Mike McCarron (Ace) discusses the differences between the old guard (Legacy Carriers) and the new upstart carriers (new carriers).
We dive deep into the differences and what you should look out for.
John Farquhar
Summit Risk Solutions: summitrisksolutions.ca
1 226 802-2762
John@summitrisksolutions.ca
Chris Harris
Safety Dawg Inc: safetydawg.com
Chris@SafetyDawg.com
1 905 973 7056
Keeping it Safety Dawg Simple!
#trucksafety #truckinsurance #truckpodcast
Mike McCarron (Ace) discusses the differences between the old guard (Legacy Carriers) and the new upstart carriers (new carriers).
We dive deep into the differences and what you should look out for.
John Farquhar
Summit Risk Solutions: summitrisksolutions.ca
1 226 802-2762
John@summitrisksolutions.ca
Chris Harris
Safety Dawg Inc: safetydawg.com
Chris@SafetyDawg.com
1 905 973 7056
Keeping it Safety Dawg Simple!
#trucksafety #truckinsurance #truckpodcast
Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Trucking Risk and Insurance podcast with your host, Chris Harris of Safety Dawg, and myself, John Ware of Summit Risk Solutions. Today we wanna thank Mike McLaren. He's come back to join us again. Hot topic going on. He just recently wrote an article for today's trucking, and we're gonna get into talking about that. So let's join in with, uh, Chris. And Mike. Hey. So we've got this great show going on here as everybody knows. And, uh, we got Mike back because, uh, we're, we're gonna talk a little bit about, uh, trucking again. And you've just recently wrote an article, uh, about two tiers of trucking company type operations out there. So tell us, tell us about this. Cause I've read it and, uh, Wow. It's so true to the word. It's, it's not funny. So let, let's nater
Mike McCarron:about that. Well, thanks John. Thanks Chris. Have a great holiday, Chris. Oh, I will. I know you'll have a great time.. So I, I was asked, I was asked earlier this summer by the, uh, Uh, tt, s a o to chat about, uh, the industry and, and really they left it pretty open to me making sense of the trucking industry, which I thought, Hey, I'd been at this in 40 years, so I could do this with my eyes closed. Mm-hmm.. But as I started looking at things, I started realizing, you know, not only how much this business has changed, how much it's continuing to change, and just how much chaos is in the market today., there's a lot of unanswered questions. There's a lot of uncertainty, and what really hit me as I tried to put this all together to really understand it for big picture, was you're really dealing with two very distinct trucking industries now in the Canadian truck industry. You've got the Legacy Cares in which I beat a part of. All my buddies are part of all my, uh, Drinking buddies are part of, uh, older carriers, uh, often with family roots, uh, fairly wealthy. A lot of real estate holdings. Kids don't want the business. Mm-hmm. kids all have, kids, all have Ivy League degrees. Uh, Most of 'em don't want trucking and, and frankly, they're selling in droves. And our, in the, one of the business, I'm a director, Left Lane Associates, we're selling legacy carriers every month. And, and the thing about them is that there's very few Canadians, traditional Canadians starting trucking covers today. It's, it's just not happening. I couldn't, I couldn't name one, one in, in 20 years. Yeah. Uh, conversely, you've got, uh, to fill that gap. You've got a group of newcomers, uh, whether it be newcomers to trucking, newcomers to Canada. I saw this trend starting about 15 years ago when I still own MSM Transportation. Uh, we, we've all seen it, uh, uh, grow. Uh, I don't know the exact numbers, but, uh, They were staggering how many new trucking companies started during Covid? Most of them by newcomers. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, they, they op they operate very differently. Very differently. Mm-hmm., they operate different markets and I think the thing that's most of rock to me is they actually are direct competitors because the legacy carriers, uh, they dominate the top or hundred, their subsidies dominate. They're known to be the safest operators, and their customers are contract customers. They go directing customers. You look at those contract customers and, and and the threat levels. Yes. Other legacy carriers are providing threats, but the biggest threats coming from for legacy carriers is actually freight brokers and third parties. Yeah. Big power, big powerful ones who thrive in the newcomer market. The new cover market almost exclusively services a third party market, which is direct competitors to legacy carriers. And that's what I find to be very, very interesting in.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Can you explain the threat of the, the load broker? I'm not quite clear on that.
