Episode #11 - MPG Matters!

On this episode of Driver To Driver, we talk with Ty Walker, safety manager for Stokes Trucking about using the Adverse Driving exception when logging time. Following that, is an interview with Mike Pollock, driver of truck #693, about fuel economy and all the things that Stokes Trucking has done to achieve better MPG. Check out Stokes Trucking on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram @stokestrucking. You can also visit our website www.stokestrucking.com for more information on our company. As always, thanks for listening and tell your friends!

Transcript

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0:11

Welcome to driver, to driver, a Stokes trucking podcast on driver to driver. We will discuss everything related to trucking. And put a stokes trucking spin on it stokes trucking doing the right thing since 1979.

Intro to Episode #11

Mark 0:34

Welcome to episode 11 of driver to driver, a Stokes trucking podcast. My name is Mark I am your host once again today, I am joined by my, full-time producer. Part-time cohost

Grace 0:48

grace Laufer.

Mark 0:49

But. She didn't produce most of this episode because she was busy with finals, which is over now. So she's got time to talk to me. So grace, what's our first segment on today's

Grace 1:05

our first. segment today is with Ty Walker. And it's a segment talking about adverse driving,

Mark 1:12

adverse driving. So there's an exception that drivers can use to extend their drive time. And also their 14 hour clock on their log book. It's called the adverse driving exception. Me and him actually accorded this back in February, we were talking more about. Like adverse conditions, weather conditions, but it can also be used. Uh, if you come across traffic that you wouldn't normally expect an accident that slows you down, things like that. And I wanted to get this episode out before this segment out, before it got any more dated since, since me and him recorded this three months ago. He mentioned my toy truck collection, which my mom just mentioned in the mother's day episode last weekend. And we talked the Jetsons. Do you know the Jetsons? He does too. So how do you guys know the jets?

Grace 2:11

I watched boomerang when I was little

Mark 2:14

Oh,

Grace 2:15

had all of the old TV shows.

Mark 2:17

Okay. Work is calling. This is Mark. Okay. All right. All right. All right, Mike's going on. vacation the last week of may and His kid wants to go to New York city to a Yankee game.. Well, to get into the achy game, you either have to take a rapid test or you have to have a vaccination. record.

Grace 3:05

So just take a rapid test.

Mark 3:07

Well,

Grace 3:08

assuming that he's all, I don't want the vaccine.

Mark 3:12

And I've been telling him, I'm pretty sure this fall, you're going to have to be vaccinated to drive the USU truck. Like, I don't think they're going to let you around the team unless you have a vaccine card. And he was like, nah, nah. They won't be my team anymore. Like

Grace 3:29

I don't get the point against it. Get the vaccine. Don't have to wear a mask,

Mark 3:33

whatever, whatever, just be aware. I I am. in, I got the vaccine because I was fully aware that some places you were probably going to be required to have the vaccine. And I wasn't, I'd done some reading on it. I really wasn't nervous about it. So I went and got vaccinated. So now Mike's in a rush to try and get vaccinated before he goes on vacation. So I got to get the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, right? So you scheduled online with some pharmacy over here in Logan. He lives in Treemont. and They had the Johnson and Johnson. He scheduled for Johnson and Johnson. He gets over there, they don't have Johnson and Johnson and he's like, well, gee. So he called around trying to find somebody that had the Johnson and Johnson shot. Nobody did. finally called his

Grace 4:13

cause they recalled everything

Mark 4:15

but it's back out. He called his brother, His brother called somebody at the university health department and that guy called around and he said, Oh, Kent's over in Treemont Johnson and Johnson. can just walk in. So he drives back to Treemont and gets his Johnson and Johnson shot. So now he should be all good to go to the Yankee game, but that's. So Mike, that is such a Mike story. Like I love that guy. He's the, he's the best. so the Jetsons are on boomerang.

Grace 4:50

The Jetsons, the Flint stones, bunch of early two thousands TV shows. I loved it. they got rid of boomerang, like Bindi Irwin. The jungle girl was on there. That's probably why I'm so interested in. And everything it's because the boomerang had a bunch of random TV shows.

Mark 5:08

That makes Cool.

Grace 5:10

And the Johnson, Jetsons and the Flintstones, they Have you ever heard that theory? Yeah. How the Flintstones, like after like the collapse of civilizations, a group of people. One half of the human population on earth decided to go back to the caveman times, but somehow dinosaurs exist and the Jetsons went up into space with robots.

Mark 5:35

That doesn't make

Grace 5:36

It doesn't make sense when you say it out loud, but it's a fun because they have like similar art styles. So it's fun. I don't know.

Mark 5:47

All right, well, You know what I also, what I forgot in the mental health. episode, you were lying.

Grace 5:53

My line.

Mark 5:54

line. You know, the, you don't you don't even remember it's been, so long. Yeah. So we

Grace 6:02

have to say my name line. Oh, let's roll.

Mark 6:06

Yeah. After the fact, I was like, Oh, I guess I could have just cut it out of one of the other recordings, but I F I forgot about it until after it was published. I'm going to, by the way, that's going on the back of the trailers next year. Well, it's got like dual meaning to me now, because for me, for a long time, it was a nine 11 thing. Because the people on flight 93, that had called, like they'd called on their cell phones, loved ones, found out what was going on. with like the last thing anybody heard from that flight, one of the guys had called his wife. And the last thing she heard was let's roll W when they were, the passengers were breaking into the,

Grace 6:48

Kevin. Yeah. Cockpit.

Mark 6:50

So let's roll. Had this. Really patriotic for me ever since then. It has. So next year on the back of the trailers, we've been missing the flag for the last few years. For a long time. Our Stokes trailer has always had a us flag by our logo and it, we did it. redesign of our logo a few years back, and it just sorta got forgotten on accident. It wasn't on purpose. It just got left off. So now with the patriotic trucks, we just did, they have flags on the back doors. We're going to go, me and valve already talked about that. We're going to go back to that, but above that flag, I'm planning on, we're going to put let's roll and. Thinking about replacing the now hiring drivers sticker on the back with just a podcast sticker. I mean, everybody has now hiring exceptional. drivers. Everybody does.

Grace 7:45

Yeah. Walmart does Smith's does

Mark 7:47

not. Everybody has a podcast with the great cohost like grace lover. Are you going to be able to do this after you move into the sorority?

Grace 7:55

Yeah, I'll come over.

Mark 7:56

come over just to

Grace 7:57

a, I have a kid to come back to.

Mark 7:59

Oh Yeah, the namesake the Frankfurter studios.

Grace 8:03

cat.

Mark 8:06

All right. Well, we've been,

Grace 8:07

I said let's roll because it's like tires roll.

Mark 8:11

Well, it's dual, meaning now for me it it's um, it's that, It, it reminds me of nine 11. It's I thought it was really cool. I don't know. I think I said it on the first podcast and then I asked you to say it from there on out.

