Truckin' with Tamie
From CEOs to mechanics to truck drivers, women are revolutionizing the transportation industry. Tune in to "Truckin' with Tamie" where host Tamie explores the ins and outs of trucking, showcasing how this formerly male-dominated field is now opening its doors to women worldwide. We cover the issues affecting women entering the industry for the first time, CDL Schools and training programs, and adjusting to life on the road. We will interview women in various positions in the trucking industry, and get the real scoop on what to expect as a woman in this field.
Truckin' with Tamie
Thursday Triumphs & Trials with James Lewis
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We pull back the curtain on harassment in trucking training with safety expert James Lewis, exposing why cases rarely see daylight, how company incentives can reward silence, and what concrete steps actually protect trainees. Practical tools, safer entry paths, and a direct plan to call the police first when lines are crossed.
• defining assault clearly and when to dial 911
• why HR minimizes complaints and how subsidies distort incentives
• real cases from major carriers and what patterns repeat
• red flags in trainer behavior and power dynamics
• how to document incidents with dates, recordings, and messages
• safer training models without team driving or overnight proximity
• paying and prioritizing experienced female trainers
• alternatives to mega-carrier pipelines via community college and regional fleets
• emergency exit planning, funds, and rapid self-removal strategies
• holding companies accountable with honest records and enforcement
RAINN: You can call 1-800-656-HOPE. As you may not know, I am a board member for Real Women in Trucking. If you have encountered any sexual assault or sexual harassment and you need someone to talk to, you can reach out to one of us. We are always open to listen and help you navigate what is normally a very stressful situation
Meet James Lewis And His Background
SPEAKER_00Hello and welcome to Trucking with Tammy. Um, before we get started today, due to the nature of the discussion, I do want to put in a content warning ahead of time. So, strong content warning. This episode discusses sexual harassment and assault and trucking training programs, including quid pro quo demands, ignored complaints, and power imbalances. These are real industry patterns that can be triggering. Listener discretion is advised. Support resources like rain. You can call 1-800-656-Hope and Real Women in Trucking are in the show notes. Thank you. Welcome to Trucking with Tammy. This is Thursday's first Trucking Triumphs and Trials. Today's guest is going to share some unfiltered insights from years as an expert witness on why these issues persist and what real change looks like. Okay, so without further ado, I am going to welcome James Lewis to Trucking with Tammy today. Hello, James.
SPEAKER_02Hello, Tammy. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for joining us. So I just was letting the audience know that today we are going to be on a very um strong content and gave a little bit of a content warning. Um unfortunately, the topic that we are going to be discussing exists in this industry. We hate to hear about it. Um you're right.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. I mean, uh, we don't need to be graphic about it. I mean, but uh there'll be some hints and innuendos, I'm sure. But more than anything, this is a grown-up discussion about grown-up things that are happening out there.
SPEAKER_00Correct. So can you tell the Chucky Metami audience who you are and what kind of background you have?
SPEAKER_02Certainly. Um, I'm James Lewis. I'm retired Air Force. I was a cop in the Air Force, then became an academic instructor. Um, but at the same time, while I was on active duty in the Air Force, I needed a part-time job. And in 1987, decades ago, I got my class A CDL in Texas and began working for a large um home improvement chain where I drove a tandemaxle flatbed delivering building supplies all over Abilene, Texas area. Um, I've had a CDL since, of course, 1987, hazmat, tanker, uh, doubles, triples, all that stuff. Um, while I was active duty and then, of course, in the Air Force Reserve, I worked in several capacities in the trucking industry. And I also worked in the towing industry. Um I if it if I didn't have three or four jobs, I just wouldn't be happy, I guess. It's an ADHD thing. But I I've got 2.4 million miles. Um, and then uh when I first started expert witness work in 2001, it wasn't in the trucking industry, it was in automotive cases like lemon law, dealer fraud, breach of warranty cases, because I had a background also at my day job was as a service manager in the automotive industry and then a finance person. So I started that. I did that seven years, um, still had my CDL. And unfortunately, the law firm I worked for near Philadelphia kind of fell apart. And we all went like rats off a ship and scurrying. And I went back into the trucking industry. I was able to fall back right into a driving position and keep going. Then I thought, you know, I've got time as an investigator, as a cop in the Air Force. I've got time on the stand writing these reports, doing depositions and trials on the lemon law side. I could easily convert that into trucking for compliance and commercial vehicle crashes, both on defense and plaintiffs. And I started doing that in 2008. Uh, in total, between my lemon law and my trucking cases, I've had over 13,000 cases in 24 years. I've testified over a thousand times in trial and arbitration. I've been deposed over a thousand times. Um, lately, over the last few years, I've been doing a lot more appearances like this, uh, talking about the trucking world, how compliance uh changes could help us, uh, why we don't have it have compliance to begin with, why some companies are just looking the other way. And of course, that leads us right to where we are here as far as looking the other way from sexual assault, sexual harassment, uh, bullying, intimidation, things like that that kind of wrap up that whole thing. Unfortunately, that happens in many training environments in the trucking industry.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's very surprising to me. Um, being in real women in trucking and with my advocacy work, I actually see the percentage of sexual harassment cases. But if you look on social media platforms, when a woman makes a post, the other women jump on it, they're like, Oh, I've never dealt with that out here. I've never dealt with sexual harassment. And they have, but they don't want to admit it because they get a lot of backlash.
SPEAKER_01I've seen it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I've got several close female friends that are drivers, and you know, one Megan, uh, I've known her 20-something years, and she's a big tough girl, you know, farm girl from Michigan. Um, but uh, and I asked her, have you ever been harassed? Oh, yeah, you know, it happens, but she's so intimidating looking, I guess. You know, it just you know that that's kind of the the ward off there. But but when someone has softer appearance or quieter voice, uh unfortunately they may be seen as a target.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, especially a quieter, if you are meek like a mouse, um, then you make a much easier target. Me, I'm very um loud and outgoing, and uh I'm not a very good target.
SPEAKER_02Right. And that's a good thing. And I'm not saying that that a young lady or young man uh coming into the industry needs to yell every time they get around people and and puff out their chest, but but bullies in general, and I'm not just talking about sexual harassment, sexual assault, but bullies in general will target people that are that appear weaker, and it that's just a natural thing. So don't let, you know, first and foremost, don't look weak, don't appear weak.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no. Um I'm a natural-born protector, so uh I have more than once come to the defense of someone who is getting bullied uh in transportation and other industries as well. So that is a lot of cases that you've worked, over a thousand. Um, how many of those involve driver training? Do you know?
SPEAKER_02Quite a few. Um, now that that's a thousand trials. That's the 13,000 cases, actually.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow, okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's a bunch. But uh a lot of them do involve uh training companies, you know, the major training companies are Schneider and Werner and Swift and all these companies, um, and the majority of those companies do a good job. Um, inevitably, um, you know, I I've defended a lot of those companies working as a defense expert witness, where and getting into the crash investigation side of it, the compliance side of it, it's it's very simple. It has nothing to do with what we're talking about right now. But just as an aside, my job is to prove on the defense side that that truck driver had every right to be where they were, even if they made a mistake in a crash. You know, the the company has to defend themselves and they usually defend the driver. And by the way, you are always named as a driver as a separate civil litigant. There is no magic umbrella that protects you. Sometimes a company will offer an attorney, sometimes they won't, just so you know.
SPEAKER_00I know that's a different subject, but gosh, that's it is, it is, and that's a top a topic that I really want to address uh on a whole new episode. Uh, because a lot of drivers, a lot of drivers don't know the correct way to handle themselves in those situations. Exactly. And I want to provide that information.
SPEAKER_01But I'd love to, I'd love to.
Why These Cases Rarely Reach Court
SPEAKER_00Having said that, I do have a question um about so when a driver has an accident, is your job to prove that they should be there? Now, with the topic that we're discussing today, your role really changes because it would, yeah. Yeah, so what is your role when there is a case like what we're discussing today?
SPEAKER_02Well, honestly, I've never been involved in a sexual harassment or sexual assault case as an expert on the defense or planet side, which is weird because I've been involved in every kind of case involving trucking you can imagine, except for those. And that that's sad to me. And the reason I say that is because they're not getting prosecuted.
SPEAKER_00That that's where I was going with that. Yeah, because they're not trial.
SPEAKER_02You would think, you know, because I've been active, uh I've had over 4,000 cases since 2008. Heck, in the last three and a half years, I've done over 500. Um, none of those have involved sexual harassment or sexual assault, none of them, because they never see daylight. And I would I would love to be involved in one because of my background and having dealt with that. And of course, being the big brother figure, you know, and now I'm a I'm a dad, I'm a granddad, I'm a great-grandfather, you know, and and I would love to be involved in one of those where a a trainee bullies uh a tra I mean excuse me, a trainer bullies a trainee into a bad scenario like that. Um, I'd like to be part of that, but unfortunately, I I've never seen one. And and that's that's a true shame.
SPEAKER_00I think they settle before going, and there's probably a reason for that because the more attention that they draw, then the more people that's gonna come out of the woodwork with their own complaints.
