Truckers 'Roads, Rates, and Resentment I85 accident

In this episode of The Trucker’s Radio Podcast, powered by Sabren Group LLC, host Stacey Yearout breaks down the growing resentment in the trucking industry as freight rates continue to sink, operating costs skyrocket, and drivers take the hit. We take a hard look at why so many truckers are frustrated, fed up, and pushed beyond their limits — and what it really means to survive in today’s market.

We’ll also discuss the recent accident on I-85 in Georgia, the harsh realities behind increasing crash statistics, and how pressure from brokers, shippers, and deadlines can create dangerous situations on America’s highways.

From road stress and mental fatigue, to financial strain and industry burnout — this is real talk for real drivers. If you’re tired of feeling unheard on the blacktop, you’re not alone. Buckle up. This one hit home.

 trucking podcast, I-85 accident Georgia, truck driver burnout, low freight rates, trucking industry frustration, owner operator struggles, trucker mental health, Sabren Group LLC, Stacey Yearout, Trucker’s Radio Podcast, broker pressure trucking, highway accident analysis, trucking crash statistics, trucking life podcast, trucker resentment, truck driver safety, life on the road trucking 

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Transcript

Dolores 0:00

Welcome to The Trucker’s Radio Podcast, powered by Sabren Group LLC. Hosted by Stacey Yearout, a 30-year veteran of the trucking industry, recovery coach, and author who’s helping drivers and families rebuild their lives one mile at a time. This podcast is more than talk it’s about truth, resilience, and the real stories from America’s highways. Each episode dives deep into the heart of trucking: owner-operator consulting, business advice, mental health and relationship coaching, and trauma recovery for drivers and their loved ones. If you’re behind the wheel, standing by one, or just trying to make sense of the miles, you’ve found the right place. This is The Trucker’s Radio Podcast where the road meets real life, and where every mile has a story. Welcome to the Truckers Radio podcast. All right, we got Daniel, we got Thomas, we got Jason on here. We're going to talk about some of these accidents we've been having. This seems to be just a hot topic out here today. I hate to keep kicking at this, but a man, it just keeps happening. It keeps bringing it to our attention. Jason, you live up in the area around I 85. What do you think? I think it's crazy. The amount of truckers that are up here and what DOT in the state of Georgia has done in this area has really messed up the truck drivers as far as giving them places to park and turn around safely and everything else. But we had that wreck right here. In, commerce, Georgia, where, eight people so far are dead. As far as I know, they're still waiting to find out if a fetus is gonna be dead. And it really shuts down our entire town. Just one accident, we have two exits for this little town of ours, but, just one, destroys 85 up here in this area, being that close to South Carolina. North Carolina, close proximity to Atlanta. But what they've done in this town is, they took a four-lane road and put a damn concrete median right down the middle of it. And truckers can't get out. Drivers, they're not gonna let the trucks out'cause they don't wanna be stuck behind them, doing five miles an hour up and down hills and it's a shit show. It's what's happened and nobody wants to get off here now. And then you get accidents like this. We've seen accidents on an exit ramp to get off up here and get to the truck stops. And now we're seeing them at the ramps to get on the interstate. And it's a mess, man. It's bad for us, that don't drive trucks is bad for y'all that do drop the trucks. It's a bad situation. What's happened here. That stretch of, 85 up through there I believe Brazelton area pushed and Yes, all the way up to that commerce. There has been, it's almost yearly that there's construction major. Yeah. Oh, it stays under construction. They, yeah, they widened, they actually have widened I 85 up here to four lane each way, on both sides all the way up to South Carolina. I'm not sure if they've gone all the way up actually to South Carolina, but I know they're in progress. From that Brazelton exit, which is right outside, not far from 30 minutes, outside the parts of Atlanta. It's four lanes going into Gwinnett County, which is, the outside part of Atlanta. Widened it and there's truck stops all at Braselton. Jefferson, commerce has a couple. And then just, I think there's one right at the road from us up in, Carnesville, Georgia, where UPS is. But man, yeah, it's just, you throw that into the mix as well with all the crap. Did the, then a couple years ago there was a guy, I think he was going home and, was on the side of the road there. It wasn't far from his house, yeah, I've been up here for almost 20 years in this town, man. It's always something. And it happens usually, like I said, between Brazelton, Jefferson, and now commerce. This is the second horrible tractor trailer wreck that we've had the last probably two years. But you're constantly getting the people that drive, normal cars like me, and, the truckers. It's a constant battle because of what DOT and the counties have done of putting that concrete barrier. It's only the height of the curb. But it's all the way down and it's screwing the truck drivers over, to be honest. And then the drivers just don't wanna let y'all out anyway. But, me having a business and all that, I will not go up there towards 85. I will not take my equipment, my trailers. I will not go up that way because I don't wanna deal with the headache. People are going and having to turn around in gas station parking lots to come 4 41 south. It's that bad. Everything is just screwed up and turning around in Wendy's parking lots, just anywhere they can find racetrack, gas stations, they turn around in the parking lots. Those seem to be a very, dark to stretch a highway. And, Georgia, Florida they're real big about when they resurface the roads, that you always got that lip. Right there on the edge by the shoulder, and you hit that, it throws you off. Off, pulls you off to the right. It's hard to get back over. And you say that too. And you know we go, you say I take the family out to Longhorn or something. You know what's right across. You've been up here, Dan. You know what's right across the street from Longhorn. Isn't that the ta? Truck stop. Ta yes. The TA truck stop. And as lit up as that place is, there is