Voice Of GO(r)D

The Voice Of GO(r)D podcast is delighted to finally bring you a discussion with Mr Cole Stevens of Stevens Trucking out of El Reno, Oklahoma. The son of a trucking family, Cole, like myself, is looking around at the state of the industry today and has decided to take action, which now includes running for a seat in the Oklahoma State House.A member of American Truckers United, Cole has been putting in some very hard yards in advocating for reforms to CDL issue and for putting an end to the insourced labor scams that have made our interstates so much more dangerous in recent years. Between many trips to DC in helping organize Dalilah’s Law, and working locally in Oklahoma with his own state government to pass SB20, Cole has been relentless in his pursuit of a safe and profitable future for the American trucking industry and its drivers, and shares with my listeners and I some details of the latest battle.Cole and I recorded this back in March in anticipation of my recent appearance on Tucker Carlson, where I gave Tucker the breaking news about a lawsuit Stevens Trucking, along with another company in Oklahoma, have launched against some of the same bad actors at play in the recent Montgomery v Caribe SCOTUS decision.Now that Tucker has finally released that episode, I can let rip with this one.Cole breaks down some of this lawsuit for us, the claims seeking redress, and what has caused such a great rift in the industry between brokerages and asset based carriers aka actual trucking companies with actual trucks.You can find my most recent appearance with Tucker here - https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-gord-magil-060126You can follow Cole on Twitter - https://x.com/StevensOK26over on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cole-stevens-3345329a/and on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cole.stevens.73594Cole’s Oklahoma campaign FB page - https://www.facebook.com/STEVENSOKHD51Thanks for listening, and as always, any questions, comments, suggestions, corrections or Hate Mail can be directed to me here - gordilocks@protonmail.com

Voice Of GO(r)D brings you two trucking industry researchers in discussion on a hot topic today that is now being discussed in the wider media, downstream of a major enforcement action in Oklahoma. Danielle Chaffin returns for her third appearance on the show along with Miranda from the very popular and informative Trucking Made Successful YouTube channel, and we dive in to the question of how random migrants from around the world are showing up in America and various states are issuing them CDLs with very little in the way of any identification, verification, or possibility of accountability should anything go wrong.There is a lot to say about this topic, and more details that won't fit into Spotify's show description character limit, so please head over to my Substack to check out the rest - https://autonomoustruckers.substack.com/p/no-name-given-on-the-fraudulent-issueYou can go follow Danielle on Twitter/X - https://x.com/maybedanielleee and, if you want, NerdIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/maybedanielleee/ and her Substack is great, too - https://www.highwayveritas.com/You can find Miranda’s awesome YouTube Channel here - https://www.youtube.com/@TruckingMadeSuccessful and on Twitter/X - https://x.com/TMSuccessfulIn other news - my book is complete! The first round of editing, revisions, and more editing, are all wrapped up, and the manuscript is now in the hands of my publishers at Creed and Culture. They will have a week or two to analyze the manuscript, make any final suggestions or changes, and later this month we should have a final manuscript of the book ready to go. Pre-sales at their website will open in November, and the Hardcover will be delivered to your door in March; or, you can meet me at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Kentucky, March 26-28 2026, and I will sign a copy for you in person! An E-reader version will also be available, and I will be narrating an audiobook for all of my Road Warrior colleagues to listen to while you are white-knuckling it along the Interstate Mad Max Wasteland.https://creedandculture.com/books/end-of-the-road-inside-the-war-on-truckers/Thanks for listening, and please pass this discussion along to your favorite trucker, or US DOT investigator, or State DMV official, or anyone else with the power to fix this problem - its time to start cleaning things up, and attain the Highway Hyperborea that is within our capacity to create.Questions, comments, suggestions, corrections and Hate Mail are welcomed and Strongly Encouraged - gordilocks@protonmail.com

