Overdrive Radio

Wednesday night in Dallas, classic country star and gospel singer Leon Everette, with trucker-songwriter Bill Weaver, started us up with a sound-check of sorts that turned into an impromptu extended jam -- you'll hear some of that and more in this week's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast. (Paul Marhoefer, too.) And though the news has been dominated this week and the previous one by the hours of service, we sit down at GATS for a chat about history, training and more with Jay Thompson of Transportation Business Associates. 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. Walter had a chauffer’s license at age 18, in 1917, and given we’re talking today as an industry about the potential for a pilot program for under-21 CDL drivers, we sat down to ferret out a little bit of the history there. As Thompson says, history often repeats itself in various ways …

Readers weigh in largely favorably on FMCSA's this-week-proposed hours of service changes. Any of these changes have quite an interesting road ahead of them in the next year or however long it takes for the agency to push them through. So-called "safety advocates" are already howling to mainstream news outlets -– stories are being spread far and wide with editorialized headlines like “Trump administration moves to relax rules on how long truckers can drive”… You may have seen that one or some variant on it -- the headline the L.A. Times put on the Associated Press story about the rules. It’s not a terrible story, all things considered, despite the headline. At once, it does lead in part with what feels like the nut the way it’s presented: “highway safety groups have warned that putting the revisions into place would dangerously weaken the regulations.” Well … nothing new there. Though as noted the headline itself is just flat wrong, or at the least misleading, as it pertains to anyone using a logbook. The FMCSA isn’t proposing to change the underlying 11-hour drive time maximum.

Readers weigh in largely favorably on FMCSA's this-week-proposed hours of service changes. Any of these changes have quite an interesting road ahead of them in the next year or however long it takes for the agency to push them through. So-called "safety advocates" are already howling to mainstream news outlets -– stories are being spread far and wide with editorialized headlines like “Trump administration moves to relax rules on how long truckers can drive”… You may have seen that one or some variant on it -- the headline the L.A. Times put on the Associated Press story about the rules. It’s not a terrible story, all things considered, despite the headline. At once, it does lead in part with what feels like the nut the way it’s presented: “highway safety groups have warned that putting the revisions into place would dangerously weaken the regulations.” Well … nothing new there. Though as noted the headline itself is just flat wrong, or at the least misleading, as it pertains to anyone using a logbook. The FMCSA isn’t proposing to change the underlying 11-hour drive time maximum.

What would you do for another mile or two per gallon in running fuel mileage? How does a six-year odyssey in modifications to your truck’s engine and related systems, reducing the draw on the engine from the main fan and A/C and more sound? That’s in essence what thinker-tinker, so to speak, inventor, and independent owner-operator Kenny Capell did. Based in East Tennessee, Kenny continues to modify his own Freightliner Columbia and Detroit to get to the point where not only is he achieving about a mile-and-a-half overall running fuel mileage benefit. He's moving toward also eliminating idling entirely with the integrated system, now officially patented by himself and his sister, Patti Lane. Pictured here: The modified engine fan with four electric fans -- one among many aspects of the custom-designed system.

What would you do for another mile or two per gallon in running fuel mileage? How does a six-year odyssey in modifications to your truck’s engine and related systems, reducing the draw on the engine from the main fan and A/C and more sound? That’s in essence what thinker-tinker, so to speak, inventor, and independent owner-operator Kenny Capell did. Based in East Tennessee, Kenny continues to modify his own Freightliner Columbia and Detroit to get to the point where not only is he achieving about a mile-and-a-half overall running fuel mileage benefit. He's moving toward also eliminating idling entirely with the integrated system, now officially patented by himself and his sister, Patti Lane. Pictured here: The modified engine fan with four electric fans -- one among many aspects of the custom-designed system.

