Happy Anniversary! This week Dave and I are celebrating 25 years of marriage. If you readers don’t mind, I would like to take this space to talk about us. We met because a mutual friend’s father passed away and both Dave’s family and I and a friend went to the funeral. Well, we didn’t met AT the funeral. We met after the funeral. A group of single people gathered and visited for a while at our friend’s house. After that day, I had not heard from Dave. At another sin...

Labor vs. Work This week we all had the opportunity to enjoy a holiday that allows us to reflect on the work that we do. While we were home over the Labor Day weekend we still were working. Dave was working on the truck. I was working on end of month reconciling and planning future work. We both were doing laundry, grocery shopping to supply our truck for the next several weeks and visiting with friends too. It seems that we are always working. In our case, I will honestly sa...

I have daily conversations with drivers who are looking for ways to get into the trucking or expedite industry, and those discussions can sometimes be frustrating on both ends when the prospective drivers just don’t have what it takes to get started. And what it takes is often just the simple desire, or financial backing, to step into a classroom and obtain the driver training that is currently required by the transportation industry. Well, help is on the way as the federal...

We plan our trips. We even consider alternate routes. We try to avoid major cities during the morning or evening rush hours. Many truck drivers put a lot of planning time into making our drive as smooth as possible....

Feast or Famine The expedite world has always been a hurry up and wait business. Those of us in this segment of the trucking industry understand what that means. For those not on this side of trucking, let me explain. We wait for loads to present themselves. When they do, we hurry to pick up the load and hurry to make delivery. And then we sit again. And so the cycle goes. Last week was not one of those weeks for us! We were able to get a reset. We picked up a load on Friday ...

As with anything in life, there are always going to be ups and downs. Many folks resort to the notion of rising and falling tides, you know, life’s ebb and flow. Personally, and as I’ve learned through years of my own rising and falling, I now have a better understanding of what this mindset means. As we experience the highs in our lives, we also should be preparing for the moment when the bottom inevitably drops out from underneath us. Likewise, when we are in the midst ...

Anytime I have ever tried training someone to drive a car or truck, ride a motorcycle, bicycle or jet ski, I have always said to them to “be one with the vehicle”....

Safety in trucking should always be taken seriously. As a recruiter, I’ve spent years pouring over the driving backgrounds and Motor Vehicle Records (MVRs) of many a commercial driver. This also includes the all-powerful Pre-Employment Screening Program (PSP), which details a driver’s Out-of-Service (OOS) records among many other things. One of the easiest ways to determine if a driver would qualify to drive for a specific company is to dissect the PSP in an attempt to un...

Friends to Family Before I got into trucking I had friends. After I got into trucking I made new friends who have become like family. I’m sure that if I asked any truck driver that I meet, they would agree that the trucking industry is a close knit group of people who are more family to them than their own family.  There are some friends that we see and talk to on a regular basis. Then there are those that we might come across only occasionally but pick up right where they...

The transportation industry, including expedite, was a front row witness to a rather quick infusion of renewed interest in driving opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Something that materialized from this world-changing event was a glaring light that shined on the roles of truckers and their importance to the daily American landscape. This sudden interest in expedite and commercial driving could be attributed to pay raises across the transportation spectrum, including...