#335 Trucking’s Underbelly Exposed: Illegal Labor, Fake Repairs, and Failing Oversight

Welcome back Wrench Nation hanging out with you mechanical maniacs right here from the

East Valley Institute of Technology right out of Phoenix, Arizona.

If you're catching us on the podcast, we love you, but we got to send you over some trumpets

and some sacks that follow. Yeah. We're diving in deep today.

One of your favorite automotive lifestyle shows coming up.

Welcome back. Welcome back. I always enjoy spending time with you guys in studio. I got

a big, big announcement. Wrench Nation, if you're new to the show automotive, we've got

in a little tips, a little bit of lifestyle. We've got eight and more in studio. What is

happening? How are you doing? You wearing a Metallica shirt. Are they still performing

Metallica? I believe so. We got a little music in the headset, maybe. I don't know if you

can hear it. A little bit of music still in the headset. There we go. That does not mess

you up. It's like singing in the shower and you're done and the music still playing. Maybe.

How you been this weekend? Doing all right. Nice. Doing all right. Just vibing. You vibing.

Patrick, Patrick, many a master technician. Patrick, get on the mic. Patrick's hanging

with us. Hello. Hello, Mr. Patrick. I know you love to give shout outs to the little ones.

Give shout outs. Shout outs. And my Sophia, James and Patrick, what's up? That's it. This

is what we do. We got an honor effect. I was just talking during the break. I get invitations.

I get invitations to do different events and stuff. And I've been homebound because I'm

trying to get my youngest to college, which just means what? To all my parents out there.

Scholarship money. Help a dad out. Do well in school. Get some scholarships. Aiden colleges

are not cheap, man. No. She's talking out of state and it gets Bukku money. Yeah. The

out of state ones. I mean, they may, she may change your mind, but it seems like I don't

know why like colleges gotten this expensive. They should make it more affordable. Oh yeah.

Would you go to college? I mean, right now you've probably done a little community stuff.

Of course I would want to go to college. If you had to sustain it. If it was a lot more

affordable, I'd absolutely love to go. Man. That's a whole nother topic right there on

this show. I'm going to bring it out to you. We got some recall news to bring to you. I

remind you get to wrench nation.tv. There's a ton of great shows for all of my formula

drift people episode three, three, two on the podcast. We had Jim Liao, who's a co-founder

of formula drift and currently is heading the PR I, which is part of SEMA and speaking

of SEMA, SEMA, Tom Catooso, who's a VP of events. That show was released a lot of part

of September. My point is you guys will dip in and out of the radio and we love to have

you guys hang on the podcast when you want it. Of course it's there for you. There's

a ton of shows on this show. A lot of you, you've seen the nightly news, maybe, maybe

on social media. You've seen a couple of blurbs about truck driver, illegal, killed a few

people, made some wrong turns. What is going on in the trucking industry? And we're not

just talking about bad actors behind the wheels, although we're going to address some of that.

You guys know America runs on wheels, period. A lot of those wheels belong to, well, the

men and women behind the big rigs, those drivers. What happens when that whole system starts

to crack? In other words, you've got a federal administration right now that is cracking down

on some of these laws behind the domicile worker, which is basically an immigrant that

may not be a citizen. How does that affect the truck drivers? We've got trucker Tim.

He's going to call in live behind the wheel. This man lives behind the wheel and he's going

to reveal some of the situations. Mechanically speaking, are these trucks safe? Are they passing

inspection? A lot of you drive on the freeway and you see these big, I saw one today. It

was a small trailer. It wasn't a big semi truck, but it was spitting out like machine gun.

Patrick, you've ever been behind a wheel and somebody's tire goes on a trailer and it's

like a machine gun. The only alligator I've ever seen. And everybody's bobbing and weaving.

Big piece of a rubber in the street. Yeah. That's so, in fact, I'm going to get into

the trucker Tim's ear about that. We really want to reveal to you listening a little insight

into the trucking industry. There's a lot of changes going on. How does that affect

what you pay at the end? Let's say at a grocery store. Does it even matter? How much do truck

drivers have the opportunity to make? I just read an article now with these new laws, which

trucker Tim is going to talk about regarding the qualifications. I E must speak English.

Must be able to read. Yeah. These drivers that were caught in this accident barely got

by with English. In fact, there may have been some miscommunication about the roadway science.

That's that's out there. That's happened. And so we're not saying that all truck drivers,

but we want to dive in to the underbelly of what's happening in the trucking industry

as it relates to kind of skeptical labor practices. Some of these repairs that may not be legit.

And let's face it. A lot of you say, well, if we had, if everybody obeyed the laws, whoa,

everybody obeyed the trucking industry laws, they exist. Are we obeying them? Are we breaking

them? Is this new? Is the Trump administration diving in to try to correct some of that?