no lighting whatsoever in the middle of that road. I've seen, or I've barely seen truck drivers trying to come from the TA to go get'em something good to eat. I've been to the truck stops, I've been up there. These guys. I give it to y'all, man. Y'all have a shit life, y'all eat crap and y'all drive that crazy hours and you're never home. I mean if anybody deserves a decent meal, I think it's the truckers and these cats are trying to cross the road. And some of'em, you see'em, some of'em you don't. Fortunately I don't think I've seen anybody hit by a vehicle, but man, the road I think it was a, Ville Petro, I think it was up there, Petro. It's easier to get in and outta flying J up there as well, but a few years since I've been up that way, yeah, the Flying J here, you can still get in and out of, but the ta you cannot, you are forced to turn right. You cannot pull out and take a left because there's a concrete medium and that's part of the issues is you're being forced to turn right and now you've pissed off a bunch of normal people driving, driving normal vehicles. You just don't know which way to go. You're traveling basically. Surface streets, back roads, and it's just, it's tearing shit up. And it's not y'all's fault, it's the county, it's the GOT, it stretches in it, actually, it's actually Banks county. It's not even Jackson, but all the wrecks are happening at Jack. At Jackson. At Jackson, yeah. Yeah. You to get off the exit. The way our county's intertwined, wrecks happen in Jackson, but the problem starts in banks, county, and they've just really screwed us up, man. And it pisses us off too, because like I said, we're forced to go all the way up 4 41 North and turn around in somebody's parking lot and then hope you'll have to fight to get out. And then we're stuck behind y'all. And it just adds to it, man. It's a, everybody got get into the stick off that, man. It was bullshit. What are they saying about that? You live up there. That the cause of that accident. Is there any details or The initial calls? Yeah, the initial calls, and I've been trying to follow it as much as possible. The initial cause was drunk driver was following too closely. That was the initial cause. I'm not sure what happened in front of the truck. Nobody has said anything about that. What caused the regular vehicle to hit the brakes? Nobody knows. Were they just being an ass? Were they, were there some, a legitimate reason for them to hit the brakes? We do know this area is, congested with the exit ramps, the entry ramps, everything else. That's the construction. That's, there's construction. It's further, a little bit further down, but you are gonna hit it. You're gonna hit some of that traffic. Especially in the daytime, during the week. What time of day was it Jason? Was it afternoon No, it was pure daylight. It was afternoon. Wow. Yeah. But you are heading into the construction area, so you are gonna get some backup, from the truck or from the regular vehicles. It's just inevitable. You're going to hit it. And like I said, but nobody is saying what the vehicle in front of the truck did. What caused them to hit the brakes? Nobody has said that. They have just said that he was following too closely. And from the reports that we have, or we've heard from police and fire, in both Jackson and Banks County, the truck driver never hit the brakes. Not one time did he hit'em, and then he caught on fire, another vehicle caught on fire. And so far, eight people are dead. Wow. And 30 cats missing. Unreal, 30 cats. They were hauling 90 cats and two vans from Georgia to Vermont and 30 cats ended up missing. I think they did find some, somebody was posting it on our county's Facebook page. We don't understand. I don't know if they're burnt, if they're whatever, but yeah, man. Two vehicles. One of'em was a van that caught on fire, but I do not know if that was the people that were killed, the eight people killed. That was in entire family. They were all, yeah, they were all family. We do know that. So I, like I said, I don't know if that was the van that was caught on fire. It is really, it's really bad. It's really hard to tell if that was even a van. With the amount of, I think it was what, six cars? Seven cars? Ah, yeah. I heard six, seven vehicles. Yeah, with the tractor trailer being a tanker, a fuel tanker. It caught on fire and caught another vehicle on fire too. The driver was, driver jail was a fuel tanker that, it was a fuel tanker. Yeah. He was a tanker. I'm assuming fuel. No, I don't, but he was a tanker. Was he caught fire? Yeah, I don't think it was a fuel tanker. It was a fuel tanker? No. If it had been a fuel tanker, it would been a hell of a lot worse than that. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Then a lot more people did, including that driver. Yeah. Yeah, the driver. He's in jail and charged with eight counts of, vehicle or homicide right now. Is he still in, Jackson County Jail or, yes, he is in Jackson County. He is not getting out. I don't think they're giving him bond on this one. I do not think so. And it is gotten to the point now people are not really talking about it around here, being close knit, we all know who the lawyers, who the judges are, everything else. Nobody is really talking about it at this point. Now this was an American driver, wasn't it? It was okay, right? Yeah. Talking about it. Legal? Yes. And not very old. I think he was, I wanna say he was like 30, 33, 35, something like that. Somewhere in mid thirties. So he wasn't very old, long. He'd been driving a truck for. I have no idea how long he's been driving. No idea, what his certifications were. We have nothing just other than, like I said, following too closely and everything's done over, man. That's one of the first things. Like I said though, and you can't really defend anything on this because you don't, like I said, we don't know the circumstances that happened in front of the truck driver other than following too close. Shit, I pull out onto the interstate and you don't matter. Perspective Jason, following too close is that, that's all that needed to be said right there. We know better and you follow too close to these trucks. They don't stop on a dime. 45 miles an hour, it takes a football field and a half to safely bring a truck to stop. You're running down, 85, at 65, 70 miles an hour you're in, you're following too close. That vehicle in front of you is a speed bump at that point. So yeah, the driver was probably, I think it's gonna come out. And Stacy, you probably agree and Thomas, he's probably distracted driving as well. That's