January 20, 2025 • 53 mins
Discover how two visionaries, Dan Shipley and Daniel Kinsman, are transforming the flatbed trucking industry with an unwavering focus on safety and security. Dive into their journey as they identify critical gaps in driver training and take bold steps to address them, from forming a dedicated Facebook group to establishing a thriving consulting firm. Learn about their mission to elevate industry standards, mentor new drivers, and enhance the overall safety landscape in flatbed trucking.
Unlock the potential within the diverse world of CDLs and endorsements as we discuss innovative hybrid training programs designed to meet ever-evolving industry needs. Explore the balance between online practice tests and in-person classes tailored to state-specific requirements, and discover how technology, including AI, is making learning more accessible and flexible. This episode provides a roadmap for aspiring drivers aiming to secure valuable credentials in niche areas such as hazardous materials and passenger transport.
Navigate the multifaceted challenges and technological advancements shaping the future of flatbed trucking. From labor shortages to infrastructure limitations, we examine how bilingual communication within a predominantly Hispanic workforce can enhance safety and efficiency. As the conversation shifts towards the potential of autonomous technology, hear why skilled human drivers remain indispensable. With a steadfast commitment to international collaboration and cutting-edge safety programs, this episode envisions a prosperous future for the trucking industry.
Visit us at LearningWithoutScars.org for more training solutions for Equipment Dealerships - Construction, Mining, Agriculture, Cranes, Trucks and Trailers.
We provide comprehensive online learning programs for employees starting with an individualized skills assessment to a personalized employee development program designed for their skill level.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Aloha and welcome to another Candid Conversation.
We're going down a differentpath today.
We're going to introduce aflatbed safety and security
program with two gentlemenBecky's who've been involved in
they're going to introducethemselves, but who've been
involved in putting this thingtogether from the get-go, have
(00:23):
wonderful material.
It's a lot of work and we'rejust going to be putting it up
on the Learning Without Scarsplatform so everybody around the
world will be able to haveaccess to it.
So with that as an introduction, I'd like to have I call them
the two Dan's One of the Dan'sto start and then we'll go back
and forth as a ping pong ball.
But how the devil did you guysmeet?
(00:45):
How did you start?
Where did this idea come from?
We're gonna say nobody's everdone this before right.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
So back in early or late 2021 going into 2022 my
company pushed me into theflatbed industry first time I've
ever done it Never done itbefore in my life and they
promised me that I'd get thetraining that I needed.
And their training was me goingout on the road, meeting up
(01:16):
with a driver at a shipper, andthe driver showed me how to
throw two straps over a load ofshingles and that was it he left
and that was all the trainingthat I received going into the
flatbed industry and I didn'tlike it.
I wanted to know more.
I wanted to be safe.
I have a family at home.
I want to come home to myfamily.
That's my number one prioritybeing a flatbed driver.
(01:48):
So I read a bunch of literature,watched a bunch of videos, and
then I turned to social media,Facebook groups and I looked for
Facebook groups and there's onein particular.
I'm not going to name it onhere, but I joined it and I put
my input in trying to receivehelp and I never got it, or I
got laughed at or I got toldimproper securement and it
wasn't what I was looking for.
So I teamed up with anothermember of that group His name
was James Goodson, and I reachedout to him and said hey, how
(02:09):
would you feel about starting upa Facebook group specifically
focused on flatbed safety andsecurement?
He loved the idea.
Me and him worked for a couplemonths to get it going and
shortly after that that he hadsome personal things going on so
he stepped.
He stepped down, so we startedbuilding the group up from there
(02:33):
.
Um, and it just so happenedabout two years into it I was
talking to my admin team.
I had the team of like 15 or 20people that were helping
monitor and run the group at thetime, and Daniel Kinsman was
one of my admins and I was veryclose with him.
We didn't have a lot ofconversations and I reached out
to him.
I said I'm tired of this beingjust a flatbed group.
(02:54):
I want to turn this into aorganization, a safety
organization.
How do we turn this into asafety consulting firm?
And he said, hey, I know a guy,and that guy was Bob Rutherford
.
So he contacted Bob and just sohappened.
Bob had just talked to you andjust so happened it was.
You got, believe, you guys weretalking about something to do
(03:15):
with the commercialtransportation industry and then
that's that's when all of usgot connected.
What do you?
You got anything to say to thatDaniel Kinsman?
Speaker 3 (03:25):
So yeah that's.
I came into flatbed.
I came through a really, reallyrigorous training program at
TMC.
They have probably one of thebest in the nation for training.
From there, I went to anothercompany called Hunt
Transportation out of Omaha,nebraska.
They don't hire a lot ofinexperienced flatbed drivers
(03:45):
but they do have a trainingprogram because they have
primarily agricultural equipment, so there's a lot of specific.