Mike McCarron:Well, you know, load the load broker businesses evolved into big business. These big master three pls, they have scale. They have technology, they have visibility all throughout the supply chain. They have bells and whistles. They're, they're, they, they, then they have direct Salesforce and they're, they're big. There's, there's, I don't even know how many brokers are in Canada, but the rally is, there's a lot of big, powerful brokers. Now you have some, in fact, this is what's really ironic. Some of the largest brokers are actually hiding behind the brands of legacy carriers. So yeah. It's every one of 'em has got a massive brokers department hiding their brand. So, um, these third parties rely on newcomer cares. And, and I'll give you a live example. I, I resigned from left Lane. I, I still own the company. I'm still board directors, but, but I resigned because frankly it was just too much work for me. It was way, all the things I, I didn't want, I was getting again. So I passed it over to my partner and I started, uh, Freight brokerage business essence with my son Patrick. And, and you think all the contacts that I have in trucking, um, I don't think we, we move won shipment with, with one of those carriers, uh, a legacy carrier because it's just that the rates are higher. They, they don't really relish freight brokers business and that's okay. And, but my point is, without newcomer carers, it would be very hard to be, it would be impossible to be in business as. As a third party. Mm-hmm.. Mm-hmm.. Chris Harris, Safety Dawg: And is there Well, they're, they can be interested to deal with, um, that's for sure. They have some different business practices. Um, not as savvy. Uh, I gotta be careful, I say, but, uh, use it's def it's definitely interesting, but there's no downside other than you've gotta kiss. No different. When I started msm, you have to kiss a lot of frogs to get the prints, so there's a lot of really good newcomer carriers, but there's a lot of real bad newcomer carriers. Mm-hmm. too. No different. No different than when I started msm, you know, 30 years
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:ago. Well, the reason I was asking, you'd mentioned legacy carriers and a couple of times linked. To legacy carriers was safety. You had said, you know, safety and legacy carriers kind of in the same sentence. And when I hear you talking about the newcomer carriers, uh, that word wasn't uttered. And of course you're talking to two safety guys. So I, I pick up on that and I'm wondering, um, you know, are the newcomer carriers struggling with safety? Um, Or was that just my imagination when I picked, Uh, am I trying to make things up that don't, aren't really there?
Mike McCarron:No, I, I don't think you're making, I don't think you're picking, I think you are picking up on something. So I don't think that you can actually get stats by who's causing the accidents. Newcomer cares, legacy cares, but I think that it would be, I think it's pretty obvious that you can make a correlation of the fact that the highway stats are suffering, the numbers are trending in the wrong direction. Mm-hmm., number of fatalities per truck access, number of access for trucks. And I think a lot of that does point to the newcomer carriers because I think that in a lot of cases they, they're, they're not as experienced. Often they don't have the balance sheets to fund safety programs. I think a lot of them are playing the short game cuz they're brand new. And frankly I think a lot of the promise, starting with this notion of, in Ontario for example, where. A truck driver needs to be trained for 103.5 hours. Now, whoever came up with that number, I, I'd love to go back. Yes. But, but, but I, but I get the sense that, uh, I get the sense that people are just being trained long enough to get their license. And I've had several instances with large distribution centers. They actually have shutters. On staff full time because a lot of the newcomer carriers or drivers can't back the truck into, into the, into the yard. So I think there is a direct correlation, Chris, that's just instincts and mm-hmm., the math. And I don't think anyone's gonna say, you know, what those numbers are, but I do recall seeing something that Toronto Star expose from the OTA that the number of incidents with newcomer, uh, cares is far higher. Uh, When the trucks get pulled over. The number instance, I just, I gotta be careful because I don't have those mats. Yeah,
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:no. But yeah, to me it makes sense because as you said earlier, they don't have, the newcomer carriers just aren't as experienced yet. Mm-hmm.. And it's like anybody, if I got a new trucking license, I might have more crashes than an experienced guy. Cause I'm not as experienced yet. Well, the same thing for management of a trucking company. When you're new. Um, as you said earlier, maybe they're watching the bottom line a little tighter and just don't have the resources to do everything, um, that the legacy carriers can do.
