S1E20 The Freight Fight — Independence, Integrity, and Idiocy and Interview with Ryan Carraux from D&E Transport

S1E20 The Freight Fight — Independence, Integrity, and Idiocy
Interview with Ryan Carraux from D&E Transport
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Ten four drivers. Welcome to the Channel one nine Experience Trucker podcast . This is where the real stories roll straight from the blacktop.
Breaker breaker one, nine villains. You got your ears on. I’m your host, Tony. Welcome to the Trucker Podcast. It’s Sunday, July 6th, and it’s episode number 20. Also, it’s Independence Day weekend. So I hope y’all are having a y, nice and safe 4th of July, whether you’re at home or out on the road, stay safe.
Have fun. Enjoy as much family as he can. this weekend in the pre-trip, we’ve got a couple bulletin board items. First Danger Dave chimed in this week and, , stuck in a OL America online article to the bulletin board this week. Who knew? Um, well they were just reposting an article , they got from somewhere else, Dave.
You still on dial up over there. You need, Elon to get you a star link or something. , And then we’ve [00:01:00] also got a couple LinkedIn posts about brokers that caught my attention this week, especially after our conversation last week with Todd Waldron over@truckstop.com and the money line. This week I share and talk about a report done back in 2011.
By the U-S-D-O-T, about limited English proficiency drivers. They did, they went and gathered up some statistics. They had a whole survey, 113 pages or something like that. Maybe 20 of ’em are interesting. But, , nonetheless, . Eric Williams had posted that over at LinkedIn . And you know, Lin and I had discussed the lack of data that we had seen. In our conversation a couple weeks back , so this is great that we actually got to see some data. Somebody went and did an exhaustive analysis to just show in data what the results are. So we’ll talk about that in the money line.
And then also on the interview this week we’ve got Ryan Carrow, dispatcher extraordinaire from D and e Transport. He [00:02:00] joins the show and um, and he’s at least part of the time, responsible for hurting my two favorite trucking cats. Little brother, trucker mile marker, Mike, that is, and danger Dave. So that should be fun talking to Ryan, get his perspective on dispatching freight, how he got into the business and, , settle an interesting debate I presented him about which of the two of our favorite drivers he would pick in a certain situation.
So. Don’t forget to hang around after the interview for the post trip. Let’s get this rig rolling. If you’re not driving, it’s a great time to like follow, subscribe, and share the podcast with your friends.
Breaker, Breaker, one nine can I get radio check pretty, pretty quiet out here on Channel one nine, there’s a plain white wrapper taking pictures at the state line. Hit the Jake Brake quick. We ain’t paying no [00:03:00] fines. Drivers swing into the interstate body shop south at exit five. Buddy trucking ain’t the same as it was.
We’re the last of our kind.
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Pretrip Inspection HornPretrip Inspection

Pretrip Inspection
[00:04:00] Grab that safety vest and let’s go do our pre-trip. First up our quote this week and given its Independence Day weekend, let’s get started with a quote about freedom. the quote this week is from Eleanor Roosevelt, fdr, R’s Wife, and her quote is, freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being with freedom comes responsibility.
And we’ll talk about that a little bit more throughout the podcast, but a pretty good quote to kick off our Independence Day episode.
Pretrip – Bulletin Board #1 – Speed Limiters Article
Let’s get started with our bulletin board material. First up, an article from the UK by Joe Summer Lad. It’s in the Independent, a left-leaning paper out of London, and the article was called New Rules to Remove Safety Devices from Semi-Truck Could Let Them Zoom Down the Nation’s highways at Top Speed.
The nation here, being the United States. And, uh, and just like 249 years ago, we dispatched a bunch [00:05:00] of nonsense from across the pond. Let’s rid ourselves of this new nonsense, like a case of tea into the Boston Harbor. so a couple quotes from the article. Starting here, the US Department of Transportation has scrapped a rule mandating speed limiting devices on heavy duty trucks, allowing them to race along the nation’s highways at top speed.
The devices in question, also known as governors place a limit on the maximum speed at which large trucks can travel by preventing their engines from running any faster than a preset number of RPMs. This typically means they can go no faster than 50 to 70 miles per hour in the interest of safety and improve fuel efficiency.
But that requirement is now being dropped as part of the new DOT package intended to ease conditions for long haul truckers He adds some quotes from Secretary Duffy in the process. , And then he kind of concludes up the, the main point of the article. However, it could be argued that dropping speed limiting devices increases the likelihood of road accidents by removing a barrier to faster [00:06:00] driving and allowing for greater degree of risk on the highways.
Then he finishes up with some quotes about safety statistics, and I’m not sure why UK Paper cares. I mean, Joe is listed as a US reporter, journalist, if you want to call this sort of thing, journalism. , Variety of topics about the United States, including politics. . And we know that some of these journalists, they just, they print this stuff for clicks.
I’m not sure if Joe just doesn’t know what he’s talking about, whether he let AI do the work, whether he just picked up on somebody else’s. Article threw a whiny spin on it or the sky is falling, spin. Hey chat, CPT, can you put a whiny left-leaning the sky is falling, spin on an article that I know anything about , and then I’ll just post it to the internet and call it my own work.
I don’t know what Joe did, but Joe doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about here. [00:07:00] But the worst part of Joe not knowing what he’s talking about. And giving an aura that maybe he does, is it goes out to other people who don’t know what they’re reading and they take some of this as it’s actually real.
Now what we do know is, is that there’s no removal of any sort of speed limiting devices. , Joe, these, this was a proposed rule that did not exist. There are no regulations or. Enforcement of any sort of legislation that calls for it. This was to prevent that nonsense from happening in the first place.
It had been talked about it for years. It gets brought up a lot of the time. Whenever the safety, gurus get, get together and talk about how you’re gonna minimize crashes. .
, It’s unproven that it would actually do more good than harm. And so, , secretary Duffy added to the list of things that is going on, the scrappy of history, at least for the [00:08:00] time being. But like I said, the problem is, is that misinformed people.
Or people who don’t understand the realities of it are gonna read something nonsensical like this and think that, oh my God, the sky is falling. America is turning into a trucking horror movie from the seventies with out of control truckers chasing people down the highway at a hundred miles an hour. And what’s funny is, is I, I read other posts in different groups.
I’m in a lot of travel groups ’cause my wife and I like to travel and Some of those posts are, Hey, everyone thinking about going to America, is it safe to come to America given all the things going on right now, and, and you just scratch your head and go, like, what’s going on right now? Like, we’re securing our border and removing unsafe drivers from behind the wheels.
That sort of thing. That scares you. I don’t, I don’t get it. , So yes, it is, it is safe to visit American. It’s getting safer by the day. Now also I saw in relation to this topic on Reddit, there [00:09:00] were some posts, presumably drivers of big fleets who were asking if now they were gonna get to go faster.
And, uh, no, that’s not what it’s about. Your trucks at the big fleets. The mega fleets, where they’re governed at certain top speeds. Those governors thresholds of your top speed are not changing.
They were never there based on regulation or legislation that was always a company choice. , , Nothing about this is gonna change how fast a Warner or a Schneider or a JB Hunt or a Swift Truck’s gonna go if it was governed before it, 65 or 68.
It’s what it’s gonna be after this. , If you want to go faster, I. Buy your own truck, go to a different company. There’s other options. , Choose that route. But anyway, double D danger. Dave and I got a good chuckle reading that article this week.