I read another article this morning. It's like 198,000 truck drivers. Now, mind you,

I think there's several million trucker Tim will correct us on that, but 198,000 drivers

are set to lose their job behind the wheel. What does that do to the freight rates? We

all pay for that. So we're going to dive in deep to the trucking industry, exposing, exposing

all that with trucker Tim here in a minute. I do want to bring recalls. I always try to

work hard. Relevant recalls, not the 50 cars, but there's two recalls I want you to know

about because it may affect many of you. The Dodge dart. I'm not a fan of the new dart.

Patrick, they took the classic dart and they, they turned it into a little neon or something.

Once they stopped making it with metal. I'm not a huge fan.

You were done when they, yeah, exactly. I mean, some of my classic car people that the

original dart was amazing.

It's, it's kind of like a, it's to me, the dart remade is like a neon. It's kind of like a

little, uh, yeah, like a stat, like a kind of like, yeah, like Plymouth. What was it?

The, uh, my understanding is, I mean, we're not going to, some of you driving a dart right

now, not too happy. We love them. Yeah. But 300,000 of those darts in the US are being

recalled. Uh, they may roll away. Is that your biggest fear, Patrick? Your car just

roll away with no control. Never once in my life. Okay. So you, uh, what about you?

You worried about your car just rolling away? You know, now that you, now that you mentioned

it and maybe a little bit, just you're talking to some friends and you just start because

you put a lot of faith. You put first rolling away when you're talking to friends at a car

meet. Here you are. Like, I don't care for the push buttons. We had a whole show on how

the switching, the switch. Yeah. Like, yeah. Like you didn't like BMW. It's got that. They

call it, I think the eye drive or whatever. And then a lot of manufacturers kind of, they're

all, but I think it's going back to be, I like the shifted center console, put it in

park. You feel it. You feel it. Yeah. And a lot of you agree. Some of you don't care

because you're all, you spend 12 hours a day Aiden, uh, playing video games and you don't

care as long as it might be called out. It almost feels like you're in a space like

a NASA spaceship. See the big, the biggest thing is I just want to shifter that I'm not

making a mistake for my AC knob. So what I'm saying is the confidence of mechanically

putting a shifter in park makes you think, all right, this thing is locked. It's not

going anywhere.

But when you have like the push button thing, it's like, Oh, okay. I'm giving it to the

vehicle. It's just a feeling. I don't know. It's a trust issue. Yeah. I agree. It's a

faith issue. That would be like the worst thing, but these dodge darts, uh, we're talking

298,000 of these vehicles in the U S because the detached shifter cable may cause a vehicle

to roll away. These shifter cables can come apart. Have we seen that in the garage? Mechanical.

Yeah. Absolutely. Uh, GM's shift cable used to break when you go to sit and that's right

of two piece. Uh, recall, uh, is taking place. So what do you do? Uh, you call a lot of you're

going to get upset. You know, you get nervous, be nice to the dealerships, man. They're all

working hard. They're all behind cause it's this shortage of skilled labor anyway, but

you can get onto NH eight, uh, NHTSA dot gov type in your VIN number. I always tell you

if you buy a used car, type it in there. You're going to do the car facts, but see if there's

any open recalls and, uh, they will take care of that. The recall comes after Stellantis,

which is the mothership Stellantis. They own all those companies, including Maserati. I get those

in the garage. I'm not going to talk on Maserati right now, but, uh, they're recalling these

shifter cable, uh, bushings, uh, or cables, I should say. Let me get it right. April 2000.

Apparently they had some other recall back in 19 with a similar issue. See, I don't understand

that Patrick like if I was an engineer, recalls are happening. I would be, I'm going to look at

all my lines, risk and reward of financial, you're right. It's what it is. Yeah, they're all

we don't need it. If they, if the government didn't tell us to do it, don't spend, leave it alone.

What was that scene in fight club? It was like, if the, yeah, that's right.

Now, Salantis goes on to say they're not aware of any accidents or injuries. Like we don't want

that, but maybe some people have been reported. Maybe they thought it was a fluke, you know,

got up in the morning, had coffee, uh, half the ladies out there doing their makeup. I see

you get the makeup done before you get in the ride, but you may have had problems pulling that

shifter out. They'll take care of it. Give them a, either a call or more, more appropriate. Get

on to the website and HTSA.gov and see if that affects you. One more recall before we get to

your weird automotive news. Nissan, I had to do this one and I'll tell you a lot of my fleet

companies, you guys love the vans and you, you buy those vans are inexpensive. I mean,

you can spend money like on a Mercedes Sprinter, but Nissan has that. Pat, I don't know if you've

seen it. It's a smaller van. It is the NV 200. It's a real tiny van. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a small

affordable van. If you've got a plumber is just starting out that they are recalling those because

of a potential blown fuel pump fuse. Now, what's the specifics? Let me get into it. They're

recalling about 173,000 of the, uh, I don't see many of these in the car. I have. In fact, I've

not to be honest. I've seen them running around the road and V as in Victor 200 little, little

vans, some of more taxes. Yeah. It's a real tiny one. That's small. Yeah. In fact, uh, businesses,

like you said, 100% and the year range was 14 to 17. Uh, actually, let me get it right. Boy,

there's so many different recall covers the 13 to 21 Nissan NV 200, the 14 to 17 and 2019. Okay,

so between 13 and 21, as well as the Chevy city express. Now I've never seen one of those, but

they partnered with, uh, it's not the big X full Chevy expresses memory, the old express, man.