Grace 8:27

We weren't ever taught the. Like we, we were taught the big picture of nine 11. We weren't taught really what happened that,

Mark 8:35

but there's all kinds of,

Grace 8:37

there's all kinds of

Mark 8:39

sources. I mean, if you're curious, you can, it's like

Grace 8:43

people aren't,

Mark 8:44

it's sorta like, to me, it was, it's kind of like studying world war one and two, I mean, that was, were way bigger. Right, but

Grace 8:54

I think the reason why my generation does, like, we don't, we know about it, but we don't actively go looking for information on it because it's happened. So recently we just automatically feel like we know everything that happened during it. And we covered it every single year in

Mark 9:13

Hey It's so weird because you guys grew up with. The us military fighting overseas. Like, like you didn't know, you don't know any different.

Grace 9:22

I went to school with kids whose like dads died overseas.

Mark 9:29

we're getting a little deep here. off into the weeds. So, before we go any further down the rabbit hole, here's our interview with Ty Walker.

Grace 9:38

let's roll.

Ty Walker safety minute - Adverse driving exception

Mark 9:47

we're joined again today by Ty Walker. He's our safety director at Stokes trucking for another episode of Ty walkers safety minute, how you doing today? Tai?

Ty Walker 9:57

I am doing really well. How are you doing

Mark 9:59

I'm doing great. Everybody's going to notice a little difference in the audio quality. We're doing this in two separate locations. I'm in my basement office and Tai is working in the office and tree Monton. And we're doing this via zoom. Yeah.

Ty Walker 10:15

So, yeah, I think I probably would be doing better if you were here with me, Mark, instead of doing this remotely, you ask how I'm doing. So

Mark 10:24

Oh, Aw. That's so nice Tai. Thanks. I miss you too, buddy.

Ty Walker 10:29

but, but looking at your, uh, recording there, it looks like you've got to get little recording studio there.

Mark 10:36

I'm telling you that the, uh, the basement offices of Frankfurter studios is top-notch no expense has been spared.

Ty Walker 10:44

yeah, that's some good stuff on the wall behind you.

Mark 10:49

Most of those trucks you see on the wall behind me, my father gave them to me, he used to actually sell those things. So I've got about

Ty Walker 10:58

Oh, wow.

Mark 10:58

31 64 size trucks. Just the same as what we made for Stokes here. Oh, three years ago, I guess it was, we had those made when we were still over in Collinson. That's how long ago it was.

Ty Walker 11:11

Yeah. We've, I've got one of those in, in my office. I don't have that many, but maybe I can get a few more.

Mark 11:17

I think we're down to like six out of the 150. We originally had ordered there's six left. If I remember

Ty Walker 11:24

I believe it. The hot commodity everybody wants one.

Mark 11:27

They're pretty precious. So I've got a little bit everybody up there. I've got a sharp truck and I'm awestruck and, uh, England and all kinds of them. So a few carriers out in Nebraska, one rack over here is, uh, all trucks that I driven. So my I've got a replica of my cab over and my w nine and FCC trucks and things like that.

Ty Walker 11:49

so are you saying Mark, if there's some drivers out there listening, if they want to. You know, let's say that their company has a truck. They want to send it to you B

Mark 11:59

I would take the, I would take a one 64th replica of any truck, of any company, pretty much. don't come to me if you want one made though. That's not my gig and my dad has long retired and in, uh, nursing home now. So

Ty Walker 12:12

Oh,

Mark 12:13

you have people like that out on the internet though. You can find them. Our topic today is adverse driving, correct Tai.

Ty Walker 12:19

That is correct.

Mark 12:20

And when, when, when we say adverse driving, we're talking about the adverse driving exception for the hours of service, correct?

Ty Walker 12:28

Exactly. I felt like this was fitting for right now, especially we're in the month of February right now, still in the middle of winter. This can be used year round. It doesn't have to just be used during the winter, but obviously the use of it, we see a lot more of it during the winter, just because of weather, right. We're running into snow storms or, road closures, perhaps. And so we're able to use this. and like I said, we see it more often now than we would in other months. So I, I wanted to talk a little bit about it, I feel like it could be beneficial to our drivers and really all drivers there in CMBS out there.

Mark 13:08

you bet. we probably ought to start out with some examples of when someone would use the adverse driving exception. Correct.

Ty Walker 13:15

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, definitely. So I guess just to define what it is, basically, if a driver was to claim this exception, it is going to add two hours to his 14 hour clock and his 11 hour clock. So we all understand that the drivers, we're bound by these times each day, typically a 14 hour on-duty period, and then an 11 hour driving. If a driver chooses to claim this, it's going to add two hours to each of those. So you would. you would have 16 hours and 13 hours, if that does that kind of make

Mark 13:46

Yeah. So it's adverse weather only, or is there other conditions that can

Ty Walker 13:52

there's uh, other conditions for sure. a couple of examples, right? You, you mentioned weather, we've got plenty of drivers each week that are going over Donner pass in California. Now it's snows, like crazy up there. and there's plenty of times that we see drivers use this exemption, when they're going over that pass. so whether it's definitely one that, permits a driver to use this, but also things like a wreck, to where the road's closed or it's backed up for an extended amount of time. A driver could claim this for that as well. Really. It comes down to whatever the driver is claiming it for has to be something that is unforeseen. So that gets a little tricky, right? Because we can always look at the weather and you kind of have an idea of what it's going to do. But I guess saying that what we're kind of getting at is the fact that if it's just normal rush hour traffic going through. Denver, or I don't know, another big city, Detroit, something like that. Uh, drivers shouldn't be claiming this every day, just because he's hitting that typical traffic jam. He should have planned that into his schedule and he should know that that's going to happen.

Mark 15:03

so I might, might paint us into a corner here. But everybody, I think who works here knows that every Monday holiday, no labor day, Memorial day, things like that, the traffic on between Lake Tahoe and Sacramento can be bumper to bumper coming down Doner and also from Vegas to LA. Since we're aware that there's usually traffic after those holidays, would a driver be able to use the exception for that. And I see you smiling.

Ty Walker 15:35

That that is a good question. I guess it's, it's honestly kind of a gray area, you know, I don't want to tell people yeah, go ahead and claim it. Even though that's totally expected, but I feel like a driver could probably use it in that situation. I guess. That's just, Ty's his opinion. Hopefully that doesn't put my job at, you know, threat threatened me as far as my job goes here.

Mark 15:59

well, like I said, I didn't want to back us into a corner cause I know, I know we use that. And I

Ty Walker 16:05

We do.

Mark 16:06

it has been used on those holidays, I guess, as long as the driver, since it is a, Oh, I guess it's up to the inspector, right? Whoever is checking a log book. If they say, Oh, well it was a day after a holiday. You should have known there was going to be traffic. In the end. It's always up to, whoever's doing the inspection. If they want to give you a citation for it. Right.