I’ll post the link to the article. I guess maybe just want to take my word for it. I hate to give, , Joe and the Independent [00:10:00] anymore clicks than they deserve on this one, but thought I’d throw it out there as a good chuckle of trucking nonsense this week.
Pretrip Topic #1 – Broker LinkedIn Stories
Next up last week I spoke with Todd Waldron from truck stop.com. We talked about technology, about their platform, about some of the improvements, but we also talked about brokers and the relationship between brokers and carriers, brokers and shippers. Some of the more positive aspects of that and and also the value of open communication and being intentional about building these relationships and how that has the possibility to improve the trucking industry, and it was a great conversation.
There’s a lot of mutual benefit to be had. , Whether you’re dealing with somebody who’s asking for your location and your ETA and gathering up your paperwork or works for a third party, or somebody who gets paid for by the ship, or somebody’s gonna do that task, somebody’s gonna keep track of that load.
, So it’s not like if you eliminated brokers, all those things would necessarily go [00:11:00] away. It wouldn’t, it would just be moved to a different spot. But anyway, one of the things that I noticed this week, couple interesting posts on LinkedIn kind of reality. Playing the being played by the Kool-Aid man here, busting through the wall, , of some of the more negative aspects of broker carrier relations.
, Popped into my LinkedIn feed this week and one of ’em was from Jason Rabin and the other one was from Clint Darby. Um, each kind of pulling back the curtain on what. Is still broken, especially in their realm and what their experiences were over the last couple weeks. So here’s, we’ll start off with Jason’s post.
And I’ll jump right into just quoting it. This is how screwed we are. That’s a good trucking story starter right there. This is how screwed we are. Last week I posted about a double broker. We caught. We reported the details to DAT, freight and analytics for review, and they just called me with an [00:12:00] update.
To recap, we sold the load to a carrier who flipped it to a broker who flipped it to another broker, who then sold it to a legitimate carrier who tried to pick it up, and that’s how we caught them. DAT contacted broker number two, and basically because they had signed some air quotes, co broker agreement, there was no harm and.
That broker is free to continue operating on their load board. They are bad actors who 100% will continue double brokering and potentially stealing freight. And, and so that’s what we’re talking about here, these kind of scam operations that reroute freight. Like it’s game of hot potato, sucking the profit out , , before the load even gets picked up.
And that, and that’s the positive spin on this. That’s like the most positive. You could spin this. The other things are all more negative, which is somebody’s gonna get screwed in this whole menage qura [00:13:00] of people involved in this load. And, , good people are probably gonna get. The short end of the stick, , they’re gonna be the ones left holding the bag.
Shipper’s not gonna look good, intermediary’s not gonna look good. The legitimate intermediary in this case, and the carrier’s probably gonna find themselves dealing with a problem that they never really anticipated, and for sure, probably at a much lower rate than they originally probably could have moved the load for.
So, that’s one situation. Now, the second situation. Is with Clint Larbie. He posted on LinkedIn. We booked a load this morning. We needed to give it back within 20 minutes due to a breakdown. Um, their truck, one of their trucks was broke down. They had so little bit of miscommunication on their end.
It sounds like their , one person in operations thought they had a truck available. Actually, the truck that appeared to be available was gonna go cover the load for the truck that was broke down , and was gonna continue to be [00:14:00] broke down. It didn’t get fixed as planned, so they unknowingly, booked a second load for essentially one truck’s worth of capacity and had to give the load back.
They realized it right away, got ahold of the broker, said we’re sorry. Here’s the situation. We need to give the load back. The broker immediately chimes in replying. I’m placing , a freight guard on your company. No conversation, no effort to understand. Just dropping the digital hammer on Clint’s company.
Clint chime back in. This is the literal dog piles of crap that members of operations teams go through on a daily basis. Brokers freely threaten freight guard reports against carriers for no good reason. We talked about a situation really a lot like this, , a couple weeks back with Danger, Dave, and it was a whole circus, a myriad, not just a breakdown, but, and I, and I think Clint’s situation, just reading between the [00:15:00] lines a little bit in his description kind of sounds like Dave’s, where you think, you know, predicting when you’re gonna have a truck available when it doesn’t work is.
it’s foolishness, right? Like until that thing is back up running no check engine lights, it’s still only as good as however far you go down the line before the next thing goes wrong, right? , They’re trying to plan and not leave drivers out there with nothing to do, so, they ended up in a situation where the truck wasn’t actually available. And, , here the broker wants to, , immediately jump to DEF com four, put a freight guard on somebody. , And it’s unfair, but it happens right? And overall, it just makes the whole ecosystem more toxic by behaving like this. So we’ve got two narratives here, right? Jason’s exposing scammers who are eating away at the trust, Clint’s getting, , punished for a human in a mechanical situation that he attempted to rectify right away with an explanation.
And he was willing to back it up with proof. And [00:16:00] these aren’t just isolated frustration. They’re, they directly challenged the trust between all of us carriers shippers. Brokers along with the platforms in this case, freight card, but like our friend Todd last week from truck stop.com talked about and also dat in the case of, , Jason’s scenario here because it was a load that was up on dat.
But , these systems all all have require , similar levels of integrity. So what do we do? Right? What’s the way back from this? So first of all, . You know, be like Jason and Clint.
If you’re a broker or a carrier, then call this nonsense out. Keep naming names Jason and Clint Do and you should too. Some sunlight’s, the best disinfectant. I’ll post the links here. You can see who they are. And shippers, you need to be diligent too, ? Helping weed out these crooks outta your network.
Also, everybody stop weaponizing tools like freight card. It’s not a toy. [00:17:00] It’s supposed to be a professional tool to help protect people, not punish them unnecessarily. This isn’t Yelp. It isn’t Google reviews or Facebook reviews. This is a professional tool that people are using and freight guard. Make sure you get in there and justify these things and don’t just be a hands off tool for people to use to badmouth one another.
, Everyone needs to understand who you’re doing business with. Some of these brokers and carriers, they’re fantastic businessmen and women. They’re in this for the long haul. They’ve been in it for a long haul. They’ve been through the highs, they’ve been through the lows, but we all know some of them, they’re vipers, ?
So avoid them. Don’t take the freight, look for something else,,. Now, remember our quote from earlier, with freedom comes responsibility, right? You’ve got the freedom to choose your freight, choose your partners, choose who you do business with,
And the freedom to say whatever the hell you wanna say on any of these platforms. But with it comes the responsibility to be [00:18:00] honest, fair, and accountable. I thought it was a really good point, Nancy Halbauer. Made it in a couple of different areas of the posts, especially on Clint’s post around, , freight guard, which is that she reads the reviews that the context matters.
That she doesn’t just take, oh, you have a freight guard on you, so I shouldn’t do business with you. That’s just cutting your nose to spite, spite your face. She calls that out, which is a great point. , The freight guard isn’t the gospel, it’s just the tool. It’s only as good as the people putting information in.
Just like you can go into any Google review for a business or a restaurant and go, well, somebody says that it was too spicy. Well, you know. If you’re from Minnesota, you think ketchup’s too spicy. So is that really a fair judge on whether the food’s too spicy or not? No, it isn’t. Same thing here. Read the comments, read the context most importantly, and understand what you’re really dealing with because .