what I about distract experience. I would, could it be that some idiot, in a normal vehicle just cut'em off? I try to give you guys room when I merge onto an interstate. If I see a truck coming, I'm slowing down. I'm gonna let the truck go. If I have enough time, then yeah, I'm gonna take it. As long as that truck has enough room, I'm just, I'm not an idiot. It just comes down to courtesy man. And it's courtesy for truckers. I've flashed truckers. Truckers have flashed me. Go ahead and go and and I even gotta the point where, man, I was, hit my hazards. I said, thank you for letting me out. If you like it, when y'all look down and look down at that floorboard and that pedal on the right, if you can just press on that and get on up there, absolutely. We'll let you in, we'll let you go but you wait until the last second. That's where the, we can't always get over. No doubt. There are will let you over. But there, there's some good stretches where there's, I know that area, we try to let four wheelers come in but it's some point, is that what y'all call it, the four wheelers? Amongst other things, but yes. That's awesome. That area alone is just such a high traffic area. It's trucks, cars coming and going. Yeah, it really is. You're, like I said, you're, we're, I think we're an hour from Atlanta, man. You're, we're only 30, 45 minutes to South Carolina state line. You have 45 minutes, I think to Greenville, Spartanburg. So it's a high traffic area. Yeah, there's a lot of, all the years highway, a lot of distribution centers here. All the years I drove up through there. It's odd there once you get past, the first Commerce exit, no wrecks and, but that's where they're happening now. So you've been up here, you know where the TA is here? Right there. 85 and 4 41. So if you come 4 41 or 85 South from Greenville to Commerce. And we've had a wreck on the entrance ramp to 4 41. The trucker never stopped and plowed right into the back end of vehicles. And now you've got this one where he just coming, I think he was coming off the interstate right there at it, and I was right into the back end of them. It's just those, you can't really blame on the county and DOT, but the mess that the county and DOT has created, it piss y'all off. It pisses us off, I mean it's really screwed up the truckers and I'm honestly surprised there's not as many wrecks now on 4 41, then there are 85. It's insane. But once you get past Brazelton, everything seems to chill out. Heading toward Atlanta. Everything seems to calm down. They've put so many distribution centers here. With these big companies, and I don't know if I'm supposed to name them, a lot of them have been popped up in Ohio at truck stops and rest areas and places like that. And I'm sure y'all know who that company is. There's two or three of their centers here. And then you've got a hardware company that's got a massive distribution center here. There's, you can't, you cannot drive through Jefferson. You cannot drive, as four wheelers, we don't wanna go through Jefferson anymore. It's nothing but tractor trailers. That's two exits up for me. 15 minutes. We don't want go there anymore because of the amount trailers. It's just, you don't feel safe, man. You really don't. And they haven't done what the county has done here by putting the medians in the road. They just, you just don't feel safe. But I don't feel safe with these band mediums. It's just, you screwed. Yeah. A lot of this, what I've touched on before is boils down to lack of training. We've had such an epidemic of lack of training over the last 10, 15 years. We're really catching the brunt of it right now. This guy right here, that's one of the first things they teach you is, hey, you stay back up off that car. This guy was 33 years old. I have no idea how long he'd been driving. Who knows? He no better man. That's just that boil on the common sense, I believe even in a car, to, Hey, somebody's got a common sense. Gotta take over somewhere. But, common sense is not that common anymore. I see it every day. Daniel sees it every day. Thomas sees it every day. You see it every day. We're all going down the road. You see this one truck, two trucks, three trucks. They're probably three foot off this car's ass. This is the problem. We've seen this time and time again is, honestly, Stacy, I see the US four wheelers on the truckers more than I see the truckers on the four wheeler on the car. But I'm sure, you see it more than I do, but I'm pulling a trailer that weighs four and 5,000 pounds with a F two 50. I've got the engine brake on, I've got it in tow haul. I've got, I wanna slow down. I don't want to hit another car. I don't want to hit the truck and I don't wanna be hit by one. But from what I see us hitting, bend up on the truckers. But like I said, you guys are truck drivers. Y'all see it more than I do. I just try to avoid, avoid the area where you guys are operating. Just, it's just a safety thing for me. Being a small business owner and pulling equipment and stuff like that, I just can stay outta your way. Y'all already have a shit into the stick up here, so there's really no point in me being involved with it. The bottom line you've got the truckers and I guess I pay more attention to the truckers than I do the four wheelers, and I'm not saying it's okay or giving a pass to the four wheelers to ride up on our ass or whatnot, but it's a hell of a lot less detrimental if you run into the back of us versus us running into the back of you. Okay. You're, when you're behind the wheel of an 18 wheeler, you're supposed to be a professionally trained CDL commercial driver's, license held driver. You're supposed to know what the hell you're doing. The bottom line, we got drivers out here and I hate to say it, I ain't trying to be a smart ass, but we got drivers out here that couldn't shove their thumb in their ass with two people pushing on it. And that's just the bottom line. And I ain't trying to be an ass about it, but that's just the fucking truth, stuff like this just makes me mad as hell. I see it all day long. I couldn't even walk between some of the trucks and the truck, up on each other. But come on man. What are you thinking? If that guy even lit up off the gas, where are you going to be? You're going to hit him, and this is right here. Here we go. Eight people and a fetus, and here's this. This goes to show you, we're not just picking on the non domicile drivers. This is an American driver. Done the same stupid shit. We call it out as we see it. It ain't about. Whether you're here or not, or this or that, this is, it is right or