Beware what you sign, owner-operators, when getting set up with a broker. So notes Transportation attorney Hank Seaton, in conversation about the curious case of a Florida-based three-truck fleet who reached out about what it saw as the strange treatment of two loads her company hauled earlier this year for Bennett International Group, both as yet unpaid. Seaton describes brokers' "right to offset" clauses in contract that should be avoided -- they give the broker the right to hold payments to offset cost of any claim, and such clauses he believes are intolerable given appropriate cargo insurance, and should be avoided like the plague. Also: Plenty more on Seaton's view of safety ratings and how they could be prioritized over the data-based scoring approach en vogue at present.

In this edition Overdrive Radio, St. Louis mother Sarah Welsh details how the trucking community, particularly a variety of owner-operators among it, has helped foster her 12-year-old son Robbie's passion for so many things trucking -- and particularly: "meeting drivers to talk about their trucks." A young man of my own heart, as it were. Also in the podcast, we’ll hear from a man I bet young Robbie Welsh would love to meet himself. We’ll make it a tale of two Robbies, as it were, in this edition with more from owner-operator Robbie Harris, who hauls heavy in the 2004 Kenworth W9 that is an homage to the 1970s-era KW in the famous "Movin' On" TV series. I posted a video detailing the rig last week at the blog. What you don’t hear in that video, though, is Harris’s detail of a recent haul with a 17-foot-high, more than 130,000-lb. generator between Wisconsin and Washington State, with insights on costs when it comes to hiring pilot cars and obtaining, state by individual state of course, permits for such a heavy run.

In this edition Overdrive Radio, St. Louis mother Sarah Welsh details how the trucking community, particularly a variety of owner-operators among it, has helped foster her 12-year-old son Robbie's passion for so many things trucking -- and particularly: "meeting drivers to talk about their trucks." A young man of my own heart, as it were. Also in the podcast, we’ll hear from a man I bet young Robbie Welsh would love to meet himself. We’ll make it a tale of two Robbies, as it were, in this edition with more from owner-operator Robbie Harris, who hauls heavy in the 2004 Kenworth W9 that is an homage to the 1970s-era KW in the famous "Movin' On" TV series. I posted a video detailing the rig last week at the blog. What you don’t hear in that video, though, is Harris’s detail of a recent haul with a 17-foot-high, more than 130,000-lb. generator between Wisconsin and Washington State, with insights on costs when it comes to hiring pilot cars and obtaining, state by individual state of course, permits for such a heavy run.

So just how did Daniel and Phyllis Snow's 1996 Freightliner Classic XL get to be called 'The Goose'? Here in this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, the independent owner-operators tell that story, which involves their son's 1999 Classic 'The Duck', too. Also: A bit of stumping for the importance of small business in trucking from Ray Martinez, part of his address at the annual meeting of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies in Nashville November 1.

So just how did Daniel and Phyllis Snow's 1996 Freightliner Classic XL get to be called 'The Goose'? Here in this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, the independent owner-operators tell that story, which involves their son's 1999 Classic 'The Duck', too. Also: A bit of stumping for the importance of small business in trucking from Ray Martinez, part of his address at the annual meeting of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies in Nashville November 1.

"The winds of change" are afoot at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said FMCSA chief Ray Martinez in his opening keynote at the annual conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies November 1. The three-day event is ongoing in Nashville, Tenn. Leadership at the Department of Transportation on up to the President of the United States, he added, "wants us to work with the regulated community," he added, going on to emphatically validate an oft-repeated statistic among the small-fleet and owner-operator community. "I recognize and respect the fact -- and this is a fact," Martinez emphasized -- "that 90 percent of the trucking industry is represented by carriers with 10 or fewer power units. ... It may not have been recognized in the past, but I can tell you it is loud and clear in our offices today."

"The winds of change" are afoot at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said FMCSA chief Ray Martinez in his opening keynote at the annual conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies November 1. The three-day event is ongoing in Nashville, Tenn. Leadership at the Department of Transportation on up to the President of the United States, he added, "wants us to work with the regulated community," he added, going on to emphatically validate an oft-repeated statistic among the small-fleet and owner-operator community. "I recognize and respect the fact -- and this is a fact," Martinez emphasized -- "that 90 percent of the trucking industry is represented by carriers with 10 or fewer power units. ... It may not have been recognized in the past, but I can tell you it is loud and clear in our offices today."

In this week’s edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, we take a run through Hurricane Michael’s devastating effects on the Florida panhandle north through clear to Albany, Ga., where 100-mile-per-hour-plus winds persisted in the fast-moving storm well after landfall. With all the devastation, for some owner-operators new opportunities arise, as regular listeners and readers of Overdrive well know. In this edition we talk more about front-line FEMA/state shuttle relief operations like the one Florida-based independent Tim Philmon contracted to in the wake of the most recent hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland, via a brokerage with a FEMA contract. The bulk of the podcast is devoted to Philmon’s operation, but before we get there, I checked in with fellow Overdrive Senior Editor James Jaillet, who splits some of his time with our sister fleet-news publication CCJ, for a close look into the American Trucking Associations regulatory and legislative agenda. Jaillet’s just off a reporting trip to the Associations’ annual Management Conference and Exhibition, and his thoughts give us a window into the fleet interest group that’s loomed large in the imagination of many an owner-operator over the long run -- reaching the size of an 800-pound gorilla, one might say, during all the advocacy machinations around the ELD mandate.

In this week’s edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, we take a run through Hurricane Michael’s devastating effects on the Florida panhandle north through clear to Albany, Ga., where 100-mile-per-hour-plus winds persisted in the fast-moving storm well after landfall. With all the devastation, for some owner-operators new opportunities arise, as regular listeners and readers of Overdrive well know. In this edition we talk more about front-line FEMA/state shuttle relief operations like the one Florida-based independent Tim Philmon contracted to in the wake of the most recent hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland, via a brokerage with a FEMA contract. The bulk of the podcast is devoted to Philmon’s operation, but before we get there, I checked in with fellow Overdrive Senior Editor James Jaillet, who splits some of his time with our sister fleet-news publication CCJ, for a close look into the American Trucking Associations regulatory and legislative agenda. Jaillet’s just off a reporting trip to the Associations’ annual Management Conference and Exhibition, and his thoughts give us a window into the fleet interest group that’s loomed large in the imagination of many an owner-operator over the long run -- reaching the size of an 800-pound gorilla, one might say, during all the advocacy machinations around the ELD mandate.

Just a couple weeks out from Veteran’s Day November 11, we walked through recent additions to BlackOut Freightliner veterans-tribute and memorial truck and owner Chuck Timbrook’s formalizing of the operation as a nonprofit organization, some new involvement in NASCAR and other racing events for Timbrook, and more relating to the rig two years after Timbrook's heart surgery sidelined him from commercial hauling. Toward the end, too, a little audio from a talk with Wisconsin-based small fleet owner-operator Rob Hallahan at “That’s a Big Ten-Four on D.C.” a couple weeks back –- about how, in the last year, he’s brought in other owner-operators leasing to his Hallahan Transport business and has gone from 1 truck to 5 over that time period.