Anyway, about, uh, 5% of the recall population is expected to have the defect. So again, going in

NHTSA, uh, the fuel tank, temperature, sensor, harness may not have been routed correctly in

affected vehicles. Got to know the temperature of fuel. Is the catching fire? Well, again, it will,

it will blow the fuse, which I imagine the recalls, it doesn't say, but I, if it's going to stall or

die in flight, if you're driving on the freeway or worse yet, how many died in the intersection?

You making that left turn, minding your own business in the car, she shuts off at slow

speed in the interstate. Bam, you're done. My grandma died the intersection. No. Oh, okay. No,

man. Don't grandma, don't bring up grandma. Sorry, grandma. Yeah. I was going to say, no. Uh, but

no, that's the serious thing. A lot of people can get T boned and all kinds of stuff in the

intersection. They just had a common problem when they put the fuse box up front for melting the

fuse pump. Yes. That's right. They rerouted it to a different spot. Yeah. So that's, uh,

that harness has not been correctly routed. Again, that's a 13 to 21 NV 200. Uh, the contact may

result in the protective coating wearing away, causing electrical short, long fuel pump views.

This may interfere with the delivery of fuels. Exactly what we're talking about, which is a

loss of power, shuts off, lack of power, whatever. It's going to sputter and die. Good night, Charlie.

That's always been my fears when like left turns. Yeah. I mean, left, left turn is

in general can be risk. The risk goes up. The fear of T bone. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean,

hit in the middle. In theory, if you're taking a left turn, the opposing car is going to hit.

Hopefully you don't have a passenger in your, but it's just left turns. I've told my kids to

really be careful with a left turn. Aiden, you feel confident with your left turns? I do. I do,

but I know a lot of people that definitely aren't. That's, I don't have the stats, but I imagine a

lot of first time drivers, the left turn was, was like the cause of an accident or not in

paying attention or whatnot, you know, texting and driving that sort of thing.

All right. There's your recalls. Aiden, give me some happy dudes. What do you got in the weird

all right? So we all spoil our pets right for the most part. I got way too many, man.

Tell me how come home. It sounds like a zoo. So going into that rolls Royce just built what's

called the specter Bailey, a one off car made to celebrate a, uh, a couple's adorable dog Bailey,

the golden laboratory retriever mix. Wait a minute now. So when you got that kind of money,

you, you can do that apparently. Yeah. So what is this called the rolls Royce? So it's called

the specter Bailey. The whole thing is dripping with canine inspired luxury as, as rolls Royce

called it. Uh, the color matches the dog's ear fur. So like if you, if you actually saw,

but why your fur, not the tails? I mean, well, I mean, that's what I think that I think their

whole thing is the ears. Actually, that's going to be the same color throughout the dog body

itself. Patrick. Officially, this is a crazy story. I'm very intrigued. I want one. So the

ear, the ear color of what kind of, what kind of dog is Bailey golden laboratory retriever mix

and love the laboratories. Yeah. Wow. This is a lucky dog rose gold details featuring actual paw

prints and on the interior and on the door, uh, skin. This is crazy. Not the door skin,

but the inner, the inner track right before the base of the floor. You get in the vehicle,

the door trim. Yeah. I wonder what the dog, the act. I wonder what the dog thinks of this car.

I mean, he probably loves it. He's got his own portrait right in the middle of the passengers.

If we can speak doggy language, he's having a fight with his own portrait that's in the middle

of the two passenger seats there. All dogs go to heaven. We can all agree to that. And when we

meet them in heaven, you know what these dogs, because they can speak English in heaven or

whatever language. No, where were you? No, they're going to call us out. How stupid were you to do

some of the things you did? Actually, I think the dog would feel good, but the owner's got to be

like that's different. Pat, I want to, that's a whole new love right there. I want to meet the

girlfriend of 16 years that drives a Volkswagen Beetle, but the dog got a Rolls Royce. I know.

She should be upset. This is, this is like a whole level of dogs got his own custom Rolls Royce

and the girls over here with a 20, like a 2010 Volkswagen Beetle. Well, listen, I'm looking

at this car and driver article. It's a beautiful, I like Rolls Royce. Put your pickies up.

That spectra was introduced in 24. First, fully electric. That's what makes the spectra.

Really? Yeah. But we reported on it last week. Porsche decided to recant. Porsche was going to

go all out on a full electric. And they decided, oops, no, we're going to hybrid and gas. We made

mention of that. Rolls Royce would be a little more selective. They obviously don't make as many

vehicles, but this is their electric offering. And just the paw prints has got me like, I guess

that's what you would do with that. I mean, the spectra is a beautiful car in general, but the

biggest thing there is the fact that they were like, all right, you know what? I'm going to get

one solely for my dog. Well, listen, we're, hey, when you got money, you can do it. I mean, hey,

if you got your favorite parakeet, I mean, I'm, you've designed a lot of you love your cars.