Nobody wins. When good people are sidelined over [00:19:00] nonsense like this,, everyone has a responsibility to protect the integrity of the network, the tools that we use, and also protect the best operators among us on all sides. Right. Brokers, shippers, carriers protect them. We all benefit when those companies do well as opposed to the shady or corner cutting carriers or bad actors in this business, ?
, That’s how you build a real freight community where we’re not just a stack of F-M-C-S-A numbers and freight guard profiles. Now I know. That Elon has left the Doge role. , But where’s the freight fraud? Doge in all this, ? I offered to be. The commissioner of truck parking or whatever I called it at the time.
I would also accept the nomination for , chief Load Buster at the Department of Load Integrity and Fraud Eradication Department of Life. That is, I’m learning how to speak in catchy [00:20:00] acronyms now, trying to get a job. I’m trying to be prepared. Secretary Duffy, my line is open. I’m standing by everyone else.
Keep your wheels rolling, your ethics tight and your eyes on the road and the recon. That’s your pre-trip inspection for this week. , No defects detected, but that’s just my opinion. If you find any defects, let us know. Get that seat adjusted. Let’s push the buttons in. We’ve got work to do.
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Channel 19 Experience Sweeper

Money Line
Welcome back. Let’s put that left blinker on, find the hammer lane, and knock out the money line this week. This week , we’re digging into a report that came out of the F-M-C-S-A back in 2011. Yeah, I know it’s over , a decade old, but hear me out the report. It’s called a Preliminary Review of English Proficiency in Safe Commercial Motor Vehicle Operations
. So this is a familiar theme, secretary Duffy in the last couple weeks has lit a fire under the Department of Transportation, [00:22:00] announcing a renewed crackdown on English language proficiency violations, and also, , fresh rounds of audits, targeting non domiciled CDL holders, but also rewinding the clock , a little bit a couple weeks back, Lin and I were talking about.
ELP and the upcoming enforcement deadline of June 25th of when they planned to ramp things up. And you know, one things that Verlin and I were lamenting a little bit was just that we didn’t have very much data. It would be nice to have a little data to understand the real impacts, that isn’t to say that either one of us were disputing.
The anecdotal evidence that everyone’s seeing. I mean, it’s right in front of our faces and it’s, and it’s heartbreaking. , These anecdotal cases, I. , Not to minimize the reality of the impact of those things. , But just in general, good practice, both Verlin and I would like to see data whenever there’s a chance that a, a [00:23:00] person thinks data might be available.
So, this report thinks Eric Williams for posting this on his LinkedIn. Now we’ve got a little bit of data , to go back and work with and see what was found. It was an interesting exercise that they did. Creating the data for the report and gathering up the data. It wasn’t just statistical evidence.
They went out and did field interviews, way stations, drivers, a lot of people in the industry. And so, , it’d be nice to see a more recent update to this report should be something that maybe is owed to the DOT or Congress on a yearly basis. Honestly, especially given some of the things in there that I’m about to , talk to you about.
So the 2011 report clearly showed that drivers with limited English proficiency, that’s how they worded in the report. LEP Limited English proficiency were racking up. Significantly more crashes, more out of service violations and more compliance issues Across the board.
We’re talking [00:24:00] statistically significant stuff. , Crash rates, driver fitness violations, fatigue driving all higher among limited English proficiency drivers. Now, here’s where it gets really interesting and where the chrome starts to flake a little bit California. , Our biggest state, economically, the big dog and freight, , with all the ports that they have and all the freight that comes in via the Pacific in through their ports from Asia and a border state, no less was barely barking when it came to enforcement here, the study showed that California was among the weakest inciting.
LEP violations, both in raw numbers of inspections and out of service decisions. Translation, the fifth largest economy on Earth. Had the rule on the books, but kept it parked in the garage. You had states like. [00:25:00] Arizona or Texas issuing LEP out of service orders left and right while California inspectors were out there throwing softballs.
And here’s the kicker. This wasn’t just about grammar tests or giving drivers a hard time. We’re talking about real world safety stuff, reading hazmat placards, understanding dynamic signage in construction zones, being able to talk to an EMT after a crash or responding to an inspector mid inspection.
The report even laid out how vital communication is during inspections. Being able to tell a driver to pull the parking brake, flip on the wipers, or shift into neutral. If you can’t understand the words, you’re a liability. But for years, enforcement was patchy. We know this. No national standard.
Some states gave the test in Spanish. Some used interpreters, some looked the other way. That’s no joke. That’s in the report. . Now, fast forward a few years of the southern border being wide open, , and also fraud [00:26:00] in some non domiciled CDL mills.
Bubbling up. . Secretary Duffy’s announcement isn’t just a policy tweak, it’s a warning shot. Audits are coming for third party testers, licensing mills, watch out, and yes, carriers who look the other way when it comes to English requirements. Also, shippers, brokers, everybody else looking the other way, sliding this in under the guise of, well, they’re just a contractor.
It’s not my problem. Right? The compliance hammer is coming.
And this isn’t just about compliance, it’s about public trust. If the motoring public thinks CDL holders can’t speak the language of the road, we’re gonna lose another important aspect, which is credibility. Credibility helps prevent more. Stupid and Ill-conceived legislation and regulations. Credibility helps [00:27:00] mitigate nuclear verdicts.
Credibility helps every day. Just peace and respect between truckers and the rest of the motoring Public. No, I’m not saying with a little bit of credibility. It’s gonna be a panacea out there and all of a sudden, people are gonna be pulling truckers over to give them glasses of lemonade, but every little bit helps, right?
I’ll post the link. It’s a bit wordy. It’s 113 pages or something like that. Like I said, about 20 of a 20 of those pages are what you really care about. It’s buried in a lot of government and statistical mumbo jumbo, but once you get the hang of the acronyms and look at the data and you can get a clear picture for yourself.
Secretary Duffy, keep on the path that you’re on. Make trucking credible again.
On a related note, I wanna reiterate something I mentioned a couple weeks back. I think it was in the conversation with Vernon, we were both touching on this topic a little bit , and that’s something is that how we [00:28:00] act and how we speak matters as we clean up some of this mess.
, I’ve been reading some posts over the last couple weeks by , Jason Miller. Jason is a supply chain professor at Michigan State University and on some of his posts over the last couple weeks, he’s talking about a lot of various angles of ELP enforcement and potential things that it may impact, specifically around.
How everyone may start to police their own operations. And of course there’s a variety of things to consider, ? If you’re the shipper, what should you do? If you’re the carrier, what should you do? If you’re the broker, what should you do? , And he discusses things to consider before changing any of your policies, if you’re any one of those groups.
? And we also see various . Companies stepping in offering ELP testing to give to your driver population to see how you stack up and if you have any things you need to be concerned [00:29:00] about. Of course, these tests are not certified by anybody. , They’re just, , directionally how at risk are you of potentially having a driver, , put out a service?
Jeopardizing a load, jeopardizing a relationship, things of that nature. , And of course we are living in Litigation Nation, so a lot of the advice is centered around how to manage the legal risks of various choices that people are being faced with as a result of this policy. , Balancing the risks of, putting a load on someone who may or may not be.
English language proficient, or also what to do in the case where you’re decide that you want to go down the path of . Having your workers who have no real standard to go off of or are not language experts, having them examine drivers for. Sufficient English language proficiency and potentially [00:30:00] refusing loads to those drivers as a result.