SPEAKER_02Well, um, I think though, too, you we were talking offline over the last couple of weeks that the problem is these cases never reach any any anywhere near something to be settled because unfortunately, they're they're dismissed by the safety department, by recruiting, by HR. Um, oh, you you misunderstood. That guy is a great trainer. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that. He's a great trainer. We've never had any complaints on him. Really? Well, he just tried to physically assault a lady by touching her while she was changing clothes. Come on, you know, and there's only a curtain but dividing you between the driver's seat and the sleeper area, you know, and and someone crossed that line, you know. Oh, but we've never had a complaint. Well, maybe that's because after they got caught, they intimidated the heck out of that person and they didn't complain, they didn't report it because the person they went to kind of talked to them, um, brushed it off, which I've seen a lot.
SPEAKER_00I've seen it a lot.
SPEAKER_02I've seen it at both of both the major companies that I've dealt with. Um, and it's of course my head exploded. I'm like, are you kidding? I'm from Texas. We we beat people up for messing with our ladies. I mean, whether it's a sister, cousin, whatever, you know. I mean, God forbid, you you know, you you broke heart break my uh little sister's heart, you know. We're gonna have a visit.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm an I'm a grown woman, but my younger, bigger brother, I mean, he's younger than me, but he's much bigger. Um, he's six foot four, and he will still protect his little sister.
SPEAKER_01So absolutely, absolutely, as it should be.
SPEAKER_00Uh, he's uh yeah, so and and that's how it should be, but we should be protecting our drivers as well. So today's episode, that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna talk about your experience in the past, and we're gonna talk about how things are the patterns, how they're gonna do it, and what we need to do to change that. So I am absolutely looking forward to this because sexual assault and sexual harassment always gets a bad um image out there, and a lot of the facts and what you can do to protect yourself uh isn't is not put out there, it's you know, brushed underneath the rug. Um, and a lot of drivers don't know what their rights are and what they should do. Um, and they're normally coerced into being quiet and dealing with things um because it's trucking, you know, you have to put up with it because it's trucking. You know, you're a woman in a man's world, it's trucking. So no, I get it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it couldn't be more wrong. And just as a as a as a start, you have to understand the definition of assault. And people uh first off, people watch too many movies from the 70s from the lotlizers walking around the truck stop soliciting men, you know. Um, and unfortunately, a lot of men stayed stuck in that mode, and that's why a lot of female drivers, uh especially new drivers, don't get the attention they need during these complaint scenarios because society thinks that's kind of normal, you know. But please understand that now this is a police officer and me talking. You have to understand the definition of assault. The definition of assault is I touched you and you did not want to be touched. Period. Doesn't matter. I mean, now when you when you there are degrees, there's sexual assault, of course, there's aggravated assault where there's bruises, damage, cuts, things like that. But me simply putting my hand on you anywhere on your body is assault. And in any jurisdiction, that's at least a misdemeanor situation. And so, first and foremost, call the police. Get to everybody's got a phone. Call the police. Hey, you know, that this guy and I got in an argument about our training schedule, and he grabbed my arm. That's assault. That may not be sexual in nature, but it's still assault.
SPEAKER_00You know, I'm gonna take that. There's also another degree of assault that often gets overlooked. Um, but I ran into this uh with an individual, a driver. If a driver is keeping you in the truck and they are refusing to allow you to exit or they're blocking, that too is a degree of assault. So by them restricting your access, taking away your phone, um, those are also degrees of assault in the legal world.
SPEAKER_02Right. Well, and that borders, depending on the jurisdiction, it also borders into the kidnapping scenario or the coercion of movement, which that's that's an additional factor there. That's huge. More than anything, though, and and I've talked to young females and older females that have been in the industry, even young males, and they were telling me about this harrowing scenario. And I'm like, why do you call a cop? And I didn't think about it. Because the company has you locked into calling safety or HR, and it's like the police don't exist anymore. And no, just because we're in the trucking industry, the police are very much existent and they're still there, and that should be your first call, not your last, or none, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I am going to actually put a scenario out there before we get going. Um, this person, um, I love her dearly. Um, this was a first-hand experience I had back in 2020. Um, a young lady was raped um as a driver. And the um the the company, she the company did not do anything in the beginning. Um, she got home and um she ended up pressing charges um after the factory when she should have called at the scene, but she was told not to. Um, and then she suffered a lot of problems because the incident happened in her truck and they didn't change trucks, they didn't, you know, do anything for her. And she was suffering a lot of mental issues driving and having panic attacks and PTSD from the event, right? Um, and so the first thing that she should have done was call the authorities, but it's not in a company's best interests or image for you to do that, and so they will try to sway you away from it as much as possible. But the facts are you still need to that needs to be your first call.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, yeah. It again, it's the police still exists, you know. Um, I don't care what the company says, I don't especially don't care what the trainer says, but if you feel intimidated, coerced, anything, and and then physically touched, especially, call the cops, just be done. Stop, stop the press, you know, right there.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, let's go ahead and uh I'll keep quick getting off topic here. Let's go ahead and talk about your firsthand observations that you've had over the years in your career.
SPEAKER_02Well, I was kind of shocked um because I'd been in the industry since 1987, but it wasn't until 2009 that I witnessed this the first time because I'd never been in a training environment with both males and females. And I went to work for CR England, uh, you know, they're they're a big company out in Salt Lake. Um, kind of shocked me when I went to their place and they had armed guards and bulletproof glass. And I'm like, yeah, inside their complex. Yes. And of course, me being an ex-cop, you know, I'm I'm looking at these guys in black swat fatigues and nine millimeters on their hip. What are you here for? Well, drivers get out of hand. And in fact, there've been so much so many issues with the company that in order to see someone from safety, recruiting, HR, whatever, even your dispatcher, you had to go through a metal detector and lose the pair of nail clippers and your keys in your pocket while you need to visit them. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow. Every company I've ever worked for had an open door policy. So that is I didn't see that.
CR England Case: Coercion To Assault
SPEAKER_02I never, it blew my mind. You know, I worked heavy security in the Air Force, nuclear weapons aircraft. So I I understand big time physical security, but I'd never seen it like that at a trucking company. Anyway, uh, long story short, there was a young lady uh in my orientation class, tall girl from from uh Southern California, nice girl. Uh and I kind of took her and a couple other people under my wing because they were brand new out of the CRS, I mean the CR England driving school. Uh, she had gone down to their their school down in uh Riverside or wherever it is down there, and then attended orientation at Salt Lake. Well, of course, the only trainer they had available for her was a man, a 45-ish-year-old man. Um, and there there were no females available. So she's asking me what to do. And and I almost I kind of gave her bad advice, and I felt really guilty about that after the fact. I was like, well, just go out there, you know, and you tell them like my sister would, you know, you be on your best behavior. I'll throw you out of the truck while it's moving, you know, that kind of thing. Um, and and I I figured things would go fine. Well, a few days into it, Shannon called me and said that the guy uh went to wake her up for her shift, had pulled into a truck stop, and he exposed himself to her. And basically, this was two or three days in. They were getting along wonderfully up to this point. This is a typical narcissistic scenario. She just really liked this guy. He was sharp, he was he was on the money as far as teaching her everything, everything was great up until that point, three or four days in. He exposed himself to her and explained that if she would give him favors, that he would rush her through training and give her a hundred percent grade, and she'd look great to the company. She would be qualified, she wouldn't have the education she needed, but he's gonna show he's gonna shortcut her training because once a day was the requirement, was the suggestion. Once a day. She pleases him and everything goes smooth. Well, of course, everything changed. She got freaked out. She withdrew. She refused to be close to him. The conversation stopped. It got ugly. About a week later, it culminated. My wife and I were working for them and we ran their pods accounts. We had a flatbed with the pod structures on it. And we happened to be dropping our flatbed in Phoenix at the dropyard there because we had a weekend off. Pods has an interesting schedule. I got a call from Shannon, and it ends up she and her trainer were in that same parking lot at Phoenix. There were like 600 trailers there. It's a big drop yard, huge dropyard. Um, she goes, I don't know what to do. He hit me, he threw me out of the truck. So she fell from the truck onto the ground. You know, you know how tall a truck is.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And she's on the ground with her phone, and the sheriff's department is on their way because she threatened to call the cops, which is good for her, but gosh, you know, should have done it a while back, but good for her. And the guy came up with a story that she wasn't a driver at all, she was a lot lizard that he picked up at the flying jade and was taking her to Texas.
SPEAKER_03Oh, the level of disrespect there.
SPEAKER_02So, of course, the cops show up and he tells this female and this male deputy, because I pulled up, I was there in the yard. I'm walking up as they first contacted her, and they treated her like you would think someone would treat a violent, drug-addicted lot lizard. Okay, and they cuffed her and the stuff, pushed her, put her in a car and all that. She's freaking out. She's just a nice girl. And I'm like, I'm melting down. So I pulled a female deputy off to the side and I kind of went drill sergeant on her. And I said, I don't know what that guy has told you, but he's sexually assaulted her, he's harassed her, he made he intimidated her with demands of sex for good training. That girl is not a prostitute, she is a driver for this company. And I guarantee, if you look at her identification, it's a class A C E L. She's got a COM data fuel card in there. She's got a pilot TA and Love's loyalty card in there. I guarantee it. And check that out before you go any further. And the lady looked at me kind of funny. I said, I swear to God, I know her. I was just in orientation with her not even a month ago. So they went over there, he got her purse, and I'm at the back of this police car, sheriff's deputy's car, with this female deputy, pulled out Shannon's wallet, and surely enough, there's a California CDL, there's a Calm Data card for the company, and of course the pilot and TA card and all this stuff. And she goes, Why would a hooker have this stuff? Did she steal it? I'm like, I kind of went off. I'm like, look at the ID. It's her. It's a blonde, tall girl that's like six foot tall.