Ty Walker 16:28

Yep. You're exactly right on that. Kind of that way with, with all things, as far as inspections and that go, if that officer's not having the best day, then you might not have the best luck with that inspection. Or if he's having a good day, you might be going on your happy way. I think the important thing, Mark, as far as claiming this, a driver needs to be careful that he's not using it to further his trip, If I'm going to have an additional two hours. That I can drive that day. And let's say this traffic jam that I hit, which was caused by a wreck, held me up for 45 minutes. That doesn't mean that I can just go an extra hour and 15 minutes further than what I typically would do. So a driver can't claim this. And just think, okay, I've been held up an extra 30 or 45 minutes, but now I have this additional dry time I'm going to use this so I can get an hour and a half further down the road and sleep in tomorrow. That's where a driver's going to run into problems. as we know, when you're inspected, an officer is able to see your locations and distances. So if you've claimed this and you and of taken advantage of it and gone up. A bit further than what you normally could do. I think that's the time you got to kind of worry about getting into some trouble. What are your thoughts on that,

Mark 17:45

I agree. the example I always come back to with this is we're very well aware that you can drive from Treemont and to North Platte, Nebraska. No, I'm not gonna use North Platte. You can go a little fruit in there. Gothenburg, you can go to Gothenburg, Nebraska, which is exit two 11 in a normal 11 hour drive period. But if you run into a little bit of weather in Wyoming, that doesn't mean that. Suddenly you can drive all the way to grand Island, Even though your drive time has been extended by two hours, that's just to get you to where you were going to get to, to begin with anyway. And if that causes you to be late for your appointment, you need to contact your dispatcher and we need to sh to juggle, however we have to juggle to get you rescheduled.

Ty Walker 18:31

exactly. just some examples of this. I looked at our drivers and what they're averaging each day. I looked at guys that were driving at least 10 hours a day. So if they had only driven six hours, I didn't actually include them in, in this little, search, I guess you would call it most of these guys on a typical day. Let's say they averaged about 10 hours and 36 minutes of drive time. They were averaging about 673 miles covered that day. Now it's going to vary, right? Depending on for us here at Stokes, what our trucks are governed at it's it might be totally different than other places or other companies. But I guess what I'm getting at with that is if you've covered 775 miles in one day, Unless, unless you're really cooking, you know, going 95 miles an hour, which that's not legal either. And it might start looking a little fishy if you were to get inspected.

Mark 19:27

so what'd you say our guys average in 10 hours and 36 minutes.

Ty Walker 19:31

So with this, they had averaged about 673 miles.

Mark 19:36

miles. So 600 plus 36 minutes is 636 miles and 673. So they're averaging 63 and a half miles an hour.

Ty Walker 19:48

Yeah. And I guess you think about it, I mean, yeah, when they're going down the freeway, hopefully they're going faster than that, but. The way I did this, that's taking into account time that they're off the freeway driving or

Mark 20:02

and stopping. Yeah. Yeah. Going up and down Hills slows you down.

Ty Walker 20:08

yeah, it'd be great. If the moment you turn the key on and we're going, you were going 70 miles an hour, the rest of the day, but it doesn't really work that way in a big truck. Does it?

Mark 20:17

someday when it's like the jet Jetsons, you know

Ty Walker 20:19

Yeah.

Mark 20:20

Do you know, Oh, you're too young to know the Jetsons. Aren't you? Do you know the reference?

Ty Walker 20:25

I know all about the Jetsons.

Mark 20:28

I don't believe you actually do. You were probably, uh, were you a fairly odd parents kid? What'd you watch?

Ty Walker 20:36

watch, I watched fairly odd parents. I watched cat dog. Um, what else do they watch? This? One's kinda wild. The Thornberries. I don't know if you've probably never heard of that, but that was on Nickelodeon.

Mark 20:49

Oh, I didn't have Nicola, I guess how many guests, how many TV channels I had growing up

Ty Walker 20:55

let's see in Nebraska, maybe three

Mark 21:00

four, four, but I'm counting PBS. So, yeah, we had ABC, NBC and CBS, and then like, uh, I think it was around 1986 or 87. We got a Fox affiliate. K K P T M

Ty Walker 21:16

Oh, wow. But, you know, you turned out fine, Mark.

Mark 21:20

what at me.

Ty Walker 21:21

Yeah. Look at you. You're you're doing things and going places. So I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Mark 21:26

The only way to get cable where we lived at that point in time was one of those big dishes, you know, like the eight foot across dishes, you had to have your own satellite, not a little direct TV thing. So Yeah. that was,

Ty Walker 21:40

It's, it's changed a lot.

Mark 21:42

things are a little different now

Ty Walker 21:43

anyway, way back to this, um, it's a, it's a great tool that drivers are able to use. It has saved our butts multiple times, and really it's there to give, you know, the driver, the freedom, if he wants to pull off the road and wait it out for, let's say an hour, hour and a half. The good thing with this, your 14 hours. You're getting an additional two hours with that as well. It actually used to be to where this, this exemption here, it only added two hours to the drive time. it wasn't until actually September of last year that it added that two hours to the 14 o'clock as well, which I think is great because then a driver isn't stressed about that 14 running out you've got the additional hour or two hours, excuse me. In, in both of those. Areas. So I think that's the thing that the drivers need to remember. It gives them that freedom and flexibility that they can either slow down and travel at a speed that safe or pull off for a time and maybe wait it out. but we'd like I mentioned, we've seen this put to use quite a bit this winter and it's helped us out a lot.

Mark 22:51

All right, Tai. Thanks so much for joining me again.

Ty Walker 22:53

Hey, thanks for having me today, Mark.

MPG w/Mike Pollock

Mark 23:04

Well, that was a great segment with Ty Walker. We love his safety minutes. I actually need to get with Ty and record a few more. That was the last one I had in the can. So I better get him over here to the, uh, the famous

Grace 23:18

Frankfurter

Mark 23:19

studios. Yeah. Uh, what's next up on the podcast. Grace,

Grace 23:24

next up is a segment with Mike Pawlik. This is actually the first segment you guys talk about fuel mileage, your history.

Mark 23:33

Yep

Grace 23:34

in Mark S history

Mark 23:36

history so I recorded with Mike over the phone. it was a pretty lengthy conversation. We spent about two and a half hours. I edited that and we've split it into two segments. The first one is really going to be focused on, My qualifications, essentially what we've done at Stokes to increase our fuel mileage tires AICPA's and we're mostly mechanical drag things is the first segment. There's going to be a second segment where we talk more about aerodynamics. We talked a little bit about the company as a whole and really we get into why these things are so important. for our drivers to try and help us with and in the end it's so we can pass the savings along. We've worked really hard to get better fuel mileage, but we've always tried to pass a hundred percent of that savings along to our drivers in the process. Some of the older guys will remember. We used to pay them to drive slower when they had a little more flexibility with their log books. when that went away, we didn't know, take that raise away from a lot of the guys who had done that who'd made that sacrifice. So, but we found other ways to make up that gap. It was a really great conversation with Mike. He's only been here for about six months. He drives our truck six 99, three super guy, lots of experience. And we had a. It was kind of fun to have the tables turned and I was answering questions instead of someone else for once. Do you know what mechanical drag is? Well, you should listen to the segment. You'll learn

Grace 25:11

All right. Good. just Google it.

Mark 25:13

You could do that too. Google kids.

Grace 25:20

What do you want me to bring it?

Mark 25:22

No. What was the gosh, there's something that, um, Oh, Rogan was talking about it. Some other search engine. There's a different search engine that you can use other than Google. So you don't get the Google, like it doesn't track you like

Grace 25:41

duck,

Mark 25:41

duck, duck go. That's it

Grace 25:43

it really Yeah.

