Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back, everyone, to That's Delivered. I'm your host, Truck and Reggae, and today we're sitting down with attorney Paul Taylor from Trucker's Justice Center. Paul was he spent years helping truck drivers, owner operators, trucking professionals navigate through some of the most complicated legal situations in the industry. Now, whether you're a company driver, lease operator, owner operator, or thinking of making a move into the career, today's conversation could save you a lot of money, stress, headaches, you know, that happens when you're out here on the road. So we're going to be talking with him about some of the common misunderstandings with regulations, maybe lease purchase agreements, or factoring as an independent contractor. What helps us when we're out here? Maybe there's a dispatch putting pressure on you as a driver, or you need brakes to make sure you're following the hours of service. And there's a lot of hours that we deal with, right? So who do we talk to? Who do we go to for help? If there's a lawsuit that's that's hanging over our heads, and we probably maybe got questions about funding loans. Well, how do we avoid ending up on the wrong side of things? Well, Paul, thank you for being on the show. We appreciate your advice. Paul, welcome to the show. So glad to have you on. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 1:19

I'm doing terrifically. Thank you so much, Ray.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Yeah, this has been a real honor to have you guys take the time out of your day. I know you guys are busy taking care of things, but we want to go back to talk about how it all began. You know, before you

Paul’s Trucking Roots To Law

SPEAKER_00 1:32

got to where you're at today, can you please tell us what it's been like to be the the the frontliner for a lot of these drivers out here? How did you get to this point?

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Well, I grew up in a trucking family. Not that we were truck drivers, but my dad owned a couple of truck lines, he owned a non-union owner operator company, he owned a Teamster organized company. And I was dispatching by the time I was 17. And then at some point, one of his managers was stealing from him. So I, at the age of 23, started, I ran his owner operator company and built it up within two years from about 20 owner operators to about 120, and then that got sold off. Part of everything in my family revolved around trucking, my family of origin growing up. Everybody worked in the business. Vacations revolved around, you know, family went on vacations uh while dad attended trucking conferences and things of that nature. And I wanted out of the trucking business because it had sort of been so part of the family life that's all people ever talked about. So I went to law school and I wanted to go to law school, and I wanted to be a labor attorney and a criminal defense attorney. And when I got out of law school, there wasn't that much work for that. I worked full-time through law school, went at night, dispatched during the day, delivered pizza on the weekends, had no student loan debt, and all of a sudden I had to eat, and I just started representing a lot of small trucking companies initially, and did some defensive cargo claims for a couple of big van lines. And finally, the whole finality of deregulation happened. I mean, everything but safety-related regul deregulation happened in January 10th of 1996, and my practice involved much around that. And I thought, well, who needs an attorney? And I found that drivers needed an attorney who's who wasn't represented. So I started representing drivers on a lot of different things, mostly employment law. One day I got a I was writing a magazine column for a publication called Movin' Out. And this is about 30 years ago, and a lady told me about a story about how her son and four others had had car trouble on the main turnpike and were parked on the shoulder. And Walmart driver who had falsified his logs and hadn't slept for several days, ran over these kids and decapitated them. And she told me about a law called the STAA, which stands for Surface Transportation Assistance Act. And it's that law has a provision that prohibits retaliation against drivers because a driver refuses to drive in violation of a commercial vehicle safety regulation or make safety-related complaints to the employer of the government. And that's the principal part of what we do. And so that sort of started my my, I wouldn't even say transition. It was an abrupt change from representing carriers into representing drivers. So that's how it all got started. That's the short version.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Wow, that's amazing. I mean, that's that's a great story in itself. I mean, coming from that respective background with your family, and then you took it to the next level to get your own career started as an attorney. I mean, that is a that is a great thing that you did. Thank you so much for doing that. What does a typical typical day look like for

The Calls He Gets Every Day

SPEAKER_00 5:22

you?

SPEAKER_01 5:24

I feel a lot of calls. I return them myself. I'm not the only lawyer, but I want people to be able to get a lawyer, and I'm the one who answers the phone. And I'm sort of the receptionist and screens the call. And I usually get about eight calls a day from drivers with potential cases. I can't give them all an hour. There aren't that many hours in the day. And typically they are people I'll ask these calls, and they'll say, Mr. Taylor, I'm an attorney. I got a problem with the trucking company. And the first question is Is the trucking company in the Chicago area? Yes. Are they calling you an independent contractor or doing some sort of lease purchase program? Yes. Is the company paying you? No. Are they messing with your logbooks? Yes. Is the company? No, I'm just gonna that the I the answers to those questions are yes, 90 to 95 percent of the time. So a lot of times it's people who have gotten themselves tied up in abusive lease program, lease purchase programs, and typically I can't do anything for them. Courts do not protect drivers from making a bad business deal.

unknown 6:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Wow. So there's situations where the driver waits too long to call an attorney.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

They could. They could, sure. Not necessarily in that situation. Some of my calls involve cases where a driver has been fired or blacklisted on higher right or driver RQ or one of the other companies that generally we call DAC, even though DAC doesn't exist as a company anymore. They're still called DAC reports, just like every household bandage is called a band-aid. I have those kinds of calls that come in too, and those are sometimes things we can help with. And um so it's not always those making a bad business deal and a lease purchase. Courts won't protect you from a bad business deal. And some of those, some of the other issues that come up is collectability. If the company is a chameleon carrier, you know, changing names every so often, you know, chances are they're not good for the money. They're gonna hide. If they're if you're being dispatched from Eastern Europe, you know, chances are it's gonna be difficult, even if you were to sue on a lease purchase go back that's gone bad, and when that collectability becomes a real problem.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Wow. I mean, that's amazing. You you're helping all sorts of individuals across the industry.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Well, I can't Ray, I can't always help those people when they have that. The best thing is to help them by telling them don't do a lease purchase program with any motor carrier. I don't care if it's Prime or Swift or CRSP, lease purchase programs are not on the whole good for drivers. Ask the drivers should ask themselves if I can make if an owner operator, so-called, or lease contractor could make more money than they could as an employee,

Why Lease Purchase Usually Hurts

SPEAKER_01 8:52

why wouldn't the why wouldn't the carrier just have all company drivers? You know, if you think of it, if you're talking about, say, for example, Prime, they have a leasing company called Success Leasing. And they take a driver who's generally you know worked up from a DC driver, they classify him. All of a sudden, that driver is a company driver, and they're saying, We think you'd make a great independent business owner. So we're gonna lease you a truck. But the condition is you got to lease it or our leasing companies, you got to lease it back to us. Now, if that owner operator so called could make more money than he could as a company driver, you would think these companies, not just Prime CRST, and others, you'd think they would want all employee drivers to keep that extra money for themselves. It's very difficult to be successful as a lease purchase driver. And I I advise against doing it. And occasionally I get people, well, and we'll probably have some if you have a comments page. I get it on my Facebook page. Well, I did a truck and I owned it. I had a client who did 10 lease purchases before he ever owned a truck. He called me up. He said, Paul, remember you told me years ago not to do any more lease purchase programs? And he said, I said, Yeah, and I remember. Well, I finally got ownership of a truck. Actually, he did 18 lease purchase programs, and and I said, How'd you manage to own a truck? I starved. Why would you want to starve?

unknown 10:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Well, where did that even start? The lease purchase. What's the origin of that?