SPEAKER_00She's not a hooker.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So she goes, Oh, wow. So they pulled her out of the car and uncuffed her. And my wife and I are trying to console this girl. She's, of course, lost her dog on mind at this point. I don't blame her. But um the story reverted, and luckily that gentleman was arrested and charged, and the company terminated him. But in looking into it a week or so later, when I was back at the terminal, they had never once had a complaint on him and had no reason to fire him other than that.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That is so did they fire him or no?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, he got arrested for assault because he hit her in the face and shoved her out of the truck, and she fell. I mean, she's a tall girl, but she fell from the passenger side all the way to the ground onto the gravel.
SPEAKER_00She's lucky she didn't have any severe injuries.
SPEAKER_01Right, exactly. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00That is crazy. And that was that CR England?
SPEAKER_01Yes, 2009.
CRST Case: Consensual Misconduct And Policy Gaps
SPEAKER_00Oh wow. Whew. So was that your that was your introduction to um the harassment in the industry? That's that was one leg of the intro. Let me tell you.
SPEAKER_02It was, and I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, then of course, you know, I don't want to get ahead, but you know, six years later, four five years later, excuse me, I'm a terminal manager at CRST in Oklahoma City, and I was managing a terminal, and I had about 900 drivers that were assigned to our terminal. And every week we had a whole new flock of newbies that came in, and we we also did the trainer-trainer course there, you know. So we put our trainees with the trainers, and and in theory, it should work pretty well. But we had our we had our issues there as well.
SPEAKER_00So what were the issues that you had there?
SPEAKER_02Well, the biggest one kind of shocked me. This young guy, he was from Texas, and I guess because I'm from Texas, he thought we were buddies. I'd seen him in there. He was a he was a trainer, and I had seen his trainee, this young red-haired girl, pretty girl. Um, not that that matters, but you know, she she was fairly attractive. Um, and she had just been in my orientation class, and she was quiet, and she never asked any questions, which I always want them to ask questions, but you know, whatever. Never had any issues with her. And then because he was really the only trainer available at the time, he he got her. And about a week and a half later, he came into my office, shut the door. I'm like, oh my gosh, what did he do? Or what did she do? And the story he told me kind of curled my hair, and I don't mean a joke by that, but he said, I got a problem, I want to know how to handle it. Okay, lay it on me. From the first day on with this young lady in training, she wanted to sleep with the curtain open so she could look out and see and hear and understand. And she would sleep on top of the covers fully naked. I'm like, stop right there. Why did you allow that for 10 seconds?
SPEAKER_00Okay, say how long did it go on before he reported it?
SPEAKER_02A week and a half. But the the interesting part of it is that I said, What'd you do? He goes, I told her to put clothes on. Did she? No. Did she close curtains? No. Did you stop and close the curtains? No. So then what happened? Well, after about two days of this, you know, I'm a man and we got to talking and we started having relations. Which of course is against company policy. You're not supposed to ever do that. Ever, ever, ever. I get that. I'm like, okay. So consensual. I mean, thank God he didn't rape her, you know, or vice versa. You know, whatever. But still, that's that's a no-go in the industry. I said, okay, well, I don't know, I don't really know what to advise you, but let me think on this a while. This was Friday at 3:30 in the afternoon, and I called uh the head of our HR in Cedar Rapids, and I said, here's a scenario. She goes, Okay, call the police, escort them off the property, they're both fired. Okay, well, I understand firing them because they both violated company policy. 100%, I get it. But my my question was, how do I, as a terminal manager, prevent things like this from ever happening? You know, it what if, what if she wasn't so forward? What if they didn't decide to have a consensual relationship?
SPEAKER_00You know, it was a weird scenario all the way around, but but yeah, what if she decided to be lay like that and somebody pushed it and didn't take no for an answer that she wasn't attracted to, you know?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. And it just, I mean, in one way, thank goodness it was consensual, you know, but doggone, you know. I I I I was in shock.
SPEAKER_00So also, you're married, right? How would your wife feel about it if you were driving that truck and you had a trainee that was naked in the bunk, you know? Yeah, no, it would stop, it would, it would stop two seconds in.
SPEAKER_02I'm like, what are you doing? This okay, we're going back, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it just you know, that's not the first time I've heard that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, it was the first time for me. This 2014, I'm like, I was shaking my head. I'm like, man, what is this industry doing?
SPEAKER_00You know, so so both were fired, and you know, um, with a degree in HR, I I yeah, you know, well, HR's, you know, their their job is to protect a company from liability, and that right there was one heck of a liability. Exactly. So, what was the policies moving forward then?
SPEAKER_02No change.
SPEAKER_00As far as that was no change.
SPEAKER_02Well, with me personally, I told a story in every orientation class after that and said, you know, I'm gonna throw you physically off the property. You don't do this stupid stuff. This is not what we're here for. We're here to train drivers and have careers, you know. You you want to sleep your clothes on. Yeah, you want to hook up, go to the club. You know, that's that's that's you speaking of the club. After she got fired, she filed a complaint against me, which I was in orientation with her, I saw her, I talked to her. I mean, I talked to her like everybody else, but we never had a one-on-one conversation at all. And then she said, I hit on her at some club downtown. I didn't go to clubs downtown, so and if I did, it was with my wife. So no, you know, it didn't happen. But you know, I I I knew what that was. That was that lifeline, that was that last chance to to not get in trouble because it might end up on your DAC on your high right report, you know. Um, I doubt it, but who knows, you know. Yeah, interesting.
SPEAKER_00Wow, so yeah, so you you're getting quite the education.
SPEAKER_02Um, yeah, I was well, it it was only a few months later I left the position. I'm like, I'm going back to driving. I'm gonna get a sweatbed, I'm gonna get a step step deck. I love hauling equipment, and I'm gonna go throw some chains and have a good time and just do my thing. And I did, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. How long did that last before you were back in the office?
SPEAKER_02Uh well, I haven't been back in the office since, except but three and a half years ago, I got this opportunity because what I started doing, and I was doing all along since 2008, I was working these commercial vehicle crash scenarios on defense and plaintiffs, but only doing 10 or 12, maybe 15 a year.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02But three and a half, almost four years ago, I was approached through LinkedIn by a by a recruiter and evidence solutions that I worked for was looking for an additional trucking person because we had the one guy, John, great guy, but he was getting inundated with cases and they needed somebody to take slack. So went through the interview process and I jumped in and I hit the ground running. I've done over 500 cases in three and a half years. Uh, it's been been crazy. I did 252 this year alone. It's crazy. But um, so I'm back in the office, but I work from home in Avery, Texas, and I can look out and see my donkeys and my goats and my my I got highland cows and four obnoxious dogs, and yeah, so it's a good time.
Patterns Of Abuse In Training And Teaming
SPEAKER_00I I live in town, but um, I have a shed in my backyard, and I think I thought I had like a cat, the dog was going crazy. There's a red fox. Oh wow, those are cool. Yeah, so it came out uh Christmas Eve morning, so I don't know if it had babies or what underneath there, but um, I have a little bit of wildlife just right here in town. So with your experience as a trainer, safety, um being uh the the terminal manager, what are the most frequent instances of sexual harassment and the and sexual assault that you see most what's the most common types?
SPEAKER_02Just the pay-for-play or play-for-pay, however you want to look at it. Um, you know, basically the same situation with Shannon uh at CR England, where a male trainer or a lesbian female trainer approaches as a heterosexual female and says, Look, if you take care of me at least once a day, I'm gonna take care of you. And and instead of 30 days of training, I'll get you out in 15, and you can get to working with your new crew and and making the good money and all that. Won't life be grand at that point?
SPEAKER_00So the majority of it. Oh, go ahead. Sorry.
SPEAKER_02No, that's what I see. That's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00So the majority of them are the trainer-trainee scenarios and team driving. Um, because I know some of those companies they establish and help you find a teammate or they have a matching system.
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, it's funny. When back in 2008, when I started driving, I'd had a CDL, you know, for 20 years, but my wife went through truck driving school in Norristown, Pennsylvania. We lived in Pennsylvania at the time, and uh she wasn't gonna come along with me uh to work for about two months at the time I joined Covenant because the law firm fell apart. I needed a job. I was driving locally, didn't like it, so I went with a bigger company. Um, Covenant's matching program was whether you smoked or not. That was it.
SPEAKER_01You know, wow.