Mark 25:46

I'm like I'll Google my

Grace 25:48

I've used it a few times. in, it's harder to find like, because Google knows everything. It's like an omniscient presence. So You look something up and it's like the first or second, link that you got to go to with Dr. Go. It's like maybe need to go into the second page, you know?

Mark 26:07

I see. All right. Let's get into our interview with Mike Pollock. Mike Pawlik is joining me today on the podcast. We're. Going to do this a little differently. He's going to co-host for lack of a better term, I wanted somebody to co-host with me. That's familiar with trucks and trucking because I'm going to be throwing a lot of information out about fuel mileage and the different things we do, what we've found that works or doesn't work. And I wanted another driver on with me that could ask questions because my 18 year old daughter wouldn't have a clue about some of the things we're going to be talking about today. before we get going, Mike, could you give us a brief history on you, your driving history?

Mike P. 27:04

yeah, I could Mark it. I'm glad to be here and, thrilled to be doing this. I drove a truck back when I was in my twenties for about six years. we won't talk about how long ago that was. it was a while ago, that I got out of trucking and into the it field. And I did that for many, many years. And now I'm back in trucking. I have been back on the road for about five years, maybe a little bit over. And I've been with Stokes now for about six months. A little over six months.

Mark 27:34

You've been doing a great job here. We're, we're thrilled to have you. you're kind of a guy that runs the whole system. You're not super directional. You go here and there and everywhere. Northern Cal Southern Cal Phoenix. You've been out to Texas a few times. I know, done the big loop from California to Texas and home. And so you've done a little bit of everything and we're sure, glad that you've joined the team here. we're trying to be a little different than just your average rate holler. And I think over the six months, you've probably seen things are a little different here. We expect you to be a little more independent, run the truck, like it's your truck, like it says, Mike, Pawlik trucking on the side and not Stokes trucking. So everybody who works here currently probably knows, um, kind of the fuel mileage guy. When I was brought in, I was really brought in to try to get our costs down by getting our fuel mileage up. Really the reason Val hired me was right before me and my wife moved to Utah for a couple of years. Previous to that, I was running my own truck. And for two years in a row, I average over eight miles to the gallon. Now it was a different time. I wasn't running paperless logs, so I could be a little more liberal with my use of drive time. the big thing that achieved that was I drove 57 miles an hour everywhere. I went, no matter what was going on, it was extremely rare that I would drive any faster than 57 miles an hour. It had to be, uh, an ex you know, a really extreme, you gotta get here right now, kind of deal.

Mike P. 29:17

how much of that driving was in Nebraska.

Mark 29:20

I was based out of Nebraska. when I started to slow down, we were still living in Nebraska and then we moved to Missouri. I always worked for companies from Nebraska. And when I say work for companies, I, I pulled their trailers. I owned my own truck and I pulled their trailers. I ran under their authority, but I was going all over. We'd go California, the Northeast Iran, a lot of Northeast. Once we moved to Missouri, I was running down into the Southeast quite a bit for, Oh boy, about two years. I did three loads a week from council Bluffs, Iowa to Batesville, Arkansas, which is North central Arkansas. Nice. And hilly and curvy. Yeah, it wasn't, it was a chicken plan. I went to a Tyson plant. I hauled three loads of cooking oil a week in there, part of the good fuel mileage for the first couple of years, I was pulling tank and we were. We came back empty all the time with tankers. But the last two years, right before we moved to Utah, that run that got me home to Columbia, Missouri, all the time had gone away. I left the tanker company. I was working for at least my truck back on to Fremont contract carriers. So I was pulling drive van. I still have my number somewhere. I was a big spreadsheet guy to kept, kept track of all my loaded and empty and outer route and all that stuff. I ran about 15% empty with Fremont. So very similar to Stokes. Now our average weight was probably a little lower, just because there was, they had a little more, you know, like the Thermo's super light, right? It's 10,000 pounds. Maybe Fremont did some medical stuff too. And since I was a guy buying the fuel. They'd give you some choices on loads and if everything was the same, but it was a lighter load, I'd always grab the lighter load. Knowing, I get better fuel mileage. worked the system as much as I could, and eight miles to the gallon out here doing what we do and where we do it is theoretically achievable. And I think it could be achieved with our equipment today. And the loads we haul today. I'm afraid you'd need to go so slow that the paperless logs wouldn't work. So, well, right. If you drove 57 or 60 miles an hour, you could probably do it. We actually have a contractor that works for us that drives like that. Whenever he can, he's doing 60 or 62 Garren George. He drives trucks, six 72. Me and him. We've had lots of talks about this. He's paying, he's buying the fuel. So whenever he has the opportunity and he's not in a hurry, he's driving slow. You guys in company trucks, you're getting paid by the mile. You want to cover as many miles you can. And as little time as possible, we get it. Like, that's not a, that's not a news flash to us,

Mike P. 32:13

I think this is a really important topic, especially considering how expensive fuel is right now.

Mark 32:18

not long before I started working for Stokes was when we had the $5 diesel. I think we could easily see four at some point, I don't know about five. It could happen. it could go down to, I mainly wanted to, cause we made a bunch of a little changes over time and all those little changes have added up to quite a big number for us. So I want to have time to monologue for our drivers to listen to, as they're driving down the road, to understand why we made the changes and what we did, why, you know, how it affects everything. I also have a buddy with a flatbed company in Nebraska who wanted me, he's got contractors and he said, you need to go over fuel mileage on your podcast. So I can have my contractors listen to it because they don't get it. They don't listen to me. so that's what, I'm what I'm hoping to do So our average price of fuel, the national average when I sent you that sheet a couple of weeks ago was 3.129 per gallon. And our fleet average is a little over seven miles per gallon. So just doing that math seven miles per gallon, in running 150,000 miles a year, which is actually a little below our average, but it's close is 21428.5 gallons. If we raise that one 10th over the course of the year, we save 302 gallons, roughly

Mike P. 33:46

$3 and 12 cents a

Mark 33:48

at three, at $3 and 12 cents a gallon equates to $950. Just one 10th. you take that times, our fleet of 35 trucks and all of a sudden it's $35,000. It's half of salary, There is a law of diminishing returns. So the higher we go in fuel mileage, every 10th we go up from here, we're not going to see the same gain. We're not nine The next 10th is going to be like $912 The next 10th after that it's going to be less than 900 someone who's getting six miles to the gallon, the difference between six. In 6.1 prices is actually $1,250 per year. A guy that's getting five. Now you're talking like $1,500 a year. I've heard a lot of, a lot of people say Well, I'm only getting six. What difference does it make? If I get six or 6.1? Well, it's way bigger than if you're getting seven or 7.1 way bigger. If you're only getting five that's and most of those guys that are getting five that's their argument. Well, I'm only getting five. What difference does it make? If I'm getting 4.9, it's huge. Huge. It's a huge difference. when I started at Stokes, our fleet average was just over six. It was 6.0 it was between one and two in 2010 today, actually for. the fourth quarter in the first quarter, which between October and March, those are your worst fuel mileage months of the year because of winter. We were at 7.12. We'll do a couple tents better than that from through

