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Drilling Deep: What’s motivating the Canadian drivers?

Also on the podcast: The torrid pace of diesel consumption

Photo: Nate Tabak/FreightWaves

Michael Lemke is a former truck driver and is now an assistant professor at the University of Houston-Downtown. He’s spent a good part of his career studying drivers from the perspective of the forces that shape their careers and their perspective on the world.

Given that, host John Kingston wanted to sit down with him and get his views on what happened with the Canadian truck blockade of several crossings with the U.S. as well as downtown Ottawa, and with the forces that led drivers in a country known for being “nice” to take such extreme action.

Also on the podcast, the demand numbers that are helping to drive oil prices higher.


More articles by John Kingston

Drilling Deep: Mehrotra looks at a very profitable Q4 for trucking

Drilling Deep: The feedback coming from truck drivers

Drilling Deep: Wrapping up the year in oil and trucking


John Kingston

John has an almost 40-year career covering commodities, most of the time at S&P Global Platts. He created the Dated Brent benchmark, now the world’s most important crude oil marker. He was Director of Oil, Director of News, the editor in chief of Platts Oilgram News and the “talking head” for Platts on numerous media outlets, including CNBC, Fox Business and Canada’s BNN. He covered metals before joining Platts and then spent a year running Platts’ metals business as well. He was awarded the International Association of Energy Economics Award for Excellence in Written Journalism in 2015. In 2010, he won two Corporate Achievement Awards from McGraw-Hill, an extremely rare accomplishment, one for steering coverage of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and the other for the launch of a public affairs television show, Platts Energy Week.