SPEAKER_02If you smoked, you were with a smoker, if you didn't smoke, you were with a non-smoker. Doesn't matter where you're from, what you do. And it's like, heck, we were married and almost got divorced 87 times, you know, just driving over the road, you know. I can't imagine driving with someone I don't even know or didn't know until last week. That kind of scenario, you know. So you're taking two perfect strangers. Well, you know, you're taking two perfect strangers and putting them in a box and running them down the road 24-7. And you know, you've got all those restrictions that people outside the trucking industry don't even conceptualize. You know, they think of sexual harassment of is some guy hitting on a lady in an office, you know, and yeah, but what if that guy and that lady were were stuck in the a place the size of a phone booth going cross country, you know?
SPEAKER_00And and that's a good point because that team driving and the training model uh contributes a lot to that vulnerability. Um you know it does, and it's not just women, I mean it's especially women, but men are subject to it as well.
SPEAKER_02Um, what other factors contribute to you have to you have to change clothes in proximity with someone else? Uh you have to do personal hygiene. You know, you you want to grab a shower. So you know, uh I've never been a caveman and I'm not gonna go off on that subject, but I showered every day, I had a hot meal every day, you know. That's that was mandatory for me in the trucking industry. A lot of people don't believe that.
SPEAKER_00Well, coffee in the morning. My trainers will tell you don't if you if you're driving at night, make sure you switch where Tammy has coffee in the morning.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, I don't drink coffee, I never smoked. I'm just weird that way, I guess. It's a diet coke or diet Dr. Pepper thing. But you know, sometimes you take the man wipes or the lady wipes or whatever, and you you you know, you're changing clothes, you just want to feel a little fresher. But the problem is you're you're becoming half clothed in the sleeper, and if the other person stops, you know, you know, there's that vulnerable time where you're not you're not fully clothed, you're you're barely fully awake, and then then you're trying to change clothes and get ready for your shift, you know. And those times, especially, I think, are the most vulnerable for people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they are. And vulnerability, I mean, when you have a trainee and a trainer, I mean, there's also power at play with that as well.
SPEAKER_02I I've seen that power turn into horrible things and and the sexual assault, sexual harassment, absolutely. But I've also seen where I saw this is CR England, one of the young men that went through orientation with me, called me up a couple of weeks later and said, Hey man, did they deduct anything from your calm data card? I'm like, what are you talking about? You know, he goes, Well, I've got like five, six hundred bucks missing from a calm data card. You know, I'm getting paid on my card. Well, first off, don't do that, number one. But if you're gonna do that, keep track of it. His trainer convinced them, convinced him that they were gonna have to work on each other's clocks, and you're gonna have to drive some on mine, and I'm gonna have to drive some on yours, which means that you're gonna have to fuel on my time and I might have to fuel on your time. So I need your calm data card so I can use it to swipe if I'm driving on your time. Yeah. So what the guy was doing was he's using the young guy's card to get fuel and getting himself a cash advance.
unknownOh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So he's got his card.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And you just go into either CommCheck or regular cash advance, you know, you can do it right there at the pump. Well, he was filtering money off this guy's card, and who knows how long that had been going on. Yeah, so there's other things out there that that are yeah, as a the big brother dad scenario, I just really want to try to protect people, you know.
SPEAKER_00That's crazy. So, when these situations happened in your experience, um, what did the companies that you worked at, what was the role? What did they do? How'd they take care of it?
SPEAKER_02That was especially frustrating. Uh they did it's so frustrating today. It is so frustrating today, and I have been a terminal manager for 11 years. Um, they fire the trainee immediately, send them home.
SPEAKER_00Really? Why? Why the trainee? Why was a trainee who is is abused being fired?
Call The Police First: Definitions And Rights
SPEAKER_02Well, they they don't want the liability, they don't want that, they don't want that person hanging around a terminal somewhere telling their story. Number one, they surely don't want to talk to the cops while they're still unemployed, get rid of them, get them on a bus. And I'm not talking about going back to Salt Lake or Cedar Rapids or wherever and coming up. No, I'm talking about get that train that person off that truck right now to the nearest bus station and send them home. And then I asked why. Well, it's a matter of subsidies. Okay, so that slot is gone now. Okay, that person, that guy or girl, came in and the company got a large subsidy for training that person, and they got it whether you stayed there a week or six months or a year, they got that subsidy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they you there's no retention with it. I think there should be.
SPEAKER_02I think there should be you should have to retain people for a certain period of time before you get that subsidy as a truck in doesn't they get it? They ought to as soon as they report it to the Department of Labor, they get a subsidy. Now, if that guy or girl blows out in a week, they still get the subsidy. And guess what? There's 10 people in line behind that person that's gonna take their place, so they're gonna get another subsidy, so it doesn't matter. There's no motivation whatsoever to protect that guy or girl from these situations because they can blow them out, avoid liability, and all it costs them is a bus ticket. And most bus tickets are under 200 bucks.
SPEAKER_00Wow. So no services to the victim, no counseling, no therapy. You know, bye. See you later.
SPEAKER_02The other side of that no discipline for the trainer, no charging the trainer, no firing the trainer, because they just at that point they'd kind of got that plausible deniability that, well, we didn't investigate it because we just thought it was wrong and it thought it they were incorrect. And you know, we don't need a troublemaker like that in our fleet. So So we sent them home. Well, now the trainer, be it a male or a female, never gets a mark against them. Just like this guy at CR England. They never had a complaint. You cannot tell me for a second that that was the first young lady he'd approached like that. He'd been there six years.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, no, no way. It's just nobody had made waves or it hadn't escalated to that level yet.
SPEAKER_02Well, but it it's like it's like having an Uber driver that's a serial rapist and he keeps getting female passengers. I mean, it just enables them, you know. Especially when as a company you don't take any responsibility and do anything about it.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Right. So, you know, over the years with these companies, what policies have they implemented that you've seen to help, you know, deal with sexual harassment and assault in the workplace and make it a safer environment?
SPEAKER_02You know, I'm not one of those people that throw my hands up, they're not trying at all. Sure, I'm sure they bolster their sexual harassment speech and orientation.
SPEAKER_00CBTs.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Oh yeah. Here, watch this computer film. You know, while you're playing card game on your phone, watch this computer film, you know. Or it could be a live live class with a live person teaching it. But if you as a company don't ever enforce any of your policies that you preach about an orientation, it's pretty much worthless. And that's exactly what's happening. And and in those companies that we we talked about, I still have friends there. And and I ask, what has changed, you know? And a couple of people at CRST and people at Fry Miller, where I where I worked later in 2017 for a while, went to the office, tried the office, didn't work. I I was again shocked. But the thing is that my friends that are there said nothing has changed. Why would we change? In fact, that company in Oklahoma City has actually decreased their hiring standards and lowered them. And they've seen an exponential change in literal criminals in their driving fleet.
SPEAKER_00And you know, so what's the company, what are they prioritizing if they're not prioritizing their drivers? The bottom line for freight, yeah. So because the freight matters more than the people behind the wheel, right?
SPEAKER_02And they always have, and you know, and I'm not a victim and I'm not the woe is me kind of person, but you know, we get treated like cattle out there, you know, and the sooner you realize that, the sooner it's not gonna make you mad anymore. And right you're gonna wait eight hours. Come to terms with it, yeah, just come to terms with it, but yeah, there's no respect. But then again, you know what? A lot of drivers perpetuate that, you know, because I've talked to shipping clerks when I I started a freight brokerage back in 2009, 2010, and I'm talking to all these shipping clerks and all these places, and I'm I would get off on the conversation of so how do drivers act when they come in here? And she goes, Oh, well, you know, six out of ten are great. You know, they got their they got their ducks in a row, they got their stuff written down, they got a pickup number, they know exactly what they got, what where they're going, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Two out of three, two or three of those are completely lost. And one is psychotic. And it's like, you know, so every 10 drivers, they're dealing with a psychopath, it seems like. And how many drivers come in and out of your typical shipper or receiver? There's a couple hundred a day, probably. But unfortunately, we perpetuate that as drivers by allowing that behavior as well. You go in there and lose your mind and curse some lady or some guy out in the shipping office, you know, how are they gonna treat the next person? They're not gonna treat them well, you know, because they just got screamed at and called every name in the book, you know, and they figure, well, I'm not gonna treat this lady or this guy any different because they're not gonna be nice to me. Why should I? You know, it's it is what it is.
SPEAKER_00It is, it is, and you know, when um I'm not out on the road anymore, but uh, when I was out on the road, I always, you know, you walk in and and they they just have that look like, hey, I've dealt with a lot of crappy people today. And exactly like, good morning, good afternoon, just let me know. You know, I'm getting paid either way.
SPEAKER_02I have to throw this out there, and if this helps drivers that are listening to your podcast, I really hope so. Something I started doing at CRST. I said, two things. First and foremost, I apologize to the shipping club, and everybody looked at me kind of squarely. Why? I said, on behalf of me and the other wholesome drivers who are out there, I want to apologize for whatever you've experienced today from our lesser wholesome brothers and sisters. Because I know somebody came in here and lost their mind on you and acted a fool. Or I'm not gonna do that, and I really apologize. The second thing, there's always a coke machine and a snack machine, right? When you check in or whatever, say, Hey, I'm gonna get a Dr. Pepper. You want one? I guarantee you're gonna be the first person that day that asked if they could you could buy them a Coke.