wrong right's. Wrong, it's wrong. And that's just the way I see it. People need to back up a little bit. I don't understand what goes through people's mind when they're riding three foot off with the car, three foot off another truck's bumper. But there's no good outcome there. None. That's true., That's on both sides and I'm glad you speak on both sides of it. We just call, just called as we see it, man. That's the way it should be, man. It is the truth, man. It is what it is. It's the truth, we as a professional driver, we ought to know better and they're right back again episode after episode. We hit on this lack of training, and shit rolls downhill. It goes back to these CDL meals and anything to put a driver in a seat, we escalate this, we create this. We got companies out there that they're head hunters. That's all they do. They put people in seats, they don't care. They run'em through a CDL mill. And we've got, unfortunately, a whole lot of American drivers that gets put in the seats. That doesn't qualify to drive just as much as some of the non domicile drivers do. We're not just trying to pick on one or the other. We're all supposed to be professionals out here, and I think we need to come together and do just that. Be professional. Quit riding up on people's ass. There's eight people right here, possibly nine, because we decide we wanna be a dumb ass right up on somebody's ass. Who knows what stopped in front of that guy, but should it even matter? He should be prepared for that. The following distance. That's, that is one thing I didn't say when I said that here today. Yeah. Was coming to you though is not common to me. Touched on that from my perspective. And I've been driving a long time. I know that, oh my God, I didn't break fast enough. I'm having to come to a hard stop. It takes a while to stop a truck, and I don't care if you've been driving for six months. Within six months, you're gonna learn that same aspect too. But it's like Stacy was to say, and sometimes you couldn't walk between the nose of a truck and the trailer. Some guy riding your butt like that, what is going through their mind that, if I blow a steer tire, now he's, I, sometimes I get on the CB and I'd be like, Hey driver, if you want to get on with my company, just, go to the.com site right there on the back of the trailer and put in an application. Driving through the back end of my trailer is not the way to get on. It is just, there's a lack of common sense. There's way too many distractions even, we can call'em CDL mills and things like that. Whether they teach you in those CDL mills or not to pay attention, that should be something we should all know. I just, yeah, I'd like to know how this, I'd like to know how this guy drove his regular personal vehicle, to be honest with you. Now thinking about all this and exactly the way he drove that truck. That's where I was gonna go next. I think, Thomas, Stacy, y'all guys will agree. Anybody listening to this podcast that's been driving any length of time, that's what we're seeing with the new drivers. At least that's what I'm seeing out of new drivers, is they get in these trucks and driving car. And how much weight are y'all hauling? How much? Or 53 foot what? 53 foot truck. So that's the truck. The trailer with? With the trailer. 75 feet. With a truck trailer. And how much weight in that trailer? Five loads in the trailer. So anywhere from 70 pounds on a good day, that's a shit ton of weight. It don't stop like a car. Yeah. But people do see those, they see 18 wheels, 18 sets of brakes, just like we got all these thick mirrors. You can see everything, They think that's the mentality. I'm glad that Stacey's got somebody on here that's actually not a truck to get this perspective. But, we talked about it, I remember years ago, talking with drivers where we thought that, maybe before you get a driver's license, you might have to spend a week or two in the truck. That actually makes sense because, I'm sitting here looking back at my life. I'm 53? So I've been driving for a while, professionally in a four wheeler. And I look back at my life of all the times that I've drafted behind a tractor trailer, they on Surface Street, that are actually moving on the interstate. And I, you looking back, you know that they couldn't see us and little sports cars, little trucks, stuff like that. Being as close as we could possibly get just to save that fuel mileage and draft them. All it would take was them hitting the brakes and we'd be up underneath them and they'd never feel it, I'm sure. Looking back and being older and having a family and having children, I like to think that my oldest child, drives wonderfully, I don't know what kind of inspections y'all do. I don't know what a pre-trip inspection entails, I do know she was driving down I 40 coming from Toledo, Ohio to home, and the wheel of the tractor trailer came off, not the tire, it was the actual wheel, came off and hit the front end of her car. Had she been going three miles an hour faster, she wouldn't be here. It would've went through the driver's side windshield and it would've killed her. The truck never stopped. It was dark and they're cruising. We're seeing that a lot up here now the truckers are driving more at night because of less traffic, especially away from Atlanta. They're moving at night versus daytime. And I'm looking at the vehicle right now. Fortunately it's a good vehicle and it's got steel plates on it, but it got her home. She got home safely and, scared to death. And that's understandable. But, I, like I said, I don't know what a pre-trip inspection entails, but you would think it didn't entail something like that. Check your damn tires, man. I've seen cats down in Florida, looking at their tires and shit like that. I've seen tractor trailer tires. They look like they're damn peeling off. Like a retread or something. You could check all your lug nuts. Make sure they're tight, not loose. Probably. What happened? He had a loose lug nuts wheel came off. Where's the tire? The tire wasn't there. So, where was that missed? Would the tire fall off the fire? I just, no, this, it's crazy. My tire can come off all day long, but my wheel's gonna stay attached to my truck. No, I mean that, that makes sense. So did somebody not check their tire and not check their lug nuts for that to happen? Was it, I can't make it make sense. I don't drive a truck. So was it the whole wheel or just the tire came off? It was the wheel with no tire on it. Oh, wow. Wow. Just the metal. No, no rubber, no nothing. Just a wheel. The tire go, damn. That's what it's