This fireside chat is part of the FreightWaves Small Fleet & Owner-Operator Summit
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: OOIDA looks at the new regulatory landscape
DETAILS: With difficulty hiring drivers getting more extreme, and with a new administration in Washington along with a new head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the largest trade group representing independent owner-operators has a full plate. Lewie Pugh joins FreightWaves Editor at Large John Kingston to discuss the landscape his organization sees from behind the wheel.
SPEAKER: William “Lewie” Pugh, executive vice president, Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association
BIO: William “Lewie” Pugh has been an OOIDA member for two decades and has served on the OOIDA Board of Directors since 2004. He resides in Holden, Missouri. He has 26 years of trucking experience with 22 years as an owner-operator. Pugh quit trucking in 2017, moved to Missouri and began working at OOIDA as a regulatory specialist. He became the manager of OOIDA’s Business Services department in March 2018 and was elected executive vice president on April 26, 2018.
KEY QUOTES FROM PUGH:
Challenging the idea of a driver shortage: “There is a driver turnover problem. There is a driver pay problem.”
“If you look at driver salaries from the ’70s, they now should be six-figure salaries.”
“We never really see these (driver shiortfalls) with private carriers or LTL carriers. It comes back to pay and treatment and at all these places, guys get paid for their time. So many times drivers spend standing at shippers and receivers, and you never get that time back.”
Discussing parking, which OOIDA says is the real shortage problem in the industry: “We don’t want trucks in our backyard. We want them to come in here, deliver their freight in the middle of the night and then leave because we don’t want to see them. But the world doesn’t work like that.”