SPEAKER_00Yep, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02And those little things just made the difference, anyway.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, you know, you you how you um treat people out here makes a difference, you know. So getting back to our topic, I know it's really easy to get off track on my podcast, and we just ramble. It is what it is. I do want to give uh the listeners some good information today uh about this. So, what changes do you think companies can make about their training programs or just policies in general moving forward?
Company Responses And Subsidy Incentives
SPEAKER_02I don't have a lot of confidence that anything is really going to change, first and foremost. And I know that's a pretty horrible statement to make, but it is. But here's the deal I absolutely despise corporate speak and politically correct language. And we cloak ourselves in corporate speak and politically correct language because people are too scared to say what really happens, what really should happen, what really shouldn't happen, and who's at fault. Okay. You know, and I learned this from being a cop first in the military and dealing with crimes, you know, hardcore sexual assaults, uh, physical assaults, aggravated assault, things like that, patterns start emerging. You got to recognize a pattern, you got to rip the band-aid off and be honest with yourself. And until we pass the corporate speak and that shell game that we play to try to not talk about stuff, you know, you've got the only way this is gonna change is if we talk about it. Okay, I would say that a female trainee with a male heterosexual trainer has a better chance than average of being sexually assaulted or sexually harassed than, for instance, a gay male trainer.
SPEAKER_00It it is what it is, and just looking at just just like the polarity and magnets, I would yeah, but you know, we can't like cherry pick, hey, I want a gay trainer because then that that you know that that's that's a lawsuit right there, you know.
SPEAKER_02Right. But but here's a catch too. If if you're getting a complaint on a particular trainer, listen to it, take them out of training. I'm not saying shoot them in the head and throw them down the road, but take them out of their training position to where you don't risk them harming or assaulting or traumatizing other people. Okay, because it is what it is, and you know, I had a couple of instances at CRST where I had females who harass harassed other females, and I had one lady actually joke with me about converting this girl to the other side, and she was proud of it, and you know, she was gonna have her pitching for the softball team, and that was like, and I said, you know, we're just not two truckers sitting in the flying J having breakfast talking here, right? I'm the terminal manager here, and you're telling me that you're attempting to take a female heterosexual girl and convert her to lesbianism because that's what you personally want to do. You didn't mention a thing about training that was your trainee, right? Yeah, I said you didn't mention a thing about taking a new driver and training them to be a good driver. Your mission was of a sexual nature, and that's not cool. And I'm gonna need to talk to you about that in a minute. And I asked her to step out and I called HR and we fired her. So, because that can't happen. That that simply cannot happen, you know.
SPEAKER_00And I think that's a huge miss misconception out in the world right now because you see a lot of women uh who are going through school and they're looking for their training company, and a lot of things I see on the message boards is you know, waiting for a woman trainer, one a woman, and I don't think they realize that the assault happens with females, you know, exactly.
SPEAKER_02Well, and it's only like seven or eight percent of females that are in it in the industry. So the the factor of having a female trainer at a particular company is gonna be exceptionally rare. It's just I mean, it's just numbers don't lie.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, it's like winning the lottery, you know. One in three million means you're not gonna win.
SPEAKER_00Um, so but having a woman doesn't necessarily mean that they're that you won't face sexual harassment or assault.
SPEAKER_02Exactly, exactly. You know, and but there's there's got to be other ways to do this, and I really think there is. You know, for instance, get your CDL through a family member, through an acquaintance, somebody that, you know, somebody your family or friends know. Um, you know, there's got to be somebody in a company that that, you know, yeah, this guy works for for uh whatever company out of Mississippi and and he's a trainer. Great, you know, I mean when you've got that family connection or friends connection, there's social norms there that you'll likely adhere to that you wouldn't adhere to with a stranger. It's just that's just kind of a yeah in theory.
SPEAKER_00In theory, yes. Um, you know, I I did know uh a young woman, she was married. Uh, her husband was a truck driver, and she uh was at that stage where she was giving up her career, getting her CDL, and joining him. So she had to go to a school and then she had to go through a training program before she could be with him, right? While she was going through that, she was raped um by a gentleman that her and her husband had befriended.
SPEAKER_03Oh man.
SPEAKER_00Um, and you know, so that was it's sometimes just the people you know, you know. Yeah, no, I get to women don't ever let anybody in your truck. I don't care if they want to fix your your GPS, I don't care what their excuse is, never let someone get in your truck with you.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely not, you know, and and I don't know that the trucking schools even cover that. You know, that's that's one of those things you learn along the way that everybody should know, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. That's why we do these podcasts. I'd be you know, because there's lots of things that the schools and the trucking companies don't go over that you know, you need it's road etiquette, you know, the do's and don'ts.
SPEAKER_02Well, that that's just it in my in my side of the industry on the compliance side. You know, I've had trucking company owners, there was one in Boston last year, Boston, Massachusetts. Uh, guy had a mishap at a loading dock, and the guy on the forklift fell out of the truck because he took off with the guy still in the truck, right? And the lady who owned the company said, I thought they learned all that stuff in truck driving school. And I just about laughed out loud in the middle of a courtroom. I'm like, they teach you how to do a really good pre-trip, they teach you how to back up in a straight line, and they teach you how to go around the block. And you pass a test. That's all they teach you. If you get any more than that, that's fantastic, but it's not common. That company who is supposed to train on 383-111, which is all those training uh areas, the 20 training areas, they're supposed to take the reins from there and train you. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen.
SPEAKER_00Nope, no, it doesn't. So, what what do we think is the right way to do this? Um, is same gender training the answer? Should there be more women? Well, we have to get more women drivers before we can have more women trainers, right? Right. Um, what about the in-cav cameras that all the companies are coming out with now? Are those beneficial?
Fixes: Better Trainers, End Teaming, Cameras
SPEAKER_02I think they are. I really do. Um, trust me when I say this: if I had a 600-truck fleet and I was training new drivers, I would pay a lady like you$150,000 a year to come train my people. Because, you know, why should a female, uh, an experienced female driver, 35, 40, 45 years old, whatever her age is, want to put up with the training environment and risk their lives with a brand new driver for the same level of money and maybe five or 10% more that everybody else gets. I can't see it. I would I would be so targeted in that area. I would love to have female drivers because the female driving friends that I've got that I've made over the years, they'll run circles around most guys and not complain in the meantime. Right, right. There have been some that have that have been pretty soft, you know. And I mean soft is not tough, you know, but but the the three or four ladies that come to mind immediately that I keep in touch with today, they're rock solid. And I would want people like that training my people, males or females. But I think having quite a few female train trainers set up making good money and running on duty, not driving only.
SPEAKER_00Yep, and eliminate team driving. Yeah, no team driving mentality whatsoever. When they're ready to graduate, send them on their way. Bye.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, if you want to go to SWIFT on team drive, that's that's up to you. No offense to SWIFT, but that's what they do. Here's the catch all of these training schools are double dipping, they're getting the subsidies for for taking on that trainee for one, then they're running normal freight at normal pay rates, like Sierra England's mostly refrigerated. Refrigerated freight pays more than than dry freight. It is what it is. But the point being that they're they're double dipping because they're paying their trainer whatever, they're paying the trainee. When my wife was my trainee at Sierra England, she got 11 cents a mile. Now that was 2009. Okay, that was a few years ago. I get it, but that's not that long ago.
SPEAKER_00I think most of them just do I don't think they pay by the mile very much anymore for that. I think they just pay like a weekly allowance.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's like five or six hundred bucks. You know, by the time you feed yourself for a week and do laundry, uh, you know, you got 300 bucks left, you know. But so pay pay the trainers what you need to pay them. I guarantee I'd have people knocking down the door to want to come train for me and want to come learn from us without a doubt. We should open our own company because we could do this on the side.
SPEAKER_00But well, and I think um, I think that if we eliminate all the time in the truck, like the team driving, and we park the truck at night and we do the hotel or one person in the hotel and do a little bit of separation, uh, then that will relieve some of that shower time, changing time as well.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Yeah, you're not spending all the time together. Yeah, you could still do like a super single, I mean super solo, you know, you could run 16, 18 hours in a day and still get good breaks and still and and get some stuff done. But again, these companies are double dipping, they're not only getting money from the government for for training subsidies, they're running freight and not paying their people worth a darn. And every shipper out there knows that these companies will team drive everything.
SPEAKER_00Yep, yep, they do, they do, and so they get it, they get it there cheaper, they get it there quicker. Yeah, yeah, they do. So, what advice should we give new women in training our industry?
SPEAKER_02With all the negative stuff that I've thrown out there, and I know I've thrown out a lot, don't be discouraged because it's a great industry, it's a great industry if you do it right, you know. Um, but getting past that initial six six months, you know, and getting on your own and doing your thing, you know, my friend Megan, you know, she runs for a company out of Ohio now, and she she runs 3,000 miles a week, she gets two days off a week. Uh, they do triangles, basically Michigan, Texas, Florida, and back. Sometimes Ohio, sometimes Illinois. But they run really good and she's used to it. They run hard, but you get two full days off every week, and she can plan and do stuff and have real vacations. She's been with them like nine or 10 years now. But the point is, when you reach that level, you're in a really good position. It's just getting there that that's that's tough. And unfortunately, there are companies out there and trainers out there that want to take advantage of you.
SPEAKER_03Uh right.
