How did you get to be a part of
Newport’s Economic Summit in 2004?
“Steve Sturgess and I have been friends for a long time, and he apparently thought I had enough to say to invite me to be part of the panel.”
You’ve been a successful owner operator for some time.
Have you thought about expanding?
“The thought has crossed my mind several times, but I haven’t been able to find the right owner operators to work with. At one time, I had two other drivers working for me, but I’ve let them go.”
What was the reason for that?
“We can’t seem to get onto the same wavelength.
For one thing, too many of these drivers don’t seem to know how to run a business, or even see themselves as being in a business.”
How so?
“For one thing, too many of them mingle their personal and business accounts. I saw one guy decide to invest in a big-screen TV one week, then the next, he was whining because he needed money for fuel.
“If he’d kept separate bank accounts for his business and personal matters, I doubt that would ever have happened.
“Also, a lot of drivers don’t have the same priorities I do.”
What do you mean by that?
“It’s pretty typical for a driver to approach me with the question, ‘How many miles can I get?’ In my view, that’s the wrong question. It should be, ‘How much money can I make?’
“So many of the drivers out there think the only way to get ahead is to get more and more miles, instead of getting more and more for what they do.
“That leads them to do things like take any load at any price, just to keep driving, and to conspire with shippers and receivers to falsify logs.”
What do you think of the new hours of service rules?
“I don’t have a problem with them. As far as I’m concerned, I made a commitment to myself that I would keep an honest log book. I know I’m honest, and so do the shippers I deal with.
“What that means is that I have been able to charge detention fees when I’m held up at the dock, and that I have evidence to present when they say I’m late with a load – if they’re the ones who held me up.”
So you’ve been successful charging for detention?
“In most cases. They know me and they know my log is honest. I can take my log into the office and show them just how long I was tied up.”
Doesn’t keeping honest logs hurt you financially?
“I don’t think so. And I don’t think it matters whether it does or not. As an industry, if we expect to get paid what the job is worth, we’ve got to stop faking logs in order to reduce our rates.
“That’s why I wouldn’t even mind if we had trip recorders in every truck.”
A lot of drivers consider that an invasion of privacy.
“I don’t. First of all, we’re about the only operators of large commercial vehicles who don’t have trip recorders. Besides, if you’re keeping an honest log and not driving any more than hours of service regs allow, why should you care?
“But lately, I’ve heard about what might be an even better, even simpler idea.”
What is that?
“They could print your hours of service right on your driver’s license. Steve Sturgess and I have discussed that one. It’s one of those ideas that sounds crazy when you first think about it, but if there’s any regularity in your schedule at all, it could work.
“And if you’re stopped, all they have to do is check the time and your license, and they know whether or not you’re running legal.”
Why is there so much opposition to the new hours of service and this trip recorder idea?
“As I said before, this industry has been running forever on this crazy piecework concept, where we get paid by the mile and therefore need more time to rack up more miles. That’s an incentive for people to cheat on their logs, which ruins the market for everybody.
“And, of course, not only does it ruin the pricing structure, but it also ruins people’s health and their home lives.”
What have you done to adjust your work to make more of what you feel you deserve?
“For one thing, I looked at the market and saw that the way to go was to take on the jobs nobody else wants. That’s how I ended up pulling a flatbed and having to deal with securing and tarping most of my loads.
“There’s demand for that kind of work. More than just pulling around a dry box. I always figure that if you can do what others don’t want to do, you’ve got a better chance at finding work.”
What kind of equipment are you using?
“That’s another place where I decided to be guided by what’s good for business rather than what’s good for my ego. I have a lightweight, aerodynamic tractor, and I taught myself how to use the slider on my flatbed trailer, so I didn’t have to go with a more expensive spread axle type.”
How does that work?
“A lot of people think that in order to haul flatbed freight, you’ve got to have a spread axle. I’ve found that if you know what you’re doing, you can adjust the slider so that you can stay legal.
“I’ve even developed a little gadget I can use to check my axle weights, and when I check myself at weigh stations, I find that by adjusting the slider, I have no need for spread axles.
“That’s good, because spread axles are notorious for eating up tires.”
Wouldn’t you like to have a heavily chromed
long-nose conventional?
“They’re nice to look at, but they tend to be poor on fuel economy, and that’s crucial. I think just about everybody’s heard that line that ‘anything that kills bugs wastes fuel.’ Long-nose conventionals tend to kill a lot of bugs.
“I’m constantly working on ways to cut my fuel cost, from what I drive to the way I drive it, even to the way I secure and tarp my loads and where and how I buy my fuel.
“And I try to save money other ways as well.”
What are some of those?
“For one thing, I usually make a deal with my customers to park on their lots. One of the things this means for me is that I can wake up in the morning not having had to breathe exhaust from idling diesel engines all night.
“I have extra blankets and a heated mattress cover, so I don’t have to idle my rig either.
“And I don’t miss the noise and commotion you find in truckstops. Next morning, I’m rested and ready to go.
“I have a microwave oven and refrigerator in the sleeper, so I can eat healthier – and a lot cheaper.”
Of course, if you were with a big fleet,
some of this might be hard.
“Sure, but I’m not with a big fleet. That’s been a big advantage for me in a lot of cases. Sometimes I’ve even asked to begiven the most troublesome accounts. That way I can service the hell out of them and make them happy. Drivers for big fleets find that hard to do.
“There was one shipper who was notorious for his bad attitude and bad language. I showed up to load the first day, bringing a box of donuts with me. It’s pretty hard for a guy to be angry with you when you’ve just brought him a box of donuts. We’ve gotten along fine ever since.”
We hear you’ve been “dressing up” a bit lately too.
“That’s an experiment. I decided that I’d wear a dress shirt and tie, just to see what happens. You’d be surprised at how much better I get treated when I’m wearing a tie.
“More than once, I’ve had truckstop employees hold doors open for me, and I get a lot of strange looks at the fuel islands. I tell other drivers that my company pays me extra for dressing this way, and it’s worth it.”
What do you learn from that?
“I think the lesson is that if we want to be respected and to be paid what we’re really worth, we’ve got to do things that command that respect. Like keeping honest logs and conducting ourselves like businesspeople.”
Have you shared these ideas with other owner operators?
“I’m an active member of OOIDA, and I’m constantly talking to drivers and owner operators while I’m out on the road. In fact, I think that’s my real calling, what really makes what I do enjoyable.
“As I see it, trucking is a hard job. So, it better be one that we choose to do, not one we’re forced to do. I run specialized hauls in a reasonably small region. That generates work that keeps me busy, but allows me to get home on weekends to be with my family.
“It’s all a matter of getting your priorities right.” 
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