Overdrive Radio

In this edition of Overdrive Radio, hear the musical entries of, and interviews with, the three songwriters who are finalists in this year’s Overdrive Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search. It's something of a preview of the big finale, set for September 16, at 5 p.m. Eastern time, and streaming from OverdriveOnline.com.

Find out just how to tune in live that date and sign up for email reminders just before the broadcast via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-talent-search/article/15066153/trucker-talent-search-final-competition-set-for-september-16

In the podcast, we'll hear from trucker Mike Sheffield of Kentucky coal country, from Michigan-based Grassmid driver Rich Scripps, and Dayton, Ohio-based Guy Archer. All are featured in conversation, too, with the great Eric Harley, host of Red Eye Radio, Overdrive's partners in the program, now in its 8th year.

This year's event's proved to be a special one, no doubt, with these excellent songwriters with incredibly diverse styles.

Read more about Guy Archer via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-talent-search/article/15065701/trucker-talent-search-finalist-covers-chesneys-anything-but-mine

Mike Sheffield: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-talent-search/article/15065572/mike-sheffield-performs-original-song-hammer-down-again

Rich Scripps: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-talent-search/article/15065636/trucker-talent-search-competitor-covers-hawaiian-christmas-song

Arguably the best-known and most-loved trucker movie is “Smokey and the Bandit,” and sharing that limelight is its signature song by Jerry Reed, “Eastbound and down.”

The movie, released in 1977, came near the end of trucking’s pop-culture craze of the 1970s. It shared kinship with another movie about trucker rebellion: “Convoy.” That film was released in 1978, though the hit song of the same name that it was based on was released three years earlier.

“Convoy,” even with its comedic moments, was more focused than “Bandit” on the forces that clashed with trucking, said Todd Uhlman, a socio-cultural expert at the University of Dayton. In “Truck Driver’s Blues,” a long piece he published last year in the journal Automotive History Review, Uhlman traced trucking culture through the lens of trucker songs of the last century.

“Bandit,” and to a lesser extent the lyrics of “Eastbound and down,” is about “the trucker engaging in illegal activity, escaping the authorities, avoiding the ICC [Interstate Commerce Commission], not keeping his logs, not getting weighed, and breaking the law about transportation of alcohol across borders,” Uhlman said. “He’s doing all of those things, and yet the song – and the movie – is really a comedy. It’s not really meant to be directly confrontational.”

Read more about the song and its history via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15066221

Vote in Overdrive's ongoing surveying of readers about the greatest trucking song of all time via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15114028/poll-weigh-in-with-your-top-three-on-this-short-list-for-the-greatest-trucking-song-of-all-time

At the 2021 Shell Rotella SuperRigs truck show in the Chicago area last month, Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole asked these five owners variations on a couple of central questions:

1. The first asked owners to look out into the future and forecast prospects and plans five years ahead, given the current market and business plans in place.

2. The other had all to do with technology –- alternative powertrains like the electric-drive trucks we’re seeing trickle into the short-haul market, natural-gas power elsewhere, and those increasingly automated driver-assist features that continue to proliferate.

The responses vary and overlap in significant ways -- illuminating in terms of where small trucking is today – and where it might well one day end up, hopefully with bedrock profitability intact.

The owners who participated, clockwise from the top left in the thumbnail image associated with the podcast:

Gary Jones: Owner, SPB Trucking

Clayton Driskill: Owner, C&C Logistics

J.R. Schleuger: Owner, Lifetime Nut Covers

Dave Marti: Owner, Dave Marti Trucking

Mike Wilkinson: Owner-operator, leased to Floyd Gibbons Trucking

More coverage of the winning rigs from the Rotella SuperRigs event: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/article/15066783/rollin-transport-hauls-in-the-hardware-at-superrigs

More editions of Overdrive Radio: http://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio

Looking at the landscape for commercial truck inspections, Pennsylvania-based former local-department officer and long-certified DOT inspector Andy Blair sees plenty missed opportunities when it comes to troopers helping truckers when it comes to knowledge of out-of-service violations. All too frequently, violations that put an owner-op or other driver out of service simply aren't explained at the point of inspection. Too many trucking companies large and small, furthermore, he knows, don't invest in the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance out-of-service criteria handbook, the only place you'll find those criteria in all their minutiae.