SPEAKER_02So you have to fight that. Now, me personally, if I had a granddaughter that I've got a 21-year-old granddaughter, if she wanted to wanted to be a truck driver, it's okay. Go to a community college near you. Don't go to this company and get the training. Go to the community college because you're home, you're in an environment with with instructors, uh, things like that. And then when it then get a job with a local company or a regional company that will take you on initially and train during the day. Because there are companies that will do that. These are the you know, uh, as much as I respect Werner, as much as I respect Schneider, things like that, if for what they're doing on that grand scale, there are alternatives out there for somebody. And we just don't have that many women trying to go in the industry. I I guarantee they can get a job at some regional company, you know, and go through a training program for 30 or 60 days and then then run. And they probably would want to stay doing the local regional thing because that's a great thing, you know. Um, but there's around it.
SPEAKER_00I saw um a TikTok the other day, and I I don't remember her name, but it was a new driver. She just finished CDL school and she got hired at Gemini calling for love. So she was gonna get trained straight out of school, and I had never heard that before. And I think that's fantastic. Yeah, now I do know um there's propane companies that will hire you straight out of school and train you on the job.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Well, love loves Gemini would be great because I I mean they they have a distribution uh part where they use dry ins for some of their store stock, but primarily their fuel. So you got a hazmat tanker scenario, you're gonna be getting paid great because of what it is, and you're home every night, I believe. Yeah, you are, yeah. You work some weird schedules, probably, but that's the nature of the business. But but yeah, you're home every day. You know, that'd be a great scenario.
SPEAKER_00So new drivers entering CDL school, um, looking forward to as far as the topic with sexual assault and harassment. I mean, basically we want to make sure we um research the companies we're going to. Right. Um, and you know, Google and yeah, they there's a lot of information out there about companies and lawsuits that they've settled and you know, um sexual abuse, you know, what what they do, how they're set up, and a lot of um drivers out there who will give you their experience.
SPEAKER_02Well, and the trucking forums and things like that. I I think probably the number one thing that nobody really thinks about, though, is if I knew a young man or young woman that were going up going off to the trucking school or whatever, first and foremost, be assertive. You can be assertive without being a jerk, you can be assertive without being labeled a troublemaker. But if if I were a young female that was 21, 22, and getting my license, I would look them dead in the eye and say, I swear to God, if you touch me. I've got a granddad that shoots really well, you know, or or you know, my my big brother's gonna whoop you, or you know, set all that aside. Assault is touching me when I don't like it, and I'm gonna call the police.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, my first deer was a 10-point buck, so I have really good aim.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00Myself, you know, don't need granddaddy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, exactly. But it's like I I I can't imagine if I ever got that call from my granddaughter Aubrey, I'd yeah, I'd be in the truck.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. So, what red flags do you think they should look out for then?
SPEAKER_02Um, narcissistic behavior, number one. When someone is being too nice, and that's why when I train drivers, I was I was kind of a jerk about it. I'm gonna tell you straight up, I'm not here to be your friend.
SPEAKER_00I don't even my best trainer was the the train me.
SPEAKER_02I'm not here to be your friend. You know, I I served a long time in the military. I got friends from high school I still talk to. You know, we get along great. I don't even really like people. My point is, this is a job, you know. I'm gonna show you. Trust me, if you scare me, you're gonna know that you scared me, and I'm gonna tell you that. Okay, but I'm not here to be your buddy. But when someone is being that surpass sweet and giving you compliments, and think about that. I don't care whether you're inside a Kenworth or inside a nightclub, the same scenario applies. That narcissistic guy, he wants that that that feeling of security and and and acknowledgement from that young female. Hey, you look good. Oh, I like your hair. Y'all, those jeans look great on you. Those are wholly inappropriate, completely inappropriate. If you're getting comments like that, that is just a precursor, I believe, for what's to come.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and but on the flip side, there are nice people out there, so not every compliment is a guy who's going to sexually harass you or abuse you. And this, I've seen this transpire too, where you know, somebody says hi to you or is nice to you, and they're like, Oh, you know, he's going to try and rape me. No, there's a lot of great guys out here.
SPEAKER_02But well, and in the south, especially, we're we're just taught to be respectful to ladies, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Long story short, but if he's if he looks at you like a pork chop, you know, and us girls know, we know, and when he's looking you up and down, yeah.
SPEAKER_02We know the look, do something about it. But that whole yeah, that whole sir and ma'am thing goes a long way, you know. But at the same time, people who are not from the south, when they're spoken to that way, they they wonder what your motivation is. But it's it's not motivation, it's just the way way we're raised, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So women get out here, they're out with trainers, or they're working with men in the field, they're experiencing some harassment, okay, or or they've been abused. What do they need to document? How should they handle it? You know, being a terminal manager, you know, and and law enforcement that certain details are very important. So, what are those details and what should these girls do if they get in a situation?
SPEAKER_02I love technology, and I would tell you this if you got in a crash with a car or truck or whatever, just as if you were being sexually harassed or possibly sexually assaulted. Everybody's got a smartphone.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_02Turn it on to video, turn it on to video and stick it in your pocket. Okay, it may be a little muffled, but they're not gonna see it. And you record the whole conversation. And you know, people say, Well, you gotta have permission to record. You know what? You watch too much TV, stop all that. If it's a matter of preserving your own body and your avoiding trauma and avoiding, you know, any of these actions, record whatever you're gonna record, you know, because when you go to when you say, I want off this truck because this guy hit on me, you know, and well, oh no, oh, Jed's a nice guy, really. Here, let me play this for you, right? Yeah, and then he he said something about what you could do for him. And if you do this for him, he'll do this for you. Man, they know right then that they're busted, you know, and that's something that should be reported.
SPEAKER_00That is a reportable comment coming from a trainer, yes, but that's your support.
SPEAKER_02Just take it. I mean, every especially younger folks, Gen Z, Gen X, you know, they're they're all everybody's tech savvy, you know. I can have my my video on in about a second and a half, and I'm 60, I'll be 62 next week. But yeah, I could flip this on and and hit it, and you'd never know I was recording.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so on top of recording, when they have to fill out an incident report and you were safety, right? Terminal manager safety, you guys ask a lot of questions, you know. You want a lot of details.
SPEAKER_02I do, I want all the details.
SPEAKER_00So, what details are those? I mean, because is this I'm at oh, you know, it it this is what happened, and they're like, When? Uh I don't know. I'm a truck driver. Exactly. No, no, it was the same.
SPEAKER_02It was it, no, it was at 9 58 on a Tuesday, and and and this I want dates, times, everything. I I couldn't believe that the one when I interviewed these young ladies, because I did interview several young ladies after allegations like this, S Crst, especially. I said, Was this the first time this guy said this? Oh no, he'd been leading up to it for about a week, but he didn't go, he didn't go for the money shot, if you know what I mean, until it had been about a week. He was asking, he goes, one one girl had a trainer, said, You know what? The guy told her this if we hold hands walking into the truck stop, they were on a 34-hour reset. If we hold hands walking into the truck stop, people will think we're married and nobody will harass you or me. He was pretending to be a victim while being a perpetrator, and then then that becomes normal, and now they're holding hands when they're outside the truck, and then then comes a kiss, and then comes whatever else.
SPEAKER_00So then, but here's the thing so if she's holding hands and this kind of um it then it looks consensual and it makes her look like she has less of a case.
SPEAKER_02Yes and no. Uh I as someone from the outside of MVP, yeah. It it it it would really depend on how it was presented to me, because if she's saying, Well, he said we should do this because she didn't say, Well, I liked the guy, so I held his hand, you know, that's a different story.
SPEAKER_00But if you're a company that's not victim-friendly, right, and you have you know, and these people walk in, and well, she had been holding his hand a couple days ago, so obviously there was something going on and she was okay with it. I can see that being said.
SPEAKER_01I could, yeah, I could, sure, sure.
Documenting Incidents And Building Evidence
SPEAKER_00You know, so you know, holding hands with anybody, you know, unless that's your boo.
SPEAKER_02Um let's go, let's go back a few minutes. Even though you consented to holding his hand walking into the flying J for such a romantic date, by the way, that is assault. Yes, if you really didn't want to hold his hand, and it wasn't your will to hold his hand, and you weren't in complete agreement, but you did it because you thought this experienced older person said it'd be a good thing to do at the truck stop. You know, I still don't know. And I asked the young lady, why'd you think that? I don't care whether you're in the trucking world or you work at State Farm, you know, we don't do that, and she goes, Well, I was just he seemed older and wiser, and and he was my trainer, and I believed him. Okay, yeah, well, uh, and and and that's just it. But document when that happened, yes, and why and how because I would find that really unusual, as most people would.
SPEAKER_00What is the line between what you report to the company and when you pick up the phone and call 911?
