Overdrive Radio

This special edition Overdrive Radio is part of our celebration 60 years since the magazine's founding in 1961 -- as such, every Monday we’re looking back on various elements of the trucking business and culture as they’ve existed in the past and evolved on up through today via http://overdriveonline.com/trucking-history For this episode, we’re looking at the CB radio, both in the context of safety and trucking culture. First, we run back through the first in my Channel One Nine series of...

In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, we’ll hear from Captain Jon Olsen of Minnesota State Patrol's truck enforcement unit, one of many sources for Overdrive's reporting about the federal DataQs system that went live earlier this week: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15063803/criticism-of-dataqs-review-system-continues-to-rise Overdrive Editorial Director Max Heine and Senior Editor Todd Dills dug into the FMCSA's data around the DataQs system, doing scads of interviews...

In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, another in the run through our eight-episode Over the Road podcast series, coproduced for 2020 with PRX's Radiotopia podcast network. "Back home" featured our own Long Haul Paul Marhoefer, host of the show, and Over the Road contributing producer Lacy Roberts on a haul back through Lacy’s childhood as a daughter of a trucking family growing up in Montana. The tale, among the most-listened-to within the trucking community (the podcast was broadcast out...

In this edition of Overdrive Radio, take a tour down I-75 in Kentucky in search of an answer to the age-old question: Who has the best nanner pudding among the truck stops along that route, and which one of them was the first to advertise it on the CB? This week, we run back through some trucking micro-history with our own "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer via another edition in the Over the Road podcast series, originally produced by PRX’s Radiotopia in collaboration with us here at Overdrive....

In April 2019. Kenyette Godhigh-Bell was a company driver at Grand Island Express. Our own "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer met her for the first time at the company headquarters in Nebraska when researching and recording for what would become the Over the Road podcast. If you’re a regular Overdrive Radio listener, you heard that episode and met Godhigh-Bell from that time. Part of the episodes featured the sound of a class intended for drivers at the company who were considering the decision to...

For today’s episode of the Overdrive Radio podcast, brace for a long run through the history of trucking with former household-goods-hauling owner-operator Finn Murphy, also a well-versed student of that history. Murphy is interviewed and much of the story is narrated by Overdrive contributing writer and reefer hauler "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer. This brief history of trucking in America tracks the rise of the business from the 1920s up through today -– and the owner-operator's central role...

What was the first recorded trucking song? According to Todd Uhlman, an assistant professor at the University of Dayton in Ohio, “Wreck on the Mountain Road,” recorded by the Red Fox Chasers in 1928, may well have set the stage for many such songs to come. Such trivia is only a small part of what Uhlman academic specialty has uncovered -- he places trucking songs in the context of U.S. socio-cultural history, explaining how each song reflects something of the trucking industry and culture at...

In this week's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Chief Patrol Agent for the Laredo, Texas, sector Matthew Hudak has a message for the trucking community about what he’s seeing in the numbers since October 2020 when it comes to busted human smuggling operations. There's been a dramatic uptick in instances of drivers moving strange cargo in their dry van or reefer trailers -- actual human beings. In some cases, the drivers involved may have been...

In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, take a run back through another episode of the OTR podcast series -- also with an update on the last couple of years' push toward one featured hauler's new authority and power-only business. The post Trucking with authority and other reasons 'Why we drive' -- OTR rewind No. 2 first appeared on Overdrive.

A note for Overdrive Radio subscribers using some podcasting apps: We’ve got a new, redesigned website coming at http://OverdriveOnline.com – if you regularly listen via a podcasting app other than those offered by Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud, or Apple or Google podcasts, we’re transitioning to a different principle RSS feed for Overdrive Radio. If you need to in your app, you can update the settings with this feed URL and be certain to get all of the episodes going forward:...

In this final 2020 edition of Overdrive Radio, we’re counting down the top 10 podcasts of the year along the way to the dawn of 2021 -- from the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic's dawn to the hours changes, Biden's election and more. Here's a toast to a successful 2021. The post Brass tacks, bad brokers, big loads to count down the hours with a long run into 2021 first appeared on Overdrive.

Happy New Year! For this final 2020 edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, Daniel and Phyllis Snow are here, as is Rico Muhammad and Joe DeLorenzo and Jim Mullen and all the owner-ops and government administrators and brokers and drivers and others we talked to this year. We’re going to hear from a lot of them as we tour back through this oh-so-chaotic and pivotal of years trucking in America. We’ll be counting down the top 10 podcasts of the year along the way, and hearing from some other...

So begins a run through high-quality road listening with Overdrive's podcast coproduction with PRX’s Radiotopia network. The Over the Road podcast ran originally Feb.-June 2020, and the principal eight-episode series was hosted by our own "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer. Bonus: Restore of Soeth's vintage cabover. The post Back to the 'Biggest Tailgate in Trucking' -- and Germann Soeth's 1976 KW K100 first appeared on Overdrive.

With this edition of the podcast, just two days out from Christmas, we’re starting a run back through a little high-quality road listening with Overdrive's podcast coproduction with PRX’s Radiotopia network. The Over the Road podcast ran originally between February and June 2020, and the principal eight-episode series was hosted by our own "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer. Therein, we hoped to give mainstream, general-public listeners an intimate portrait of the wide array of voices and issues...

When an annotation might save you a 14-hour-rule violation erroneously written, and much more from FMCSA's hours of service Q&A yesterday relative to the new split sleeper, short-haul/adverse exceptions, and 30-minute break. The post Log annotations to avoid hours of service violations -- and more from FMCSA Q&A first appeared on Overdrive.

Today's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast runs through the variety of hours of service issues addressed yesterday in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's third Q&A relative to the changes put in place as of Sept. 29. One particular question addressed a subject we've taken up before -- namely what happens if you need the 14-hour-clock pause value of a berth period to avoid a violation and you're inspected before you can pair that period with another berth period to complete...

The trucker-songwriter's record explores the emotion of personal history and will strike a chord for anyone struggling with managing the risks of the road with a family back home – such struggles got more than a few added wrinkles this year. Listen here. The post OTR soundtrack custom-built for 2020: Paul Marhoefer's 'Songs from a truck' first appeared on Overdrive.

The 11 tracks on Long Haul Paul Marhoefer's new "Songs from a Truck" album -- available now via the streaming platforms and on a CD you can order via http://longhaulpaulmusic.com/merch -- cap what’s been quite a year for Marhoefer, as most of you will know pretty well. He was the voice of the Overdrive/Radiotopia coproduction of the Over the Road podcast earlier this year, which reached millions of listeners both inside and out of trucking. His stories of hauling in the midst of the COVID-19...

Broker group TIA petitioned FMCSA to limit dispatch services to working with a single carrier or, in cases where they work with multiple carriers, require a broker authority and bond. Today in Overdrive Radio, what that could mean for dispatch providers and client owner-ops -- and regs alternatives. The post Time to account for independent dispatch services in regulation? first appeared on Overdrive.

The Transportation Intermediaries Association's August-filed petition is well-known for its request to FMCSA to essentially throw out the transparency reg in place since the early 1980s, and in other forms earlier than that. What's been discussed far less, however, is the second part of the broker group TIA's petition, that having to do with independent dispatchers. TIA asks the agency to provide formal guidance officially limiting dispatchers to working with just a single carrier and, in...