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Do you Fort Scott Scott, Kansas? Gosh, what was the name of the carrier? I wasn't even a lawyer yet. Where was Midwest Distribution? I think it was called out of Fort Scott, Kansas.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Fort Scott.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Fort Scott, Kansas, Midwest Distribution. Started in the late 70s or early 80s. And it was this deal, you know, we'll pay you a buck a mile and you'll become a contractor for us. And you know, it's really rare to hear a success story. And it's it's rare to hear of a driver ever owning a lease-purchased truck with a carrier affiliate. It's even rarer to hear that one's been successful financially. They might own the truck, but they might be starving for a number of years to own it. I don't know what it is with this big obsession for a driver who might have two years experience and can't turn a wrench to own a truck.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Yeah, that's uh it puts it in perspective. You know, people sell people on a dream. I mean, I think a lot of dreaming goes on here in America because that's just what we feel like is success. But is it really when you look at the pocketbook, when you look at the bank account, or when you're looking at lawsuits, it's like having to give you a phone call and say, Hey, I need help, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:49

So or you get fired, you know. I've had drivers who get fired. I mean, as I said, most of my cases involve safety issues where a driver gets fired for refusing to violate a commercial vehicle safety regulation. Like he's refused to break hours of service, he's fired by typically some company in Chicago. He's thrown out on the street, he doesn't get his last paycheck. You know, he's there with his dog in a truck stop somewhere trying to catch a ride with somebody. It's no, it's no life to live for a truck for a truck driver. Be a company driver. That's the best bet.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Yeah, and I'm so far that's where I'm at. And have you seen drivers lose significant amount of money through these agreements? Arrangements? Sure. I've seen them starving.

unknown 12:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

I mean, they're written to try to try to make money, you know, a driver should do do a cost analysis to see if this really pays. Look at what the carrier's paying per mile or percentage. Let's look at the driver's cost of fuel per mile. I don't know what's diesel fuel now, about 450?

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Five, 550, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Okay, I'm I've been away from it for a while. So, how many cents per mile is the diesel fuel costing you if you're running 2200 miles a week? How many cents per mile is the truck payment going to run you? Is I've seen truck payments at 4,500 a month. How much is that gonna cost you if you make X amount per mile? How much is your maintenance? How much is being set into ESCO and how much are you gonna have left to eat on? That should be a concern by every driver. They they should do the math before even considering they could listen to me and just never do a lease purchase. That's a smart way, but if they really think they're they can do it, then they should really cost things out and not listen to the BS given to them by trucking companies' owners. The other thing is, is can the carrier who really owns a truck? Whose title is it in? Do they have the ability to transfer a title once the payments are made? You've heard of Celadon, I'll bet. No, I haven't. Well, Celadon was the sixth largest trucking company in the country. They went down about 10 years ago. They had a they had a leasing affiliate called 21st Capital Group, 21st Century Capital Group, which was named something else before that. And the Celadon program, you could get the truck from their leasing company, but you weren't restricted to leasing it to Celadon. You could lease it to about seven or eight different trucking companies, one of which was Super Service. I can't remember who the other ones were well-known trucking companies at the time. I think they're probably out of business now. So you weren't stuck. Well, all these drivers had payments made to Celadon, the trucking company's lease purchase affiliate. Celadon filed bankruptcy. The money was cross-guaranteed by the leasing company. All those drive the banks came and got the trucks and sold them. The drivers had no actual interest in it, other than under a lease purchase, and the bank was senior. This has happened over the last 30 years several times. I mean, several times that it's made the news. So, you know, that's the other thing. Can the carrier doing the lease purchase with can they can they convey title when it's all done? Will will the truck be delivered free and clear?

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Wow. Let's talk about some of the laws and regulations that are out there.