Mike McCarron:Yeah, I agree
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:percent. I agree. I, I was gonna say, I, I can add to some of that because I, I go out and I see a lot of motor carriers. I, I do a lot of risk evaluations on behalf of different insurance companies as well as motor carriers themselves. And probably, uh, two, two aspects that I'm seeing quite frequently in the, in the new enter market is you're seeing a fellow. Or a person who has uh, maybe been an owner operator for a motor carrier and decided, Hey, I wanna start my own business. And, and now they're a hundred trucks, you know, and it's only taken them a few years cuz the opportunity's been there. The unfortunate aspect is that person. Only has the knowledge of an owner operator, not of the exact rules. And I was a safety professional director would ever be. And they realize I've gotta hire some people, but they're not hiring qualified people because, well, that costs a lot more money than just hiring a body to put into that role. And then the other, um, type of, uh, New entrant that I'm finding is somebody who has zero experience in the trucking industry in this third. Wow. I could make a lot of money in the trucking industry. This is pretty cool. I'm seeing it. People come together and start trucking companies and have deadly squat for transportation experience and it's like, cool. You can put in a really neat system to run this trucking company. Hang on. You don't even understand the risks and the exposures related to this. And they're not, again, putting out the resources that they need to hire the right people to help educate them on what they need to know to be safe, compliant, operate a good operation and whatnot. And I think what we're seeing is a lot of these guys are behind the eight ball in this approach. And the focus seems to be, I gotta make. I can't hire somebody till I make more money to pay for that person. And then it's like, Hey, you know what? We're making good money. We haven't had any issues. Uh, I don't think I need to hire that person right now. We'll wait till something happens. Well, by the time something happens now it's too late and we should have hired somebody long ago. So, because once we have some one problem, we have another, we have another. And it just snowballs from.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:It, it would be interesting. Um, I wonder if the insurance industry, each individual company, if they had any stats on, uh, legacy carriers versus the new carriers. And I haven't, you know, having worked for one, I know we didn't track it that way, but that was
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:more than 10 years ago. Yeah. I worked, yeah, I worked for two and I know we didn't track anything like that either. So Yeah, I, Mike, I, I have my doubts, but it would be a good idea.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Are you aware of anything like that?
Mike McCarron:No, I'm really not. But I think people are just starting to become aware of, Yeah, what I wrote about is not, was not insightful, it was just stating the facts. But I think people are just starting to realize that they are really distinct and to your, The point Job was making, and I think it's important is that. Two things. I think when people start out, they're worried about making payroll next week, they're, they're not worried about, uh, they're not worried about, uh, about safety. Uh, you get a situation where spot market rates are down about 30, 40%. Over Covid, which is why newcomer, why brokers are using, because their rates are so much lower. But you know, that's a challenge. And I think the biggest thing I found in my experience in trucking is that safety starts at the talk all you want about safety. But when the sales manager comes down and say, Screw those two hours, go to the customer, it just breaks everything. So it really is a cultural thing. I know when I talk to the people at Xtl about this on the per hour side of things, they say they really believe that the culture part attracts the right type of driver. And I just don't think, I just think they're, they're so. Inexperienced, a lot of these newcomer carriers mm-hmm., they just don't think, They really don't think about it. They do not think about it. But I must tell you, when I see someone that has troubled backing into a door mm-hmm., which is probably the safest and easiest thing a driver could do, a four year old could do it. And I think of drivers barreling down the Highway 404 0 1 Cher, where it's all construction and it's Oh, yes,
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:yes.