You can only tie down this loadin this specific manner, so
they teach you that side of it.
From there, I went to a localjob doing LTL flatbed for a
custom steel company.
To a local job doing LTLflatbed for a custom steel
(04:09):
company, the company I workedfor as a contract driver through
AIM Integrated Logistics.
I wound up becoming a trainerthere and through that process I
started to notice how therewasn't really a good method for
training on flatbed.
Aim did a good job at it, asgood a job as they could, but
there was no real standard.
And then in what would thathave been?
(04:32):
That would have been 2022,middle of 2022.
I actually got pulled into theweigh station near where I ran
out of in Hubbard, ohio.
The one officer in thereactually asked me if I could go
and assist a driver that barelyspoke English and had no idea
(04:52):
how to fix a load securementissue.
The load didn't come off thetrailer, it just wasn't secured
legally.
After working quite a bit withhim to walk him through using
hand motion and gesturing andjust like trying to explain to
him how it worked, I wasfrustrated at the fact that he
(05:14):
was allowed to just get in aflatbed with no training and he
didn't understand even thedanger to himself that the way
he had secured the load was thedanger to himself that the way
he had secured the load was.
So after I delivered that loadagain still doing local, so I
only had about a 20, 25 minutedrive.
I delivered that load, came backto the building I ran out of
(05:36):
and in Hubbard I got on Facebook.
I'm like there has to be agroup where I can go and find
other people that have amentoring mindset about flatbed,
that want to see it become asafer organization, and I found
flatbed safety securement group.
Uh, initially I was reallyhesitant because, like Dan
(05:58):
Shipley said, I'd been in abunch of other flatbed groups
and it was mostly they claimthat they're trying to help but
they just really ridicule newdrivers and it was all uh, they
wanted the drivers to learn byhard knocks, not mentoring them.
And I'm very much to this day,all the students I've trained in
flatbed.
I still have their phonenumbers.
(06:19):
They still contact me from timeto time.
I I'm a mentor, I'm not atrainer.
So I found that that is exactlywhat FSSG had become was a
mentoring page where we weretrying to help new drivers.
From there, my posts where Iwas posting up about coils and
specifics about securing coils,which was most of what I did, as
(06:41):
well as some of the other loadsI would do how to secure them
safely I moved up to admin andthen eventually, like I said,
like Dan said, he contacted meone day.
He's like this needs to becomemore than just a Facebook group.
We need to turn this intosomething that's actually we're
helping the industry in the realindustry, not just on Facebook.
(07:02):
It just so happened that BobRutherford was a good friend and
I had talked to them quite abit, so I reached out to him
real quick.
He's like yeah, give me a call.
I told him what was going onand he was like I just got off
the phone with Ron Slee 45minutes ago and I think this is
right up his alley.
This is exactly what we weretalking about.
(07:23):
We were needing, and from therewe all met.
We all met each other on thephone and had what I think it
was supposed to be a 15 or 20minute quick conversation.
It turned into two hours and welaunched this into a more
professional thing.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
So the first thing that strikes me, guys, is I
cannot believe, and I couldn'twhen we first started talking
and I couldn't when I wastalking with Bob Rutherford.
Almost everything that we getin our lives comes over the road
, whether it comes in a port,whether it comes in an airport,
(08:03):
whether it comes out of a field.
It has to go in a truck and ithas to get delivered somewhere.
And the thing I couldn'tbelieve was what, dan, you went
through.
Here's the keys.
What I lovingly say is I justhired a salesman.
Here's the keys.
Here's your customer list,there's the door.
See ya, that's kind of whatboth of you had, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
That's exactly what I had.
It was no training.
Go out there, get those loads,and I didn't like it.
It was not safe and I wantedmore.
I earned for that learning.
I wanted to be as safe as Icould and, more importantly, I
didn't want to hurt anybody else.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
And so, mr, importantly, Robin Abel.
She's the founder of a highwaypatrolman came at you at a rest
stop right.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Yeah, at a at a way station, a DOT officer, my local
run.
I went by the skill all thetime, multiple times a day.
They knew me really well, notbecause I did anything wrong but
because they knew I always hadeverything on point.
So the one officer in there heapparently had been having
trouble with this driver and hedidn't want to just leave him
(09:19):
sitting there and they legallycan't tell them how to secure
the load, right, you're, we're,expected to know how to secure
our loads.
So he actually had to take um.
He saw me pull in and he justtook a shot at hey, you know, I
know he trained his new drivers,I know he his trainees.
When I inspect themeverything's always on point,
(09:42):
they know what they're doing.
So he just took a shot in thedark that I'd be willing to help
which I'm always willing tohelp a driver because I don't
want to see, I don't want to seea load in a cab or on the side
of the road, any load in a truck.
I always want to see it on thetruck.