been off for a while. Was that. Alright, so you guys are truckers something, is that failed, missed Tripp, pre or pre-trip planning? Is that failed or is it just like a road hazard? Is that, how does this work? It could be both. It could be a pre trip or a freak accident. Almost kind feel like it may have failed off of a tire rack or something like that. They had it up on a tire because underbelly of the trailer. Yeah, where they keep spares or something, I mean if that would've been a tire that was mounted with a wheel, it really don't make a lot of sense. Your daughter may not be here, right? Yeah, I had a buddy of mine that's just crazy, man. I had a buddy of mine, he had a tire. I've never seen anything like that. Yeah, he had a tire come off, hit the front of his Peterbilt. We're talking about a Peterbilt versus an SUV and it totaled his Peterbilt and I can just imagine what it would do. It broke the engine block of a Cummins. If it would've been a tire in a whole rim, you might've been in trouble, or she might've been. I've seen videos online and cars have hit wheels like that and it sends the cars airborne. Flip some over. I had an account salesman, when I had the brokerage in Pennsylvania, he had a company car and he hit a tire that was just laying in the middle of the road. It was flat, it already came off, come to a stop and it was laying in the right lane. He had turned about 75 mile an air and it kind halted. The pickup of it was big crew cab Silverado up and hit the damn bridge, but in, totaled it. Damn near killed his ass, and it was just laying in the room just from hitting a tire. Oh yeah. It got up under a tire wheel and tire on. It was off of 18 wheeler. Oh yeah. It was a whole wheel. And it just basically shot him up in the air and he hit the concrete, made him lose control and hit the concrete bridge button there and just totaled dent or killed him, and later on down the road, they found the guy down the road, whole set of wheels come off, he did looking around like a, oh, I don't know what happened. And you see that time and time again, guys get out. They don't do no damn pre-trip. They get out, they go get a cup of coffee, they hit the key switch, and away they go. They just don't do pre-trip, and I think they just think that when you pass the CDL, everything's good in the hood. I look my car over when I'm on a road trip, i've found myself doing that. Geez. It's crazy. It is detrimental. You blow a tire on a car, let alone an 18 wheeler, you blow a steer tire on a car, man, that's hard to handle. And not get outta control. 70, 75 miles an hour going down the interstate. You gotta pay attention. I don't know if we just live the life in denial or whatever it is that we go through or whatnot, or we're just the last of the generation with any kind of common sense. But I doubt because, hell, I've got friends a hell of a lot younger. Thomas is a lot younger than us. He drives, he does hell of a good job, but it goes back to Thomas's training. Thomas learnt the ropes. He was taught, he was trained. He learned, and a lot of people don't understand, and I think this is on the driver too, is once you come off the trainer's truck, they automatically think, Hey, I'm good. I'm Mr. Truck driver. Don't tell me nothing. I got a CDL. That's bullshit.'cause you don't stop learning. You don't stop learning. That's a pre person. And Donna's had a good trainer too. I'm going, we're gonna leave. We're gonna leave that trainer. I said I don't think I need to ask that one. We're gonna leave that one one out. I clarifying that one. Stacy. We're gonna, we're gonna leave that one out, that call up there. But regardless of the fact, he had other re influences besides your ass, Daniel. But, regardless of the fact, you gotta have an open mind to learn. Thomas had an open mind. A lot of kids out here, they get that CDL in their pocket. I've seen it a million times back when I used to train. All the time they get on the truck, you couldn't tell'em shit. They didn't wanna hear nothing. I got a CDL, I can go anywhere I want to go. All right, we'll take your ass and go on. The training don't stop for the next couple of years. You're really going to have to learn. And then after that, guess what? You're gonna spend a lifetime learning because they ain't no, they ain't no foolproof answer to truck driving. It's an ever-changing world out here. You learn every day. So you see something new. I see something new that I didn't think somebody could screw up every day telling you every day, you got to learn. This is a revolving world in trucking. Something new comes up every day. You got to learn is an ever changing world. You've never got this tiger by the tail. And I think that's the biggest mistake people do out here is they think, oh, I've been driving for 30 years. You know what? I've been driving for 30 years. I still get my ass out and go, look, I still get up every morning. I do a damn pre-trip. Check everything, check all my vehicle over, raise the hood up, check my lights. You know what I don't like. I don't enjoy getting pulled into the scales. I don't know about you, but you know what I like? I enjoy having my shit together. I don't want to go down the road and lose a tire and try to explain that shit. That's a little embarrassing. Yeah, that's, yeah, I was noticing, a lot of things here lately, that a truck stopped the other day. By the morning. Everybody's getting up, getting their coffee, watching some of the guys doing their pre-trial, watching a lot of guys not doing their pre trips. There was a foreign guy beside me, I know he was from an Arab nation, I'm not sure which one. Got up, basically brushed his teeth in the parking lot, took off driving, didn't bother to check, see if his lights were working, didn't bump his tires, any of that. And and then now I hear, I guess there was another big wreck up here in Indiana. An undocumented driver. I think from what I was reading on it, he was on a suspended license, but he was using his brother's, driver's license, a regular driver's license while he was driving, and I believe he killed several people. You say regular driver's license? Like my driver's license? Yeah. Like a regular driver's license? Yep. It wasn't even his And, he was a non domicile driver. Where was that? Was it Portage, Portage or somewhere Indiana. Have you read about that no, I was just looking through the reports here. I'm not seeing that one anywhere, but I think I did hear something about it. But sometimes some of the stuff depending on the town, the state go, slip through the crack sometimes. But that, gotta