Mike McCarron:Wow. Wow. And, and I must say it, and you know, I have the stats in my brain and, and the driving is a lot more unsafe than it was 10 years ago. And I think a lot of that is because of the untrained drivers are out there because, you know, we've talked this before, guys, you have to go the four year apprentice to learn how to frame a house. Yeah. Yeah. So you fall off the ladder, you get a concussion. Big deal. That's the worst. You break, you break a finger. These, these beat heads are, are rolling down the highway at 80,000 pounds. Yeah. With, with, with about two and weeks of training, like mm-hmm.. John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: I cut hair, you know, hairdresser percent. Yeah. My, my teammate is, his wife is a hairdresser and he goes, She's gotta have more qualifications than I do to have my a, a license for my commercial driver's license. Which is ridiculous. So, Yeah. Well, and to kind of touch on what you were talking about, things have changed a lot in the last. 10 years, 15 years, the congestion on the roadway is horrendous. And it's not just trucks, it's cars as well. Uh, the trucks have changed. You know, we've, the, the majority of automatic transmission of, uh, commercial motor vehicles is huge now, versus having something that had, uh, 10 speed, 18 speed, 13 speed, 15 speed, whatever beat. Um, I, I was always a big fan of the manual transmission just to. You better understand how to pay attention to what's going on in this vehicle. Well now they're so easy to drive. They're, they're like driving a Toyota anymore, you know, just a regular car. So a lot of guys, I can drive my car, I can drive that truck. And, and now unfortunately, their, their concentration is not there as it should be. Well, and and to that point, I think what's happened as well with this, you know, with the OEM is struggling to. I guess larger computer adjust, but so far behind orders, trucks are staying on the road way too long now. Like, like what would, what would it been deemed junk 10 years ago? Is it still on the road deck? You can't get the equipment and, and the number of trucks I see held together with bun cords and duct tape is, is just appalling. And that, that combines to it because. You know, the, the new trucks, you know, are, are built for safer with the, with the alarm systems and the warning and, and, and they make it a safer truck. And the old trucks are, are, that should have been scrapped years ago, are now hauled. But I, a lot are by cares. Cause that's all they get equipment on. Yep. Yep.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Well, yeah, I mean, it's easier to finance an old piece of junk and it is something brand new and you can't get the brand new one so
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:well and. I, I was gonna say, add to that, your older equipment, so you're, you're cutting back on, on, on getting newer equipment or maintaining it properly, which goes right into sync with, I'm not training my drivers as thoroughly as I should be. I'm, as you said, Mike, 103 and a half hours. I'm hiring 'em outta school. Put 'em in a truck, send 'em down the road. So the, the, the new carriers today are, are not putting the commitment forth that they need to, to match the level of legacy carriers as to what they've done. And, and, and, and I, I know I've talked to many carriers, if you wanna be as successful as those legacy carriers, you've gotta invest in yourself and your people.
Mike McCarron:Hundred percent. You have to play long game. 100%. And, and you know, it's difficult because you don't wanna cast broad brushes cuz there's a lot of good newcomer carriers that are safes. But I think we're talking the majority and not trying to paint with one brush. But there's no doubt that the correlation between. A more dangerous road based on the stats and the number of new cares being started, both in Canada, United States is staggering and everyone was trying to get onto this pandemic. Uh, you know, we gonna need trucks, and trucks are always gonna be fullen. You know, the market always corrects itself and you're seeing that already, as I said earlier, in the spot market is down, I don't know, 30, 35% from payday of the. Yeah.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Yep. It's crazy. I mean, just, I did driver meetings over the weekend and I, I always go back to the terrible tragedy of Humboldt and, you know, it's, I think it's an industry sin in Canada at the moment. Yeah. That, what is it? I think four provinces now have some level of mandatory training for, uh, tractor trailer work and the rest still have nothing. Nothing. Yeah. And yet 16 people lost their lives and nobody, or very few people have changed. Yeah.