Even if it's been put in aditch, if it's been rolled over,
I want to see it still on thetruck.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
So, Mr Shipley, did you get any training like that?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Have you received any ?
Speaker 1 (10:10):
since.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I can't say I've received any formal training.
I've never been put through aclass in flatbed.
Everything that I know in theflatbed industry I taught myself
.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Okay, so one of the things that I think I have
learned from you guys and Bobthere's 11 different commercial
driver's licenses, or somethinglike that Is that close to true.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
So with the endorsements, depending on which
endorsements you get, you haveyour uh, class a and b that
would be for trucks, um, andthen with your endorsements you
could probably get 11 differentcombinations.
Passenger is the one thatnobody usually gets unless
you're pulling a bus.
So each one of those kind ofwill tailor you into a field of
(11:06):
work within the industry.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
And with each of those licenses, there's
obviously a driver's test inorder for you to get the license
.
True?
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Yes, there's testing for all of them Is there a
written exam as well.
It primarily focuses on awritten exam and then you have a
driving test for the overalllicense.
So the structure is you get thelicense, you can have a Class A
CDL and you can have noendorsements.
You can just drive a box truckor a temp control truck and
(11:37):
that's it Right.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Else you have to actually go through additional
education and take a paper testthat just shows your knowledge
of the field and both of youwork out of.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Ohio, correct Correct .
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Does this apply across the country, in every
single state?
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Yes, so the written exam that they have is there
anything that would stop us fromincorporating that into our
program.
Every state's exam is a littlebit different.
That's okay.
Very easily incorporate it intothe program to also add it as a
(12:27):
back end or book end to theprogram wherein you'll actually
get through our course, and thenyou could go through the
process to get that through theknowledge test for your CDL.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Precisely that's what I'm thinking of putting in
assessments along the way thatleads into the classes.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Okay.
So what the two Dans have donefor me is create a hell of a lot
of work, but it started from alot of work from them too.
They've given me 10 differentsections covering 57,000 words,
(13:19):
which is about 16, 17 hoursworth of talking, and we're
putting that into five-hourclasses, no-transcript.
(13:47):
So when the two Dan's, via Boband the three of us, or four of
us, got together and weretalking about it instantly, I'm
thinking to myself well, thisfits.
How do we get the material outof their heads and put it into
the computer?
They've given me this material.
We've segmented it down intoclasses.
(14:10):
Then we take artificialintelligence and transcribe the
words, the word document, intoan audio track so that a student
can sign on to a class, choosea voice that they want to listen
to At the moment there's fourmen and two women.
(14:34):
They can choose the font theywant to read.
If they want to read, theycould also just listen, and we
give them subtitles, and at themoment it's only in English, but
it can be in 130 differentlanguages.
We'll just start with Englishand we'll see where we go from
there.
So the reason that I was askingMr Kinsman about the different
(14:54):
states I think it would bebeneficial.
I'd like you guys to chime inon this.
I think it'd be beneficial tohave each state test on the
program on the site.
A student can take it we mighteven make it free and we'll get
a score on how they did on thattest.
(15:17):
Does that make sense to youguys?
Speaker 3 (15:23):
It would be.
It would make sense as they'retaking a course that's designed
more for uh, driving driver yep,so having that in there where
you could then give them thefree kind of a practice test
that, hey, you've now gotten toa point through this that you're
not just prepared for flatbedor load securement, you're also
(15:48):
prepared to go and start lookingat getting an actual license.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
And what did you call those?
Your 11 different endorsements?
Use the word.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Yep, it would be your endorsements.
So, within your endorsementsyour endorsements.
So within your endorsements youhave hazmat tankers, double,
triple passenger.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
I believe I'm missing one, aren't I?
Well, we can get them all.
We don't need to remember.
That's the good thing aboutcomputers.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I don't have to remember a damn thing.
I don't at my age anyways.
So there are seven endorsementsavailable for the CDL.
In the US you got doubles andtriple trailers, passenger
transport tank vehicles,hazardous materials, combination
of tanker and hazardousmaterials, school bus and air
brakes restriction removal.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
So if we had a basic driving test like you would have
in every state, just like it'sa car test up on the website
that a person coming in can take, that we get a feel for the
kind of person, kind ofknowledge, kind of skills they
have.
Then we ask them which one ofthose endorsements they're
interested in and from that wedirect them to the different
(17:08):
content to help them learn thatgo through the testing in the
segments and a final assessmentthat would allow them to go and
get an endorsement.
Is that kind of the way that wewant to evolve this thing Is?
Speaker 3 (17:23):
that kind of the way that we want to evolve this
thing.
I believe we very well could.
With the amount of informationwe're providing, coupled with
the additional endorsements,that would be a good process
forward.
That would be a good evolution.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
What do you think, Mr Shipley?