Voice Of GO(r)D is very happy to bring you a conversation with Tamie Sue Stuttle of the advocacy organization Real Women in Trucking, where we discuss many of the usual problems facing truckers, and one in particular that is of import to Lady Truckers.Due to the intransigence of certain of the biggest trucking companies in the country, and their reliance on a wicked and evil training model, a study examining Sexual Abuse and Sexual Harassment in the industry was recently cancelled.As reported on by John Gallagher at FreightWaves not two weeks ago -The Trump administration has canceled a study aimed at addressing sexual harassment and rape in the trucking industry, according to one of the study’s developers.“We all put a lot of time and attention into this, and just got an email yesterday telling us not to do any more work, that we’ve been cancelled,” Anne Balay, a member of the working group overseeing the project, told FreightWaves.“Everyone knows rape and sexual harassment are incredibly common in this industry, and this was an attempt to do an actual study that would have led to suggestions on how to address it and make the industry safer. But it was canceled not to save money – the money had already been spent – but to prevent the results from getting out to the public, ensuring now nothing gets done to change the industry and make it safer for women.”A screenshot of a notice from the administration states that the decision to terminate the study “is because the government’s priorities have shifted and this project no longer meets our needs.”As Tamie and I discuss the cancellation, it appears that it is not the governments needs they are concerned with, but those of the members of the American Trucking Association, whose ‘Team Training’ programs would be exposed to the scrutiny they need by this study, and possibly bring this stupid training method, and all of the sexual abuse it leads to for women, into the public eye. And, perhaps, result in it being made illegal - which is the correct action, to our minds.Tamie and I also discuss various other issues relevant to woman behind the wheel, and every other trucker out on the road, including a recent study from the ATA’s research arm which suggests that more felons be recruited into trucking. What about those convicted of sexual crimes who would now be a problem for women truckers?You can find Tamie on Twitter - https://x.com/tamiesue2Tamie’s own podcast - https://truckinwithtamie.com/The canceled SASH study at FMCSA - https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/research-and-analysis/cmv-driver-sexual-assault-and-sexual-harassment-sashhttps://www.realwomenintrucking.org/Driver Documentary FilmPetition to re-instate the SASH Study -https://www.change.org/p/reinstate-the-fmcsa-study-on-sexual-assault-and-harassment-in-truckingThe disgusting White Paper from ATRI encouraging the recruitment of dangerous ex-cons and Foster Children into trucking -https://truckingresearch.org/2025/07/new-atri-research-highlights-evolving-truck-driver-demographics/Questions, comments, suggestions, corrections and Hate Mail are always welcomed and strongly encouraged - gordilocks@protonmail.com

Voice Of GO(r)D is happy to present you a conversation with brother and sister Michael and Chasaty Rainer, proprietors of Booker’s Dude Ranch, an event facility in the East Texas town of Henderson that is also doubling as an old school truck stop of sorts, part of the Truck Parking Club network of locations which offer an alternative to the ever declining quality and chaotic madness of America’s large truck stop chains.Michael himself is a lifelong trucker that is still out there on the road, and is well clued in to the challenges facing drivers in 2025, and sister Chasaty is a nurse who takes a holistic approach to the health and wellness of the truckers that are her guests.If you happen to be passing through that area of the country, and want a quiet place to park, have some decent non-fast food slop, and maybe have a horse riding lesson while taking a reset, you should go check them out.You can find The Dude Ranch at their own website -https://www.bookersduderanch.com/And over on the Insta -https://www.instagram.com/bookersduderanch/And Facecrack -https://www.facebook.com/bookersduderanchIf you would like to hear more about the Truck Parking Club mission directly from its founder, have a listen here -As Always - questions, comments, suggestions, corrections and Hate Mail are welcomed and strongly encouraged - gordilocks@protonmail.comI’m writing a book on the fate of the North American Trucker in 2025, due to be published in March 2026. It’s almost done! Stay tuned for news on editing progress.