Mike P. 35:32

Right. That's actually really impressive. So what kind of things have you done since you started with Stokes

Mark 35:40

have you made that Freightliners improve the aerodynamics of the trucks over the 10 years, the ferrings are better than they used to be. there's ferrings underneath the truck that affect the airflow. The trailers have better aerodynamics than they did 10 years ago, California. I remember when carb came out with their, you have to have, it wasn't skirts. You have to have, Aerodynamic devices, they mandated it. Everybody freaked out. It saves everybody two tents having skirts on the trailers. Every time we run the numbers, it is two tenths. Yeah. One thing I've learned in trying different devices and things like that, you know, everybody has an additive. They want to sell you if a big fleet's doing it. It works. it's a loser like that. That's that is a guaranteed lock those guys have, like insurance actuaries that are doing that. I'm just little old Mark trying to figure this out for Stokes trucking. That's 35 trucks, you know, it's hard for us to test something four or five trucks that doesn't necessarily give you a good test

Mike P. 36:56

people figuring this stuff

Mark 36:57

yeah. And they're, you know, they've, they can, they can see a difference of five hundreds of a mile per gallon. I can't, we're just not big enough to do that, but if a big fleet's doing it, it's something I investigate. Cause it, probably is, gonna work. the other thing that. Really helped our fuel mileage When we transitioned to the auto shift transmission, early on with the first one we got would have been in 2013 or 2014. And we did have some pushback from the drivers after we had enough of them out running. And they learned some things that, some little idiosyncrasies of those transmissions acceptance

Mike P. 37:43

I think they started designing

Mark 37:46

transmissions better and better until they got older. Yeah. I think they're much more drivable today than they were

Mike P. 37:56

Yeah. I think the computers that they put in these transmissions

Mark 38:00

are beyond or not

Mike P. 38:02

as smart

Mark 38:02

as they are now. Yeah. And there is some difference in transmission manufacturer. Really the big leap for Freightliner was when they started manufacturing all three drive, train components, the engine, transmission, and rear ends because all three talk, they're talking to each other all the time. And understanding the truck knows what it has for a load after a couple of miles Yeah. The truck knows whether it can start in fourth or fifth gear or it needs to start in first. Right. That was a big thing that once that happened, and that was about. 2017, 2016. So 2017, they really got way better. The fuel mileage came up. One of the problems we've had, one of the struggles with the auto shifts is, it's an education problem with our, with drivers

Mike P. 38:53

Right.

Mark 38:54

old school drivers. if you're going up a Hill, the more RPM, the better power you had, the faster you're going to go up the Hill,

Mike P. 39:01

Right.

Mark 39:02

the DD 15 motors were running. You gotta look at the torque curve to see where your best power is.

Mike P. 39:11

And I've noticed that if you, if you, when you're going up a mountain, if you're, when you're going up a Hill, if you'll

Mark 39:16

watch the TAC commoner

Mike P. 39:18

of the speedometer,

Mark 39:20

Yes.

Mike P. 39:20

that

Mark 39:20

It'll drop Your tackle drop it It'll get back down to about 1100 10 50 1100 And a it'll just stay there. That's part of the reason we've programmed our trucks. So you don't have manual in the top three gears because drivers would downshift. And it was almost like, well, it's not making any noise. I'm not, I'm not going fast enough. You know, it was, it was almost like it was programmed into their psyche from way back when, when they started driving, you get a downshift to keep your RPMs up. So you make it up the just honestly just set the cruise. Whatever the truck wants to do is the it's the right thing for fuel mileage and efficiency time, including time efficiency. those are the three things that they were going to happen. Whether I came along or not, the big things that I probably had the most influence on was kind of the tweaks in the spec. So getting our wheelbase right. So that we could close our gap down as much as possible between the truck and trailer. The biggest thing though, was tires back in the day, we'd get whatever tire was the stock Freightliner order, whatever it was. If it was a Michelin, we got a Michelin. If it was a general, we got a general, if it was a Bridgestone, that's what we got. I got Val to standardize that and we spec the most fuel efficient tire steer and drive from the available. And we do the same thing on the trailers we've gone to. We try to be a hundred percent Michelin. We do have some Bridgestones running around because that's what came. We couldn't get Michelin's on the great Danes. I tried tried. We couldn't get them. So we've got some Bridgestones the reason we standardize that is because we do recap some tires for our trailers. we found over time that if you put, even though the casings are the exact same size, if you put a Michelin steer tire casing next to a Michelin drive tire casing that have both been recapped with the trailer cap and you run them, one tire is slightly larger than the other. It's a slightly different diameter and the one gets drug And as it gets drug it gets on it. Yeah. So, so jacks, now they match casings for us so that when we put a pair of caps on it's the same casings, now we still get some irregular where it's we're not measuring the casings. beginning casing types too.

Mike P. 41:52

that's where you're getting some more mechanical resistance.

Mark 41:55

exactly dragging that tire around. Not only are you wearing the tire out, but wearing that rubber off is mechanical resistance and it's going to fuel mileage. One thing that I learned a long time ago, I never would have thought this, the non driven tires actually have a bigger effect on rolling resistance than the drive tires. the reason I drive tire or the reason a tire has rolling resistance is because it squirms, We got tires and they they squish a little bit That's why they yeah. That's why they get hot and they get hotter if they're lower air pressure. Right. So the more air that's in those tires, the less rolling resistance they're going to have. And also the less tread that's on those tires, the less rolling resistance they're going to have. So like 20 years ago, Bridgestone came out with this. Or no, sorry. BF Goodrich. It was called a Dr. Four 44 and everybody, all the tire guys would tell you, Oh, it's knee deep tread, which it was, it was, we measure tread depths in 30 seconds of an inch. They were to 30 to 30 seconds. So they started out an inch deep. Our drive tires start out at 2330 seconds, right? About three quarters, less these Dr. Four 40 fours, they would last forever. They'd you could run them. We get between 200 and 225,000 out of our drive tires. Those would last way, past 400,000 in our application, the trade-off was, they would get half a mile per gallon, less for fuel what our drive tires do. So, so yeah, they're great. They last forever. You don't have to buy tires, you know, buy tires half as often, but you're losing so much in fuel. You just as well, throw them away. And buy a better tires. So let's get into that a little bit. we've always pre-bought tires year in and year out when I started, We had a set of those Dr. Four 44 sitting in storage. And

Mike P. 44:02

so inefficient.

Mark 44:03

Because they're so inefficient. So like we talked about for every 10th of a mile per gallon, it's about a thousand dollars per year. So we've got this set of tires sitting there. That's going to last us two and a half or three years in our operation, A half mile per gallon, less over that two or three year time, let's say they only last it's $10,000 burn those tires Bye I said a Michelin and you're in the same spot as you are If you put them on your truck like that's how bad they are. So we, got jacks to buy them back from us. back and we took a little hit on it, but that was like my first big win. And as we started to standardize our tires and we started specking the most fuel efficient tire for every application, our fuel mileage started to creep up and pretty soon we're at six and a half. And then Freightliner come out with a new aerodynamic package and we'd get up to six, six. And so it was just this, all these incremental little things that we've done like the lower pressure that's in a tire, the more it's going to squish and the hotter it'll get. if you run a tire that's low, you can put your hand on it and it's super hot. Well, that heat is coming from somewhere and it's actually coming from the engine pushing harder to run the tire down the road. Cause it's, which just just when we there was one thing When we started banging on everybody to make sure their tires were inflated to a hundred PSI It was it was that the tire Nazi thing would that got us a

Mike P. 45:35

Right, right.

