Overdrive Radio

Owner-operators Daniel and Phyllis Snow have been off the road refusing to run at a loss for going on a month now as rates and available freight volumes have fallen. The crisis spurred by the COVID-19 coronavirus' spread, though, comes after a rough year of its own. To put everything in context, Daniel says, on the same miles run in 2019, the Snows were able to gross only around 60 percent of revenue they brought in 2013. Market deterioration has been the rule the past year, and they're not the only independent owner-op carriers who feel like the spot market is just broken. The pair have been in spend-reduction mode as they try to hold on for some return.

Questionable offer of easy money 'without asking for any business equity' by overdriveradio

Questionable offer of easy money 'without asking for any business equity' by Overdrive

In what has been perhaps the toughest week for trucking as an owner-operator in the last decade, this edition of Overdrive Radio offers some diversion via an interview with Haley Fohr of Chicago-based "Jackie Lynn," whose new record proceeds from a conception of the character for whom the band is named as a long-hauler with a particularly spectacular rig -- a mirrored vessel that carries the weight of the world it inhabits. The record, called "Jacqueline," is the group's second, among Fohr's other songwriting/performing projects. Also: Our own "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer offers two of his pensive, funny, and sometimes moving dispatches from the COVID-19 road, happy for the grocery, food and beverage loads but facing near impossible decisions in other ways ...

In what has been perhaps the toughest week for trucking as an owner-operator in the last decade, this edition of Overdrive Radio offers some diversion via an interview with Haley Fohr of Chicago-based "Jackie Lynn," whose new record proceeds from a conception of the character for whom the band is named as a long-hauler with a particularly spectacular rig -- a mirrored vessel that carries the weight of the world it inhabits. The record, called "Jacqueline," is the group's second, among Fohr's other songwriting/performing projects. Also: Our own "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer offers two of his pensive, funny, and sometimes moving dispatches from the COVID-19 road, happy for the grocery, food and beverage loads but facing near impossible decisions in other ways ...

Nearing the end of the first week of the SBA disaster-assistance loan programs available to owner-operators, insight in this Overdrive Radio edition from longtime owner-operator and now trucking-business coach Gary Buchs. In a time like this, look ahead to the relationships that you need to establish -- whether with a health-care provider, a broker or shipper customer, and indeed as Buchs suggests, a bank … those relationships you’ll need to be able to leverage when times get tough again. If you don’t have those relationships now, there’s no time like the present to establish them. You may not be able to meet face to face with your banker in the right here, right now, but pick up the phone and get things start. More detail here on both the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Disaster Injury loans, variously forgiveable, now standing up and available.

Nearing the end of the first week of the SBA disaster-assistance loan programs available to owner-operators, insight in this Overdrive Radio edition from longtime owner-operator and now trucking-business coach Gary Buchs. In a time like this, look ahead to the relationships that you need to establish -- whether with a health-care provider, a broker or shipper customer, and indeed as Buchs suggests, a bank … those relationships you’ll need to be able to leverage when times get tough again. If you don’t have those relationships now, there’s no time like the present to establish them. You may not be able to meet face to face with your banker in the right here, right now, but pick up the phone and get things start. More detail here on both the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Disaster Injury loans, variously forgiveable, now standing up and available.

Nearing the end of the first week of the SBA disaster-assistance loan programs available to owner-operators, insight in this Overdrive Radio edition from longtime owner-operator and now trucking-business coach Gary Buchs. In a time like this, look ahead to the relationships that you need to establish -- whether with a health-care provider, a broker or shipper customer, and indeed as Buchs suggests, a bank … those relationships you’ll need to be able to leverage when times get tough again. If you don’t have those relationships now, there’s no time like the present to establish them. You may not be able to meet face to face with your banker in the right here, right now, but pick up the phone and get things start. More detail here on both the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Disaster Injury loans, variously forgiveable, now standing up and available.

Special thanks to 13-year-old Logan Miller in this April Fool's Day edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, no kidding. Miller is the young man I wrote a little about on Friday, who's been serving sack lunches in appreciation of professional drivers at the I-79 rest area in West Virginia, southbound side just inside the Pennsylvania state line. Logan Miller has partnered on an "Orange Ribbon Campaign" with the folks at Trucks With Room to Spare, and attempt to promote the use of orange ribbons by businesses and individuals offering various measures of direct support to owner-operators and other drivers out there who need it in these times out on the road.

Logan is the son of West Virginia-based owner-operator Jason Miller, who's been trucking through the COVID-19 crisis leased to Mercer Transportation with his International. Hear more about the Orange Ribbon Campaign, and when you can expect Logan lunch to be back available on I-79 in the near future, in this week's podcast.

Special thanks to 13-year-old Logan Miller in this April Fool's Day edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, no kidding. Miller is the young man I wrote a little about on Friday, who's been serving sack lunches in appreciation of professional drivers at the I-79 rest area in West Virginia, southbound side just inside the Pennsylvania state line. Logan Miller has partnered on an "Orange Ribbon Campaign" with the folks at Trucks With Room to Spare, and attempt to promote the use of orange ribbons by businesses and individuals offering various measures of direct support to owner-operators and other drivers out there who need it in these times out on the road.

Logan is the son of West Virginia-based owner-operator Jason Miller, who's been trucking through the COVID-19 crisis leased to Mercer Transportation with his International. Hear more about the Orange Ribbon Campaign, and when you can expect Logan lunch to be back available on I-79 in the near future, in this week's podcast.