SPEAKER_02That's that's really a judgment call. And and any time where you call the police instead of the company is when you need an immediate termination of whatever's going on. Uh I've seen arguments ensue between trainers where I'm gonna kick you out of the next truck stop. You know, if you don't do this, I'm gonna beat you up. Uh you know, all you needed to do is just keep your mouth shut and this would go great. You'd be out of here in a week and a half. You know, you're being intimidated. Okay. Uh, no matter how tough we all want to feel, you know, there's a point where you realize that other person is completely wrong and you want to stop that action. That's when you call the cops. Because you don't owe your safety department or your HR, your recruiter, anything. We're talking about your personal safety, your body, your own brain for the next however long it is, if you experience something traumatic, you've got to deal with that. And I don't want to see that. It stops now. Call a cop. Worst case scenario, you know, you leave the company and you go somewhere else to train. Worst case scenario.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So anytime you feel in danger, or obviously if the a line was crossed, that you need to call the authorities before you call your company and protect yourself.
SPEAKER_02Because and and again, I don't know that I really want to go there because I don't want people freaking out about the trucking industry. But if we're on I-40 going across Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas, or whatever, um, I-10, I-20, and you've got a problem with someone, you're gonna be hard to get a hold of. You're gonna be hard to reach by law enforcement for one. If you're in a city, if you're near a truck stop, you know, get out of the truck. Go in there, make a phone call. You know, tell a trainer, hey, I gotta go to the bathroom. Whatever, you know. How are you gonna argue with that? Arrest area, whatever. Now you you'll get a quicker response in a city at a truck stop than you would at a rest area in the middle of nowhere. But make that call, leave the truck. Worst case scenario is you're wrong. But I really doubt you are, because these things happen, you know. You know, and again, worst case scenario, you apologize. Hey, I was wrong about you, sorry, but I'm going over here to train because I'm not taking this chance again.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you know, there's one thing, a piece of advice that I give every driver, male or female, when they are coming out into the trucking industry. Many things can happen, uh, especially when you're just starting out. You mix different personalities, trainer trainers. You might decide to team drive with a buddy that you met. Um, always make sure that you have emergency funds to get you an Uber, a hotel, um, a rental car so that you are not stranded somewhere because things happen. You maybe it's just you and you're just mad at the company because they're wanting you to do something that you shouldn't do or don't want to do. Right. No matter what the reason is, always cover your own rear. You know, have emergency fundings to take care of yourself if a situation arises. You may live in Illinois and something may happen in California, and you need to get home. And all a company is going to do is give you a bus ticket. And if you're a truck driver, we have more things in our truck than fits on a bus.
SPEAKER_02Right. Well, with that in mind, though, as a trainee, you're in an advantage over the trainer and any established truck driver. You don't have much with you. You got you got a sleeping bag and a maybe a suitcase or a big backpack full of stuff.
unknownYep.
SPEAKER_02Now, what I mean by that is you're tactical at that point. You can jump ship and you don't, you know what? If it's a$30 sleeping bag you've had for three years, leave it there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Get out of the truck, grab your stuff, get out of the truck, take all your personals with you, get out of the truck. Because a typical driver, I know I did, heck, you will, you know, it would take you three, four hours to move into a truck and move out of a truck because you got stuff everywhere, you know. But a trainee, the and and trainees don't understand this at that point because they're not established yet, but they don't have that disadvantage. They grab their backpack or suitcase and be out in a minute. Go in there, make the phone call, whatever. You know, go to the bathroom, seriously, bring up your Uber app, get an Uber, walk out to the front of the truck stop and go. You can justify it later, you can talk about it later.
Red Flags, Assertiveness, And Exit Plans
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think that's some good advice. Uh, so do we see hope for change? I mean, regulation, our advocacy. Well, I mean, I fight for change every day.
SPEAKER_02I mean, yeah, I know we we got some really good groups like women in trucking um out there that are advocating for change, but until these driver trainers who are sexually harassing, sexually assaulting, young women especially, are prosecuted, there's no real motivation to change it because the companies have it made. They get the subsidy to get you in there, they get to let you run for next to nothing, you know, their freight that they're getting full pop for, and they're paying you dimes on the dollar. They got it made. They don't have a reason to change. They don't have a reason. Okay. Um, so what I'm saying is go around that scenario. If you're especially if you're a young female looking to drive, it's a cool career, it's fun. I've enjoyed it, I've been doing it a long time. Yeah, I think about it every day. I I had dreams pulling into this particular truck stop, going to get my RB sandwich, you know, taking my shower. And I've written 20 books while I've been out here. You know, I is and I go to my room, you know, I go to my truck and I pull the curtains and I bring up a laptop and go at it. And that was my my sanctuary, you know. Absolutely. There, there is a there is a good part of that. To get to that point is tough, like any in any other career. But there's another way around it. The community college trucking schools, you know, the the personal friends, the uncle who owns the dump truck company. Go drive for your uncle for second. Maybe it's not what you want to do, but you know what? When you go to apply for at Old Dominion because you want to run for old Dominion, and they see that you've driven a Class B or Class A C DL truck for six months with no issues and all of that, you've got experience at that point. You don't have to go through these companies, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And if you do go through a mega carry or a training company, make sure you research the ones you're looking at because some are better than others, you know.
SPEAKER_02They are, they are for sure. And and you know, and again, be assertive, don't be timid. You know, and and I tell this, we were joking earlier. Uh I sing karaoke. Um, people will ask me, you know, what song should I sing? Well, you've got kind of a mousy voice, and that means you don't have a lot of breast support, so you really can't put it out. You need to do something that's built for mousy voice people, and they get mad, and then they then they go on to sing Pat Benatar at the top of their lungs, which is cool, whatever. My point being, you know, regardless of what your personality style is and how much of an introvert you are and how quiet you want to be, and you just want to hang out in a corner of the library. You have to protect yourself and you have to be assertive. And you get into that training scenario with a driver, say, look, I'm not gonna put up with anything from you. I'm here to learn, I want to do my job, I'm gonna do it as best as I can. Please help me do that. Show me what you know, teach me the right stuff to do and build on what I've already learned. I realize I don't know it all yet. I want to know it all, but I got to get there. But I swear to goodness, if you do something stupid, you know, might as well bring it, you know.
SPEAKER_00And if you get into a situation where you're uncomfortable, don't be afraid to reach out to the company and request a different trainer. Right. It's it's that I had two. I mean, you know, and it wasn't because of sexual, my my trainer was just doing illegal things, but yeah, no, I get it, I get it.
SPEAKER_02Well, see, but I've seen that with the I've seen that with C RST. I was up in Cedar Rapids several times for training courses, and I'd be walking through there, and God get off the phone, a girl get off the phone, go, oh my god, his trainee wants another trainer again. Really? That's your attitude, seriously. Now, I I I don't doubt that are problem that there are problematic trainees out there. I don't I don't doubt that for a second. I've had them. I've had I've had few of them, but not every one of them. So you got to give the benefit of the doubt, and there's got to be there's got to be some some action on your part to to help them, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so well, you know, I um I worked for Warner, you know, and if anybody has seen myself, they know um I I had a really good experience with Warner. It is what you make of it, and that's what I tell people. There's bad fleet managers, there's bad dispatchers, but there's also good ones. And if you get a bad one, you just ask for a good one, you know. You get a bad account, you just switch to a different account. And this is one of the things I like about the larger companies when you're starting out, you don't really know what you like yet. So a larger company gives you the variety to figure out where you belong. Um, and you know, companies have over the years um made some changes to their training environments, um, trying to, but they're still just not there yet. Right. Um and in my opinion, I think the best scenario is always the one that limits the interaction time. Um, I think the more time you put two people in a situation alone together, the higher the chance for a problem arises, whether it's attitudes, whether it's uh harassment. It's just you put two women in a truck together nonstop for weeks on end, we're gonna kill each other. I mean, that's just the way it is, right?
SPEAKER_02Right. Well, you know, do you remember you do you remember 2008 and what happened to the trucking industry in 2008? Those training companies went nuts, and assaults spiked, uh, sexual harassment spiked because nobody was deadheading trucks anywhere. So you would go, you would take a run. I know me and my wife were driving during that period of time, and we'd make we ran for FedEx or UPS because we were both hazmat, and we'd we'd make a run and we'd sit for two days on the other end, and then we'd make a run and we'd sit for two days. And we were only running for two days or three days at a time, you know. So I knew if the teams were doing hazmat teams were doing it, can you imagine what the non-hazmat solos were doing or or the trainers, you know, that didn't have hazmat. They were getting they were getting stuffed, you know, and a lot of trainees don't have their hazmat yet. So that caused a problem then. So we had all those trucks stagnant because of fuel costs and everything, and all that stuff went through the roof. There is um one other thing that I witnessed in 2017 with Fry Miller.
SPEAKER_00Uh, yes, we didn't go over that.