Mark 45:38

And we got better tire wear. We had guys, man, we were 105 in this tire and 70 in that one And our trailer tires were all over the place too And yeah your first year.

Mike P. 45:52

monitoring systems in these

Mark 45:53

That's part of it. Yeah. Yeah. Now that the technology is there and it's, I'm not going to say it's cheap, it's low cost. It costs us about $800 a truck to put that in. how many times a day do you check it? I'm Me too. Right? What else am I going to do? Driving down the road for 11 hours

Mike P. 46:15

at the radio. I'll look down at that

Mark 46:16

TPMS. Yeah. I, you know, the screen goes, goes blank. I usually I'm in the habit of, with me every time. Every time I stop, no matter what I'm doing, even if I'm stopping for five minutes to hit the restroom, you know, I walk around the truck once with my big hammer and hit all the I don't need to But tire pressure is huge When we start talking about fuel mileage just just our fleet just paying attention to it Got us a 10th a mile per gallon That's that's it just we incentivized drivers That's thank you guys Get a penny and a half a mile now for the maintenance bonus half a cent of that back in the day was coming to the yard once a day or coming to the yard once every six weeks I believe or no every time they got a short or a full they had to come to the yard and I'd check their tires So by by doing that and having their bonus tied to that the drivers were checking their tires more frequently They'd at least check them before they came and saw the tire Nazi Right But we could measure that Increase in fuel mileage just by doing that sudden we started seeing better fuel mileage and we got way better tire wear

Mike P. 47:39

And there's the, the savings,

Mark 47:43

we were able to pass it along to our drivers one thing that drives some of our guys up just automatically, we've got five guys who are running on wide based tires. That's a really that's an Yeah. The, the wide base tires, they cost about 10%, less than a set of duals. When we purchased them, they were about 10% shorter. So if we average two 20 on a set of duals, we average about 200 on a set of wide base. We're we're losing 10% of tire life and we don't have a use for our casings right now So we always recap our drive tires duals and our steer tires when they're worn out and run them on the trailer through at least well, one cap wide base. We, we do have a few trailers with wide base, but they're very new. We won't need tires for those trailers for like the oldest trailers are a year old today. We probably won't need to replace any tires on them for another year and a half. We'll get about two and a half years out of a set of tires on a trailer. So, so we don't really have a use for the casing when the tires done. That's part of the reason that it isn't a slam dunk on savings for us. I said it's two tenths. It's $2,000 a year better, but our. Freightliner dealer doesn't want the trucks back if they have wide base. So we don't order them with wide base. We buy the rims after the fact. And then we, we use the original tires and rims that came on the truck on a different truck when somebody needs to set it drives.

Mike P. 49:26

Or on a trailer or something like that,

Mark 49:28

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and then we've got to switch them back out when we go to trade that truck off. But because of the 2000 in savings on fuel mileage, there is, it is a net cost savings for Stokes trucking. It's not enough to force everybody into it. We've got drivers that like him. as a matter of fact, we had a couple drivers that told me they'd all be quit if we took them but it's like, we got, we got a couple guys that love 'em. We got a couple guys that liked them. You know, they, they wouldn't quit if we took them off their truck, but. They prefer them. That's why they're on their truck to begin with. If we were rolling it out, fleet-wide including trailers, then it's a different story. We're not doing that yet. The time, you know, the times they are a changing, never say never. It's not right now today. I I'm sure if we placed the order for trailers for next year, we wouldn't have wide base on those trailers other than maybe the vans, but not on the reefers two years from now, that might be a different, I might have a different answer and the same with the trucks as, as a drivers, once we have like more than half the fleet that are running them, which we'll get there eventually, then it's going to make a lot of sense to just

Mike P. 50:45

Right,

Mark 50:46

your next new truck is going to come with wide based tires.

Mike P. 50:49

right. I've never ran wide based tires. I've never, I've never run them.

Mark 50:54

driving Stokes and having them on some of the trailers, the first experience I've had with There is a difference between wide base and super single. So like the concrete trucks, you see the guy great steer tires. That's a super single ours or the wide base. So, so those concrete trucks are like three 25,

Mike P. 51:20

right.

Mark 51:20

our wide base, our four 45, 5,022 five.

Mike P. 51:25

didn't know. There was a difference a super single and a white

Mark 51:28

A lot of people call wide base tires super singles because super singles were in existence before the wide base ever came about

Mike P. 51:38

Okay.

Mark 51:38

Michelin actually looked at cause they make super singles for you know they make tires for every everything earth and all kinds of stuff They got the idea for the wide base, from the super single back in the nineties. That's when they started to develop the wide based tire. And the reason they are more efficient is because there's less drag instead of four sidewalls squishing down. Every time that tire rolls around, it's So less heat buildup. There's less power loss because you don't have as much radial, squish in the tire. That that's why they're more efficient. Aye. I don't know how many miles I've got on wide base. Over a million. I've never been stuck. Somewhere with wide base where I wouldn't have been stuck with duels with the exception of one time, I put a bolt through a tire in Wyoming, just West of green river, Wyoming. And I had to wait for a service truck. It costs me

Mike P. 52:41

See, and that's what scares me about running wide based tires is I have blown the

Mark 52:46

tires on these dual setups

Mike P. 52:49

And I could keep going.

Mark 52:54

so that happened to me once, right. But one time and way over a million miles, uh, one of our drivers that runs wide base that loves him that said, well, I'll retire. If you take them away. It was Larry Neilson. He's, he's an old hold hand. He's been around forever. He had some. Experience with wide base when he worked for Mohs trucking out of Malat Idaho. So when we put them on his truck, it was no big deal to him. He loves him about, I want to say it was six months ago. He had a tire, you know, driving down the road down by a wild horse, Colorado. He was going to kit Carson for the night on his way to Texas hit something, never saw it, but hit something. And his pressure monitoring system went off. And by the time he got pulled over, the tire was just about flat. Like it went like right then. And he was sitting there for a couple of hours waiting for a service truck. He took a log violation that night because he couldn't stay on the side of the road. He ran out of his 14 sitting there waiting for service truck. So he took a log violation and he ended up leaving kit Carson. Now two or three hours later the next morning, then he would have those things happen. We also have mechanical breakdowns, you steer tires of steer tire blows. You're stuck, but they don't blow. Well, they don't blow very often. Neither do our driver or trailer tires because we're a little more vigilant about, got it than most fleets. The guys who are running wide base are the same way, their way more in tune with their drivers than some of our other drivers might be there looking at them, looking for, potential problems all the time. They're the always the first ones to come to me and say, Hey, I want you to look at my tires and tell me if I need to replace them because they're looking every day, every time they stop, they're looking at their tires. We can have a guy on a set of duals. He can have one. If he doesn't have a monitor, he can have one flat and drive around on it for a week and never say a And dusty catches it It's not that way with wide base You know you you you you know if there's a problem I would I personally Haven't and would never run wide base without some type of pressure monitor or auto inflation way. I just, I just won't because what causes tires to blow is low pressure. It's never from over inflation. And generally, if we've had retreads where the tread has come off the tire still fully inflated, that happens. But what causes a tire to actually explode is when it it. Yeah. It's heat buildup from running low originals, virgins. Most people call them Virgin stacks, calls them originals. That's a tire. That's the original, how it was made is hasn't been recapped original tires. Don't tend to explode the way a recap will. the way our recaps constructed. I haven't seen personally, wide base, original explode. I've seen a recap wide base explode and it makes a freaking mess like bad.