Voice Of GO(r)D has convened something of an emergency roundtable in the wake of this horrific tragedy in Florida last week, as much of the reporting on it that’s out there is weak, inconsistent, politically motivated, and lacking in substantive context and background.This tragic incident, for those who follow this Substack, or pay close attention to the North American trucking industry, is but one of many in a long line of completely unnecessary and preventable crashes, and the causes of all of these crashes are many, but there are notable through-lines and historical context. The media, along with many online commentators, are trying to pin this on bad immigration policy, which is certainly a component, or the corruption of politicians like Gavin Newsom, which is also a factor, but this is merely to find convenient villains who are a regular feature of life in America in 2025, and to miss all of the other problems; which are, quite frankly, of far more consequence to this incident.To help describe the view of this problem in its entirety from 30,000 feet, I have invited colleagues and former guests of this show to join me in a wide ranging roundtable which tackles all of the angles of this story, to help you make more sense of it and arm yourself with accurate complaints to make to your relevant authorities.Shannon Everett is a co-founder and the public face of American Truckers United. He is, like myself, a trucker who comes from a multi-generational trucking family. Shannon now manages an Arkansas based carrier, and his group has done some incredible research into the suspicious and massive increase of CDLs being issued across America over the past 5 years.You can listen to our previous interview here, and find his very active Twitter here.Danielle Chaffin is the granddaughter and daughter of old school truckers in Tennessee, and she has been a freight broker and a social worker, but is now behind the scenes at a TMS company that helps fleets manage all of their data. She is also an independent researcher into the industry, and writes the excellent Highway Veritas substack, which I quote here often. You can find Danielle’s previous appearances on this podcast here and here, and Danielle’s prolific and informative Twitter here.Justin ‘Supertrucker’ Martin is a former trucker and social media operator, who has held many roles behind the wheel, including hauling high security loads for the United States military, mail for the United States Postal Service, and was once the co-host of the FreightWaves podcast ‘Back The Truck Up’. You can find Justin as a guest on my show here, here, here, and here, and his meme-heavy Twitter account here.For the first time, and for those folks who prefer to watch things online, I have made the video from our roundtable available on YouTube. I’m not a fan of the video format, mostly because I don’t have time to watch almost anything, but if you like an assemblage of talking heads, here you go -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5I5mxcYgJII am a few short days away from submitting the rough manuscript for this book, which will likewise describe the insourcing of unskilled and illiterate labor onto our highways, as well as many other issues of consequence during the twilight days of the last American cowboy. https://autonomoustruckers.substack.com/p/book-project-announcement-and-a-majorAs always, questions, comments, suggestions, corrections and Hate Mail are welcomed and strongly encouraged - gordilocks@protonmail.com

The Voice Of GO(r)D podcast is very happy to bring you a discussion with former MIT Data Scientist Dr. David Correll, whose work within MIT FreightLab, a project of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, examines the mother of all problems in trucking, and the one that begets so many others, DETENTION.For non-truckers, detention is when trucks are held up for unreasonable amounts of time in the loading and unloading process at customer facilities. Some facility operators are notorious for this, and I have spent days trying to get certain things unloaded, and will share a particularly egregious example in the book I am writing on the fate of the North American Trucker in 2025. (see details below)Everyone remembers seeing footage of a hundred container ships waiting to be docked at the Port Of Long Beach/Los Angeles during Covid - imagine that this is what its like in many sectors of trucking, except it happens all the time, year in, year out, and has been this way since forever.Dr. Correll’s research concludes, in his words, that America leaves “40% of its trucking capacity on the table every day” due to this pernicious and seemingly intractable problem, which is the proximate cause of -- Truck driver churn and retention issues- Speeding and aggressive driving behavior which pose a saftey hazard on our roads, and has resulted in the imposition of ELDs and other surveillance tech into the lives of truckers- Shippers being ghosted by carriers who find better facilities to work with- The wasting of millenia, yes, literally thousands of years worth of valuable human capital. Multiply all of the hours lost times millions of truckers times decades of this problem …. and its probably more than millenia.- An unnecessary drag on the resiliency of American supply chains.We had an interesting discussion that covers detention and then connects it to these other issues, and we also discuss possible solutions.You can read all about it at the following links -David’s testimony to the Biden ‘Trucking Task Force’ -https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/114233/witnesses/HHRG-117-PW0Wstate-CorrellD-20211117.pdfDavid at Medium -https://medium.com/mitsupplychain/is-there-a-truck-driver-shortage-or-a-capacity-crisis-73a7d7a5bcbFrom MIT’s own news site -https://news.mit.edu/2022/are-supply-chains-stuck-detention-0425Some FreightLabs research papers for your perusal -https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/130093https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/142935https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/126383You can find Dr. Correll onlinehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/davidhccorrell/https://x.com/DavidHCCorrellPlease enjoy this musical interlude - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7kwFSp7yh4&list=RDc7kwFSp7yh4&start_radio=1I have written extensively about one of the solutions to this problem, and that solution has been sitting in Congress for 3 years, waiting to be acted upon. Its amazing how a one line bill that doesn’t include new taxes or giveaways to anyone seems to have so much trouble getting out of committee -https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-want-support-working-class-vote-andy-levins-trucker-bill-opinion-1715058https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-proposal-remove-taxes-overtime-almost-perfecthe-just-needs-include-truckers-opinion-1954663https://www.theamericanconservative.com/pay-truckers-for-their-work/Questions, comments, suggestions, corrections and Hate Mail are welcomed and encouraged, especially if you are being abused by lazy and disorganized cretins holding you up and wasting the only resource you can’t make more of and is the most important thing we have in life - TIME.gordilocks@protonmail.comI’m almost done the rough manuscript of this detailed overview of what has become of the North American Trucker in 2025 -https://autonomoustruckers.substack.com/p/book-project-announcement-and-a-major