You love your dogs. We're a dog family and you sacrifice, you know, sometimes they

do stuff in the back and, you know, whatever, but put a little, how many,

Pat, do you ever have a dog with a dog diaper? My wife does the dog diaper thing. Nope. Even

just the sock things are kind of watching them try to walk in those things because they're

well, it does get hot. But I think my family, we need family therapy. How many of you actually

will, we'll put a diaper on your dog? Nope. If you buy it, is that lazy diaper?

Be doing that. That's a nice Rolls Royce. We got that right in a Rolls. Yeah. Yeah. That's a

whole nother story there. Yeah. Anyway, if you want more of that goofiness, you get on a cart

driver.com type in Rolls Royce and you'll get to see that that that's got to be a half a million

dollar situation. Oh, easily. I would think right 300 to 500, you know, for the custom job. Yeah.

Well, not only custom, but it is all electric. Yeah. There's no rebates on that one. Well,

that's true. Not at all. All right. We're talking, you know, we're going to segue from dogs because

most truck drivers, they usually have nice dogs in their trucks, keep them company on those long

halls. We're going to dive in and really get into the underbelly of the trucking industry. You've

heard some nightly news about it. The borderline illegal labor, fake repairs, oversight that may

be needed. How, you know, and you listen to, do you feel safe driving next to a truck? Years ago,

Patrick, it would be, it was known truckers were the safest drivers after all they lived behind

the wheel. Is that still the case? Well, we got trucker Tim, he's going to join us right after

the breaks. They too rent a nation.

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partsauthority.com. Welcome back for information. Always an honor to hang with you right here from

the East Valley Institute of Technology. I got a nice charitable good way to hang out with your

family over at Harold's Corral up in Cave Creek. The 2025 Community Fest is happening October 29

from 5 to 8 p.m. I have two tickets come by the garage. No, you don't have to worry about

getting your car fixed, but Desert Car Cave Cave Creek. I got two tickets. They're $25 face value.

What are we doing? Well, we're raising money for the charitable and a big shout out to all of our

charitable, Foothills Food Bank and Purse Impressions, Desert Foothills Library, Kiwanis Marketplace,

Cave Creek Museum, Caring Corps and the Holland Center. We are raising money that evening at

Harold's Corral. Of course, we're helping sponsor that. There's hardware out there, Carstens,

Desert State Roofing, Tech4Live, Parkway Bank. I got to give these shout outs because these people

took time from their businesses to help initiate what would be, I believe this is the second year,

Community Fest. Get with me at Desert Car Cave Creek. I've got two tickets for you.

That's October 29th. So we always love the charitable. I think small business is the backbone,

Mr. Aden. Absolutely. You know, we get in all this highfalutin stuff and I think small business

can make a difference. True, very true. We're talking about the trucking industry and some of the

hootenannies, the shenanigans that ultimately, you know, I don't even know if it's affecting like

major safety. I didn't go into the stats, but I do want to bring a very experienced trucker who's

behind the wheel as we speak. He is live. Let's bring trucker Tim in if we can.

Hey guys, how's it going? Tim, thanks for joining Ranch Nation. First off, where are you at? What

part of the country are you hanging? I'm in Utah right now. We're getting ready to load up with

turkeys for Thanksgiving. Oh my god. Why'd you remind me, man? We got Thanksgiving. It's another

holiday pressure for the family. But we are diving into some of the, well, can we just get into it?

There's some laws being broken in the trucking industry right now. So it had been quiet,

Tim, for some time and now we're starting to see the nightly news cover it. What do you see

as far as laws? And then we'll get into a bit more of your background and some of your pet peeves

and move on. What laws do you see right now that are being broken while, you know, not mentioning

names? What's the biggest thing that you're seeing regarding the laws out there for trucking?

Well, historically, if we go back the last 10, 15 years, probably even longer than that,

there's been a lot of laws broken. The trucking industry has just turned into the wild wild west

and it's all for money. You know, everything has their roots based in money. The Trump

administration, you know, is tightening up the laws right now, especially with the non-domicile

workers. Well, hold on. Talk to people because some people don't know what is a non-domicile worker.

Right. So a non-domicile worker fits into two categories. It's typically

a foreign national who has a visa to work in the United States for a certain period of time.

When that visa is up, the license should not be reissued, but it has been reissued over the years.

Some states are more lenient in reissuing and not checking somebody's residency

as required by law. So that's one law that's changing. Non-domicile also refers to, let's say,

you have a person in Florida who, say, in the rumorville hears that, oh, it's easy to go to

California and get your CDL. The test is real easy. It's really cheap. You'll be done in a week

and a half and you'll be driving a semi truck. And so it also refers to a person that doesn't

live in the issuing state that they receive their CDL. So those are the two categories that a

non-domicile person would fall into. I got to ask you on that front. All right. So non-domicile,

why would a trucking company favor a non-domicile worker?