Mike P. 56:12

Right shreds.

Mark 56:14

Yeah. And, and tears up the equipment in the process. A really good friend of mine had him on, he's got them on his grain truck and he lost a tire on one of his drive tires. And it tore all the hoses and the electrical out from, from under his, hopper trailer. Like there it's bad when, when they blow up. I'm not saying we'd never run a recap wide base, but. I think about it really hard. And I sure as hell wouldn't run, run, run without a pressure monitoring system. There's no no way Cause if that tire if a recap wide base if it gets down to 60 PSI and you're run right down the road at 70 mile an hour

Mike P. 56:56

You've got to be

Mark 56:57

fully loaded Yeah It going to get hot and explode like fast. If you're running that this, this is a fun thing, it's like for an infrared heat gun, you

Mike P. 57:10

Right.

Mark 57:10

take two of your tires and let 10 PSI out of one. So that that

Mike P. 57:15

10

Mark 57:15

Yeah one's at 90 and one's at a hundred and then check them and see which one's hotter It's the one lower pressure that's going to be hotter And more you lower it, the hotter it's going to get. I love wide base. If I could wave a wand today and change one thing about our fleet, that would be it. But we have to have, I really want a hundred percent driver. Buy-in just like everything else we do. if it upsets our drivers and it you know So that's why done the rollout the way we have

Mike P. 57:51

Again if a driver comes to you and

Mark 57:53

said Hey I want to try

Mike P. 57:56

you're going to do

Mark 57:57

Probably it may depend a little bit on, you know, like with you, your truck's almost a year old. It's gonna depend on how many miles are on it. How soon are we going to have to buy tires for it? And, another thing is how long is that driver

Mike P. 58:13

Going to be here,

Mark 58:13

to be here If I you know if it's questionable whether we're going to be able to get full use out of those tires I put it off. I don't know. I mean, I want more of our trucks running them, but we also have to be mindful of, we still need tires for our trailers casings make recaps out of. And if we go to all wide base, we're probably going to be bounded running some wide base recaps on the trailers. And I, I'm still a little ooky about that. I don't know. It's probably wouldn't make any bigger mess than throwing a chain. throwing a chain off a tire can, can really tear up the cross-members and mudflaps and brake lines and all kinds of things. Re a wide base. Exploding could do the same thing. And we've had enough trouble with the auto inflators on our trailers where I'm like, eh, I dunno, I don't know if there, but it saves weight. You know, you don't have to worry about playing the fuel game anymore. And because you get a little bit better fuel mileage, you can play with your fuel stops a little better. Sometimes idle time is the other one. we've got all bunk heaters on everything. We've just sort of finished our test on Opti idle versus APU going forward. Everything's going to have an APU, idle time has been at least two tests. Yeah. Yeah. So your truck, you gear in one of the trucks that has just Opti idle. we split that the last year's order in half half got just opt the idol half got APU. It's almost three tents difference.

Mike P. 59:57

to have an APU put on this truck.

Mark 59:59

that's a possibility, I guess, is what I'm going to say. I don't know. We'd have to think about that a little bit the only way the APU pencils out, it's, it's a big investment the APU itself and then they install, we're talking over $10,000. Wow. So over the three year, generally our trucks are three-year trade cycle. time, we're only talking about $9,000, right? If we're just looking at versus fuel mileage.

Mike P. 1:00:26

this truck's already one year into that cycle.

Mark 1:00:28

Exactly. our plan is to really make the APS, pencil out, move them from truck to truck. They should last, we average around a thousand hours a year on an APU, maybe 1500. So we should be able to get two trucks out of each APU. And going to cost us about $1,500 to move them from truck to truck when we go to trade. So if we do all that math, it's a little savings, not a lot, it's a little savings because there's also maintenance on the APU, but this is the thing we don't really know yet is how much less maintenance are we going to have to do on the emission system of the truck? Another thing is, if I look at your truck or Larry van mirror's truck, you know, uh, Andy Ritter, one of these trucks that doesn't have an APU on it, and I pull a D deck report and see how many times they've had to do a parked region, the APU trucks haven't done it at all. None, no parked regions at all. Every one of those trucks that have. down the road, which

Mike P. 1:01:44

truck for six months and I've yet to have to do it apart

Mark 1:01:47

It's done mostly regions on the move So you don't know necessarily Right But I can see how many are passive and parked regions and compare to unit the all trucks with the mission systems, do regions. All of them do the ones with APAs are our region in about a third of what the non APU trucks are in the last year of a truck for us. Our biggest problem are a mission wiring issues. And it's because the emission systems are so hot. When they're doing a region, the wires get brittle crack and break. The other thing is we w. We changed DPS, depending on how much the truck has idled over its life. That usually happens three and 400,000 I doubt we'll have either of those problems with the APU trucks That's a guess I won't know that for another three years but we've always we're obviously buying trucks to sort of automated to make a decision. What are we going to do? So everything's getting APS now. We've do have some drivers that don't like them because of noise because of sound. I understand that I do, but generally a driver wants an APU because most of the time a company driver, like we've got our temperatures set, you know, you can't just idle you want to.

Mike P. 1:03:17

Right.

Mark 1:03:18

Walk through any parking lot when it's 55 degrees out and you'll see why settings set are Cause there's trucks idling away it's beautiful out, man. Open the window. What Maybe their microwave in their dinner. I don't know. I, last time I went to Fort worth, I sat down in Fort worth. It was gorgeous out. It was 60 degrees. There's a little breeze. Sun's down two trucks down from me, this guy in a Kenworth and it's just, and engine I almost rolled my windows up because his truck was so

Mike P. 1:03:57

Yeah. I was in Hesperia and the truck. I had my windows open and the truck next to me diesel exhaust fumes just blowing all over and I'm like dude shut your truck

Mark 1:04:11

Yeah nobody wants to park next to a guy with an APU either Like I I get that especially if you got where parked on an angle and maybe your sleeper happens to be right by where his APU is. And, uh, we have put in your truck, has it, the everything going forward is going to have it. We put in a, a better insulation package in those trucks. They actually have Thinsulate in the cab. And I think that's helped the noise level. Brad long drives truck six 61, he has an APU. If you get in his truck and listen to his APU run versus one of the trucks from last year, that it's night and day difference. The sound level, how noisy the two are in comparison. in our operation APS are a slam dunk. Where our drivers are gone? Four or five nights a week, every single week. It's a no brainer, I think. it's way for

Mike P. 1:05:09

agree.