, Jason’s advice , is more practical in saying, talk to your HR teams, talk to your legal teams. Make sure nobody gets over zealous here, jumps the gun and puts you at risk for litigation by doing something, um, that maybe you shouldn’t. , This is the reality of ramping up enforcement.
People are gonna ask more. In depth questions , and if we’ve seen anything over the last few months, you can’t touch anything in this country without 47 people starting a lawsuit about it. , But an angle of all these discussions that Jason brought up and I, and, and I brought up previously that’s near and dear to my heart, so I’m gonna bring it up again, which is how we treat each other, ?
The words we use on social media in person, everywhere. Have an impact on people and assumptions that can get made, have a tendency to get ugly when they hit that echo box of social media in particular, and especially on a topic like this, ? , The ugliness tends to get [00:31:00] ramped up along racial and ethnic lines.
So that’s why I’m saying it again, just because a person doesn’t look like me. Uh, middle-aged white dude from Minnesota. It doesn’t mean they’re not American, just because you hear someone speak another language doesn’t mean that they aren’t supposed to be here. It doesn’t mean that they can’t speak English
or that they can’t speak English to a level that meets ELP provisions. In the previous segment, I talked about credibility. People outside the cab, both in transportation and on the periphery, they watch what we do. They are in these groups. They see how we act. They see what we say towards all kinds of people, especially towards each other.
So people notice what goes on in these comments sections, and I know Jason noticed it because he mentioned it too on his post, as did some other people. We all have a stake in the credibility of this profession and , it [00:32:00] hurts us personally. I. When other people who are in our group, our peer group, behave in a way that’s just frankly not very nice to people and demonstrates a level of ignorance and assumption that it looks bad on all of us.
. If you’ve got energy that you need to put somewhere as a result of this directed towards the elected officials, the ones who got us in this mess, who are still hanging around, but also making sure that this doesn’t happen again, ?
We woke up a lot, largely out of desperation in the trucking industry of three years of a hellacious market, and it got people pushing back and something got done. We’re not powerless here. But we need to focus on the right things to maintain our credibility every day, every post, every comment, every time we have an opportunity to make a choice between saying something constructive [00:33:00] or positive or negative.
Pick positive. And we’ll push back against crappy policy or enforcement. And I know I say it multiple times every week, it goes without saying on this front, we’ve got a lot of work to do, so let’s go do it. Let’s take a quick detour to line four and then talk to Ryan Carrow from the ops floor over at DE Transport.
Let’s talk a little smack about mile marker, Mike and danger Dave. And, , on the flip side, , we’ll knock out that post drip.
.
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Sound Effect for Interview

Interview 1 –
All right. This week on the podcast, we’ve got another Minnesotan, we’re on a string here. We’ve got a pattern. Ryan Carro joins the show, , from DE Transport. Welcome, Ryan. Great to have you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Good to be here. Well, Ryan, we, you’re my first operations person to join the show.
, We’ve had a bunch of truck drivers, we’ve had industry people, technology people, , but I think you’re the first one to come from the operations floor. , And so now I’ve got a. [00:35:00] A cohort to, we can talk a little smack about little brother trucker, , Mike and, , danger Dave and other truckers.
So we can collaborate on that front. We can gather the pitchforks afterwards. Yeah. And then we can change our names and addresses quick before they find us. We go Ryan, great to have you. , Why don’t you give, just to kick us off a little bit of introduction , on your background and how you got started , in trucking?
Yeah. So my background’s UPS worked in the hub and, in and out of that kind of operation with drivers and employees alike. And really it was just about, getting your hands dirty, right? So that’s what we’re doing now. More or less, obviously the keyboard’s pretty clean in, in the dispatch office, but we’d like to think we’re, kind of fighting the fight with you guys, with the drivers and such to, make ends meet make a living, make a good living for the family.
Be successful and at the end of the day, just load the truck and get it empty. So, been UP or UPSI was there about 12 years. And now at [00:36:00] DNE it’ll be five years actually this year. Okay. So you and with the DNE, what’s your role now? So currently now just the fleet management dispatch, or you could title it whatever you’d like.
Mm-hmm. Pick and freight up that pays, worth everyone’s time and makes sense to, get reloads and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, basically just boots on the floor and the operation dispatch. And do you guys break it up by a group of trucks that you work with, or do you have like regions or how do you guys do it?
Yeah, we kind of do it a little differently than most. It’s set up basically in areas for customers to start with. That’s kind of where we, you know. Building the relationship with them too is important , to maintain, to, to have that connection, to be able to get more freight options and such.
So we’re kind of scattered in I’m out east primarily, but everyone’s got different quadrants, so to speak throughout the country. And then, there’s lots of gray areas with that. And, there’s. I can assure you, there’s [00:37:00] not a time that if everyone’s covered out east, I get to kick back and relax ’cause we’re all kind of jumping in to, help out with whatever area.
If, if there’s all of a sudden, an influx in trucks in Texas and we need some freight. So we’ll all jump in and help everywhere. But yeah, pretty much like I said divvied up between the country and quadrants more or less. Gotcha. So the owner operators, they pop into your region, they’re delivering load.
You’re, you understand the customer base, got the relationship with the customers and understand the freight and the patterns and you’re looking for, to get ’em moved on to whichever direction they’re headed to next. Yeah. Well, and you know, kind of knowing the drivers, right? I mean, there’s, there’s 120 of them, um, all with, unique characteristics and personalities.
Um, and you know, some guys, you don’t blame ’em, they don’t like to go out east, they’ll go out west. They have preferences just like anyone would. So really trying to hone in on that to, match it up with what the customer’s needs, right? Because, [00:38:00] just because John doesn’t want to go out east but the customer has three loads going out east.
It, it doesn’t always work out. So you’re kind of always playing that chess game with maneuver and stuff around to the best of your abilities. So, yep. Lots of Lego pieces, not all of them make the shapes you want on every given day. No, it’s definitely fluid, but that is the fun part. I mean, more or less, whether you like it or not, it’s, uh, it is a challenge.
But it definitely is very rewarding, when you can make the plans come together for both parties too, which I’d like to say we do more times than not. But yeah, it’s it’s fun for sure. So what’s it been out, what’s it been like out there lately? From a freight, I mean, tough.
I mean, it has, it’s I mean everyone’s, working twice as many hours for less pay and honestly it’s been about that for, I think we’re going on three years now. Yeah. There’s a lot of variables with that. Coming off COVID Peak with freight. Rates [00:39:00] and stuff. I mean, as much as everyone loved it, no one can deny the fact that some of those rates were kind of outlandish as far as what the normal market would’ve done even before that.
But, , this dip now and, people aren’t even comparing it to 2008 these days. It, they’re saying it’s worse. Mm-hmm. Because of how it’s been. And it has, I mean, fuel prices continue to go up. Customers don’t want to pay anything. And I, I don’t even say customers because there’s a lot of them that don’t, but brokers really dove into a lot of that market at that time.
And now they’ve somehow successfully held on to some of those rates and obviously still have to make their, percentage. And so it still drives the rates down generally then going to the carrier and to the driver. , But our core customer base, I will say is pretty good.