Once again, it's all based on money. If a trucking company, and this has happened,

there's a couple of incidents out of Texas where trucking companies were hiring Hispanic

workers from the nearby border and paying them half the money that an American truck driver

would get paid. So when you look at the market rates at how much these loans are paying right now,

the last month or so, the rates have gone up. But since COVID, a lot of trucking companies have

gone out of business. You have Yellow who's in business, I think, 97 years and had to shut their

doors. Specifically, let's talk about Yellow because that's an iconic institution of a trucking

company been around for all those years. Do you attribute as to why they went out of business?

Because they just can't compete with this whole, I mean, why did they go out of business?

I'm not privileged to take a look at and have time to read all of the specific documents related

to that. But I stay up on the news pretty frequently and the low rates are bad right now.

There was another company out of, I believe, Alabama that just laid off 1,000 drivers

because they just couldn't afford to keep running. Those drivers were literally stranded in other

states and no way to get their trucks back and the driver's getting home and return the equipment.

Fuel cards were shut off and drivers are less stranded. So when you have a segment of the

trucking market that is willing to take loads at a cheaper price, the brokers who are issuing these

loads, they thrive off of that because I'm in Utah now. I'll be in Washington state in a few

days delivering a load. When I get to Washington state, my dispatcher and company will look for

a load that goes someplace else. So what happens is a broker or a lot of brokers for a region

know how many trucks are in an area that are available to move loads and they're offering these

loads at ridiculously very, very low rates where a lot of companies are basically taking these

loads for free just so that they can get the truck into a more profitable region of the country

for that time of the year. So the broker is able to make more money and overall the American

companies who are following the hours of service rules and maintaining their equipment professionally,

which is not cheap, it's hard for them to stay afloat. And the last I've read, I think it was

something like 2,000 companies a week were filing bankruptcy and keep in mind these are companies

anywhere from two to five trucks in a company. That's a huge volume. I want to back up a little

bit. You had mentioned we're going to get to the maintenance and sort of how these trucks are

taken care of, but you had mentioned like you can't get behind the truck first. And I speak to

those listening that have no idea about the rules and regulations of driving behind the truck.

Could you talk to us a little bit about some of the laws and regulations surrounding the

electronic logs, the amount of time that I can drive like, you know, get into that because

that's where a lot of it is fractured, my understanding in how folks are breaking the law.

So the trucking industry, and I just read this yesterday online, is the most highest regulated

and government oversight industry in the United States. There are so many laws that govern and

dictate how drivers and trucks, how drivers will drive and how trucks will, you know,

be maintained. There are entire, you know, debt using debt. For example, I've seen

a lot of companies deleting the debt off of there. That's part of the diesel system.

Right. Right. So back in the 70s and 80s, right, remember the trucks with the big black

smoke coming out of the top, you know, we don't, we're not doing that anymore.

Well, we, as youngsters, Pat, we thought that was cool. He would pour in, you know,

his trucks, this blue, black smoke. It's still kind of cool. But now, if you don't know death,

which is an additive that's used to clean up the exhaust system, it's an EPA mandated.

Trucker Tim is talking about how they'll bypass and delete that because sometimes repair that gets

really expensive and the truck will actually time out. But go ahead, Trucker Tim.

Yeah, that's correct. If the system's not functioning properly, your truck will automatically

slow down to roughly 45 miles per hour. That gives you enough speed to get to a shop.

If you don't, your truck's going to go down to maybe 10 miles per hour. And then eventually,

it will shut off in order to save the equipment and the engine.

Personally, driving around the country, I have never, ever had any one of my pieces of equipment

tested to see if the death is, you know, working. If the death system's being used or was it,

you know, was it hooked up to a computer and completely deleted? The fines for this,

for the companies, it's very large, but it's also a very common practice. Not every truck,

but a lot of companies do that to prolong the life of the, what people believe,

you could prolong the life of your engine and save money from buying death fluid, you know,

every time you fill up. So they bypass it? They bypass the entire system, yes. Which is illegal?

Completely illegal. And I'll be honest, I tried to report a company that was doing that. They

wanted me to drive a truck with no, and there's no way I was going to do that because now the

liability's on me, you know, and I would get hefty, you know, fines and it would go on my

driving record. And it was almost impossible to report that type of usage. I tried reporting it,

I was told, oh, you have to go to the environmental, the EPA and report it with them and the online

stuff. It was just, it was a real big hassle, you know, but anyway, you know, we could talk about

repairs, shoddy repairs, I've seen brakes put on upside down. We're going to get to that,

but I want to get back more into getting a sense for the average driver down the road of the

regulations with the, the talk to us about how, how, how many miles can you drive and how many

hours can you be behind the wheel before you got to take a break? I want to talk about that. We

can get into who's, how they're breaking the law there. So a truck driver can work 14 hours a day

in a 24 hour period, you can work 14 hours, and then you have to take a 10 hour break.

