Troy: Alright, hello and welcome truckers. The date is July 17th and this is the 34th episode of Big Rig Banter. I’m your co-host, Troy Diffenderfer.
Lenay: And I’m your favorite co-host, Lenay Ruhl.
Troy: And Lenay, how are you doing today?
Lenay: I’m pretty good, trying to stay awake. It’s a little rainy outside.
Troy: I know, it is kinda crappy here truckers. We hope you guys are driving through, you guys and gals are driving through some good weather right now. It’s definitely really dreary here and I think we both just want to take a nap at this point.
Lenay: Yeah, yeah. The rain pounding on the windows is like luring me to sleep all day.
Troy: But, I do have some exciting news to wake you up, Lenay. We have the return of a special guest coming up here soon. Actually, I think next week we will see his return.
Lenay: Oh yeah? A special guest? And who might that be?
Troy: That is the one and only Troy Thunder.
Lenay: Drumroll!
Troy: You might have seen him on the vital Facebook video, Troy Thunder giving his workout routines. And I don’t wanna give too much away but he’s gonna make his return in a little different medium, that’s for sure.
Lenay: For you listening, just to clarify what Troy Thunder is, it’s just Troy in really bad 80s workout clothes. Yeah, and it’s old news, that was what, a year ago? I’m just kidding, it was a really good workout video, some good tips on how you can workout around your truck. So if you wanna see the original Troy Thunder, go check that out. And if you want to see the upcoming new and improved Troy Thunder, where can I find that, Troy? Real Troy.
Troy: Keep on eye on our Facebook page, Facebook and Twitter, it’ll shortly be going up on social media within the next few weeks, so make sure to keep an eye out on that and of course give up some feedback. Use the #BigRigBanter, we wanna know what you think of it. Should Troy Thunder be a mainstay? Should he take a much longer hiatus this time?
Lenay: Yeah, I can’t wait to see what he does next. Alright, and speaking of reviving old news, back in December we did an episode “Trucking Trends of 2019” where we looked at the top five things that we thought drivers should keep an eye on for the year. Now that we’re midway through the year, let’s do a little touchpoint and see where those things stand today.
Troy: Yeah Lenay it’s weird, that same episode we were talking about our new year’s resolutions and you said that you were gonna be nicer to me, so let’s check into that first.
Lenay: No, no let’s relisten to that first, I don’t really think that’s how it went down.
Troy: What do you have Lenay?
Lenay: Yeah so one of the big things that we talked about in December was actually a court case where a truck driver had sued a trucking company and it actually made it to the Supreme Court. So that was truck driver Dominic Olivera and he was suing New Prime, and he was essentially saying that he wasn’t even making minimum wage because of deductions and everything that were coming out of his paycheck. So that court, I mean that case actually made it to the Supreme Court and is going through the process. There’s so far been no resolution yet, according to Jennifer Bennett who’s the attorney, or one of the attorneys on the case, but they are meeting for mediation in November, which is basically just like an informal meeting to try to take a step closer to reaching a resolution. So, I would say everyone just keep an eye out on that because that could definitely impact what happened with truck drivers pay going forward.
Troy: It’s crazy to see these Supreme Court cases get drawn out so long, these things can take often years.
Lenay: Yeah I know, I actually you know asked Jennifer you know if it could draw out into the next year, she thinks they’ll make you know reach a resolution this year, what’ll happen, so we’ll have to wait and hear back from her on that but so far it’s probably just a game of wait and see.
Troy: Awesome, and in that same episode I talked to Dean Croak, he was from FrieghtWaves, we had a really good conversation that touched on a bunch of different points. At one point he said I think there’d be some wrinkles that need to be ironed out as people move towards the end of 2019 and become compliant completely with ELDs and you know we were talking about the upcoming date, that it’s the December deadline, December 16th 2019 for every vehicle to have the new ELDs in place and just this past Monday, FrieghtWaves actually came out with a study that was really interesting and that compared the compliance between national and regional fleets and it basically just says that when it comes to regional fleets, about 81% of trucks are currently compliant and when it comes to nationwide, about 88% are compliant, so you know I think 80 or 90% is pretty good, there is 6 months left but I think a lot of the points that were made in the article were saying that some of these smaller fleets it’s just financially not possible to implement every ELD right away into their rigs but again there’s that leeway and they have been giving a deadline, so it’ll be interesting to see how this pans out.