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:Well, and, and unfortunately going with that, I'm seeing a trend where new entrant carriers are trying to. I'm gonna say it, they're gonna, they're trying to cheat the system because they're going to, they're trying to operate out of those provinces that don't have those controls in place, you know, the, the, the mandatory entry labor training, uh, they're, they're trying to shortchange the aspect to try and save a couple more bucks. You know? So you're
Mike McCarron:trying, you're trying, you're trying to change a week, two weeks of training. Yeah. Like literally.
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:Yep. Well, and, and they're not realizing the money that they can save. You know, if you, if you took into account the number of crashes you've had over the course of a year and said, Well, hey, if I could save 10% of those, that's how many deductibles, you know, um, Add some training in there that'll more than pay for it. Teach you guys, you know, um, big thing, we've talked about this together. The three of us, you know, pay packages, change the pay packages and, and you'll change the driver's mindset and attitude as well. You know, you'll end up with a safer driver in the end
Mike McCarron:per hour model. The per mile model could be, I believe, the biggest contributor to unsafe rose because oh, huge, huge. You're, you're just chasing miles. Find me another. Job like that frontline worker. Yep. Who can't get a mortgage cuz they can't prove what their salary is. If we have a bad winter lose 15, 18 days of snow, it's, you know, and, and there's a lot of carriers doing things to, to, to, uh, You know, downgrade the impact, but I don't understand that at all. Yeah. I really don't, You know, you know, we've known there's been shortage for years and we keep trying to do the same old things and same old things, and it's not working. And, and you know, the problem is because of that, there's a whole nother type of driver coming into it. And, and a lot of that I think's being created by the not paying people, the money they, the quality people you need and the money that they deserve for that job.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:Exactly. I just wrote a, an article today and, and I reframed. From putting this into the article about the employees and, uh, Federal Canada, paying or making employers pay 10 sick days a year, I believe it is. Mm-hmm.. Mm-hmm. and CTA is fighting, Not, sorry, not fighting it. They've asked for a postponement of it. Mm-hmm. as it will negatively impact the, uh, the trucking industry. Mike, you're much closer to the trucking industry than I am. Can you explain how that might impact us? Cause quite honestly, John and I were having a conversation. I said, John, I thought this would be a great thing. Mm-hmm., uh, for our industry to better treat our employees. Yeah. Um, and I was surprised that CTA came out against it. Yeah.
Mike McCarron:I'm. I'm not sure the rational, so I've gotta be careful coming on it. But certainly anything that we could do to improve the job of truck driving mm-hmm. is gonna attract, is gonna attract driver. So that's the part that doesn't make sense to me. But the, you know, and as I said, I've been away for a couple weeks and this has been a real hot button the last three weeks, but it doesn't make sense to you because to me it's, it's the working conditions on top of the pay. So not only, not only do you not get paid, When the wheels aren't rolling, at no fault of your own. Mm-hmm., you also miss every birthday party, every hockey game, every, every ballet concert, every, every player, kids in. So to me, things like that, uh, not having those compound the prom, and I don't understand the rational behind it at all. There, there has to be something for them to be so strongly against it. But I would think that, that, my initial thinking when I read that at first glance was that would be something. That the newcomer carriers would struggle with, the legacy carriers wouldn't. So why wouldn't you try and, uh, differentiate yourself from them by having you know what really isn't perk to your job? Yeah,
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:big time.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:And I asked somebody else in our industry that I have much respect for, I asked them the same question and they just said, because, The majority of the drivers, or many of them, would take advantage of those 10 sick days. And the legacy carriers are very afraid as to what it might do to the bottom line, at least initially, until they get to build it into the rates. Mm-hmm., so they, he had a concern of, and I think it's valid, I'm not sure, but would it help our recruiting efforts and our retention efforts mm-hmm.. Mm-hmm., you know,