I mean, we have, I. Pretty high paying customer freight that we maintained over the years and continue to do so. Which kind of, helps give us a leg up so we don’t have to hopefully, go to as much brokered [00:40:00] freight. But , you gotta connect the dots too. And if you can load a guy over to point B because your customer’s paying $6 a mile and he gets the guy home and it’s, the perfect storm.
, That’s what we’re always looking at in the office, trying to, to play the chess game. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And you see it, right? We saw the, the big influx and all of the. All the broker authorities that got spun up over that couple year span, and then the unwinding of the same, the same number of brokers falling off right as the good times were over and it just became cutthroat.
Right. E even the owner operators, there’s, we had plenty of stories of which they’ve obviously moved on in, in some regard, but, there’s, I, we had plenty of owner operators that were accountants, before COVID, and they saw, the COVID Freight increase and said, ah, I want to be a trucker.
And so, they go get their CDL and thinking they can hang with everyone and that, uh, you maybe is good. But it [00:41:00] definitely, there was an influx then in drivers too with the amount of freight that all of a sudden just dropped off. So I think it hit, hard on both ends with the rates, just washing out a little bit from the.
Of COVID stuff and also just the amount of drivers that thought, let me get in the game, kind of thing. Yeah. It’s been a weird job market when you look outside of, let’s say, the truck driver market ever since COVID, right? I mean, COVID was a huge curve ball for just about everybody. And then it was a bunch of reactions to it as we realized it wasn’t gonna go away quickly and this wasn’t a, a one month problem and right.
And then it. Th then it’s been a matter of unwinding a bunch of weird stuff that probably didn’t make a heck of a lot of sense. And if you subtracted the government money from the equation, what didn’t make any sense and just it takes a while to unwind it. Yep, exactly. And then too, just equipment, right?
I mean, I guess that’s a whole [00:42:00] nother topic, but you got, with all the emissions stuff these days and. Parts, all that kind of plays into to everything there with just lack of , basically people being able to work on the trucks, the shops are short staffed and all that. Yeah. The rates are still high on a labor side.
Parts are higher than they were. I mean, I think that’s probably the, the biggest, one of the biggest heartburns for, the guys running the trucks is just the. The cost of everything. Even I think a TRI came out with a, one of their annual surveys on operational costs of running trucks.
And it was, once you subtract out any fuel fluctuations, it just got down to, tires and all the other stuff that is less variable than fuel. Costs, it’s significantly up again this year over last year, another 5% or so on the cost side. Right. So it’s just the squeeze is, continues to put pressure on people.[00:43:00] Yep. And you gotta be, kind of savvy to work on your own rig and be able to change out a couple fuses every so often just to not run the bill up, which yeah. Hopefully you know, that, people continue to learn that kind of stuff. ’cause there is a lot of, and maybe that’s a good thing too, but there is a lot of drivers out there that just don’t have that knowledge and, end up going under because of it, which it’s tough to manage that overhead.
And with the rates and with the fuel and just, again, all the variables. Right. So, yeah, for sure. So what, what kind of fun do you get into over at the office there with these drivers? I can only imagine having heard of Mile Marker Mike and Danger Daves running around the easier bunch. No, it’s, I mean, it’s, I mean, it’s all good.
Really, when a new driver comes on we definitely take the time to, to get to know them. We’re always trying to call ahead to drivers and see when their, ets are gonna be at and how’s your day going? And, we get some guys that are just so used to from other [00:44:00] companies that, just call in and, Hey, this is Truck 2, 3, 4.
What, what’s your name, man? I, what, what, who are you? Break the ice a little bit and build those relationships up. But as far as fun goes with the drivers, I mean, we have tons fun. I. Try to, throw jokes in there as much as we can, but obviously, we got a job to do to, to get them loaded and where they need to be, when they need to be there, and when the customer needs the freight.
So it’s just, again, playing that chess game. But we definitely try to incorporate the fun side of it. We, even with just dispatchers amongst ourselves, cracking jokes and. Inside jokes and all that kind of stuff. I mean, it’s all to keep the mood light as much as you can.
’cause it is a stressful job, when you got a customer breathing down your neck because you’ve missed, pickup appointment times, three weeks in a row and they’re threatening to cut off. Your freight options and you got Billy over there who’s trying his damnedest and you don’t really wanna, bash him in because of how his week’s been going, [00:45:00] breakdowns, whatever’s happening.
So it’s definitely finding that balance and perspective of everyone to kind of, again make it work for both parties. Yeah, and I mean, you think about it, right? Any relationship you have, whether it’s friends, whether it’s a spouse, like. The hardest conversations are usually around like real life problems and money and when you’re.
When you’re running a trucking company, especially when you’ve got owner operators, it’s always about money, right? There’s other trade offs, but the trade off always on the one side of it, has money as part of the equation, right? Whether that’s dealing with people’s breakdowns, dealing with which load do you want to take, taking a load and finding yourself in a spot where the freight coming out doesn’t pay as good.
Like it’s it’s, it can al it always has the potential to be a stressful conversation as the person on the other end of the phone is weighing their options and their realities and their obligations and everything. And especially in [00:46:00] tough times like now. Right? With, with business and personal, it’s, it’s just because maybe they did okay on the freight, doesn’t mean maybe their personal life’s going great, their doctor appointments and bills and, just everything a normal person has to deal with and you gotta do it on the road too. So it’s definitely a lot to deal with at times For sure.
For, for both, for everyone. Yeah, it’s funny, I was, last week I read a little story by a it was posted by a former truck driver. His friend had written it, and it was about, it was written by a trucker’s wife, and this was back in the previous era, kind of like when I grew up. Maybe, talking more about the eighties and nineties where the, the truck driver, you could hide a little bit more.
Right when I started out, if you didn’t want to be found, you could disappear for days and weeks. Nobody know where you were. Right. You know, without cell phones and things like that and, satellite tracking devices or, ELDs and but now, yes, it’s great the communication’s [00:47:00] there but it is a double-edged sword and people can find you with their, with problems from home too.
And you know that right? That weighs on people’s minds. , The stress of what’s going on at home that you can’t really do much about other than be a voice on the other end of the phone, that it just adds into the overall environment of being a modern day trucker. Definitely a different time. Yeah. Like you had mentioned, even with the ELDs, it just, you got sometimes forced to, run because your clock you only got so many hours, it’s during the week, and if you’re not feeling up for it, but your clock is going, then you kinda gotta go.
Which, questions the safety part of it on both sides. So definitely a slippery slope when you look at that perspective. Yeah, for sure. Well, one thing I wanted to ask you about, ’cause we’re running through this etiquette series, slaying out some various areas where maybe etiquette is degraded a little bit in trucking.
Some of the various behaviors, whether that’s at the fuel island or in the parking lot or on [00:48:00] the highway. But, I think one of the one areas that. That etiquette also still matters quite a bit. Is just in that interpersonal. Dealings with one another, right? The, yeah, the conversations that go on between operations and I mean all departments in trucking, but you guys in operations talk to the truck drivers the most.
Yep. Wanted to get your thoughts on that, like the interesting parts about communicating with a variety of people, but also, the commonality that they’re their owner operators, that they’re, business owners and truckers as well. Right, right. Yeah. I mean that’s, uh, yeah, absolutely. It’s you know, you question even outside the trucking world these days with just regular peoples etiquette at the grocery store.