Fatigue And Weather Rules Explained

SPEAKER_00 15:32

It's commonly misunderstood. I mean, that sounds like a nightmare with the lease agreement, but uh also if you mess up with the regulations, I'm sure that's uh a lot of violations that could go come your way. You know, you can go to uh have to come talk to you again.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Well, there's some things that were more likely the the misunderstanding of the regulations can get the carrier, the driver, into problems with the care, into trouble with the carrier. Let's take for for example, as I indicated, the sta law prohibits retaliation against a driver for because a driver refuses to drive in violation of a commercial vehicle safety regulation. Now, most drivers, if you ask them, can you drive while you're ill or fatigued, they're going to tell you no. Right? Well, that's not exactly what the regulation says. 392.3 says no driver shall drive and no uh carrier shall require a driver to drive when the driver's ability or alertness are so impaired as to make it unsafe to drive. I'm paraphrasing it. That rule doesn't say you can't drive fatigued. So you can't drive when you're so impaired or so likely to become impaired as to make operation unsafe. That's what it says. So I I tell drivers if you know they'll they'll say, Hey, Mr. Taylor or Paul, I I got this problem, my carrier keeps pushing me to drive when I'm fatigued. And I said, Well, you can drive when you're fatigued. They say, No, I can't. I said, No, it has to rise to the level of impairment or likely impairment. And so I, you know, they said, Well, that's happening, but they keep pushing and they keep pushing. I said, Well, what do you do? I said, I said, you protect yourself with a message on the Qualcomm or the Sansara or the text of your phone. I am too fatigued or I am too ill to safely drive. And elaborating, or I'm I'm, you know, I'm feeling tired, very sleepy, it's going to be unsafe soon. I'm going to pull up, pull off at the next rest area and take my 10, even though I have another six hours of available time under my locks. So make sure that if a driver's going to protect himself against retaliation, that he or she clearly communicates to the carrier enough information that the carrier can be put on notice that the truck is that the driver is going to be too sleepy to drive or whatever it is. Same applies with the bad weather rule. It doesn't prohibit 392.14 does not prohibit driving in bad weather. It prohibits drive it says if can if conditions become sufficiently dangerous due to snow, sleet, rain, smoke, whatever it is, driving shall be discontinued. So if somebody is, say, for example, and I've had this happen, drivers call me. 6 p.m. they're refusing to go out for their 6 a.m. shift. They they're on a dedicated route, or they're, say, for example, a Teamster, you know, driver with a bid route, and the forecast is for snow, heavy snow, and their forecasting is that 6 p.m. they say, I'm not going to be able to work tomorrow. You know, bad weather forecast. That's not sufficient to put the company on notice that that driver hasn't engaged in a legally protected activity by refusing to drive in violation of a commercial vehicle safety regulation. So the thing to do is perhaps give a notice in advance, a text, hey, it's looking like rain. I'm going to be monitoring the forecast. I'll give you notice, etc. And so it's better to wait, say, for, you know, at least put the company on notice. Right. They may have a central dispatch that's 400 miles away. Put them on notice, but when the, you know, make sure when the refusal comes that it's clear that the weather is hazardous or going to become very too hazardous to drive soon. And you send again the Qualcomm or Sans Sarah text message saying, hey, it's, you know, I checked the weather forecast between here and Harrisburg. You know, it's it right now, it's blowing wind, freezing rain. It's not safe to drive drive. I'm going to book off this run right now, or you know, do you want me to check in later? There's something to be said for cooperation with the dispatchers. They're not always the enemy.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Yeah, good communication is key. I mean, think about it if you were at your maximum drive time. They got that, was it 39, 395.3? Yes, the big day, they call it. You know, when your weather comes up and now you're pushing 14, 16 hours. Uh what happened there.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Well, then you there's I believe that rule has a safe harbor or has a you know, find find this a safe haven, as I recall. I don't have my rule book in front of you. If you want to think of uh uh other examples of driver's misunderstanding, and or actually it's more dispatcher's misunderstanding, is that you that a driver has to drive where there's a violation that's not an out-of-service violation. And that's just simply not true. The the for example 49 CFR part 393 has the the parts and accessories section. All right. And I can't remember exactly where the the the required

Equipment Defects And “Not Out Of Service”

SPEAKER_01 21:46

lamps rule. It doesn't even funny, the regulations don't know use the don't call them lights, they call them lamps. But one, say for example, you've got the three clustered at the back of the trailer. In the metal. The rule says that's a re those are required lamps. The rule says they have to be capable, they must be in operating condition at all times. It doesn't say you can drive with one lamp out. The rule says you have to you cannot drive without all parts and accessories that are required under the rules being in good working order. Now, if I was Paul the dispatcher and I had a hot load, I had a driver with a hot load going to New York, it's a best customer 30 miles away. Says, I noticed I have a marker lamp out. I want you to call road service because I won't deliver it. All right. As a dispatcher, that would really anger me. But if a driver calls me, Mr. Taylor, I've got one of the ambered clustered lamps at the back of the trailer is out. Can I drive? And I'll say, no. No. But that is a misconception, including among dispatchers, that you can drive with a defect so long as it's not an out-of-service violation. And that's just not true. FMCSA, or excuse me, roadside, you know, the scale master, commercial vehicle enforcement officer in Pennsylvania or wherever may say, write you a fix-it ticket and say you can drive, but technical reading of the rules saying you shall not drive without mark, all marker lamps, all lamps in good working order at all times. So I we had a case against a very large carrier, one of the largest in the country, whose names you would know. He had an issue with the ABS system. The lamps wouldn't go out. He had was pulling doubles in Pennsylvania. The lamps wouldn't go out when he first plugged them in on each each unit on one of the doubles, the lamp wouldn't go out. Yeah, yeah. And on another one, one wouldn't go on at all. And the company's position in that case, and and they fired them. The company's position was that was that well, it's not an out-of-service item. You know, that and the company doesn't determine whether a vehicle is necessarily out of service under the out-of-service criteria. Now, is FMCSA going to do anything to or dot state DOT gonna do anything to you in those situations? Probably not, but technically, you know, the rules are very specific on parts and accessories, you know, whether it be brokers or lamps or driver to have to think about.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

He wants to do his job, he wants to do it well, he wants to be safe, he doesn't want to uh he doesn't want any problems. A good driver wants to be a good driver. I mean, it's by nature, they don't just change overnight. So, yeah, you're mentioning a lot of great things for people to you know hold on to what they know is right, but there is that middle ground of communication. If companies can work with the driver, I think we can see a lot more peace in the industry.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

Um, that's true. I mean, unfortunately, you know, I see the bad side of the business, all right. The success stories don't come looking for lawyer advice, so it's easy for me to get jaded. But I mean, I've seen enough bad dispatchers over the years, ones who push, ones who abuse, and I've seen a lot of drivers who push the system.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

What about I heard you said someone got fired for or may not have all the details, but it was a tornado, you know, that happened, and maybe they you know got fired for that. Is that was that story, right? I don't remember that story, it wasn't mine. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Yeah, I don't think. I mean, if a tornado is so bad, you know, if there's a danger, you know, the bad weather rule says likely, you know, weather is the you know, is the weather likely to become so serious as to make driving unsafe? Sure. I think in a tornado warning uh that might be appropriate, maybe not in a tornado watch.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Yeah, I think uh the story was that I think it involved an accident, and they said it would be a preventable when they fired.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Well, you're not gonna do anything about that. Let's

At Will Firing And Preventables

SPEAKER_01 26:30

talk about employment law in general for a second. Okay. Sorry, I need water. Ivy. Well, I I I'm a recent survivor of head and neck cancer, so radiation burned out my saliva glands. So I drink a lot of water, but I'm on the mend and doing well. Yeah, we were going to talk about which situation?