So within that 14 hours, let's say you do three hours at a dock getting loaded. So now you have

11 hours of driving that you can do. Let's say tomorrow morning I wake up, my truck's already

loaded. I can drive 11 hours maximum in one 24 hour period, then I have to take a 10 hour break.

How many miles? And I know this would be an average, but how many, what,

how far can you go in 11 hours like without breaking speed? And your average truck is going

to do somewhere around 625, 650 miles. You have places like North Dakota and South Dakota. They're

probably get to 700 miles going through those states. But then you get to Montana and the

mountainous states, you know, you're going 35 miles an hour uphill, you know, probably 40 downhill.

So you're going to lose a lot of time when you're doing the mountain driving.

Does the trucking company that most of these truckers work for, are they good with

about those averages or is the sentiment they want more and more and more? Keep going, going, going, going.

So from a driver's perspective, when we're gone from home for whatever the agreed time is, say

you're going to go out two weeks and then you're going to go back home and take three or four days

off or you're going to stay out for a month and then go back home and take, you know, five days off.

You know, the goal for us is we're out here sacrificing our time. We're away from our family.

We're driving through all kinds of hazardous conditions, snow, ice, blizzards, like conditions,

road closures, detours, you know, navigational problems. It's not just a matter of, you know,

get on the highway, just put your feet up and drive straight. You know, there are a lot of

challenges, especially in the winter months as we're coming close to them.

So the goal for us is to make as much as we can before we get back home. You know, that's what

we're out here for. How was that log detection or the log books, I should say, because years ago it

was just a handwritten, correct? It was like a spreadsheet handwritten kind of thing. So you

have to log and what does that mean? Like what does the log mean to regulation and how are the

logs potentially broken? The ELDs, the electronic logging devices are automatically connected

to the ignition system of the truck. So when I start driving, if I parked, I will be either on

duty or off duty. So as soon as I start driving, the ELD automatically goes into driving mode

and it calculates all of your driving and all of your on duty time right on the app that you're

using. There's no way for a driver to alter that. However, there are a lot of companies

that will get into the system and alter your driving time. That's a big problem because you

just said 11 hours a day. I mean 14 figuring two, three hours at the dock and 11 hours driving.

You're telling me that these are rigged in a way where they can bypass that so a driver can

potentially drive 18 hours a day. Right. So if you can imagine, say, let's say I do a delivery

at 8am at a warehouse, I offload, it takes three or four hours to do that. Then I drive

two hours to go pick up my next load. And then it takes me three hours to get loaded.

But every time you pick up a load, you're going to have to do on average anywhere from

three to five hours of driving to get to where that your load has to be on time. These are very

tight schedules. It's not like you have, you know, 15 hours to goof off and go fish the Yellowstone

River. You know, you're going to be driving and moving as quick as you can to make your appointment

time because if you're late, you could end up paying anywhere from 150 to $400 late fee

out of your pocket. Who pays that? Uh, typically the driver will be responsible.

So I'll give you an example. I'm here in Utah. I checked in a little bit early and the guy I

was talking to said, I'm going to find you $350 for being early. I said, well,

that seems a little unfair. He says, well, it's in the contract. I said, well, I'm the driver.

I don't get to see the contract. He said, well, if you're parked on my property,

you need to get off my bar property, go find someplace to park and then come back at your

appointment time. I took a team. Why is this? I mean, is he trying to make a living off your

back skin or is there a problem with navigating other trucks? It's like a time deal where he

can't have too many. Why do they do that? Each warehouse throughout the country and there are,

I don't know how many tens of thousands of warehouses, they all have their own

different check in and check out procedures. They're not all the same. Some houses or some

warehouses will let you check in one hour before your appointment time. Some will let you check in

three hours before your appointment time and they'll call you when they're, you know, they have a

doctor already available for you. But, you know, as we talk about that, every time a driver is

sitting at these docks for excessive amounts of time, if I have a 2am appointment at a dock

and they don't even get to me until six o'clock at night, that's four hours of my time.

Every driver, we don't get paid for any of that time. We're volunteering our time to offload

this stuff. How many hours a month are you talking about waiting at a dock for the average? Oh,

I would say on a week, I probably sit roughly 25 to 30 hours at docks. And you don't get paid?

No pay at all. Is that industry wide? Is that industry wider? It's an industry wide

practice that needs serious attention because I don't think it's right to give me an appointment

time. If I'm late, you're going to charge me. But then if I sit there for five hours getting loaded

with pears or apples or cherries or turkey or ham, whatever it is, corn, you know, that I have to

lose out on that time. Now keep in mind, all of that time these drivers are sitting at these docks

waiting, their appointment time for delivery remains the same. It doesn't change. So if I'm

waiting four hours, I've now I've got to work, you know, later through the night and still get to

my appointment on time. And it's a it's a really unfair, very common practice in this industry.