Right. That’s a whole nother topic. So kind of staying on track with that. But yeah, we it, it is just. About building the relationship, but like I had mentioned, just not caring. What, I don’t really care what truck number you’re in or what color truck you drive, or what [00:49:00] your hours are.
It’s, what are you working with? We ask the questions to try to get into the mind of the driver. ‘Cause it, it matters. We’ve had occurrences where. Drivers have been, felt like they’ve needed to push so hard to jeopardize safety and other things because they felt the pressure from dispatch.
And so we have always tried to take a step back and really think about how we talk to the drivers as much as we can. I mean, human emotions do take over on both sides. But really just trying to, talk to ’em like a person. It’s really just about building the relationship and.
There’s plenty of drivers that know, I like to play video games on the side and we talk Turkey with some of that kind of stuff. Or just, how’s your day going? And, oh, you sound sick, you know what’s going on. Sorry to hear that. Like just those personable questions that. Goes a long way. So we, we treat that pretty highly.
It’s very, it’d have to be a very special occurrence for us to, [00:50:00] ever really get upset. We try to understand it. I mean, obviously we’re pressured to with customers and stuff and in the dispatch office, but. Truly our intentions are to, voice the driver’s perspective to the customers and try to get them to understand what the dealing is with too.
So we, we take that to heart. We do at least a DNE to try to, you know, like I said, make them feel a part of the family. Feel welcome, feel like they can actually call when they do have a problem. Some people don’t even want to call their dispatcher with an issue ’cause they’re like, oh God, just, he’s gonna be pissed as soon as I tell ’em what happened.
And some of them do feel bad, which, we great. I’m glad you feel bad, sometimes you can’t really do anything about what’s out on the road and the variables you gotta deal with. And. Road construction and all the stuff that, that goes into getting freight from point A to point B there’s a lot of it.
So we take it to heart for the etiquette part and yeah I can only imagine and you hear the stories, but you [00:51:00] know of. All of a sudden a guy lost his his crank, ’cause we run all Conestoga. Mm-hmm. They’ll steal the cranks out of the back flap and stuff.
And then the guy’s gotta go waste his day, going a hundred miles outta route just to go get this special crank. ’cause some of them have that in different areas. So it. It’s unfortunate, and that’s, again, that, that dives into my whole tangent of what’s wrong with humanity in General Guard.
But that’s a bigger topic. Yeah. Yeah, it is. The list of things that can go wrong in, in a day in trucking it well. It can be long and there’s no, there’s no, well, we dealt with one thing, so that’s gonna be it for today. Like, usually it doesn’t, it can go five, 10 deep on things that go wrong right in a row and really test people’s patience.
Yeah. And that’s the load, that’s, there’s a crane waiting on the other side. Right? So then you, you get the dispatcher’s stress levels and the driver’s stress. ’cause he know he’s trying to get over there and he’s [00:52:00] doing everything he can. And it’s, that’s why you, I, I think you can’t take it super seriously.
Easier said than done. Don’t get me wrong. It’s, these are people’s livelihood, right? To make deliveries and do it safely to not get claims and all the extra charges. ’cause they, just had a $2,000 shop bill. The last thing they need is a claim from, something getting wetter, unsecured I properly or whatever.
So it’s it’s definitely a fine balance. I mean it’s funny now ’cause I’ve been out from behind the wheel for. 11 years now or so. Maybe a little more. But anyway, I’m in meetings or some, something, somebody’s frustrated, a customer’s upset or whatever. The normal office job, nont trucking, and people are like, how are you so calm?
And I’m like, this is nothing like for the, from the, screaming customers and trucking mad truck drivers at me because some plan didn’t go wrong or didn’t go right. And, I’m like, my, the frequency that I’ve [00:53:00] got upset people talking to me in my ear, in, In a way that it feels like it’s the 1970s or something all over again is way less frequent around here than in around the trucking business.
So I can handle this level. This is, a two out of 10 compared to some of the situations in trucking.
Absolutely, yeah. Some of those can and they can even get worse, like you said, if you. You’re on issue six for the day. It’s it’s pretty exhausting , and daunting to try to see the light at the end of the tunnel until you can, hit the sleeper. So, yeah. And you don’t know, right?
It’s not like you’re, you know, I mean, you, you have interactions because you’re, you’re working . With truckers who are not, under the same roof or in the same building as you, but you’ve also got coworkers. So you get, you’ve got both dynamics. The people you can see, the look on your, on their face and the other people that you can’t.
Right. And it’s a little easy to tell if people who you’re sitting across from, if this is a two out of 10 day or a, a pretty good day, you know? Right. It can be hard to gauge that on the other [00:54:00] end of the phone at times. Yep, exactly. You don’t know that the guy just spent, the last six hours trying to switch some hoses out and some clamps just to stop the water leak or whatever.
And that was his 10 hour break. It’s like, okay, that, that sucks. Yep. Yeah, for sure. It’s one of the weird things about trucking, I think, we spend so much time on. Issues. Right. It, it feels like the jobs are more issue management. Yeah. Because you’re spending, 90% of your time on 3% of the things that pop up out of the a hundred loads that you’re gonna haul today.
You invest so much time and energy dealing with the. Five that are went off the rails somehow, whether it was a breakdown, whether it was a shipper was late, the crane didn’t show up, or, whatever the case might be. but we tend to forget about the 95 times it went right every day.
And thank God that it did, if it would’ve, if it would’ve only been 85 that day, I think we, everybody loses [00:55:00] their mind, um, right. So it is we just tend to not celebrate as much as the actual success that goes on in this business. We all just take it for granted and go, wow, look at that. Every place I went today, there was stuff in the stores and people were able to do their jobs thanks to a crap load of truckers and the people behind the scenes orchestrating the truckers together for the world to go round.
Right, right. And we try to celebrate that in the office. I mean, again, it’s kind of a, I, I think both sides right, are at times a, a thankless job. But we have, plenty of guys that will, hands down say you guys are the best. Thank you so much. We appreciate your hard work. We get a lot of kudos too, which makes you feel good at the end of the day.
So we try to return all of that as, as much as possible. And it, it is good to hear the wins, right? Because yeah, like you said, there can be so many variables and so many problems. Yeah. You do forget that all the last five were pretty good and. We got one crap, one, hopefully we can, pick it up from there and [00:56:00] then you get, some guys that just get five duds in a row.
And so then it feels like the world’s out to get you two. So you gotta take that in mind as well, working with everyone. yeah, for sure. I mean that, I talked to Dave a couple weeks back after his adventures, just trying to get up to western New York there. I think it was head to Buffalo or somewhere in that area with that load from down south.
And just the trials and tribulations sometimes that like just get, can we just make it 50 more miles and get this over with and it sometimes the answer’s no, not yet, buddy. Right, right. Yeah. It’s tough to balance that and stay motivated. Right. To, to keep going and hey, you get the same feeling in dispatch sometimes, it’s.
I can’t tell you how many days when there’s just no freight to tell anyone about. And you’ve called on all 70 lows that are on the board and got the same stupid answer that they can’t do any more money. And I. It’s bs but you know, [00:57:00] you kind of just have to keep trying. I read it’s just all about putting in the effort.
I think, and at least at the end of the day, you can say you tried even if it is unsuccessful, because I do think we are, more successful than not. And that’s because we try, you can’t really give up. I was operations manager for a big fleet and had a bunch of customer service, bunch of fleet managers.