SPEAKER_00 26:53

Sorry, yeah, like weather, maybe like tornado, you get an accident. Well, thinking that you're gonna make it, and then all of a sudden it involves an accident, and then they assess the situation and say that it's preventable.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Well, let's talk, let's talk about DOT preventable accidents or preventable accidents. Okay, a company, an employer is entitled to a different opinion from the driver. Okay, think think of the concept of at-will employment. Every state but Montana in the United States, at will employment means that you can be fired a driver, an employee that may be fired for any reason that doesn't break a law. Now, I could rattle off about 30 employment law statutes, like age, you know, pregnancy discrimination act, civil rights act of 1964, Americans with Disabilities Act, the Surface Transportation Assistance Act, which is what I do cases under, the whistleblower provisions. Absent any of those reasons, you can be fired. So I I will get drivers who call me and say, Well, Mr. Taylor, that so-and-so put put a preventable accident on my DAC report, my higher rate report. And I I said, Well, was it preventable? No, no, no, they'll tell me something happened. You know, a carrier is entitled to have a different standard than a driver for what is a preventable accident. You know, maybe it was preventable because the driver didn't do a good enough pre-trip inspection, something he should have caught. They're entitled to different opinions. So just simply saying, you know, firing somebody, well, it's an preventable accident, and you think it's not, there's no legal challenge to a firing in such a case because a firing doesn't break a law. Now, there may be an ability to challenge the higher right or driver IQ report or one of the other competitors that collectively people call DAC reports.

DAC Reports And Fair Credit Rights

SPEAKER_01 29:09

There may be an ability to bring a claim under what's called the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The Fair Credit Reporting Act governs consumer reports, which include not only credit reports, but it also includes employment history reports. And so the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires the consumer reporting agency, higher right, driver IQ, driver fax, etc., to have practices to try to ensure utmost accuracy. And a driver has a right to put a rebuttal to what the carrier puts on those so-called DAC reports. It usually doesn't do any good. We had a case recently where it was called a the the motor carrier indicated that the driver had a preventable accident, but the police report said it was not preventable. Well, again, the carrier may, we didn't get that far, okay, may be entitled to a different opinion of what's preventable. Maybe the driver didn't have the last chance to avoid the crash. And maybe the driver didn't get enough sleep. You know, so suing over opinion is difficult. But if something is absolutely undisputed not to be the driver's fault under any scenario, I'm not saying it's DOT standard preventable or anything like that, then there is at least an ability to bring a civil action for false reporting on a higher right slash DAC report against the consumer reporting agency and the carrier. It's possible at least to bring such an action. They aren't generally they're not particularly successful. Now, I mentioned the STAA earlier. A lot of times a blacklisting on to another carrier or on a higher right slash DAC report, 10th Street, etc. etc. It you that may be considered an adverse action for which one can bring a claim under that the STAA. For example, your DAC report says abandonment. Well, what is what is the reason for the abandonment? Was the abandonment because you that you were sitting at a shipper somewhere and the truck had four bald tires, an audible air leak, you know, fifth wheel not possible, not greased, and uh headlamps out, and you refuse to drive it, and that's an abandonment? Well, sometimes we can use the the STA to help clean up a driver's higher right report.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

Nice. And you have a pretty good success rate. How's that been going for you when you have drivers come to you for help like that? Has it been somewhat successful?

SPEAKER_01 32:19

Well, I've been doing it for 30 years now and managed to make a living at it, so that should say something. Look, it in the law, in the law, I'll just tell you, most cases in the country, whether it's criminal, civil, etc., 95% of the cases go to trial. Don't go to trial, excuse me. Maybe it's 98 or 99. When we're talking the sta cases or the DOT leasing skim type cases, we're a little lower than that percentage. You know, I'm not afraid of going to trial. Two types of cases go to trial. One is bad cases where they offer nothing. And I've never taken a bad case, but sometimes they turn bad because there's facts we don't know, such as drivers not telling the truth, and oftentimes carriers. And so success means meeting or exceeding expectations, in my opinion. So a lot of cases settle, you know, but that's involves somebody willing to offer enough money.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

That's great because you know, maybe that's the main thing that truck driver wants is to get back to work. So appreciate that. That's really great that you're helping drivers be able to perform at their best. And yeah, I see that you're you're somewhat you know more for the truck truck driver to be a company driver versus that lease agreement. I mean, why not help them continue to do that? So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

I take a lot of I take a lot of static from drivers on that. I don't I well, oh sure. Oh sure, because sometimes, well, you know, I I did a lease purchase and now I own my own, you know, I own a you know, Freightliner Cascadia. Yeah, well, what'd you pay for that? What did you really pay for that Freightliner Cascadia that you got titled to? You know what, and what do you when you finish the lease purchase and it's all paid off and you got your you've done seven years with one carrier doing a lease purchase? Well, let's say five, because that's usually what it takes. All right, five years with one carrier, and now all of a sudden you own a Freightliner Cascadia, and you've starved trying to get it, and now you need tires, rear ends, a major overhaul, you know. I mean, what what are you gonna do?

SPEAKER_00 34:42

Yeah, yeah, you got to overhaul the whole equipment, you know, they don't last forever. I mean, some new new trucks break down right away. Yeah, so it's I wouldn't put all your all your stock in the truck or the equipment. There's a lot of knowledge that you need to have when you're out here on this road. It's the most main thing is to try to keep your mind from being corrupted by you know being misled, you know, or people trying to sell you a dream, like you're saying, and now you're trying to get out of it.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

There, there, you know, there may be good lease purchase programs out there. I haven't seen any in the 40, I guess it's 42 years I've been just about 42 years that I've been an attorney. And prior to that, I haven't really seen any really good lease purchase programs out there.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Well, yeah. I mean, sometimes they take advantage of individuals that are desperate and they want to get get to work. I just want to work. And here's a piece of paper just signed here. So, yeah, to be aware of a lot of that.

Factoring Costs And Recourse Traps

SPEAKER_00 35:41

I mean, what about factoring when it comes to factoring all your loads and trying to get that going? What is that like? Uh, have you seen any common mistakes on that?