Choker Tim Hanksite, Aiden's got a question. Aiden, what do you got? So what I'm basically

hearing is you guys have to be on time. But if you're early, you get punished. If you're late,

you get punished. If the people that are loading you are too slow, you still get punished. If they're

too fast and you still end up at the next location, you get punished. So exactly. So the question is,

if there is almost only you guys getting punished for stuff that the money comes out of your pocket,

not your trucking company, yours, why is it that we still have truckers taking this abuse?

But they're, but they're still expected to make time quotas like, you know, like their genies,

you know what I mean? I compliment him, trucker Tim. So if you go back, like we grew up,

it like the union seemed to be really strong. Pat, I mean, you grown up, those types of

trucking industry union was strong to compliment what what Aiden is saying, Tim, where's the

union? I'm able to imagine the union is freaking out. So okay, we're talking right now, roughly what

330,000 trucking companies in the United States. And you'll have companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi

who belong to a trucking union. But your common carrier is a guy who owns maybe five trucks,

eight trucks. That is your typical trucking company in the country. You have your

megatrucking companies like JB Hunt, Swift, Knight, Walmart, they might have their own unions or no

union at all. So there is the ATA, the American Trucking Association. And I believe they're based

out of Texas. They recently submitted some bills to Congress to try to get them approved. I did not

see one item in there that included this problem with the warehouse times for loading and unloading.

It just it wasn't an issue for them. But for the common blue collar truck driver who's got a

family to take care of, you know, bills to pay and mortgages. And it is an issue because

we get paid when the wheels are turning. Most people get paid with long hauling, you get paid

per mile. Usually the local trucking companies, Coke, Pepsi, some other salad companies,

they're on hourly pay. So... Or like Walmart. I read Tim Walmart has said they'll pay

X amount of like $14 for the waiter. That's an exception. We're talking about the massive

carriers that that's what this conversation is and not the exceptions of some of the

bigger box stores and stuff. Right. But the long hauling part of the trucking industry

is typically paid by mileage. Your flat decks, your dry vans, reefers all get paid per mile. So

all this time, so right if I'm sitting at a dock 25, 30 hours a week, can you imagine how many

miles I could be getting paid had I been driving those hours? So I'll give you an example. When

I got to Utah, it unexpectedly took six and a half hours to unload my truck

and it caused us to lose the next load. I couldn't make it on time. So now we had to wait

for the market to open to look for another load to get me out of Utah to another state.

Why is this? What's with these distribution centers? What would you say is a common problem?

Why are you waiting six hours? It's overbooking and it boils it down to money again.

Do you, does a warehouse want to drive a higher 12 forklift drivers or three?

Right. So the mentality is also what there's, you know, 18 trucks in the parking lot waiting

to get unloaded. That says warehouses just do not care at all. They have, they do their eight,

they hit the gate, they go home, right? The truck driver, we're in the ones in panic like,

oh, you know, we're going to lose the next load and we're going to sit all weekend until the

market opens on Monday. You know, it's a huge impact on the trucking company because we're

losing money. We're losing money every day that the truck doesn't move. And when these warehouses

hold us up, then it puts a big dent in everybody's paycheck.

It makes it difficult. I can see that. I want to go back to just one more point on the domicile

workers. Brokers, so we understand this, that brokers sort of broker where the loads are going.

The carrier will pick up whatever load. Could you talk to us about the competition

within these load rates? How does one trucking company beat another trucking company? I mean,

if we were to talk about business, everybody wants to be competitive,

but how are they able to do it for a whole much less? Like, how does that work out?

Well, if you have a trucking company, let's say you have a group of immigrants that come from

whatever country, typically Eastern Europe or India or some Latin countries. So when they

come to the United States, if they could make $800 to $1,000 a week and live in the truck

with no overhead, no apartment, no house, that's really good money for them. And they send all

that money home. So a trucking company will illegally hire them, say for half the price,

say $0.35, $0.40 a mile. And that driver's happy with it. You know, he's making good money.

What's the going rate for a mile? What did you say right now?

Anywhere from $0.65 to $0.70 a mile for reefer and drive-ins, flat decks,

the guys who haul construction equipment and big bulky items, the oversized loads,

they're making a little bit more, probably 80 to 85 cents a mile.

Now, keep in mind, though, I mean, that equipment has to be loaded on those flat decks. You see

the trucks, they have the tarps. I mean, even bees, you know, you have bee haulers out there.

They load up all these crates of bees. They cover them with a big netting. It's very time consuming

to do all this work to load these flat decks and stuff. So that gives us perspective about

how much they're cutting. So if I have five trucks and I can, I can have a guy in there working for

half, I'm getting that load. I'm going to put Arizona on the spot because there was a gentleman

out of Arizona with a trucking company. He was just on the news roughly four days ago,

and that's what he was doing. And I think he profited about $2 million in two years

off of operating like that. And I'll tell you what, there are drivers out there who don't even

have a CDL. Colorado just did a sting operation, stopped a bunch of trucks,

put some of them out of service for logbook violations, equipment violations,

and one driver did not even have a CDL, was not even qualified to drive the truck.

