Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/441527
VOICES CHANNEL 19 6 | Overdrive | January 2015 Visit Senior Editor Todd Dills' CHANNEL 19 BLOG at OverdriveOnline.com/channel19 Write him at tdills@randallreilly.com. Getting 'Nowhere' Hotshot owner-operator Jeff Ward, featured on last month's cover, was en route to Hull, Ga., near the South Carolina line, with a load destined for an electric power provider. He was thinking, "Man, there's nothing out here," when he heard Nowhere Road, an actual road in Hull, pop up on his GPS. Nonetheless, Ward's go- ing somewhere in his F350 Ford Super Duty, that's for sure. Based around Atlanta, the operator's thrived on a mix of direct and brokered freight, most of it short enough to get him home nearly every night and provide plenty of income. Find a video in- terview with him and more on the Oct. 16 post to the Channel 19 blog. At the National Association of Small Trucking Companies' annual meeting in November, NASTC founder David Owen spoke about the organization's in-the-works sleep apnea program. It will offer drivers of member compa- nies a path to get ahead of medical examiners' growing willingness to issue a conditional medical certifi cation contingent on apnea testing. Speaking more personally, Owen traced the regulatory focus on driv- er fatigue back to the day in 1999 when golfer Payne Stewart died in a plane crash, which also is when Owen pledged to himself to get a sleep study. Since shortly after that, he's been treat- ed for apnea with a CPAP machine that aids with breathing during sleep. Owen fi rmly believes in a profes- sional's ability to manage fatigue, whether apnea-related or not. While he doesn't disparage apnea treatment, Owen disagrees with those who believe untreated apnea is public high- way safety danger No. 1. Take a listen to the podcast in the Nov. 18 post to the blog. The job of managing fatigue Other Channel 19 podcasts The audio mailbag, rounding up points of view from readers across the country. Call 530-408-6423 anytime to leave a message on these or other issues. • Congressional 34-hour restart restriction rollback: Dec. 11 • FMCSA's split sleeper-berth study, liability insurance hike proposal: Oct. 31 • CARB's hardship extension, electronic logs and harassment: Nov. 17 • CARB lawsuit delays: Former own- er-operator Joe Rajkovacz of the Cali- fornia Construction Trucking Association spoke on delays of key legal challenges as CARB rules increasingly "go hard- fast" for most truckers: Nov. 13 Search "Overdrive Radio" in iTunes to subscribe to Overdrive's podcasting channel there. Scan the QR to hear David Owen (pictured) tell his personal sleep apnea story alongside that of the long and growing regulatory obsession with the condition. 'Breaking: First truck driver ever elected governor takes offi ce today' Reader Ric Hellwig took this picture years ago on I-91 north of New Haven, Conn. "I guess the state traffi c commission didn't have their coffee yet when they put the sign up," he says. We put the photo out on social media for a little cap- tion-writing creativity. Our Facebook page yielded Don- ald Ullstam's response you see in this story's headline. Find more in the Nov. 29 post on the blog.