Mike McCarron:See, you know, my take on that is if you're worried about people taking advantage of they shouldn't be working for you. And, and, and that's, that's, it's casting everyone with sort of this same brush. And of course people take advantage and of course it's gonna cost you more money, but if it can help fill, how much money does it cost you to have a truck park to, against fence. Yeah. How much it cost you to say no to a customer. Cuz you can't get drivers and I don't think there's just a magic bullet that's going to, uh, That's gonna solve this. But it's all these little things and it's just, it's, it's, they've been talking about this for years and it's just one of those things that it's hard to make sense of because we've known this is a problem for years and the current system's not working and, and it's not gonna change. And frankly, I think that's brought on a lot of this newcomer carriers because they've said, Hey, we've got an opportunity to do some things here, whether it be legal or not. I'm not certainly gonna comment on that, but you've the whole. Economy. This, this whole other industry's evolved, I think, out of their willingness to do things that maybe legacy carriers won't. Mm-hmm., is it right or wrong? That's not, that's not for me to comment. No,
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:No, but it, it's unfortunate cuz I know I've, I've had the opportunity over the last 20 years to go out and evaluate a lot of motor carriers, Good, bad, ugly, indifferent, whatnot. And I, and I gotta, It's all about the culture, the culture, the organization, the inside of what's going on. Because I have seen companies who. For years, I wanna say going back 6, 7, 8 years or better, have been paying their drivers by the hour. They, they don't have a recruitment problem. Their biggest problem is they gotta keep the guys from knocking down the door that wanna come work at that company. Amen. Um, you know, and they've been paying, uh, extra over. Drivers go over their 60 hours, they're happy to pay the, the, uh, the overtime. They're paying their stat holidays, they're paying them four weeks, holidays a year. You know, so when you build the right culture to have something like this new federal rule of 10, six days come in, they'd be going, Cool. That's something that can help the employee. And I don't have to worry about my guys. They're not gonna take advantage of it because they don't take advantage of what we're doing. You know, and, and there's a lot of guys that don't wanna take a sick day because a lot of 'em are gonna go, I don't wanna be sick on Tuesday because if I'm sick on Tuesday, I'm gonna lose a whole week's worth of work because normally I maybe run to, you know, to Iowa back twice a week. Well, now I can't get that first Iowa in, so I'm not, I'm gonna sit home Monday because I'm gonna be sick Tuesday for a doctor's appointment. No, I don't wanna do that. You know, so there's gonna be a lot of guys that are just gonna go, Nah, I, I don't need the sick. Thanks for having that there if I need it. You know, like if something seriously goes wrong, maybe I need a week, you know, five days, give me five days, I gotta go to the hospital, gotta do this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I've got protection. You know. But, uh, yeah, I think unfortunately it comes back to culture and a lot of the companies are just not prepared how to deal with it because they've not set themselves up according.
Mike McCarron:I don't, I don't understand this. I agree with you 100%. John, I don't understand this notion of, of sort of dumbing down to lowest common denominator. This notion that all our truckers are ths and they're gonna, somebody's gonna rip us off 10 days. Yeah. It's gonna happen. But instead of, you know, I learned years ago, don't focus on. The negative focus on the positives cause the neighbors are gonna be there. And I, and as a kid I spent all my try time trying to make people happy and you know, that work for me, I realize 10% of people are never gonna be happy. Just get rid of them.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:And that's what I was gonna say. I think the, the negatives or the negative people are the minority percent that you hire. They wanna work for you and they wanna come into work five days. We can do a great.