Up from water: This week's Overdrive Radio podcast edition features the voices of six current longtime staff of the Nashville downtown TravelCenters of America location. It’s certainly a unique stop with its proximity to the city center, likewise just a few city blocks' worth of distance from the banks of the mighty Cumberland River. TA Nashville’s continued existence at its now 40-year location is remarkable further for what happened nine years ago this past May, when over the weekend of May 1-2, 2010 the city and surrounding region got almost 20 inches of torrential rain in some areas, flooding the city’s drainage system, area creeks among other tributaries and, ultimately, that nearby mighty river. In this podcast, longtime staff from the stop and the region recount their experiences watching the water come up, and what happened there in the aftermath.

Up from water: This week's Overdrive Radio podcast edition features the voices of six current longtime staff of the Nashville downtown TravelCenters of America location. It’s certainly a unique stop with its proximity to the city center, likewise just a few city blocks' worth of distance from the banks of the mighty Cumberland River. TA Nashville’s continued existence at its now 40-year location is remarkable further for what happened nine years ago this past May, when over the weekend of May 1-2, 2010 the city and surrounding region got almost 20 inches of torrential rain in some areas, flooding the city’s drainage system, area creeks among other tributaries and, ultimately, that nearby mighty river. In this podcast, longtime staff from the stop and the region recount their experiences watching the water come up, and what happened there in the aftermath.

Up from water: This week's Overdrive Radio podcast edition features the voices of six current longtime staff of the Nashville downtown TravelCenters of America location. It’s certainly a unique stop with its proximity to the city center, likewise just a few city blocks' worth of distance from the banks of the mighty Cumberland River. TA Nashville’s continued existence at its now 40-year location is remarkable further for what happened nine years ago this past May, when over the weekend of May 1-2, 2010 the city and surrounding region got almost 20 inches of torrential rain in some areas, flooding the city’s drainage system, area creeks among other tributaries and, ultimately, that nearby mighty river. In this podcast, longtime staff from the stop and the region recount their experiences watching the water come up, and what happened there in the aftermath.

You’ll be hard-pressed to come across cooler heads than those of the husband-wife team pair of relative trucking newbies I had the pleasure of sitting down with in Hartsville, Tenn., several weeks back. Tommy and Linda Bryant have about a year over the road as a company team with Old Time Express, pulling a dry van and, generally, loving life together after their mid-life switch to the work. For this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, we drop into Hartsville Old Time office, where I met the Bryants. Before trucking, with the kids grown and out of the house, Tommy and Linda were already basically spending the vast majority of their days together running a small Hartsville café, the Early Bird, today owned and operated by a son. A road trip taken in a four-wheeler out west, though, gave them an idea of how they could get even closer, and for longer, maximizing as a unit that precious commodity of time, together, as Tommy puts it. What are you doing with work but selling your time to an employer, after all, whether that’s yourself, or, as is the case for the Bryants now, the Old Time Express fleet? And though Tommy and Linda may be new to trucking, it hasn’t taken them long to see, as both pointed out, the potential value of more flexible sleeper splits, beyond the 8/w split currently available. Particularly for their team operation.

You’ll be hard-pressed to come across cooler heads than those of the husband-wife team pair of relative trucking newbies I had the pleasure of sitting down with in Hartsville, Tenn., several weeks back. Tommy and Linda Bryant have about a year over the road as a company team with Old Time Express, pulling a dry van and, generally, loving life together after their mid-life switch to the work. For this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, we drop into Hartsville Old Time office, where I met the Bryants. Before trucking, with the kids grown and out of the house, Tommy and Linda were already basically spending the vast majority of their days together running a small Hartsville café, the Early Bird, today owned and operated by a son. A road trip taken in a four-wheeler out west, though, gave them an idea of how they could get even closer, and for longer, maximizing as a unit that precious commodity of time, together, as Tommy puts it. What are you doing with work but selling your time to an employer, after all, whether that’s yourself, or, as is the case for the Bryants now, the Old Time Express fleet? And though Tommy and Linda may be new to trucking, it hasn’t taken them long to see, as both pointed out, the potential value of more flexible sleeper splits, beyond the 8/w split currently available. Particularly for their team operation.