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Yeah, you know, I probably need to go to my confessor and confess up that I did legal work for a factoring company that factored freight bills. This was about 1996. So I've repented of my ways. No, hey, look, I don't blame them for trying to make money, but if somebody did the true the true math on it, it's a very expensive form of financing. I mean, they can recourse typical factoring for small trucking companies is recourse factoring. You can have non-recourse factoring. Understand factoring is a purchase of the receivable, all or part. It's not a loan. So a factoring agreement will be written. So you got Joe Jones trucking LLC. Joe, Joe's got one truck, and he's hauling for CH Robinson and TQL, and maybe Primes brokerage company, and that's all he's got. And Joe has a receivable of hypothetically 2,000. The factoring company buys that receivable and then gives Joe an advance. Say if it's 2,000, he gives him an 80%. I'm giving hypotheticals, yeah, an 80% advance. So now Joe's got $1,600. And the company's holding up X amount. The factoring company is charging X per maybe 30 days or every 15 days, what they call a discount. So what's left in that $400 reserve might be zero if you have a slow pay broker. So all of a sudden it's that's a fee that typically will accumulate or accrue every 15 days, so much percentage. And I don't even know if the what the advances are now that the factoring company gives. And if if all of a sudden a broker refuses to pay the freight bill because their shipper, their customer, has filed a claim for damage because you know the chickens were supposed to be delivered at 38 degrees and got delivered at 33 degrees or whatever it is. You've heard these horror stories, right? I'm not I'm not giving you anything you haven't heard before. Yeah, that factor is gonna demand if the bill's not gonna be paid outright by the broker or the shipper, that factoring company is going to make a request to the carrier to buy back the receivable. That's called recourse factoring. There is non-recourse factoring, but it's not very prevalent anymore. So, you know, that that is a high form. I mean, what's if you really worked it out and did the same numbers that it would take to actually do a loan on that, you're probably talking about 35% interest. So factoring is a good way to have one foot in the grave, particularly when they tie up all your receivables. They're going to take a security interest through a security agreement, much like there's a loan on an automobile. There's a security interest in an automobile. A typical factoring company is going to take a lien on all of the carriers' receivables. It's it's a tough thing. I mean, it's legit, but you know, it consumer protection laws don't protect people in commercial transactions.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Very nicely said. I mean, think about when a driver

1099 Misclassification And Log Felonies

SPEAKER_00 39:34

uh goes as an independent contractor. How do they know that they're being misclassified or if they're are they really truly an independent contractor?

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Well, I like the duck test. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Okay. So that that's a really good way to tell whether or not a driver is truly an independent contractor. Let's take this scenario. Typically, if the driver has an arm's length lease where the carrier leases him a truck or the carrier's leasing company leases him or her a truck and they lease it back, and the driver's responsible for the fuel and things like that, that is that's probably an independent contractor relationship. I mean, in in general, okay. If we take the situation where the company pays the fuel, the company finds the loads, the company bills the shipper, receiver, broker for the receivable, and the driver is simply driving the truck, that driver is not an independent contractor. Who's telling them where to go? If it's force dispatch and what routes to go, and whether you, you know, they got to buy it petrol because there's a negotiated, you know, discount there for the fuel. I mean, or flying J or whatever it is. That's not an independent contractor. I get drivers that call me and says, Mr. Taylor, you know, I drove for so-and-so, and you know, they're making me pay for this, or they fired me, and and I say, Well, are you an employee? They say, No, I'm a 1099. I said, Really? You're an IRS form? 1099 is an IRS form, it's not an employee. A 1099 is there to report income to independent contractors, paid to independent contractors or earnings, much like somebody, if somebody painted my office and he dined in Minnesota, I might be required, I'd let my accounts take care of that to pay to issue a 1099. 1099 does not mean somebody is truly an independent contractor. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. They are employees.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

And they hear this and they're like, Man, I think I'm misclassified. What how does that go? What is that? What do they do to get help? Well, get out of that situation.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

You know, the best thing is just to leave and not work for those people. Think of this. If if you're what otherwise would be called at Martin Transport or CRCR, C SR C R S T, excuse me, or or someplace else, if you are what would be called a company driver in practice. And the only distinction is the method in which they pay you without paying taxes and they report it on a 1099. Don't work for them. If they're cheating the government, and plus they're cheating you out of half of your social security, if they're cheating the government and they're cheating you out of social security, it's not somebody you should be driving for.

unknown 42:41

Right?

SPEAKER_01 42:41

You can get yourself I don't care how desperate you are. I don't, I don't know why people still still go to these companies.

SPEAKER_00 42:49

Some of it, I think, they just don't look into it. They don't want to know, you know, they want to play I don't know card. You know, hey, I didn't know that. They just don't want to do the extra step, and then they miss out on all those years and all that time that they put in dedicating their life to that company, and then they maybe they just you know look the other way and accept less.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

Well, there are drivers who want to like violate the hours of service, bro. Yeah, you know, particularly when it comes to you know, logging off when on a dock waiting for a shipper to load or unload, you know. That was one thing we didn't cover that much on the misunderstandings of what constitutes on duty time, yeah. And all time in or upon a vehicle except time spent resting in a sleeper berth. Sounds pretty plain to me, but there are there's drivers who I'm not gonna make a moral judgment. Sometimes people do what they gotta do to get by, but there's a lot of lot of drivers who will accept falsification of a log up to a point, you know, yeah, but uh it's it's a f it's a felony to sign off on a false log. Wow. Knowingly. It's a felony. Now, there haven't been prosecutions for a few years, but uh I haven't heard of any for 20 years. But uh, if the government enforced uh that law, you might see the whole uh falsification of logbook problem cleaned up. E logs have taken care of some of that, but we have the uh flyby nighters with their ghost drivers and please refresh my logs. You know, all of a sudden you got six more hours of available time on your on your 70-hour clock. I wonder how that happens.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

Yeah, that's I hope we can weed that out of the industry. That's a lot of bad shame on us for doing that. Hopefully, we get that fixed because that's jeopardizing people's safety on the road. We see a lot of these news articles where people have taken lives of families because they shouldn't even be out on the road at that time, they shouldn't even been there.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

So that's that that's what's funny, you know, it hasn't changed. I that call I got 30 years ago from the founder Daphne Iser of Parents Against Tired Truckers, and her son was one of the kids decapitated when a Walmart driver fell asleep at the wheel and they were parked on the shoulder with car trouble. It just did things haven't changed much in 30 years, maybe a little less.

SPEAKER_00 45:17

Yeah, yeah, that's a dangerous place for drivers out there. If you're listening, if you can make it to get off of the freeway and not well stack cars on the side of the road. Sometimes I'm switching lanes in and out just to get around these um people that are standing by their vehicles, unloading the trunk. I'm not sure what they're doing, but if they could get off of the road, I'm not putting putting shade on the drivers. I know if you got to stop, you gotta stop. But please, that's not a safe place to be because, like you say, you got a lot of tired drivers out there, and not everybody's doing it on the up and up, you know. So I just want to make sure drivers know that if I can do that, if I could speak out about that, yeah, please try to get somewhere else. Too many lives have been lost on the side of the road.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

You know, it's funny. I I only see the bad aspect of trucking, yeah.