I. Working under me and the one thing you can control is. It’s a choice is what your attitude is about it. You know? Right. There’s gonna be days like that. Hell, there’s gonna be months like that. Right. In trucking with the way these cycles go. And it’s funny ’cause you know when the upcycle goes, like it’s just a different kind of crazy.
I. Now we’re crazy dealing with all the freight that we’ve, people are trying, our customers that we’ve, got us through the bottom and we wanna make sure that they’re there for the, and they’re still our customers and we service ’em as best we can the next time we go through tough times together.
’cause they were good partners on their end of the deal. You’re trying to service them as best you can and you [00:58:00] just got a lot of moving parts and it’s just. Trucking is just always a challenge. It almost never sits at that nice equilibrium of, ah, we got just the right amount of freight, and just the amount of guys who, you know, working trucks just enough for you to notice it, just for you to say, huh, this is all right, this is going good.
And then, yeah, some, something throws a curve ball at you and you gotta adjust. And again that’s the fun part of it. I, I’d say, because it’s, uh, yeah. It is the moving parts and ’cause it, we get, we get jazzed up too when we can, put together a, nine, 12, $15,000 load for a guy to go cross country.
I mean, that’s, that’s exciting to us too. Yeah. Um, to to make all those pieces work too, as, as much effort as they gotta put into it. I mean, we did the effort too to make the plan come together and it’s a, a collaboration of both. So. I think that’s, if we were to call up Mike and Dave right now and ask them why are they with you guys?
It’s that right that you guys get excited and [00:59:00] care about putting that package together on that load as much as it matters to them to do it too, right? And, and what it means to their family and their financial situations. And that’s. I think that’s one thing that has always been a reputation of d and e is just that kind of mutual hustle for a win that matters to everybody.
I. Right. And we’re yeah. All motivated off, all the drivers making more money. So it’s it’s set up in a way that they make more money, we make more money, personally. Right. So it, we are very incentivized to really stack it up. There’s, we’re in the game just as much as they are with it.
Yeah. That’s cool. And it helps. people feel like, it’s not just a phone call from somebody collecting a paycheck. Somebody cares on the other end too. They wanna win with you. Yeah. You don’t want to hear the guy that says, I, eh, whatever happens. I’m going home at this time and, I’ll still get my paycheck next Friday, kind of thing.
It’s. That doesn’t usually sit too well. [01:00:00] No, not one bit. No. And that’s where communication, I’ve had had a bunch of those coaching sessions with people on my team on the ops floor over the years because if you’ve never done it, it’s hard to imagine it. Or if you, and especially like new kids coming out of supply chain, school at some university and they’ve never even really.
Even if they’ve been working, as a fleet manager, kind of a trainee or dispatcher planner, customer service, like you don’t really think about it, right? Even though there’s trucks everywhere you go. If I look out my window to the north towards I 10, like I’m gonna see 50 of ’em go by in the next minute.
You don’t think about what’s really going on in that truck. That we had a lot of young people who didn’t understand like how offensive that. A mindset could be to someone who’s like, I got nowhere else to go. Like, when Dave’s talking about his truck breaking down and his, oil pressure being at zero. What he, the parts he didn’t say was, well, it’s also hot as hell [01:01:00] in, Tennessee right now. And it’s humid. And I’m not only just thinking about what am I gonna do with this truck, I’m thinking about where the heck am I gonna sleep tonight and Right. How the hell am I gonna gonna pay my bills next month?
Right, exactly. Just all the overlapping elements for sure. Yeah. And that’s also why it can be a big deal about getting home when you think you’re gonna get home because you know your mind is looking forward to that sense of relief that the truck is parked in a safe spot.
It’s at my house or wherever I park it, it’s empty, likely, and not loaded. The amount of internal pressure. Just shrinks rapidly when that home happens. Like it’s not, it’s not quite the same thing as when you’re not a trucker and you’re just like, okay, I’m going home. ’cause I went home yesterday at five and I’m going home maybe today at five 15 or five 30 ’cause I got some extra things to button up.
There’s not that I haven’t been home in three weeks. [01:02:00] Jesus. I’m just dying to shut things off mentally on that side of my brain and let it go. Mm-hmm. And that’s something I think we try to do a good job at. But we are also very, like I said, motivated with making everyone money.
But you know, you forget the guy that just wants to land you, like you said, it, land home empty. You know, our, our goal sometimes for a lot of people are to load him through the house. Yeah. You know, Hey, we can go drop off, do your 34 and scoot back out. But like you said, I mean, it, I’m glad you said it.
’cause it, it, it doesn’t. It doesn’t always click, I think, in the dispatch office as much as it, it should maybe to what they’re saying. So we do try to listen ’cause that is important and try to ask, do you want to the house, through the house? And hopefully because of the relationships we built, most of the guys can be honest with us instead of having to make up some, oh, I got the, I got a dentist appointment.
I, I can’t miss it. And we’re all like, you know what the hell? It’s just a dentist appointment, right? You’re gonna pass up three grand. But the guy just wants to go the hell [01:03:00] home, yeah. I, I’ve been out three weeks, I’m tired, I’m, I’m ready to just not have to worry about anything on my deck.
Park the truck, like you said, in a safe spot and, sit on the couch in my boxers and eat Cheetos and play video games, you know, that, that’s what I want to go do. It’s definitely trying to keep that mindset in, in mind when we’re offering freight, making decisions and coming up with plans for these guys too.
For sure. Yeah. And truckers are funny creatures. And I know, ’cause you know, I, I was one and I was a funny creature too, and I fell into some of the patterns that it took me getting outside the cab, getting in an ops floor and seeing other truckers behave and then going, Hmm. Yeah. I remember being that person myself too.
And I, and I think one of the examples that I mean by that is the. sometimes we can be our own worst enemy as truckers, right? And make decisions and go, I really want to I’m, yes, hell yes. I’m going out for three weeks, or I’m gonna go stay out for another week. Even though my, the [01:04:00] plan was only two weeks and I.
And sometimes it takes a little wisdom by somebody on the outside going, eh, I think it might be time for you to run through the house. You know, like sometimes you can’t see it in yourself when you’re behind the cab and y yes, you got bills to pay and you’re always trying to get ahead. ’cause you never know when the next.
Shoe’s gonna drop on, a mechanical problem or tires or whatever. But, sometimes you need a little help managing yourself even if you, no matter how much you want to be the person in charge of all the decisions. Well, and just to give yourself that break because everyone needs it.
You really, it’s tough, right? ’cause you do feel like, well, you know, I, I can’t be sitting around here. ’cause at least, I guess your mind’s off from thinking about maybe some of the other problems you’re still dealing with or financial issues or whatever they might be. And so you feel like the option only is, is to stay moving, but.
Maybe you’d stay moving a little more efficiently if you took three days to yourself to [01:05:00] kind of collect a right. Your thoughts and your things and just what you got going on. So again, I, I think a lot of that’s easier said than done. ’cause when you’re, yeah, when you’re in that mode, you do get tunnel vision because you know you’re trying to survive.
It’s it’s , your livelihood, your family’s livelihood. Children, putting them through college, building a new house, whatever, you got going on. Or, just saving for that fun toy, and maybe you know that again, to your point, worst enemy there’s plenty of guys out there that maybe.