give the guy creativity, it looked like a commercial driver's license if you didn't read it. If I couldn't read English or anything like that, or wouldn't give a shit, hell, why not? Hell, I could pass it off I'm pretty sure after he killed those people though, they it didn't work for him. Didn't pass, but I get it. I'm just being facetious there a little bit. It is, why not, everybody else doing all kinds of shit out here. Why have we got the Wild West out here right now. We got non domicile drivers. Hell, we got the Wild West. It's all coming to a head and, not trying to be an ass, but we need this crack down. There's a whole lot of unqualified people out here, running up and down the road that, don't know how to do the job. They just wing it and wing it. It ain't good enough anymore. Boys winging it just ain't good enough. Yeah. I will say this, if you don't mind me to interject, Stacy. When I was down in Florida two weeks ago, maybe, I stopped at arrest area along with tractor trailers, everything else I see people get out and go to the restroom, stretch, do their thing. And Dan mentioned, Arab drivers and that's, I know that it was that horrible wreck down in the turnpike with the, what dude from California didn't even have a license or got a free license. Some bullshit like that. I did see an Arab driver. He got out, he was checking all, every one of his damn tires, truck trailer, you name it. He walked around them. But then I see these American drivers get right back in their truck. They're gone. They're not sticking around. They're gone. But those cats get around and I actually sat there and watched it.'cause I knew about the turnpike. I'd already seen it on the news and you course you see it all over social media and it was, and I was, it's horrible. But, I see this cat and he's the only one checking his equipment, checking the tires. And that actually made me feel a lot safer, but then I look over and I see American drivers and your husband and wife team or whatever, get right back in the truck and they're gone. They didn't check anything. A little crazy, but they just, gotta be a professional ability about this industry and I think we've lost a lot of that. And I know at that point in time there's probably a lot of heat on the non saw drivers, so I'm sure they probably were making sure that they had everything together. And I get it, but it still doesn't give a pass to the other drivers that just, if I stop anywhere, I get out and walk around, just walk around the truck, man. You gotta realize this is part of what you get paid to do. You all know the American truck driver is not necessarily paid for all of his time, but the place to make it up ain't in safety. It really, ain't in safety. And I think we feel like sometimes if we're underpaid, we're underappreciated,, and it leads all into a no hole, another hole, rabbit hole. You could go down and it, when you're treated as a professional, you tend to operate as a professional. And I think it's one of these things that kind of rolls downhill. It has a whole lot to do with training. Sometimes it has to do with state of mind, mental state of mind. The driver gets any, he don't give a shit. He just trying to make money. He just trying to survive. And then you get to where a guy, he don't care because when he gets to that shipper that he's drove all night to get there, they're gonna talk to him like he's two years old. You're going to treat him, not let him use the bathroom. You, facilities. I went in. Oh, y'all got a bathroom. Not for you. They'll look at you dead in your eyes and not for you. What am I supposed to do? Like I'm unhuman. The way we get treated, sometimes you start to fall between the cracks. You start getting with a point to where, you know what? You don't give a shit if you do that pre-trip or not, but that ain't no excuse. You got a job to do as a professional driver. But it does play on your mind and your psyche. You get down on the industry, you get down on yourself. We have a problem that is 10 miles wide and it is going to take a group effort to change this, and it's gotta start all the way around. Gotta start with the training. It's gotta start with people's attitude toward truck drivers, because people get to the point where they don't care. We're treated like shit. You know what, why should we care? That's their attitude. I take pride in being a professional driver on a daily basis out here. And I know Daniel does, Thomas does. But yeah, it only takes so much living on the road to the point to where, hey, you don't give a shit anymore. We don't really get paid. I would say a third of what it really is worth for the hours we put in, the months, and I'm gonna say months.'cause most drivers are out here months at a time, month, two months at a time. But then you got a company fighting you every step of the way. You tell'em, Hey, I need to be home. Let's, it is a poker game whether you get home or not. They don't give a shit about your hometown. It's all about that truck. Them wheels rolling. You're less than a human in their eyes. And that's something that I feel like needs to change as an industry whole. When you're looked at as a less than a human, you're treated like a second or third class citizen and then expected to do the job of a guy that's bringing his a game that don't always work. There's a whole lot of problems and you know what, I get into the drivers that follow too close and this and that, but as a industry whole, we got a hell of a problem. And it don't just start with us. It starts with a whole lot of the industry. Yeah. I was seeing another accident. This happened last Tuesday in Tennessee, two trucks following two close, loud into each other. One of them ended up on top of a, Chevy Silverado with a young man that was, he was the one killed in the accident. But yeah, truck rear ended. The other one sent him right up on top of that pickup truck. I seen that today. I got the notification on that on the way home today. Yeah. I honestly, that one had just actually slipped my mind. Yeah, you're right. I seen that today. It was this, that the rotator had it picked up off of the truck and you could see the car underneath there. You, to start with, you couldn't really even tell. But there again, why are we following this close? That's a very simple. Thing to fix, get back off the other guy. I know your patience. Can I ask a question? Yes sir. Can I, do you think and this applies to, I guess to all three of y'all, and I'm guessing Stacy and Dan, you guys have more experience talking about the training for Thomas. Do you find that