Summer Updates
Upcoming interviews and suggested readings.
Greetings, readers and listeners to Autonomous Truck(er)s and The Voice Of GO(r)D podcast. We are now officially into summer and I wanted to update you on what’s happening around here, specifically with some podcast guests I have lined up, and give you an update on what progress I’m making with the book.
There hasn’t been much written work produced for the Substack as of late, for a number of reasons. Obviously I am trying to concentrate on the book, as an August manuscript submission deadline looms, and I am roughly only about 40 to 45% complete on that front. The research, interviews, and other background work is almost more or less complete, but finding quality and uninterrupted time to write has been a challenge. With two small daughters and a workaholic and over-committed wife, our household is extremely busy, and especially so at end of school year for Jenna, who teaches at a local elementary, as well as doing other work for the school district. She also sits on a community board, and does a bunch of other volunteer work; to say that she is ‘extremely busy’ would be an understatement. The end is yet nigh, however, and once July rolls around and she can be more Mom than Super Committed Community Rockstar, I will likewise be relieved and have more time to spend on writing. And thank God for that.
As I am deep in the book, I haven’t really sent out any pitches to write for other locations, though there is plenty of grist for the mill in trucking, so to speak. Trump’s Executive Order to re-enforce English Language Proficiency for Truckers takes effect this week, and a bill codifying that into state law, along with a number of other safety focused and Pro-American trucker provisions, has just passed in Oklahoma. After a recent piece of news where yet another group of state DMV and DOT employees were found to be taking bribes in exchange for issuing CDLs to insourced illiterates, this time in Florida, and an open letter from the head of the Texas State Patrol outlining corruption with Mexico’s Secretaria de Comunicaciones y Transportes and their handing out of licenses to anyone with a pulse and zero vetting, and the problems those drivers are causing in Texas, these measures are welcome, but late, and only the start to necessary reforms to our once beknighted industry.
For more on that, my friends at American Truckers United recently published an update on all of these issues with significant detail over at Zerohedge, and I would invite all of my readers to go and check that out.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/letter-urges-duffy-ban-foreign-cdls-amid-series-highway-crashes
While all of this is happening, at this stage of the book writing process, I have been working on a monster of a chapter examining the use of various types of indentured servitude in the trucking industry, including the long running scam known as the ‘lease operator’ model, whose washout rate is so high and success rate so low that it was one of the primary points of rationale behind (the admittedly flawed) AB 5 legislation in California. The economic ruin that model has brought to aspiring American truckers has been a disaster, and it has also been used as a lure to the ‘American Dream’ in signing up hapless recent immigrants who are not wise to the scam. It’s been disheartening reading all of the stories I am bringing to the book about this, and then it only gets worse when you move on to other models of servitude, such as I have highlighted here in the past with particular ethnic gangsters bringing their homeboys to Canada and America and effectively chaining them to trucks, holding their visas and their dreams of a better life hostage, while making them work twice as hard for much less than the average salary one would expect here. This part of the book might end up being about a quarter of it all by itself, and it makes me very, very sad to know that nothing is being done about any of these systems.
One of these guys, who I am not certain is an indentured servant, but is definitely under the employ of a gangster in Canada, killed a young woman in Illinois a few years ago, and my colleague Timothy Dooner at WHAT THE TRUCK? interviewed attorneys working on the civil case brought by her family against these ‘Brampton Truckers’ who killed their daughter. It is both an infuriating and heartbreaking story, but I want you to take the time to watch it anyways so you can further understand what’s going on here.
Regards the insourcing of labor, many of you will have the riots in Los Angeles somewhat fresh in your mind, if that hasn’t been blasted out by an airstrike news from the Middle East.
Friend and former guest of my podcast
In a soon to be released episode of the Podcast, I interviewed returning guests Danielle Chaffin and Justin ‘Supertrucker’ Martin on their own sleuthing and investigative work into how many of these bottom feeding operators remain in business, be it via layers of LLCs, trading and exchanging Motor Carrier Numbers, or other methods employed in evading expulsion from the industry. They have been working with another associate and friend of the show Garret Makes who has developed a very simple tool for brokers and shippers to get the dirt on some of these scumbags before giving them a load, https://searchcarriers.com/
Danielle was recently featured in the Freight Caviar newswletter, where she wrote an eye opening piece on ‘Chameleon’ Carriers and how they are manipulating the system to stay in business -
https://www.freightcaviar.com/eye-opening-patterns-in-fmcsa-data/
What started as a simple search led to a question I couldn’t answer. How does a motor carrier with only two trucks have over 1,200 roadside inspections, more than 1,000 roadside violations, and nearly 600 out-of-service orders? Something didn’t add up, and it wasn’t just the math. That’s when I started digging.
It didn’t take long to realize that this was not an isolated case. Chameleon carriers –companies that repeatedly restart under a new LLC and USDOT number–aren’t a new issue. Drivers have been calling this out for years. They exploit gaps in the system to erase their history of safety violations and fraudulent activity. And it is disturbingly easy for them to do.
The whole thing is worth a read, go check it out.