Shouldn’t go drop 30 grand on a new Harley. Maybe we should put, an account together to, to save just in case the truck breaks down, you can stay moving and stay afloat instead of add that extra stress layer two months down the road. And, you know, I, I get giddy to, to go out for some new fun toys, but yeah, it’s definitely just trying to manage yourself, which you can shoot yourself in the foot pretty easy though.
Yeah, you can. And I’m, I’m guilty of almost all of those things, right? Whether [01:06:00] it was staying out too long or buying a bigger toy than I had any right. But some goofy banker gave me the money to do it, so what the hell? Yep. I’ll just go chase it down. Right? But you know, it sounds good until you realize, in order to chase it down, I’m gonna have to be out here for five weeks to get ahead a little bit.
Oh crap, here’s crunch time payments coming. And I had two really crappy weeks and a, couple days downtime and a wrecker come out and get me out of a, job site. And again, just the thousands of variables. But, I, not to encourage bad behavior, I mean, you gotta live a little bit too, like, yeah, I mean there’s sometimes that’s the reason that gets you going.
There’s sometimes I look and go. I probably just did that ’cause I needed a reason to wake up in the morning , and kind of re re-up the choice in my mind of, yeah, I’m gonna keep doing that for a living because I need the money. And sometimes it’s I gotta blow a little money to put a little [01:07:00] ether on the equation.
Sure. Yep. And get it moving. Yeah. I mean, I don’t have a choice now. This Harley ain’t gonna pay itself. Yep. It’s here. They ain’t taking it back. And if I sell it, it’s worth 60% of what I paid a month ago. So I guess we’re going to work. The choice has been made. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a fun dynamic for sure.
Well, I gotta ask you, ’cause you, you know, both of these guys. Yeah. Given their track records. If you had one load and it really had to be there and it couldn’t break down, which horse are you putting your money on? You putting it on danger, Dave? Not the breakdown or mile marker, Mike, not the breakdown.
’cause they both have quite a track record. Well, I hate to say it, but unfortunately Mike’s first return load back, back with d and e. He broke down. That’s right. Out in [01:08:00] Utah. Yep. So I, I think we’re gonna have to go with, with Dave, um, on this one. Even recent history notwithstanding, huh? You’re gonna get a roll with Dave?
Yeah. I mean, it’s just a bad first impression. It’s unfortunate it went that way, but I’m sure it can all be redeemed, you know? That’s right. Um, and, and what we always try to do then is for guys like that, we, we always try to get two of them. That way they can both be happy. That’s the goal.
There you go. They’re both heroes in their own mind. Yes. You gotta be, you gotta be. Some days you do. Well, cool man. it was great to meet you. Yeah, I’m so happy I got to jump on the phone with you. Don’t be a stranger, you know? Absolutely. And and if we get some funny trucking stories about any of these characters on the show, you gotta make sure to share ’em so we can make fun of them worldwide.
Don’t let ’em, don’t let any of their mistakes. Go un broadcast. Let’s get ’em out there for the world to share and get a chuck a lot of them, some fun stuff [01:09:00] on motive, some dash cams and all that good stuff. There you go. Yeah. You know, Michael. He thought it was funny.
Hey, we’re gonna start it. We’re gonna do a podcast. That’ll be fun. Until I realize like everything he’s ever sent me on the phone and I’ve saved it all. And I, I’ve just been creating a stockpile of embarrassing moments from when I run another ma other material. So you have it dated, I’m assuming, just so you can recall it, right?
It’s that large. Oh yeah, yeah. Pictures he sends like, oh, look what happened today when I plugged up the freeway. ’cause I didn’t read my permit and I ended up. Stuck in a, 13, 13 wide clearance with a 14 wide load. Yeah, that, that’s the good part though. You get to learn from the experiences, right?
Yes. If once, once you get past the immediate fear of what might happen, the shame of what you’ve done, and you can move on to the lesson that you’ve learned, , there’s a pot of gold that all these. End of these [01:10:00] rainbows. Absolutely. Well, thanks Ryan, man. Great talking to you.
Yeah. Have a great night. Yeah, it’s been great. Yeah, you too.

Post Trip
Quick reminder to pay visit to friends of the show on social media.
We’ve got trucking with coffee and Cal his new name for his page. This weekend, Cal was out on the road doing a 34 hour restart during the 4th of July. Lots of good meals out there. Don’t forget our friend Mike Reitz over at Superior Trucking Payroll Service. I 95 Truckers. We’ve got al out there snapping photos over on I 95 in Virginia, support his page.
She trucking [01:11:00] the organization of re Moore. , I’m about halfway through reading her book about her trucking journey, which is great. I’ll share some more of that here in one of the upcoming episodes. and of course al our. Previous guests from the show, make sure you get out there. All their links are up in our Facebook posts, so go visit their websites, say hello. Let ’em know you’re out there.
Truck show season continues in full swing here. Of course. Check out the website, the truck show list.com. It’s got a ton of information out there about the upcoming truck shows. We’re a good month into the summertime here in the summer truck show season.
We’ve got , the. Walcott Jamboree coming up in Iowa. I’ll be up there, I’ll be up there all day on Friday. So if you’re up there and you spot me, you’ll see me in the black, , channel 19 experience shirt hat. Come say hello. Who knows? Maybe you’ll even be, , an interviewee on the podcast this week if you want to be.
So save up those stories, spot me and, , we’ll go find a shady spot with , some sort of beverage and do an [01:12:00] interview. That’s my plan next week as far as content goes. I’m sure we’ll have some just be in there. We’ll sprout up a bunch of ideas for topics and who knows who I might run into and talk to.
. I know some folks that’ll be there, various vendors and such, but you know that it’s an interesting show, just location wise to get to it., It’s hidden out there where kind of only the truckers roam. So should be fun. My first time at the Jamboree, I. Of course I say this and mile marker, Mike will pop up with pictures of me at the, , 1987 Jamboree or something like that.
I don’t think I’ve been to the Jamboree before. So first time for that. Look forward to it. , I do have a request for everybody this week if you have, if you happen to have any connections to like state DOT. People, and especially people who are in the space of commercial vehicle inspection or inspectors, that community, um, I’d love to talk to some of them, especially if you happen to know anybody who’s got a.[01:13:00] Interest in the history of those departments. I’m doing a, a little project exploring the history of inspections, waste station, ports of entry, that sort of thing, going back all the way back into the early 20th century. And so I, I know of some folks who I’m reaching out to who might be able to help, but, , the more the merrier as I try to accumulate some information about the history of.
, That side of our in industry, the enforcement side of our industry, and , fill in some of the backstory of what it was like before, , my time. Also, if, you know, any old time truckers who’ve got stories about what it was like, , in the eighties, the seventies, the sixties, , and what inspections were like, what the weigh stations were like.
The experience was like, , just curious to kind of fill in some holes , in the overall story there of , the age old battle of, , inspectors versus, , Wildcat outlaw truckers. So if you know anybody who might be helpful or be interested in talking about that [01:14:00] some more, or even joining the podcast for that matter, , let me know.
Be sure to keep reaching out. If you’d like to be on the show, like follow, comment, subscribe, leave us a review somewhere, send us a message. Email us at inbox at channel one nine experience.com. There’s also a contact form on the website. Keep sharing the show with your friends. Thanks for listening. We’ll see y’all next week up in Iowa.
We’ve got work to do.
Outro