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:Yep. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's, If you treat them right, train 'em properly, better chance they're gonna stay. You don't, they're leaving, they're going somewhere else, you know? And those that are a pain in your butt. I've seen companies where the culture is so good, their peers will drive them out. You don't have to worry about management doing it because you're gonna have the peers that are gonna go on, Mike, don't ruin this for us. We got a good thing here. If you don't like it, get your ass out. Go find another job somewhere else, but don't ruin what we got.
Mike McCarron:We at msm, we lost drivers all the time for LAN Dime and then they realize they're sitting for three or four days before they get loans. Then they realize that they don't get paid until the, they get, until the customer pays them. Then they realize that the company trucks get first dibs or our operators and then they realize they don't have the benefits and, and then they realize in 4 cents a miles costing them. I would always take it back with open arms. Mm-hmm.? John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: Mm-hmm., Chris Harris, Safety Dawg: We're, Um, Mike, Legacy carriers, new carriers. What's left to be said on that? Well, I, I think, I don't know if there's anything to be said. I think it's must, it's mostly your recognition that that's our reality today, and I think it's a reality. It's not gonna change. In fact, I think we all know where the trend is going. And I think the really thing is just, you know, the whole point of the tts a. Talk was, I think that suppliers in the business have to adjust accordingly. Mm-hmm., you're dealing with two very distinct cultures. You're dealing with different philosophies about trucking. Uh, some right, Some wrong on both of them, but ultimately you've got two very distinct industries. I frankly, Like to see them come together. Mm-hmm., I would really, I would, I would love to see, uh, uh, groups gained together for the good of this business. Uh, I think that I worry a little bit about what's going on, Ottawa. I worry about that, the lobby efforts moving forward. I worry about trucking being without a strong lobby effort. Uh, uh, you know, Being a targeted government, and I would really like it to see if the, the, the leaders of both industries and, and they are two distinct industries, would come together for, for the good of one industry, for the good of all us because as we, we learned during the pandemic, we need a healthy truck industry. And I don't know, healthy it is right now, frankly. Yeah, no,
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:agreed. Agree. Well, and you've got that unique viewpoint because you've got, uh, the connections there to left lane, um, that you can see the activity that John and I don't see. And you know, you would know how many carriers that you're working for that are up for sale right now or other on the other side of it, of course, you're working for carriers that are purchasing other carriers that are up for sale, right. So you see what we, John and I, and the public don't see until it hits the uh, truck news.
Mike McCarron:Well, you're seeing legacy carriers buying Legacy care is what you're seeing. Mm-hmm. The Legacy cares will not buy newcomer cares. Yep. They don't, they don't want the risk of, of drive rink. And I understand that. I understand that. But the one thing I will say is that what's been really interesting and, and many of the deals that we've done with Legacy Cares is they're actually drive rink component that the owners didn't even know about. Uh, So, uh, you know, it's just, it's just, it's just, there's, there's a lot of oxymorons. Everything's up in the air, but, you know, ultimately I think that, uh, I'm hoping for the good of the industry that, uh, there's at least some clarity brought forward for a lot of these issues that have been hanging out there for years. Mm-hmm.. Chris Harris, Safety Dawg: Exactly. Mike, thank you so much for joining John and I today. Yes, thanks
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:again, Mike. It was,
Mike McCarron:I didn't have to invite myself on this time, although I think No, no, it's
John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions:a good deal. Yeah. You know, you just put your hand. Chris Harris, Safety Dawg: You're You've something please. We have a small for you to yell.
Mike McCarron:Thanks guys, have always a pleasure. Great talking to get, Thanks.
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:A huge thank you to Mr. Mike McCart, uh, talking about the two distinct industries that we now have, legacy carriers and the newcomer carriers. Thanks, Mike. Anytime. You're welcome. I'm on the show, and for all of you listening and watching, thanks for listening to the Trip podcast. That's Trucking Risk and Insurance podcast with your host, John Farwell and Chris Harris. Thanks. See you next week.