Voice Of GO(r)D is happy to bring you a long overdue interview with Craig Fuller, founder and CEO of freight industry news website FreightWaves, as well as the freight data analytics tool SONAR and Firecrown Media empire. FreightWaves has been of great service to the industry, and employed some of the finest journalists working on trucking, including former guests of this show Rachel Premack and Clarissa Hawes, as well as my pals Dooner and Supertrucker and so many other great people dedicated to Making Trucking Great Again.Craig fills us in on his family history in trucking, including his Dad and Uncle at the US Express and Covenant Transport companies, the origin story of FreightWaves, current topics in trucking, and, of course, our favorite people in the world, the American Trucking Association.(sarc) Craig had a bomb lobbed at him by Chris Spear the other day, and Craig has returned fire in kind, which lead me to having to bump this interview up in the schedule; this was recorded two weeks ago before the ATA started up their shit.The Return Fire has been beautiful to watch - head on over to my Substack for screenshotshttps://autonomoustruckers.substack.com/p/a-chat-with-freightwaves-ceo-craigTypically I try not to get involved in other people’s fights but Craig has been nothing but good to me and I think in his heart is trying to do right by truckers; Chris Spear and the ATA, on the other hand, are corporate lobbyists whose grip on media narratives around trucking, and the taxpayer loot they extract from us for their members, are one of the primary causes of trucking being in the utter mess that its in, so to hell with them.You can read more from Craig himself here -https://www.freightwaves.com/news/the-atas-waning-influence-irks-its-leaderAnd while you are there, have a look around FreightWaves site, the reporting is excellent, and they have so many great people there, including Dooner, JP Hampstead, John Kingston, and Grace Sharkey, amongst others.Craig's TwitterCraig and I are both writing books at the moment - his is done, and will be out in November, mine is getting there and will be out in March.https://autonomoustruckers.substack.com/p/book-project-announcement-and-a-majorIf you want to help see me through to the end -https://www.givesendgo.com/EndOfTheRoadQuestions, comments, suggestions, corrections and Hate Mail are always welcome and strongly encouraged!gordilocks@protonmail.com

Voice Of GO(r)D is pleased to welcome back to the show returning guests Danielle Chaffin and Justin ‘Supertrucker’ Martin in discussion on the ease with which certain bad actors in trucking can be identified and avoided. If you are on FreightX, Danielle and Justin are revealing, on the daily, ‘Chameleon’ or ‘Ghost’ Carriers, and the shell games they play with layers of LLCs, the trade in Motor Carrier numbers, and other methods by which they avoid accountability for their unsafe and unprofessional operations. In doing so, they show us how easy it is for shippers and load broker to screen these guys out, especially with a new and easy to use tool developed by our mutual and friend of this show, Garret Makes, simply called ‘Search Carriers’.I’ve been a little behind on getting episodes out - we recorded this over a month ago - but the timing of edit and release today was fortuitous, as yesterday, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy appeared on our colleague Timothy Dooner’s show WHAT THE TRUCK? and it was quite a White Pill to discover that Duffy has been taking on criticisms and complaints from FreightX and other social media, and is, in fact, launching investigations into various problems in the industry highlighted by truckers online, especially the Non-Domicile CDL scams identified by our friends at American Truckers United.Check it out!https://www.freightwaves.com/news/dot-secretary-duffy-nationwide-non-domiciled-cdl-audit-elp-enforcement-what-the-truckAlso worthy of a look is Danielle’s recent contribution to Freight Caviar regarding Chameleon Carriers - the data she has dug up would be a worthy project for Secretary Duffy’s team to look through - we have a problem here!https://www.freightcaviar.com/eye-opening-patterns-in-fmcsa-data/You can find Danielle on Twitter/X - https://x.com/maybedanielleeeAnd LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/maybedanielleee/And Justin - https://x.com/supertruckerhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jmartsupertrucker/Our friend Garret - https://x.com/garrett_makesAnd his handy Carrier Screening Tool - https://searchcarriers.com/Stay tuned for the release of their new podcast “Shady Freight”, coming out soon!I’m writing a book on the fate of the North American Trucker in 2025, read about that here -https://autonomoustruckers.substack.com/p/book-project-announcement-and-a-majorAs always - questions, comments, suggestions, corrections and Hate Mail are welcomed and encouraged - gordilocks@protonmail.com