Mark 1:05:13

beginning, we're not doing anything different than anybody else.

Wrap-up and and feedback from the road

Mark 1:05:25

Great segment with Mike Pawlik Again, in a couple of weeks, we're going to be putting out the second part of that interview, where we get into aerodynamic drag. And we kind of do a whole wrap up of that segment. I really encourage all of our, our drivers company and contractors to listen to it. But also if you know, people that have their own trucks or thinking about buying their own trucks. I really tried to gear it to someone who would be the one buying the fuel. We don't understand why this is so important, why, what you can do to help yourself to make more money. I got a feedback text this morning that I've asked grace to read to us.

Grace 1:06:08

Okay. The text was. From Mike Roberts,

Mark 1:06:14

Mike Roberts and truck six, 80.

Grace 1:06:16

And he says, Hey, the podcasts are good. I just listened to eight. The best thing about Stokes is that we don't go anywhere without a load with a load, without a plan to get back home. Everyone else I have worked for halls. Anything. Then I wait for a few days while they figure out the next load.

Mark 1:06:36

Okay. I want to address that quick. So what he's talking about is we preplan everything. it's pretty rare that we have a driver head aide. anywhere out in the country from. Homebase from UTAH Idaho, and we don't have a pretty good idea what they're going to be bringing back sometimes. I mean, some were contracted with customers to take loads outbound. So there's times when we're leaving here without a plan, but for the most part, the plan has been put together long before you ever leave Utah or Idaho with that load heading to California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Texas. That's how Stokes has pretty well, always operated. that's how companies I worked for in the past operated, I was never, uh, go deliver and headed to the truck. Stop and wait. As a matter of fact, there was one time. One company that I worked for was like that. And I couldn't do it. I lasted all of about six weeks. So and I ended up back at FCC. I like it that way. We, we don't make nearly as much money doing it that way, because if we work the spot market, we really, especially right now, we could get a bunch of money just having a truck that's available to go. However, when things get slow and they've been slow. A couple of times over the last decade that happens. We also don't have to worry about it. Everything's really, really steady guys know pretty well know every week, how many miles are going to get weekend and week out. And everybody likes that. We like that because we can plan properly the drivers like it. Cause, cause they know what's coming in and generally what they're doing. What's the second part. of his

Grace 1:08:19

The second part is another thing is that we simply must figure out another term for quote, tire Nazi, something along the lines of the guy that keeps me on the road and out of the tire shop. Thank you for listening to my opinion.

Mark 1:08:33

So I, uh, I realized today when I read that text from Mike, that this is like, Cause it gets mentioned in that previous segment with Mike Pollack, I believe it's going to be the third or fourth episode in a row where the tire Nazi moniker that I got had come up. I want to clarify for anybody who doesn't work in the office, people don't call me the tire. Nazi. Like every time they see me, It was uh, a joke that started when I started watching over our tire program because I was so militant about it. tyrannical, because I'm so, serious about tires and I knew how much money we were losing by not managing our tire program. So it was a joke. Now me and you were talking just before we started recording that maybe a better name for me. What was it? You said the tyrant. Yes, I actually sorta like that. I don't know how deep we want to get into this. I feel like over the last 20 or 30 years, Nazi has almost become. More, I don't even know how to say it. Like when I was, uh, when I was a kid in the seventies and eighties, if you saw someone, it was always on a sitcom. It was never in a serious setting where someone was referred to as a Nazi. And they, they use that term because it was so ridiculous.

Grace 1:10:06

What they were

Mark 1:10:07

What they were

Grace 1:10:07

how precise they wanted everything to

Mark 1:10:10

Yes. so it was, it was, it was a joke and you know, in the seventies, and the eighties, obviously political correctness was barely a thing. and I don't want to have a debate about whether. Calling someone a Nazi is politically correct, but it's become serious. All of a sudden, especially over the last four or five the term Nazi has a definite connotation to it today, different than it did in 2015,

Grace 1:10:37

even, the internet culture, people would often refer to other people as grammar Nazis. changed.

Mark 1:10:46

So when I got started called started getting called the tire Nazi, we're talking like 2011 or 2012. today w when someone is referred to as a Nazi, it's a little different than it was eight or 10 years ago when the, some of the drivers started using that term for me, And by the way, they started using that term without my knowledge for a while. They were talking about. Yeah. Yeah, because I was because we were tying them, checking their tires to directly to bonus pay for him. And it was pretty black and white for me. I could tell whether they were checking their tires or not just pretty much just by looking at them. But, so there were some drivers that lost, like. Hundreds of dollars over not checking their tires. And so pretty quick, that's the name I got anyway, I sorta like tyrant, though.

Grace 1:11:41

tyrant,

Mark 1:11:41

Yes. So

Grace 1:11:44

and tyrant. tyrant

Mark 1:11:47

think going forward, everyone can refer to me as the tire and I like that. Alright. Uh, thanks everyone for downloading and listening to another episode, episode 11 of driver to driver a Stokes trucking podcast, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review to our podcast on whatever service you're using. If you do that, when episode 12 comes out in a couple of weeks, You'll just flow right in to the next segment. Segment. Number two with Mike Pawlik and the conclusion of our miles per gallon MPG series. My daughter, just give me the eyebrows.

Grace 1:12:31

I get 10 miles per gallon in my car.

Mark 1:12:34

No, you don't

Grace 1:12:35

do I, I don't know how to read the numbers.

Mark 1:12:42

get 24 miles per gallon. in your Hyundai. Yeah, just driving between here and Frederico's and campus, you actually get that car. I'll get about 27.

Grace 1:12:51

The road, like to get to Frederico's was close today this morning. So I had to like go through that neighborhood in the back. All of those houses are like seventies built in the seventies, eighties or nineties, at

Mark 1:13:03

that's close to the golf course back there. That's the, Logan country club. Frederico's behind to the North of Frederico's.

Grace 1:13:11

where all the that's, how we get all of the rich people in old, old, rich, people. They Love the luncheon specials. They don't call it the lunch special. They call it the lunch special

Mark 1:13:26

And they still tip like it's 1970. Oh, here's a nickel for you. Young lady.

Grace 1:13:32

I don't care. None of my coworkers keep the change. I

Mark 1:13:35

do.

Grace 1:13:37

It adds up over time.

Mark 1:13:39

I I'm aware and now it's a problem. Now she doesn't want to give him 10% to counter coins

Grace 1:13:45

because when it gets bigger, the 10% also gets bigger. Now you lose more money.

Mark 1:13:55

Oh, grace, I love you.

Grace 1:13:57

It's not 10% of a dollar or 10% of $10. It's 10% of a hundred dollars

Mark 1:14:04

You were so much like me. And so not like your mom. All right, everybody. Thanks again for listening. We'll uh, we will catch you in a couple of weeks.

1:14:27

Thank you for listening to driver to driver. Uh, Stokes trucking podcast. For more information on Stokes trucking, please visit our website Stokes trucking.com. You can also learn more about us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram at Stokes trucking. The intro and outro music is I can't keep still. The bumper music between segments is fetch me another one, Both performed by the caffeine creek band Driver to driver is a frankfurter studios production