The equipment category that takes up the largest number of pages therein? Why, brakes, of course. In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, Blair runs us through the specifics of the "20% rule" when it comes to clamp-type brake adjustment, among the most common of brake violations. Fundamentally, as he outlined in a document that's excerpted in the post that houses this podcast at OverdriveOnline.com, if 20% or greater percentage of a truck's brakes are defective, that unit is out of service. Hear our full discussion with Blair in the podcast, and visit this page for more textual detail on the brakes OOS violations ahead of the Brake Safety Week enforcement blitz, kicking off August 22: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15114023

Find states and regions where brakes enforcement is most prioritized all around the country via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/csas-data-trail/article/15113995/where-brakes-vehicle-enforcement-is-most-intense

The thumbnail image with today's podcast was the product of the 2019 groundswell of grassroots advocacy that rose leading into the ultimate passage of the AB 5 law in California, which codified a controversial court decision that applied the ABC contractor test in the state. That test, to say the least, is problematic for owner-operator lease arrangements with motor carriers as they've traditionally been drawn up -- and federally recognized now for decades in the Truth in Leasing regulations.

In this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, we’re going to drop into the annual Symposium event hosted by Overdrive sister fleet publication CCJ. This past Wednesday in Birmingham, Alabama, at the event, CTA CEO Shawn Yadon described what he saw with his own eyes on the ground in 2019 as that groundswell of advocacy rose. The result of that advocacy – a myriad of carveouts in the law by the legislature aimed at a laundry list of professions, but not for trucking, not for owner-operators.

That set up the Supreme Court case Yadon and CTA filed Monday, and here we get more on potential outcomes from both Yadon and transportation attorney Greg Feary of the Scopelitis, Garvin, Light, Hanson & Feary law firm. Both men had much more to say about the history of how we got to this point, with owner-operators and their contracting motor carriers still playing the high-stakes waiting game on the outcome.

Read more about the session in this report from the scene Wednesday: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15113768/the-california-conundrum-independent-contractor-state-of-play

And more about the 2019 advocacy efforts here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14897067/rumblings-of-protest-out-west-in-wake-of-california-contractor-law

It’s been decades since the influx of women into truck driving was considered news, at least among trucking media. But look long enough in the rear-view and you’ll reach a time when it was truly a novelty.

One of the first – if not the very first – entertainers to use music to highlight that change was Kay Adams, with “Little Pink Mack.” Released in 1966, the song was written by Chris Roberts, Jim Thornton and Scott Turner.

It wasn’t a strident feminist statement bucking the establishment in the way that, say, “Convoy” traded in themes of rebellion. But it did blend, in a light-hearted way, the singer’s femininity with her absolute confidence in handling a truck as well as any man could, said Todd Uhlman, a specialist in American socio-cultural history at the University of Dayton in Ohio and our guest for this "Songs of the Highway" edition of Overdrive Radio.

“It was the first song that really talked about women truckers. It really framed them as both feminine and also very tough, very capable,” he said. Uhlman pointed to the song’s opening lines:

"Everybody calls me the girl in the little pink Mack /

The bumpers are chrome and so are the wheels and the stacks /

It's got polka dot curtains hanging in a sleeper of pink /

Ah, this Mack's a dandy, some kind of truck, they think.”

Hear more in the "Songs of the Highway" series, part of Overdrive's 2021 60th-anniversary commemoration, via this link: http://overdriveonline.com/trucking-history

For longtime Overdrive Radio listeners he will need no introduction whatsoever, but for the rest of you, the artist you'll hear straight away in this edition of the podcast is none other than Tony Justice. The Everhart Transportation driver, singer, songwriter and performer's recent history reaches back more than a decade now to the date of his first solo trucking-themed record, called "On the Road." This year, he’s out with his fifth, "18 Gears to Life."

While Justice was in Nashville recently for a video shoot for the "War Paint" single from the record, he sat down Overdrive for a freewheeling talk through a variety of tracks on the record, his first in four years. The studio work on it was interrupted by the COVID pandemic last year. The year before that, as you’ll hear, Justice’s wife, Misty, waged a war against breast cancer that has likewise taken a toll on the music efforts.

At once, the emotion of the experience has inspired the pair forward in several ways.

The new record is a great listen, it’s no doubt. Production values were boosted by the ability to afford more studio than usual, Justice told us, with help from trucking sponsors like TBS Factoring Service, DPF Regeneration, Bull Snot products, and another that’s perhaps the most important of all -- the real support of professional truckers all around the country who are Justice's biggest fans.