What, look, so you're in the industry. These are actually somewhat scary points, Patrick,

Teddy's making. How in the end does it affect safety on the roads? Let's address that. And

then we're going to get into the mechanics of, we only have seven minutes. This needs to be like

a two hour gig, but how does it, like, so the average driver's listening to all this and all

that trucking industry has problems. I'm not going to worry about it. What have you seen in your

time? You've been doing this for a long time. That can truly affect the average family driver out there.

You know, my number one advice to all of your listeners and to my own family is I tell them

when you're next to a truck, pass it, slow down, just get away from it. You don't know who worked

on that truck. You don't know how long that driver's been driving. I can't even tell you how many

times over the last 12, 13 years, I've seen a semi just end up in the grass or off the road or

even off bridges. This is stuff I've personally witnessed. I've seen full tire sets come off

of a truck. That's usually lack of lubrication. You find the industry speaking of maintenance,

do they run to failure? I mean, aren't I supposed to take care of my truck on a regular basis?

Isn't that regulation? Yes. So what happens is some companies want their truck

returned to the company's home base. So let's say, for example, I work for a company out of Chicago

and I call the owner, I say, hey, you know, the tires are really bad on this truck.

You know, they're not going to pass inspection if I get inspected. Okay, well, just bring the

truck back to Chicago and we'll replace the tires in Chicago or we'll replace, you know,

or we'll check the brake pads when you get to Chicago or, you know, we'll check everything

when you get back to home base. So they push the drivers to keep driving that way and drivers

should not be doing that. Drivers have to learn to put their foot down and say, no,

I'm not going to risk getting, you know, three flat tires, you know, driving 1200 miles back

to Chicago or Indiana or, you know, New Jersey to get these repairs done. Plus the drivers putting

themselves at risk at getting a ticket for unsafe equipment. And it's very common with

the non-domicile companies. They're always trying to save a few bucks here and there when they can,

putting, Frank, I've seen wheels come off a truck, brake fluid spraying everywhere,

I've seen sparks come from underneath the chassis of semi-trucks. I had a repair done,

the guy put the brakes on backwards, you know, all the brakes had to be redone again,

you know, which will take us into that other segment you were talking about. But non-qualified

technicians, you know, people just being hired to work on these trucks with no certification,

no formal training or schooling at all. Frank, I will tell you an horrible story.

I left the company, took a vacation, when I came back, they said, hey, we gave your truck to somebody

else, we got another one for you. I said, okay, great, let's go. I went, checked out the truck,

nice, clean, low miles. I was driving from Sioux City to Sioux Falls in the early spring,

very high winds that were going through there at the time. I kid you not, Frank, the cab of

the truck was lifting off the frame. It later turned out, long story short, these backyard

mechanics were buying parts from a salvage company and building their own trucks.

Oh my gosh. The truck that I was in was missing, only had two bolts tightened down for the cab.

That's crazy. The other eight or 10 bolts were not secured.

Tim, I got maybe a minute left and we're definitely going to get you back on because I want to dive

into more of this and certainly over the next 30 days, definitely through the remainder of the

year, there's going to be all kinds of stuff. The administration sounds like it's moving and

grooving. You got a minute. What's your favorite part of truck driving?

Getting to see the entire country, meeting good people along the way.

Never been to Louisiana before, but I love going there. The Cajun food is just great

down there. People are really nice. Same with North, South Carolina, Alabama. I love going

down to Arizona when I can. It's a nice opportunity to see how great of a country that we actually

live in. Man, that's solid. Patrick, man. I feel like I want to start.

That's a good answer. Well, we thank you for your time, Tim, spending with Wrench Nation.

We'll definitely have you back. There's so much more to talk about. Thank you so much.

We appreciate your time on Wrench Nation. You're welcome, guys. Enjoy the holidays.

Be safe. We don't give our truckers enough credit. For you, if you are, I mean, he was pretty

drastic about if you're near a truck, just like get in and out. It used to be truckers were the

safest. I mean, it is what they, I don't know. I mean, but he's on it. He sees it. And so this

is a big shout out to all the truckers. We have a lot of truckers that live to the, listen to the

podcast. It is not an easy industry. And let me tell you, when I get my banana, I get my cherry,

I get my wood. I think about you guys. So hang in there. We're going to wrap it up Wrench Nation.

Patrick, thank you for joining us. Thank you guys. We're going to open it up more, Eden. Thank you

for hanging out. As I tell you every week, be safe. Hug each other and never forget the Hogan

mechanic.

Girl, I need you there with you. What would I do for without you?

She put your love into these. Girl, I know you feel no shame. Just let this be.

Girl, I love you very much. She needs me all about you.

#335 Trucking’s Underbelly Exposed: Illegal Labor, Fake Repairs, and Failing Oversight

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