Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/661456
Voices channel 19 6 | Overdrive | April 2016 Visit Senior Editor Todd Dills' CHANNEL 19 BLOG at OverdriveOnline.com/channel19 Write him at tdills@randallreilly.com. 3Feathers Mobile Marketing founder Norm Blanchard, based near Nash- ville, Tenn., has in his office what might be the most unique desk that I've ever seen. The trucker-designer-company owner saved a 1962 Mack B61 tractor from salvage following the closing of its former Pulaski, Tenn.-based fleet, then turned the truck's nose into a desk front, partly to show the creativi- ty offered by 3Feathers. The business, which owns a banana-yellow 2007 Freightliner Columbia, is focused not only on hauling display trailers, but also on experiential marketing. It's capable of managing projects from conception to design, inside and out- side of transportation. Blanchard, in his early 50s after some background in freight hauling and, in more recent decades, music management, turned back toward his roots and harnessed his graphic de- sign and custom-build capabilities in the 3Feathers venture. Most of its rev- enue has come from design work for a few brands, but look for big things to come. Scan the code for a video detailing what went into building the desk, or find it via the March 1 post on the Channel 19 blog. Behind a diesel-driven desk Pictured is the windshield cam of southern Oregon resident Mark Bezley. Currently off the road, the trucker bought the unit six years ago from an online retailer. Bezley was leased at the time, working locally in Oregon and surrounding states. A simple model that records on a constantly saving loop according to a few different time settings, the camera served him well. "I looked at it as cheap 'insurance' for liability and safety," Bezley says of his thinking when he got it, paying about $130. Surveying those recent years, "All I can say is wow!" Bezley says. He's got- ten call-in complaints about the usual stuff, and the video camera helped him sort things out with his carrier. "Because of my forward thinking, not only did I save my own ass, but the company's also. But that is not the best one." Bezley went on with a telling anecdote about how the camera saved him from a small Washington town's crosswalk-violation ticket, delivered during a local "sting" for such in- fractions. "After being stopped by the police, I was told that someone was in the crosswalk and I almost hit that person," he says. "I assured the officer that no one was in the crosswalk when I went through the intersection." Bezley offered up his video evidence. "He said that he didn't want to see it and wrote me my citation." Undeterred, the trucker showed up in court weeks later. "After the judge saw my video in the courtroom, he was not happy and had to throw out the case because his small-town police officers just got caught lying and falsi- fying a police report," he says, "I am a firm believer in the use of cameras, if for nothing else, to prevent others from filing these erroneous claims … whether from the driving public or from law enforcement." " Amazing how the cops don't want to see any proof to the contrary when they're wrong. " — Shaun, commenting under Mark Bezley's account of the incident, which you can read in full in the Feb. 20 post to the blog 'Crosswalk law' citation dismissed with video evidence