having to chase rates and get that best rate and get those loads, do you find that it, where that puts the pressure on y'all to where it makes truckers just not give a shit? Like we gotta get that there to get that money so that we can get the next load, get to the next stop while, so forth and so long until y'all can make it home with a dime in your pocket. There's the safety parts, and being treated like shit, like you were saying, being treated less than human. By the people you're delivering to and everything else. Like you said, everything plays a factor in it, but do you think the over the roads, they're staying out two and three months, trying to make money for their families, that just plays a factor in the safety. Like they just absolutely don't give a shit.'cause they gotta get it there. Absolutely. Right down to the condition of the vehicles, the brakes, the tires, the whole nine yards, maintenance oil changes that you're exactly right. It plays a hell of a part. I think at the end of the day too, that's a shitty situation for you guys to be in, but at the end of the day, it boils down to you to go walk that truck. Yeah. And make sure your stuff is right so that you don't kill somebody not in a truck or in a truck even. It just. That's so much pressure that's put on y'all just so I can go to the store and buy something that to me is not right. I don't think that's fair. You're exactly right. Because I'm getting, and coming outta respect, we were going to dinner tonight and my 9-year-old daughter sitting in the back seat rolls down the window right next to a tractor trailer going from a grocery store or from a regional grocery store based out of North Carolina. She rolls down the window and does the old, if you were a kid, you gotta give that little fist bump. The old fist bump thing. And hor crap, man. She, the lights were routing my truck, it's dark. And he leaned forward. He saw her and he wheeled that horn, man. And that was awesome because that just goes back to like my childhood man. Yeah. We got the window down, we're gonna see how many trucks we can get to honk and Oh yeah, you going on a trip or something? How many can we get? That was cool, man. That just my day. Good point, man. About the, the rates and the things that, the reasons why we, through some, you know, custom corners here and there. You got these trucks to pay for, the cost of fuel. Everything's a factor. You can't get the loads there on time. The brokers won't use you. It's a combination of everything. And, I don't understand it. It doesn't take more than a few minutes. At least, do a walk around, check your lights, check your tires, the things that DO t's gonna see when you come across those scales, the obvious, at least do that. You might notice something, along the way, but, like those loose lug nuts or. That tire tread that's about to come off or something like that. It's almost like we play Russian roulette, it's okay, I know I got a bad tire. I've been sitting here all night on a 10 hour break. I probably could've got it changed, lost a little bit of sleep, but I'll change, I'll get it done at the end of this load. Next thing you know, you blow the tire down the road. Now you're waiting three, four hours for roadside to come out. You're paying two, three times as much for that tire. I think it's best just to take care of it in the beginning and do what you gotta do. And we are restricted a lot too with electronic logs. We can only drive for so long. It's not the old days where you can keep two three log books and teach your way through it, but if we went back to that, they would make it even harder and harder for us. You'd see drivers out here going on. Hello. Done. Oh. Stacy, you remember the day you drive from New Jersey to California in two days by yourself? No, I remember them days, that's for sure. Yeah. We got a, and back to what you were talking about right there, you got an excellent point because think about it, and I've always often looked at, the dispatchers, the operations managers, the broker, everybody goes home every night. They don't give a rat's ass what you're doing. Most of'em probably drive nice cars. BM Ws, this, that, except for the truck driver. We're getting rates right now today that I used to get in the nineties, but yet we're paying double, triple, quad, triple for few. We're paying quad triple for maintenance, tires, parts, trucks. Hell, I remember I bought a 2003 classic brand new, I give$92,000 to that truck. Had a big cat in it. Beautiful truck, decked out carpet. A beautiful truck, 93,000. I mean you paid double that today for a truck, double for a trailer. But yet we're still getting the same kind of rates. Everybody's, oh, that$2 market, two 50, two and a quarter. Hell, I was getting that back in the day, in the nineties, late nineties. I was getting that early two thousands. I was getting that. It's like that rate never changes, but it's up to us to fang Air cost, run air truck efficiently. Squeezing every ounce of fuel mileage and throwing out, we cut back, we cut our living expenses for our family to make that work, to make that. And yeah, you're right Jason. It plays a hell of a part in everything when we are out here on this road. To me, if I had to sacrifice safety, I'd hang it up. I'd find something else to do. I go sell furniture or something. I'm not gonna sacrifice safety. That's gotta get there. Buy a tractor trailer too. Yeah. And not to mention, that's the bad thing that everything relies on you guys. You're right. To make sure my family's fed. I've gotta have y'all there with the up and coming.com. Online orders the whole nine yards. You've got Amazon, we went from the brick and mortar stores to a whole lot more of the LTL, the truck. The freight industry has changed, so we need a lot more. We're still not flexing the rates. Everybody takes, everybody raises their rates except for the truck driver. Truck driver. Oh no we won't pay that. Everybody else dictates the rates to the truck drivers. To the truck driver dictating the rates to the industry. That's the way it's always been until we start educating some of our drivers and saying, no, quit hauling that shit for that.'cause as long as you do it, they're gonna keep expecting you to do it. They know most of these guys, when they book loads, they ain't got a clue. They don't know what that lane needs to pay. They don't know how to negotiate. You gotta negotiate because that broker, he's going to give you his bottom dollar. He going to low ball you every time just to see if you'll do it. And if you say, all right, send it to me, it ain't