Union Shops And UPS “Methods”

SPEAKER_01 46:06

Clearly, so I you know, I I hope I don't appear to be dissing drivers in general because I'm not. No, I'm just I'm dissing a lot of trucking companies, though. I could give you names of trucking companies where drivers, big ones who have been fired, they fired drivers for refusing to violate commercial vehicle safety regulations. I had a what I had a UPS driver fired for refusing to drive without taillights at night on the trailer 17 miles back to the terminal. I I had another driver who years ago refused to drive, big big carrier out of Wisconsin, and it's not Schneider. He refused to drive with an overweight load and got fired.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

So you mentioned UPS, that's a union company. So they have stewards that help them with they take their money and use it to help the driver be successful and try to help them as much as they can because that's their representative. What would you say as to why a driver would still have to come to you?

SPEAKER_01 47:11

Well, first of all, UPS has the national master parcel agreement. There are some riders and some exceptions for various Teamster locals whose drivers are not under that or under parts of a supplemental agreement. But in general, they have one master contract. All right. But those stewards, they're just co-workers, they're not business agents. Business agents are employees of the union who have usually taken leave from the bargaining unit. But they don't necessarily know the law. And the mentality at UPS, and I don't want to say they've been a frequent flyer of mine over the years, but right now I believe we have four cases against them for some drivers who shut down during hazardous weather. And there's more to it. But you know, the mentality in there in a union company is you know, you work now and grieve later. And that's a general thing people do in labor law. And I'm not saying UPS is not a safe company, I'm saying they have aberrations where some people simply do not, you know, they don't understand the rules. But in general, they're they're they're a pretty good company. But they're they're they UPS is a company that operates according to what they call methods. That's the term they use. And they're written. There's a way to inspect a tractor trailer set. You go down one side, up the other, you know, and UPS had, I don't know what the national standard is now, to put together a set of doubles from checking in and getting your dyad, which they call an IVAS in vehicle information system, from checking in, walking to the line, finding your back trailer, finding your front trailer, which might be on different sides of the building. Find it, even though it'll be it's you know, they have time standards. You don't meet the time standards, they'll call you call a driver out on it. So it's an honor, it's more like Incorpor. And so if you don't follow methods, you'll be written for maybe for following methods. The problem is a lot of business agents, say, for example, employed by the Teamsters local, we'll take local 710 in Chicago, which is a Teamsters local that does most of the road drivers in and out of Chicago. They have this huge facility they call Cash, C-A-C-A-T-Chago Area Consolidation Hub. And those drivers, you know, have a certain amount of time to do whatever they're gonna do. But they're gonna use a package car driver, a little bronze truck, it's total anymore. I mean, somewhere at 25, 28,000. So they're supposed to be a co-weight rating. So they don't necessarily know people who are ingrained, and and I'm not saying I think the union is good at trucking. I it it was a way to force discipline and say instead of bad rap somebody too. But that business agent doesn't really know how to do it, how to handle things. Example, I have a case that's pending, I I think we'll win it. It was against UPS for a package driver. The vehicle was about 26,000 pounds gross vehicle weight rating, and the driver was he rode up for like two or three successive days. The truck didn't have a working heater and defroster. Now, this is Las Vegas in December. Eventually he refused to drive, but he got fired. The firing got reduced to a suspension, I believe. Now the DOT regulations say the vehicle must you know must have a defroster. It doesn't say it has to have a heater, but it does the FMCSRs require a defroster. Now it doesn't matter that it's Las Vegas in December. The vehicle did not comply with commercial vehicle safety regulations. So, but we deal with the mentality at UPS that you know you follow our methods, you write it up, and we'll fix it eventually. Sometimes right away, if it's imminent safety hazard. And Windows, it can get a little cool in the early morning in in Las Vegas, and you can get frustrated. But I think there's just not, it's the tradition of dealing things in the context of a the grievance contractual grievance process versus the safety regulations. UPS is a very efficient company, and overall it's a very safe company and a good company to work for in terms of paying benefits.

SPEAKER_00 52:14

Yeah, I like my job. But you you speak in the language. I mean, you you sound like man, you're working at UPS. I mean, you you know the time restraints, you know about uh how how easy it could be to lose your job, but yet you know you have people on your side. I encourage people, I'd rather be at a union facility than a non-union. I worked at FedEx as well, and I don't feel quite the same as I do feel in working for UPS for those that are looking for a job out there. Union jobs are good. I know they say hey, they're taking your money, but uh there's a lot of benefits that come with that, and and then bargaining agreement. So uh you got to weigh out the pros and cons. And yeah, at some point they may have to give you a call. I mean, that's amazing that you're here to help drivers. You like I mentioned before, you drive on the road and you see all those signs for call us. You've been in an accident,

Nuclear Verdicts And Rising Insurance

SPEAKER_00 53:06

call us, we'll get the money. And I'm driving all over the country, and it's like, wow, they they're just ready for you to mess up.

SPEAKER_01 53:16

Well, if you think about that, you've heard the term nuclear verdict?

SPEAKER_00 53:22

No, I haven't.

SPEAKER_01 53:24

It's it's where there's huge pan punitive damage is awarded, particularly in truck truck accident cases. You know, the driver must have done something wrong. There, there's a natural instinct to blame the driver, and I think that's wrong. You know, the driver may be at fault too, but uh the the natural instinct to blame the driver, the professional driver who may have 25 or 30 years and a million miles plus under his belt without a crash, and people blame that driver. Some, you know, sometimes, sometimes not. And you know, if nuclear verdicts, you know, if you're talking 50 million and punitive damages against a huge carrier, you know, and that we start taking carriers out, or you're gonna take the price of insurance is gonna become so the public liability insurance is gonna be some become so expensive for carriers, you're gonna take carriers out of the marketplace and not leave room for the smaller carrier operators. I mean, I know with the limit now is 750,000 if you're not hauling hazmat. That has to be on file with FMCSA, but you know, we could see that change, or you know, you're just gonna take carriers out who don't have enough insurance on a, you know, it may be a garden variety accident.