Lenay: Yeah, it’s interesting, it’s good to see that the numbers are so high, I’d be curious to know if the like or dislike buttons on those ELDs, where they stand now that they’re being implemented pretty much across the board. Maybe if anyone listening has a reaction to their current ELD status you can reach out to us #BigRigBanter and just let us know how that’s been working out for you.
Troy: For sure, and Lenay, what else do you got? I know you spoke with someone else on that podcast episode as well.
Lenay: Yeah, so two of the other trends that came up in our episode in December were the idea that there might be more home time for drivers and just kind of changing the job description I guess you could say for truck drivers to just kind of steer away from being on the road all the time and barely being at home and trying to make it more friendly for more millennials or people who want more of a home life balance, I mean home work balance. And I would say that that trend is standing true, from what I’ve seen from companies posting jobs on AllTruckJobs, we’re seeing a lot more benefits that center around getting people home for longer, holiday bonuses, and things like that so there are companies making a lot of changes to make the career less of “oh you’re gonna be on the road all the time” and never see your family.
Troy: And you were actually working on a video with our video team that kind of highlights some of those benefits. Can you tell our listeners more about that?
Lenay: Yeah, we did make a video actually one of the first videos we made that you can find on our AllTruckJobs page, is about the benefits. And there we just kind of pulled some really unique benefits that we had found from different companies that cover tuition, like 100% for drivers and their families, like all kinds of crazy stuff, so you can go over to AllTruckJobs YouTube page to check that out.
Troy: Awesome, and then another point that Dean had made, one of his quotes that I pulled from that episode was “There’s no secret that there’s a global slowdown currently happening.” So I wanted to take a deeper dive into that, he mentioned oil prices, he thought that oil prices would decrease over time and actually they’ve increased, not by a whole lot, I think both Lenay and I can tell at the gas station pump that prices have definitely increased.
Lenay: Yeah, yeah, I’ve definitely noticed that especially this summer you’re like oh let’s go to the beach for the day or not.
Troy: Yeah, so again we can’t make any strong correlations there, it could definitely be a timing thing, obviously people are traveling over the summer which means the demand goes up but I definitely am interested to check in with it come December. And then he was also saying how shipping rates would decrease simply just because the amount of shippers and the amount of truckers there and it would like of decrease and he was spot on there, we’re definitely seeing a decrease in shipping rates which I think is good for all of us. Obviously, cheaper the goods the cheaper the prices on the shelves in many cases. Lenay you did have a good point about maybe the overabundance of drivers affecting some things.
Lenay: Yeah I mean you know when you see a freight, the freight demand going down now you have a lot of drivers that are sitting there and companies that are driving to figure out how to keep those drivers on the road so that’s not necessarily a good thing from that perspective but hopefully you know things will pick back up again. I’m not sure what causes that to go down but that’s definitely been something that I’ve seen in the news in the last two weeks or so. The reality of it is that trucking is still top dog, it’s still one of the most important industries we have in this country so yeah I mean I say whether oil prices go up and down you know the trucks will keep going no matter how much it costs, right?
Troy: For sure, and I’m just still blown away that we’re already halfway through this year, it seems like times been flying by.
Lenay: I know, you’ll be married soon.
Troy: I know, I’ll be married soon.
Lenay: Oh boy.
Troy: I know, and more things to come. We’ll definitely be doing a 2020 trucking trends episode in the future. Truckers, we hope you listen to that as well. And don’t forget this wonderful podcast is powered by AllTruckJobs, for more trucking resources visit AllTruckJobs.comand again truckers if you’re looking for a new job assignment make sure to check out our website.
Lenay: Yeah, I was just gonna say too, you know we’re here kinda reading the paper just like you guys are, you know ya’ll are out there on the road so if there are changes that you’ve noticed #BigRigBanter just chat with us on Twitter and let us know you know, what big changes are you seeing on there on the road even if it’s, I know there’s issues with parking, the truck stops, so anything at all that you think is something worth talking about on the show give us a shout.
Troy: For sure, and once again truckers, we thank you keep listening, keep an eye out for some Troy Thunder in your future.
Lenay: Leave us a review.
Troy: Exactly, leave us a review of Troy Thunder as well. But I’m your co-host, Troy Diffenderfer.
Lenay: And I’m your favorite co-host, Lenay Ruhl.
Troy: And this has been Big Rig Banter.