Read more about the album and Justice's "War Paint" single, written for Misty: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/article/15065019/overdrives-music-to-truck-by-back-with-tony-justice

Hear more from Justice in our past podcasts featuring his music and more via our "Music to Truck By" collection here: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/music-to-truck-by-no-1

For longtime Overdrive Radio listeners he will need no introduction whatsoever, but for the rest of you, the artist you'll hear straight away in this edition of the podcast is none other than Tony Justice. The Everhart Transportation driver, singer, songwriter and performer's recent history reaches back more than a decade now to the date of his first solo trucking-themed record, called "On the Road." This year, he’s out with his fifth, "18 Gears to Life."

While Justice was in Nashville recently for a video shoot for the "War Paint" single from the record, he sat down Overdrive for a freewheeling talk through a variety of tracks on the record, his first in four years. The studio work on it was interrupted by the COVID pandemic last year. The year before that, as you’ll hear, Justice’s wife, Misty, waged a war against breast cancer that has likewise taken a toll on the music efforts.

At once, the emotion of the experience has inspired the pair forward in several ways.

The new record is a great listen, it’s no doubt. Production values were boosted by the ability to afford more studio than usual, Justice told us, with help from trucking sponsors like TBS Factoring Service, DPF Regeneration, Bull Snot products, and another that’s perhaps the most important of all -- the real support of professional truckers all around the country who are Justice's biggest fans.

Read more about the album and Justice's "War Paint" single, written for Misty: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/article/15065019/overdrives-music-to-truck-by-back-with-tony-justice

Hear more from Justice in our past podcasts featuring his music and more via our "Music to Truck By" collection here: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/music-to-truck-by-no-1

Just more than a decade ago, owner-operator Don Wood was prepping a recently purchased 2003 Peterbilt 379 former fleet sleeper truck as a custom daycab. He was about to go hauling local hoping to meet his then-young children's home needs after years over the road. That wouldn't last more than a couple years itself before, though, Wood was back out on his own and, as customers leaned on him for their transport needs and drivers he knew needed work, he began to buy other trucks.

He knew he had the customers to keep them going, that's sure. Over the next decade or so, DSD would grow to more than 30 trucks, some owned and some leased and owner-operated. How has he kept up with the demands of growth? Part of it has to do with the nature of the freight -- including a lot of direct customers and particular jobsite contract work that doesn't require constant negotiating with brokers.

Another part: Wood recognizes the true value of what little support staff he and DSD drivers and leased owner-ops have.

Also in the podcast: Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole live from SuperRigs. Cole's on the ground in Hampshire, Illinois, at the Love's there covering the annual Shell Rotella event -- in the podcast we talk through some of the highlights from his first day there, including the cabover of J.R. Schleuger and a rare heavy-haul extendable and steerable trailer from Belgian manufacturer Faymonville. Rare in the U.S., in any case.

Find pictures of both via Cole's Thursday, July 30, report from the show here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/article/15066767/scenes-from-superrigs-day-1-on-the-lot

Small fleet owner Wood's pristine recent build of a 2003 Peterbilt 379, that former daycab mentioned above, was featured in this video and report earlier in the week: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/video/15066740/don-woods-2003-peterbilt-379-dsd-transports-new-flagship

The context for the conversation you'll hear in today's 60th-anniversary special edition of Overdrive Radio, conducted at the Great American Trucking Show in 2019, was twofold, centered around both driver training and history.

Over the course of the 20th century, as you'll hear, the licensing required for a driver to operate interstate tightened. In the early days of motorized transport, an 18-year-old had no problem being licensed for interstate operation of what passed for the big trucks of the day.

They weren't, of course, very big at all by today's standards. The picture here is one of of Walter Thompson of Shelburn, Indiana, grandfather of Jay Thompson, now an independent consultant to various trucking and natural gas interests through his Transportation Business Associates company.

As I wrote at the time of this conversation's original airing two years ago, Thompson’s been quite a resource for me when it comes to owner-operator and trucking history in general. He grew up in rural Indiana and starting his working career driving big trucks, a route taken by the generations of men in his family as well, all the way back to his grandfather.

Walter Thompson had a chauffer’s license enabling him to move freight as early as age 18, in 1917. And given debate continues around training and potentially opening up interstate operations, perhaps in a limited fashion, to some drivers younger than 21, Thompson's thoughts do more than just gives us a window on trucking's history through the lens of one family's experience.

We were also talking at the time about the potential potential for a pilot program for under-21 CDL drivers, then under intense debate, as we sat down to ferret out a little bit of the history there.

As Thompson says, history often repeats itself in various ways …

Find more installments in Overdrive's 60th-anniversary series of lookbacks on history via http://overdriveonline.com/trucking-history