SPEAKER_00 54:45

Wow. I mean, speaking of insurance, I mean, have you what what happens if I know you maybe you've heard of autonomous trucks or

Autonomous Trucks And Real World Limits

SPEAKER_00 54:52

maybe caught wind of it? I know you're helping the driver, but a truck that doesn't have a driver in it, what's your perspective or your opinion as to how they were able to provide coverage for the freight? Let's say that for that work, maybe an accident could happen. They say they're very safe. They say, you know, this is a good investment for a lot of companies. What would you say if something did happen? What would that do to that industry?

SPEAKER_01 55:16

Well, I yeah, I mean, it'll make it more expensive, but if you're talking trucks without a driver physically in the trucks, that's going to be a reduced cost as things go along. And, you know, so maybe they'll they'll take that. It may in fact be that the autonomous trucks become safer than ones with uh an occupant in it. I think it'll be a long, long time, and not in my lifetime, that we will have primarily autonomous trucks. It's probably going to happen at some point. But I'm I'm 69 and a half years old. I don't think, you know, if I live another 20 years, maybe I don't think trucks will be primarily autonomous. I mean, somebody's still got to drive them.

unknown 56:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 56:03

If it's maybe that UP that UPS truck is being driven by somebody running a computer in the basement of a building in UPS's headquarters in Atlanta.

SPEAKER_00 56:15

Yeah, I mean, would they have to go screening? You know, they're sitting at home or they're sitting in the office in the basement somewhere, and they were out drinking the night before, and they were able to come to work and and drive the autonomous truck. Is that something that the government is looking at?

SPEAKER_01 56:29

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 56:31

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

It's probably something that they should. Somebody's still got to inspect them, too. Yeah, you're gonna put them on a ready line. That's typically what in UPS or in relay, excuse me, in freight.

SPEAKER_00 56:45

I know you don't have all the answers. Is this nice to be able to talk to someone like yourself that sees, like you said, the bad side of the industry? And we're out here driving on the road and we have a lot of those questions. It's like, okay, so if they are gonna take on doing our job and you know take on that risk, not have anybody in the truck and use the the LIDAR and things like that. What does that even look like? We have a lot of drivers that have questions about it. They're like, Man, how do you even insure something like that? Because it's hard to insure us, and it's just we all we do is have time to sit out here and think about uh the future, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

Well, I I don't poo-poo with technology

Tech Tools That Help Drivers Win

SPEAKER_01 57:19

anymore. I had um, you know, when I started practicing law, I had a yellow page as that, and that's how some business came in. And I got some business or started writing a couple columns. Uh, one publication was called Moving Out, another one was called Trucker's USA. Later wrote for Overdrive for a while, and my staff came to me at one point. I don't remember where it was. My son was working for me, and his best friend, who still works for me, he's my right arm practically. And they said, Paul, you gotta get a website. I said, I don't need a website, I got enough people calling me now. I got a website and my business doubled. And then I got a Facebook page and business doubled again, and then we did a YouTube channel, and I I embrace technology. It's not that I'm that good at it. I have people who work for me who are pretty good at it, but I've embraced technology and allows me to reach more drivers, to give more advice, gives me a larger pool of potential clients, and and helps me communicate a lot better. I who would envision I I I don't have I haven't been in an actual courtroom in six years. Wow, the Department of Labor does my administrative cases, the wrongful firing for against, you know, the retaliation against drivers who refuse to break commercial vehicle safety regulations, those go through the Department of Labor. And we've been all online with the administrative law judges of the Department of Labor. I'd like to get back into a courtroom, a real one. I miss it. But uh virtual saves a lot of money, and now we I embrace technology, and there'll still be drivers needed to drive autonomous trucks because you know somebody's got to inspect them, hook them up, somebody's got to be operating the computer, and even if they're the truck they're driving is 400 miles away.

SPEAKER_00 59:19

There you go. So don't be afraid of the future. I like that, and it's good for the youth to hear that because they're like, Well, I don't even want to go into trucking because it's not gonna be around. So keeping that optimism is good. I mean, I I like phone books, I'm kind of missed them. I used to get them and find my name, find my find our family's name, and find out if it's listed, you know, then then things get bad. You hear about people getting it unlisted, and but yeah, those are the days I remember the phone book days. And the but the way I found you was actually through Chat GPT. I typed in, I said, Who's for truck drivers? What lawyer or attorney is for drivers? And you were at the top of the list.

SPEAKER_01 59:52

Ah, well, I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 59:54

Yeah, that's pretty nice.

SPEAKER_01 59:56

Yeah, so it's and I'm not the only lawyer in our law firm. So when I retire, which who knows when it will be, when I completely retire, might be another

FMCSA Lease Rules And Skim Cases

SPEAKER_01 1:00:06

10 years, but I'm gonna start unwinding here a little bit soon.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:10

What is it like to be an attorney in in Minnesota practicing here locally? What is it like for you? I mean, there's some new laws that come into place, and there's a EST sick earn sick and safe time. I think it's provides a lot of drivers the ability to have time available for their families, like probably based off of COVID that was originated.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:31

