Welcome to the WHAT THE TRUCK?!? newsletter. Here we’ll get you caught up on all things WHAT THE TRUCK?!? and bring you up to date on the world of freight as we see it. Enjoy! — Dooner
Anatomy of a failed protest
What was it? — As I covered in this newsletter last week, a Facebook group that was promoting the #StopTheTires2020 protest quickly gained traction a little over a week ago. The loose-knit group of Trump supporters planned to park their trucks on Veterans Day and over Thanksgiving weekend. On Monday, the group canceled the second planned protest.
What went wrong? — Very few of the group’s 74,000 members were actually truck drivers and the overall messaging of the group was appropriated by an influx of politically motivated outsiders. What started as a way to send a message to the Biden/Harris administration about a potential ban on fracking quickly became an outlet for ways to spite “blue states” by refusing delivery to them.
“The narrative got really lost. I had some veterans join the page and they pushed out the 11th date and really took away from the veterans and that was not my intention. It became very divided at that point.” — Jeremy Rewoldt, founder of the #StopTheTires2020 Facebook group, on The Post Trip Podcast
Who started it? — Jeremy Rewoldt, a 15-year industry veteran with no experience as an OTR driver or as an owner-operator.
Little impact — As Clarissa Hawes reported, the Outbound Tender Rejection Index measures the rate at which carriers reject customer requests to pick up freight. Last week, it declined from 26.96% on Tuesday to 26.76% on Wednesday, meaning that fewer truckers declined loads on the day of the strike.
A change of heart — “If you have any sense of humanity and a sense of stopping medical equipment to hospitals and stuff like that, that I felt was more of an act of treason than anything else to deprive American people of medicines,” Rewoldt told The Post Trip Podcast. “I mean that’s not right, that’s not something you should do. I don’t want any medical haulers or anything to be stopping.”
In the end — As one veteran driver told me, “I feel like (truckers) are being used and I want no part in that.”
Elon shoots a triple double
S&P — Tesla Twitter and the market (up 9%) went wild upon the announcement from S&P Dow Jones Indices that “Tesla will be added to the S&P 500 effective prior to the open of trading Dec. 21 to coincide with the December quarterly rebalance.” This means two things:
- At a market cap of $423B, Tesla is already a top-10 company in the S&P.
- A company in means a company out so one unlucky company is getting gobbled up like Frog Lady’s eggs around Baby Yoda.
SpaceWaves — SpaceX Dragon Crew astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker with NASA and Soichi Noguchi, an astronaut with Japan’s space agency, arrived at the International Space Station 30 hours after blasting off from Kennedy Space Center. This historic journey brought Glover, the first Black American ever, to the ISS.
Space Karen? — A term coined for Musk by Emma Bell after he tweeted: “Something extremely bogus is going on. Was tested for covid four times today. Two tests came back negative, two came back positive. Same machine, same test, same nurse. Rapid antigen test from BD.” The Tesla and SpaceX CEO had been dismissive and critical of the impacts of the coronavirus in the past.
Musk tested positive for COVID-19 and later admitted that he may have a “mild case.” We wish him a full recovery.
Tragedy in Mexico
A horrible accident — A “massive” gas tanker explosion along the Guadalajara-Tepic highway killed at least 13 people on Monday, reports the New York Post.
What happened? — The natural gas tanker crashed into three other vehicles, which caused it to burst into flames before exploding into a scorching fireball.
Caught on video — A motorist on the scene captured the blast on video, which shows bystanders approaching the crash only to run for their lives after the tanker blew up.
A devastating loss of life — Five people in a pickup truck and three others in a Honda are among the dead. The body of the truck’s driver has yet to be found, according to Mexico’s Milenio newspaper.
Friday on WHAT THE TRUCK?!? – Truckers Final Mile
Charity brings deceased drivers home — If you already caught Monday’s episode of WHAT THE TRUCK?!? you heard The Dude and me cover Truckers Final Mile. Truck driver Robert Palm started the charity nearly seven years ago to help desperate trucking families bring home deceased loved ones who are often thousands of miles away when tragedy strikes.
On Friday, Robert Palm will join us on the show to talk about how you can help the cash-strapped nonprofit just as we enter the holidays.
A fix for dock scheduling — Opendock’s Jeff Booth discusses ways to modernize dock data in order to reduce dwell time and drive efficiency.
#PlayItForward — Jon Galletly of Crossdock melts our faces with a video from his metal band HAMMERHANDS and sheds further insight on issues that dockworkers face.
Spin the wheel, make the deal — BWS Logistics’ Rob Bussey squares off against the Wheel of Stupid Questions and talks about selling freight in a hot market.
Catch new shows live at noon ET Mondays and Fridays on FreightWavesTV, FreightWaves LinkedIn and Facebook or on demand by looking up WHAT THE TRUCK?!? on your favorite podcast player.
Now on demand
#WheelOfStupidQuestions
How do you deal with a roommate or co-worker who steals your food from the communal fridge? Supply Chain Queen Sheri Hinish answers. What would you do?
In supply chain and want to spin the Wheel of Stupid Questions? Just let me know and we’ll see about getting you on WHAT THE TRUCK?!?
Subscribe to the show
Or simply look up WHAT THE TRUCK?!? on your favorite podcast player.
All FreightWaves podcasts can also be found on one feed by looking up FreightCasts wherever you get your podcasts.
Want a vintage WHAT THE TRUCK?!? shirt? Check out the swag store.