Other recorded and soon to be released episodes -
- An interview with Dale Prax, CEO of FreightValidate on his company’s efforts to help us weed out the fraudsters and scammers, and protect both shippers and truckers while doing so.
- Economics Professor Chris Clarke of Washington State University joined me to discuss physical truck capacity efficiency; he was the host of this recent video that went super viral on YouTube that asked the question “Why are American Trucks so light compared to the rest of the world?”
- Speaking of efficiency, I have also finally nailed down former MIT Professor David Correll, who ran a project there called MIT FreightLab, and lead a number of researchers in trying to figure out another truck capacity efficiency problem in America, this one being TIME, and why so much of it is wasted in truckings mother of all problems (which are causal to so many others) DETENTION.
Professor Correll’s research was cited by the Biden Administration in their 2021 ‘Trucking Task Force’, though that Task Force basically ignored everything Correll and so many other experts told them, and of course they went and made decisions which made everything worse; that’s government for you! We had a great chat about this, and a great deal of Professor Correll’s work is going in the book.
- Another former guest returned to the show, good friend and colleague James Year, who likewise saw a video he produced with More Perfect Union go crazy viral. Perhaps you have seen this?
James and I discussed updates on the autonomous trucks front.
- I have also sat down with an attorney I met at MATS named Jermey Citron, or ‘The Hurt Boss’ and we discussed what he is seeing with truck crashes and the resulting litigation, and possible remedies to help clean things up.
I am recording two more episodes of the show this week which are germane to trucking, and to the book, and I am very much looking forward to these conversations and getting them out to you as soon as I can.
- FreightWaves and SONAR CEO Craig Fuller joins me to discuss the state of the industry, his reading of what is happening now, and what we can expect of freight markets in the near future. Craig is also writing a book now, though his is a bit more zoomed out and encompasses the entire world of supply chains and logistics, while mine is focused on the decades long systematic assault on truck drivers.
- CEO of the North American Punjabi Trucking Association, Raman Dhillon, has agreed to an interview, and I look forward to having a broad conversation about the business, as well as gleaning particular insights from his position within the wider Punjabi trucking community, who have rapidly penetrated the North American trucking market, and are fast becoming the majority of truck drivers in Canada.
Mr Dhillon was recently featured in an excellent interview with colleague Alex Lockie over at Overdrive Magazine, who somehow beat me to the punch - I requested an interview with Mr Dhillon many months ago; perhaps starting big with Overdrive was the way to go! Nonetheless, its an interesting read and I highly recommend it.
https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15748790/biden-trucking-plan-and-crisis-of-unvetted-drivers-raman-dhillon
And for those of you who follow me for news and updates on Tony Olienick and Chris Carbert, Canada’s very own political prisoners, there is not much to say at this time. They continue to serve their sentences at Drumheller Institution suffer persecution in the Maple GULAG, and work on potential appeals is ongoing, but I can’t really speak on that at present. I have, however, recently been forwarded full transcripts of their entire trial, and at some point in the future I may release or write further on that. For now, however, perhaps we should be writing to them, and letting them know that they have not been forgotten?
Follow these instructions carefully, and if you are going to write, do it soon, as the postal workers in Canada are threatening a strike, again. If they do go on strike, refer back to my previous post from Christmas, where we worked out how to get letters to them using Private Couriers.
No gel pens, no stickers or labels, no smells or sparkler or anything weird, do not send money or stamps or gifts, not even books.
You can type letters and send cards & photos.
Your envelope *must* include a return address.
You cannot send a letter or card to both men in the same envelope. Chris and Tony must get separate envelopes.
Inmate “Chris Carbert” or for Tony, Inmate “Anthony Olienick”
Drumheller Penitentiary
P.O Box 3000
Highway 9
Drumheller, Alberta
T0J 0Y0
As they still require legal counsel for potential appeals, and for parole (again), the bills continue to mount, and we are still raising money for them.
In Canada, Interac Email money transfer -
helptony@protonmail.com
helpchriscarbert@gmail.com
From outside of Canada, you can still donate via my GiveSendGo, which has remained open for nearly 18 months now. If you have given already, I thank you very much - it is unfortunate that their travesty of injustice continues.
https://www.givesendgo.com/trudeauspoliticalprisoners
Alrighty, stay tuned for the above listed podcasts, and I might try and get one rant/essay I have in mind out for you right around July 4th.
Thanks for reading and listening, and if you are of means, I am busted and could use some financial help with finishing this book.
In Canada, you can donate via Interac Email Money Transfer to -detroit430@yahoo.com
From elsewhere, I have a GiveSendGo set up -
https://www.givesendgo.com/EndOfTheRoad
Otherwise, you could become a paid subscriber to this Substack - you would be joining an exclusive club of 27 out of nearly 3400!
Thanks again for reading, and have a great summer!
As always, feel free to yell at me, say a prayer or send a request for one, or otherwsie make suggestions or just say hello -
gordilocks@protonmail.com
Best wishes with your book.
Thanks for the nudge on the fellas in Drumheller, Gord, and hope you have a productive (and yet somehow also restful) summer. I don't know a single book project that's stuck to the original end date. But then again, you bring a trucker's punctuality and logistics experience to the project.