Well, I I live in Hayward, Wisconsin. Oh, really? Awesome. Yeah, and the other half of the year I live in Mesa, Arizona. We have an office in Edina, Minnesota where nobody goes except to pick up the mail. I mean, the nature of what I do, I mean, I'm not like helping people with their divorces or set up their estate plan with a trust or a will. I, you know, I would hire people to do those kinds of things. You know, I strictly haven't, you know, 99% of my clients are not in Minnesota. What I do with representing drivers on, you know, truth and leasing, where, like, say, for example, a driver is getting skimmed from on his percentage, and the carrier, you know, the rules say that the lease has got to state that if a driver's paid on a percentage, the the driver is entitled to receive at or before the time of settlement, a copy of the invoice to the customer or a computerized document containing the same information that would appear on an invoice. We've had, I have a skim case I was working on, been working on all week on, on a motion to grant us what's called a summary judgment. Undisputed facts, a court can issue a summary judgment. And we're asking that the court issue a summary judgment, not as to damages. We'd try that separately, but on a lease, a carrier where we alleged they weren't paying the percentage required by the lease. So that's a big chunk of what we do. And you know, I'm I will be entering the courtroom in St. Paul and the federal court on about, in that case, on about July 21st. So it'll be the first time I've been in a non-virtual courtroom. Okay. In six years. But uh, so we do do that. I I'm I'm licensed for the federal courts in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Dakota. And we have other cases on that, like dry uh owner operators getting skimmed on percentage or charged back things that aren't authorized by the lease. We recently wrapped one up in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. So we work with other lawyers on that, and there's a lot of cheating that goes on in drivers paid on percentage. And and and or or also where the owner operates where there's chargebacks that are not documented. Think of the leak DOT's FMCSA's lease rules. The lease rules say the lease must clearly state the compensation to be paid by the carrier to the owner operator. So it clearly stating isn't we'll make it up on a load-by-load basis. It might be per mile, per percentage, per day, per 100 weight, you know, per hour. And the lease rule state that the lease has got has to state what the owner operator is responsible for paying and what the carrier pays. Okay. The lease has got to state that if there's going to be a chargeback for something, that the carrier is entitled to documentation of that chargeback, like a claim, things of that nature. And the lease has to stay have can't have a provision less than or greater than 15 days from the submission of logs and trip paperwork for payment. So we we run into that now. Right now, I'm running into a I we're we worked on a motion for a judge in St. Paul, federal court, to rule in our favor on liability. The argument of the carrier is that the lease says we'll decide the rate on a case-by-case basis by way of an emailed manifest. Well, the lease rules state the lease shall clearly state what to be paid, not a case-by-case basis. And it also says it has to be in writing signed by the parties. If this pay manifest is not signed, it's not part of the lease. And so we run into that. If the lease doesn't say they can't charge back for pallets, they can't charge back for pallets. So and those would be federal, federal type court cases. Another issue that comes up is fuel discounts. I don't, I don't are you an owner operator, Ray?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:24

No, I'm not. I'm very fortunate to work with uh company that provides very well for my family. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:31

Good. Well, let's say, for example, you're an owner operator, and the leases typically, I haven't seen one yet. They they say one of the costs that the owner operator is responsible for is the cost of fuel. Okay. So let's say that the owner operator operator j Ray, another Ray, is Is driving for the XYZ trucking company, and it says under the owner operator lease, the owner operator is responsible for the cost of fuel. And let's say that the driver has been buying the fuel at 480 per gallon. I haven't watched the truck stop prices on fuel lately. Yeah, they're 480 per mile. But the carrier, let's say the carrier has a discount with fly, and let's say there's a discount three cents off. They got that. But let's say there's a rebate based on volume. Based on volume, Flying J and Petrol are paying, you know, paying back. I don't like to call it a kickback. Kickback implies something nefarious, but paying back a volume discount to the carrier of a nickel per mile or a nickel per gallon. And it's a big fleet. Well, if the driver's paying the cost of fuel and not getting his pro rata, the owner operator is paying the for fuel, not getting his pro rata share of that discount. If that's he's getting 80, you know, that's a driver's. That's a driver's money that discount. That's that rebate

Documentation Habits And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_01 1:07:22

that's paid back. Depending on what the lease says on the volume discounts. So I mean there's a lot.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:31

I mean, I advocate a lot of people that I'm around. We try to advocate for proper documentation. Uh, keep a journal with you, keep something that you can write down, what's going on throughout your day, even if it seems insignificant, you have something to look back to, and someone like yourself can refer to and say, Hey, what what happened on that day? And if you just say, I don't know, I was working, I showed up that day. Well, that's may not be enough. You may need more than that. So that's that's good to have good documentation, like you're saying, so you have something to fall back onto.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:02

Well, of course, drivers have a there's so many tools today. Everybody's got a cell phone or handheld device, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, you know, if if your boss is telling you to, you know, want you to go on personal conveyance for that last 20 miles because you're gonna run out of hours, and you say you're not gonna break hours of service or falsify your your log, you can take a picture of that with your phone, yeah, and preserve it. I mean, there's so much ability for drivers to protect themselves nowadays. Not all carriers are unscrupulous. Yeah, there's good carriers, there's good carriers that have people who do bad things too. And there are some unscrupulous carriers, and so drivers should really be able to protect themselves. I mean, unfortunately, I I may sound like I'm saying that the carriers are the enemy, they're not, no, but some some carriers or some people like good carriers can be very, very abusive towards truck.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:07

This is this is trucking, and sometimes people don't see this side, and until that day happens, and then they find out there's a whole nother side of trucking, and unfortunately, that could be a lot for a lot of people. They're trying to put food on the table or they're trying to grow a business and be successful, and like you said, with the carrier, and they're trying to do things right. There's so many things you got to think of, and it's nice to know that there's someone like yourself that's fighting for the driver, and I wanted to highlight that on the show. Like I said, I see a lot of billboards out there that look like they're coming for the driver. And I said, Man, who's who out there is fighting for the driver? You know, and and I really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:43

No, I don't I don't spend money on advertising. It's not I my phone's ringing off the talk. After you show this broadcast, it's probably gonna ring more.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:53

But uh well, thank you for doing it. And I hope the other lawyers or attorneys see the benefit as well to do what you're doing, and maybe we can have more people put billboards up or people can reach out for help. And hey, you know, let's know that we're not alone out here. That's uh I think that's a beautiful thing of how you can find a community nowadays. Used to be you're out here by yourself and trying to figure it out, you don't have to do that anymore. Like you said, it's plenty of technology to help the driver and help individuals be successful.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:21

Well, why don't you uh make sure next your to email me your con your phone number if I don't have it already? I do technically have an office in the Twin Cities, and I get there, I go in there to uh have lunch with my staff about once or twice a month. So that would be great if we could get together.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:39

Yeah, that would be nice. It's not that far away. I'm in Woodbury, not that far on the east side, so yeah, I can drive in anytime. I love driving, that's all I do.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:47

Oh, I that's the way when I come from Hayward, I come through 494 through Woodbury there. So very nice. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:54

Wow, so it's been a pleasure, it's been a great honor to have you talk with us and take time out of your day. Like you're saying, you're you're a busy man. Even after you get done with this, I'm sure the phone will probably be ringing at some point. So we we want to tell you thank you from the bottom of my hearts. There's drivers out there that we know that we have someone to count on. Thank you, Paul.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:11

Thanks, Ray. Thanks for inviting me. God bless you.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:13

Bye-bye. And so anybody out there is listening, if you uh find value in today's conversation, please share this episode with another driver, owner operator, dispatcher, safety professional, or trucking company owner who could benefit from it. Until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and keep moving the industry forward. And remember, be positive, do your best. This is Trucking Ray Out, another episode of That's Delivered.