necessarily his fault'cause you're the dumb ass that did it. And that's what creates, and the next time that load comes available, he's going to expect another guy just like you to do it for the same price. Sometimes we need to know how to negotiate the rate to know what we're worth, and that kind of plays into the way we're treated. It is hard to know what you're worth when you're told you're a third class citizen. Yeah. That's messed up. That makes people like me that don't drive a truck, appreciate it more than my food's gotten there safely. Just, or whatever I order, be it from the.com stores or from our local grocery store. The amount of shit that y'all have to go through, just so my family said while you're trying to see yours as well. Imagine what the world would be like or this country would happen. If we shut down, if every truck driver or out three quarters of us shut down for three weeks, it'd be total anarchy. I was gonna say 30 days. Yeah. 30 days we're screwed. We are absolutely screwed. When Helene came through and hit North Carolina, that drug primary grocery store? Yeah. We're, our stores are based out NC and it really put a hurting on them. They were having to get food from other companies to deliver to the stores and fortunately the back up and running, but unfortunately, we really can't afford to shop there now with your fuel prices and, I pay'em too, but you got fuel prices and everything else. I'm just not on the timeline like you guys are and that, that sucks. The thing about this is, it is the same concept. If you're an owner operator, you're a company driver. I think people just automatically start to look at us as, we're just lessing human. Oh, this is what, one of the biggest things I hear all the time, Hey you knew what you were signing up for when you signed up to drive a truck. Okay, I get that. But honestly, no, I didn't. I didn't know I was going to get treated. To the degree that I get, that I have been treated out here over the road. Until you learn to stand up and say, Hey, we don't work that way. This ain't gonna work. I'm human just like you. I couldn't tell you the countless places that I've been in over the years. Oh no, we don't have bathrooms for you. Okay you're expecting me to sit in your dock for hours, but you don't have any kind of facilities for me to go relieve myself. That's jacked up. Sounds like 1964 all over again. Yeah. No, I won't, I've never walked into, or never will walk into a Bucky because of the way that they treat truck drivers and, yeah I get it that, some of us don't show a lot of class or respect, when they're throwing out fist bottles and bags of shit everywhere. But, maybe if we were allowed into a nicer facility like that, we might treat it a little bit nicer. But yeah, it's not just the shippers, it's not the con nees. It's the, it's places like Bucky's in general and everywhere else. We're not allowed to park in certain parking lots. We're running out of truck stops and rest areas. We got RVs taking up our spots. Guys in pickup trucks that go the wrong way in the rest area. Oh, look at this long spot. I'll just park right here, and take a nap for a few hours. That truck driver that's running outta hours now, he is got nowhere to sleep. But in a sense, it is a group effort. We have to be responsible for our own dignity and the way we carry ourselves, and we have to demand the respect by also carrying ourself with respect. People's not gonna respect somebody that's not being respectable. It goes both ways, now if I'm carrying myself with respect, which I always do, and then I get dis and then I have a claim to say, Hey, hold on a minute. We're not going to do this. You're not going to treat me any different than you expect to be treated. Then I have a claim to stay in my ground. But you can't go in there acting like a barbarian and expect to be treated. Like a first class citizen that don't work either. And I'm not saying that truck drivers need to go in and just act like a tto ass demand respect when they're acting like a t toed ass. Hey, it works both ways. You gotta carry yourself with respect to get respect, that works so much better in most cases. But, there's a lot of these industries out here that they don't have bathrooms, they don't have facilities. Everybody wants their stuff and then get off of their property. I get responsibility and places to park. But you also gotta understand if you ordered the goods and you wanted it. Right now, a window of opportunity there that has to be fulfilled, for the driver, if he runs that overnight, hey, you gotta understand he's probably going to be outta hours before he gets there, and by the time he gets there, he's not going to be able to leave your facility. And I've seen Tom and Tom again. We don't care. That's your problem. Not really. You order the goods and you wanted it overnight and it took exactly the hours I had available to run that load now you want me to leave your property? There's something wrong with this picture. And I think there need to be some regulations from the federal DOT put into place to protect this drivers from this kind of actions.'cause you know, they want us to run by the book and I have no problem with that, but. We have to violate our log book sometimes to do our job, which puts us into vulnerable situations where the minute we pull out on that street of some little old lady ends up pulling out in front of us and we end up killing her. Well, we're, we're gonna go to jail. We're gonna go to prison for that. You know, they're gonna walk scot free, and I think they need to be held liable there in a big way. Because they're putting us at risk by acting the way that they do. Everybody says, oh, well, you know, you should manage your time better. Well, let's, let's see you do it because it is a very tough thing to manage that time and the manner that we have to, to make the world go round. But we're gonna wrap it up here for the Truckers Radio Podcast. We'll see you again next week. Thank you for tuning in. You’ve been listening to The Trucker’s Radio Podcast, powered by Sabren Group LLC, and hosted by Stacey Yearout. At Sabren Group, we’re proud to stand beside America’s drivers offering owner-operator consulting, mental health support, relationship and trauma recovery coaching, and the kind of real talk this industry needs. To share your story, ask a question, or get connected, visit TheTruckersRadioPodcast.com or email TheTruckersRadioPD@gmail.com Until next time stay safe, stay strong, and keep those wheels turning. This is The Trucker’s Radio Podcast, the voice of the American driver.