for crash preventability reviews, says compliance consultant Rick Gobbell in this edition of Overdrive Radio, you're "playing badminton in the dark" when it comes to the compliance game.

Proprietor today of his Gobbell Transportation Safety compliance consulting business, Gobbell draws on long experience around trucks and trucking, first on the road as an enforcement officer, then in government directly. He's a past "head fed," as he put it, division lead in Tennessee for federal motor carrier enforcement, yet now represents carriers during audits and files a whole lot of DataQs. His business website: https://rgobbell.com/

This episode features his talk from the conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies this past November, where he emphasized the importance of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s DataQs system for the smallest fleets, particularly when it comes to the agency’s several-years-old Crash Preventability Determination Program. Regular readers will know Overdrive’s and our sister publication CCJ’s “Preventable or not?” series of videos illustrating crash scenarios that in past have been judged either preventable or nonpreventable for the truck’s driver by the National Safety Council: https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4381538

That same preventability standard underpins FMCSA’s crash program. For any carrier who submits a crash in the DataQs system and has it judged nonpreventable, the crash then is excluded from calculations of the carrier's scores in the CSA Safety Measurement System. If you never request a crash review in cases that might be nonpreventable, as Rick Gobbell sees it, though the system is not set up to designate every crash that happens as "preventable," reality is that the crash might be de facto assumed to have been preventable by anyone using the SMS there. That includes federal and state safety auditors, insurers, brokers and shippers.

"You just made the audit list," he said.

His talk aimed to drill home the importance of the crash review system for the small fleets in attendance, lending the benefit of his own experience assisting others in DataQs filings. Also: To emphasize proposed improvements to the program to potentially include many more crash types, including any crash with solid video evidence. FMCSA’s in the process of making those improvements in part to address core complaints about the review system, potentially doubling the number of crashes that could be reviewed: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15382943/fmcsa-eyes-changes-to-crash-preventability-determination-program

With the agency also eyeing a safety rating change that might hinge on data quality in the SMS, DataQ-ing nonpreventable crashes could assume far greater importance for carriers large and small in the future, as Gobbell suggests here.

Find Rick Gobbell's comment, one of just 62 filed in response to FMCSA's notice last year about the potential changes, by searching the notice docket here: https://www.regulations.gov/document/FMCSA-2022-0233-0001

DataQs resources at OverdriveOnline.com:

**How to request a data review for an eligible crash: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14897753/how-to-dataq-a-crash-in-new-fmcsa-preventability-program

**Overdrive's 2021 series exploring inequities in the DataQs system and ideas for improvement also includes plenty in the way of DataQs advice/tips: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15063803/criticism-of-dataqs-review-system-continues-to-rise

**How to mount an effective DataQs challenge: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15063812/how-to-dataq-to-challenge-a-violation

By the mid-late 1980s, when Jay Hosty was in his mid-20s, he'd been through three trucks -- a 1971 gas-powered International and then two cabovers bought used -- hauling containers for Brown Transport in and around New Orleans. He then made a move his elder container-pulling owner-operators in the Southeast told him was going to be a career killer in the out-and-back niche.

It was 1987. "I never thought I'd own a new truck that soon," said Hosty, yet it was working out right -- the trade-in value on the old cabover he was pulling with, the cost of the 1987 International 9300 he was about to replace it with... "Associates Finance -- they were famous for doing commercial vehicles, they took me on in the very beginning" for the financing, he said, much to his surprise.

His rate for revenue at the time, as he told: "72 cents a mile, loaded and empty."

He was working with Brown and related companies with a lot of older men. They called him a kid. Owner-operators who've been around a long time may remember Brown for a kind of mascot that was the company's emblem. "They called him 'the Brownie,'" said Hosty. "He looked like a little Robin Hood or something, a little character."

Those seasoned experts amongst the prior generations at Brown got one look at the kid's sharp new 9300 and "started asking me what my payments were," Hosty added -- $1,400 every month, for five years. "They said, 'You are never going to make it pulling these containers for 72 cents a mile. You're going to have to go over-the-road.'"

What they meant: The young upstart owner-operator Jay Hosty would have to make that truck his life -- "to go out [OTR] and stay out," he said. His young wife wouldn't go for that, he knew, and for as much as he loved the work, he didn't want that sort of life, either. Besides, owner-operator Hosty had done the math, knew his costs back and forth, and was confident he could in fact make it work.

"I can make it, and I will make it," he told himself.

"And I did," he says today, telling the story as part of this week's special edition of Overdrive Radio, and proving wrong the naysayers in process. The tale showcases a quality held by many a successful owner -- willingness to think outside the box, to push the envelope to find just what's possible, for themselves. It's a quality Hosty made good on time and again throughout his 40-plus-year career at the helm of the Jaybyrd Express business he pilots behind the wheel of a Detroit Series 60-powered 2006 Western Star.

That's among many reasons Hosty, we're happy to announce, is Overdrive''s Trucker of the Year and will sit at that pinnacle for the next 12 months.

With a big congrats due to Hosty, we'll also invite you to put your business in the running for the 2024 award, which you can do via the form at this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/page/toptrucker Owner-operators with up to three trucks are eligible, and if you've controlled costs and maintained revenues amidst inflation and freight-market difficulties in the last years, you’re no doubt a worthy contender.

Also read Matt Cole's April 2023 Trucker of the Month profile of Jay Hosty: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15383689/frugality-focus-on-costs-pays-off-for-owneroperator-jay-hosty

The 2023 Trucker of the Year field was crowded and the gap between most of the contenders extremely small, even tighter between the top three finalists highlighted again earlier this week in Hosty’s Jaybyrd Express, Veterans Transportation Services of John and Sarah Schiltz, and Tim and Shelley Pulli's Pulli Express. Read about them, and the remaining contenders profiles throughout the last year, via the Trucker of the Year section of the website: https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year

Other voices featured in the podcast:

**Hosty's longtime friend from his time on OOIDA's board, current OOIDA VP Lewie Pugh

**Vice President of BCO Retention at Landstar, where Hosty's leased, Gregg Nelson