Hiring Standards, Risk, And Accountability
SPEAKER_02Well, I'm just gonna be real brief here. Um, when I came on board, I was a full desk recruiter and I worked in her safety department, and we had a pretty average standard for hiring as far as your traffic tickets, uh criminal backgrounds, stuff like that, right? Pretty average, no more than two moving violations within the last three years, no 15 or over, uh, no DUIs, no license suspensions, none of that, no, no misdemeanor. Ever, no felonies ever, blah blah blah. Well, company ownership decided that they didn't have enough drivers and they wanted more drivers. And they got with their insurance company because they were self-insured and they lowered those standards dramatically. It was almost overnight. They went from no DUIs ever to no DUIs in the last five years. They went from no felonies ever to no felonies or non-violent felonies within the last five years. You couldn't be on probation or parole, thank goodness. Uh misdemeanors didn't bother unless it was uh an advanced misdemeanor. That was almost a felony. And then the still the five-year thing still still happened. License suspensions were okay as long as it wasn't in the last five years. Now, what that tells you, people who get suspended licenses don't obey rules, they don't follow policies. Because if they didn't, they wouldn't have a suspended license. Or if they did, they wouldn't have a suspended license. I don't care whether it's keeping insurance on your car or whatever, you get a suspended license. Now, in my years of doing this, especially, people like that are more prone to violate other rules.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_02Because if you'll violate traffic laws where there's actual financial cost to you, you'll certainly violate laws where there's no direct financial cost. And you'll violate social laws and social norms as well. So hiring in a bunch of criminals with, you know, people with a criminal background versus people without a criminal background caused an influx of who knows what. My son worked in their detail department, and he noted to me four different trucks that came in on tow trucks that were released by either the FBI or the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigations because drivers had kidnapped or enticed young runaway girls into their truck. And thank God they were caught. They were caught. So who knows how many of them weren't caught?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that um, you know, the ATA's been pushing to uh put felons in trucks, and while I'm all for felons in certain situations having a second chance, uh if there's any with a violent criminal history, um, sexual assaults, I think that that's just giving open reign. And you know, you're you're putting people in a truck who have no um oversight, you know, we can't track them, child offenders, sex offenders. We you can't track them. You don't know where they are, they they have access. I mean, look at all the companies, and uh, this is just a great example I like to use is Walmart grocery uses contract carriers. Okay, so Walmart has a stricter vetting process than other carriers. So you have one of those other carriers doing your groceries who maybe they're a violent offender, then they're at the local Walmart, and we don't know, you know, they stay overnight, they you know that that's just I think that it's putting us up for failure.
SPEAKER_02It's funny you should bring that up, but it tracks right into the trucking industry and the training side of it. But in the towing industry, I'm I've been in towing for 37 years. There was a guy in Fort Worth that really strongly advocated here in Texas that we should bring convicted felons into the towing industry because they make good hard workers. And I completely freaked out and put up a wall. And we actually got in an argument. Well, at a tow show six years ago in Alabama, he and I actually got in an argument outside. I said, I want you to think about this. You got a convicted felon. Let's say it's a non-violent felony, embezzlement. Okay, that's not a that's not a rape or a murder or an assault. That's taking somebody's money. Do you realize that as a tow guy, though, I have access to your name, address, phone number, everything about you? Because I'm gonna go pick up your car at your house and take it to the shop. Now I know what kind of car you drive, I know where you live. Okay, and most likely if your car breaks down at the mall or at your workplace or whatever, I'm gonna pick you up with it and give you a ride home.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_02Really? I'm like, dude, no, no, this is not a place for felons. I don't care what the nature of the felony is.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, some of them, yes, but violent, no. Well, and tow truck embezzling.
SPEAKER_02I mean, there's a lot of things here, but as far as that's just as a tow guy, you're gonna collect money, you're gonna handle money. I'm gonna run credit cards, you know, for whatever tow, you know, because like even with triple A, there's a limit as to how far you know AAA pays. Well, if you got to go further than that, you come out of pocket for it. I'm gonna take money from you. You know, it just the whole idea was bad, and it really comes into the trucking training world because anybody with a background like that now has access to young men and young women who want to learn and just want to start a career and do their thing, and they're a target.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they are, they are. So, knowing all this, if you could sit down with trucking company trucking company executives, and you could say one thing or a few things to you if if there was a point you wanted to get across to them, what would you say? What would you what would you want them to hear?
SPEAKER_02Well, two things. Uh, we talked a little bit about uh a little bit ago about bringing more female trainers in, incentivizing them to be there, paying them really well, and restricting the team driving and the overnights and the and the all that because I think that would change the whole environment of training. Me too. Either you're dedicated to the training and producing good people, because me personally, I'd want to keep those trainees around in my fleet. I want them trained really well by good people, and I want to keep them. You know, that's the whole because we can grow and we can get more accounts and more trucks. That's the whole concept.
SPEAKER_03Retention.
What Executives Must Change Now
SPEAKER_02And instead, instead of a mill of just getting people in, getting subsidies, kicking them down the road for whatever reason. Um, the the other side of that is again concentrate on training, but prosecute the living snot out of anyone that that we can that has committed an offense. Whether it's either even just a sexual harassment scenario may not even rise to the level of assault, but sexual harassment needs to go on that person's high right report. Be honest, don't say resigned, because that's all you see on a high right report. I see them every day, you know. Uh terminated, uh, eligible for hire. We'll discuss. Really? They were if they were terminated for sexual harassment, and then the next employer looks at that, they don't have any reason not to hire them. They were terminated.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_02Well, maybe they were laid off. Maybe the maybe the trucking company was cutting back. There's a lot of trucking companies doing that. You don't you you're not helping that next company make a decent decision, and now they're gonna hire somebody who who's gonna cause you a lot of problems.
SPEAKER_00Yep, that's true. It gives you a lot to think about. So um, I want to thank you so much for taking the time out today with us. Um, it's been a great episode. Um, we've given them a lot of information and real-world scenarios.
SPEAKER_01Probably too much. Sorry.
SPEAKER_00It's okay. Um, I do want to say, drivers, if you have encountered anything out on the road, there are some great resources out there. Rain, um, you can call them at 1-800-656-HOPE. Um, and as you may not know, I am the board, a board member for Real Women in Trucking. We are an advocacy group. So if you have encountered any sexual assault or sexual harassment and you need someone to talk to, you can reach out to one of us. We are always open to listen um and help you navigate um what is normally a very stressful situation. Um, you know, and you can be anonymous. Um anything else you'd like to say before we sign off?
Resources, Books, And Closing
SPEAKER_02I'm good. I I'd love to delve into this more and and really again, I'd love to own that company where we where we incentivize trainers, especially female trainers, and make it a safe environment and understand that if you're doing something wrong, you're gonna be terminated, and I'm gonna document the heck out of it to make sure it doesn't happen to the next company, you know. Because that next company might have every good intention, you know, and just running a trucking company and moving free, you know, and they hire you and and they didn't get a chance to dodge a bullet, you know. And I want to, I'd like, I'd like them to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so before we sign off, uh James, why don't you tell our viewers about your books and where they can find you if they'd like to learn more about you?
SPEAKER_02Well, I'm on Amazon and Kindle. Uh I've got two trucking industry books. Um, I got serious for a little while. One is called Scale Your Load, and the other one is Plan Your Trip. And it's aimed at new drivers. Uh, there's some funny stories in there, I hope you find funny. But more than anything, it's informative about how to scale a truck, why, how, when, all those things, and how to plan trips because I can't tell you the number of times where experienced drivers would I ran out of time right in the middle of Houston. I'm like, why would you do that? There's nowhere to park in the middle of Houston. You know, you either stop before or you go after, you know, it is what it is. But things like that that that make you more efficient, where and I can count on one hand the number of times I didn't get a shower in all these years every day. And so people going a week without a shower and complaining about having to eat vena sausage out of a can. I'm sorry, you don't have to do that. It is it is so easy to plan ahead and do anything. I've got a uh seven-book series called the Vengeance Series. It's about an ex-Air Force guy that moves exotic equipment for a living, exotic cars, that gets into some vigilanteism and ends up teaming up with a female Marine, and they actually um, SWAT team style, rescue girls who've been kidnapped for the sex trade. They go to some foreign countries and get to kill bad guys. It's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00There you guys go. You got two books that'll help you be awesome truck drivers, and then you got seven more books that help you kill the time at the shippers when you're in the dock, you know.
SPEAKER_02Last but not least is profit and loss, the the complications of negative behavior. And I talk about why. Well, people who are miserable, people who complain is a second language, you know, how you doing? Oh, my feet hurt, I'm tired. People don't want to hear that. But what I found though is by not producing endorphins, you're actually hurting your own immune system. And people you ever notice people that are miserable, they're always sick. Yep, that's why. People who are somewhat cheery, you don't have to be that person, but you know, you you gotta, you know, somewhat cheery, they beat a cold in three or four days, you know. Yeah, so yeah, there's another book out there.
SPEAKER_00Cold's no better than to mess with me. I mean, they just they're like, nope, not her.
SPEAKER_02Right, right.
SPEAKER_00All right, great. And uh, you are on all the socials. I take it. I know I am.
SPEAKER_02I'm I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on well, my Facebook is classified because um I get investigated frequently by lawyers and investigators because I'm gonna make I'm an expert witness. They're looking for anything they can get. Well, like this this podcast, I I'll be asked about it six months from now, I guarantee you. Um, well, you said this, and Bob will, you know, whatever. Yeah, trust me. So I'm kind of careful about it, but on LinkedIn, I I really I really do a lot of activity and I do a lot of these podcasts and things like that.
SPEAKER_00So great. All right, well, it was great having you. All right, I'm going to sign off now. Thank you, everybody, for listening into this episode of Trucking with Tammy Behind the Curtain, a safety expert's view on harassment in trucking. See you next Thursday. Have a great week.
SPEAKER_02Take care, Tammy. Thank you.