Do you?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
agree with that.
Yes, I do do agree with that.
I think that'd be a great idea.
It gives, uh, another avenuefor individuals looking for
additional training to achievethat, that level of training
okay.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
So we have what we call centers of excellence,
which are schools.
We have five schools now in thecountry.
We're going to have 15 by thecenters of excellence, which are
schools.
We have five schools now in thecountry.
We're going to have 15 by theend of next year that carry all
of our products.
Do you think that your driverswould, in any case, be
(18:21):
interested in going to a schoolto take classes, or would they
be rather doing it online, likewhat we're doing with what we're
developing here?
Do you think anybody would wantto go to a classroom, or would
they want to stay online only?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I think that's a tricky one.
It might even depend on thedemographic or the location.
If it's somebody out in thecountryside, it might be more
feasible for them to dosomething online, or for
something more urban they mightbe willing to go inside and do
it physically.
So I guess it just reallydepends on where the services
(19:01):
are offered, where the servicesare offered.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
I would also go so far as to say it would depend on
the current standing of thedriver.
Do they currently have a CDLand they're just looking at
endorsements?
Are they new to the industry orare they looking to start fresh
?
Somebody starting fresh mightbe more inclined to go to a
(19:25):
classroom where they canactually sit down and review
everything.
Somebody that's got a CDL butis looking to add the
endorsements and knowledge theymight already be working a job
where adding that classroom timeevery day is going to be a lot
more difficult.
So being able to just getonline and do it online.
So I think it would be more ofa 50-50.
(19:46):
Half will be in person, halfwould be online yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
It's see, I used to teach university and I talked to
a lot of schools and I tellthem they're dealing with 25
year olds and down with aprofessor I call it a sage on
the stage talking to people andsomebody in the audience
listening to people taking notes.
(20:11):
Maybe, but it's anold-fashioned learning process
versus what we're doing istaking people.
I'm trying to drive this thingto people from 16 to 76.
They're in the workforce.
Many of them be married, havechildren, they're busy.
(20:32):
Some of them are overnight onthe road.
That's an easy thing.
Our classes are five hours.
We say, take an hour and aquarter a week and you got it
done and you can listen to it.
You don't have to go to aclassroom, you don't have to
travel anywhere.
You can be in the tiniest townin the middle of nowhere or New
(20:52):
York City and everything's cool.
And that's kind of what's beenin the back of my mind.
I think that's been what's inthe back of your mind as well.
True, yes, yes.
So let's wave a wand.
How many people that aredriving flatbeds?
(21:16):
I'm going to call them flatbedsgenerically, would call it open
deck, anything where you haveto secure the load to the
trailer.
Yep.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
I'd say you're probably looking at.
70% of flatbeds are overnight.
They might be home on theweekends, but flatbed is one of
the fields where there's onlypockets of local work.
There's not like van freightand box freight.
They have a lot of local workeverywhere with LTL and like
(22:04):
well, they're now defunct yellow.
But like Arendelle Carriers andSIA and Estes they have drivers
everywhere.
But those are the big companiesthat do LTL.
Flatbed companies are usuallyout for at least five or six
days a week.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
And I'm assuming most of them are owner-operators,
most of them are independentcontractors.
They're not their ownbusinessmen, they're not
affiliated with anybody, they'renot part of a union.
They just go get a contract andget a job and go do it.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
I'd say probably about half of the ones that are
out all week are going to be.
I'd put it as small fleet underfive trucks, or five trucks and
less, yep trucks and less.
The owner of the fleet isprobably driving one of the
trucks himself all the way downto a single truck operation.
I'd say that's probably abouthalf of the industry, half of
(23:02):
the flatbed industry, becausethen you do have big fleets TMC,
maverick Rail and I'm trying tothink there's a couple others
out there.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
PGT the one.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
I-65.
They're several hundred toseveral thousand truck fleets,
but we're looking at 375,000 to525,000 flatbed trucks on the
road of all registered sizes.
So out of that number you'relooking at a lot of them being
(23:36):
small companies and independentdrivers.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
So let's just take 500,000 just as a round number.
Should each person who has aCDL with an endorsement be
required to pass a test everyyear, every two years, kind of
like you do with your driver'slicense, your car driver's
license?
Or am I interfering too much intheir lives?
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Right now it's usually every four years for a
commercial driver's licenselicense.
Um, and testing we do do a testwhen you renew.
The only difficult test theyreally have is hazmat.
Yeah, other than hazmat mostall the other tests are.
It's just common sense test.
(24:26):
It's like simple things.
When you hook up a set ofdoubles, you should always have
the heavy trailer as the leadtrailer, not with the light
trailer as the rear, and justlittle things like that that.
If you understand basic physics, you'll understand how to
answer the question.
Should you study?
You should spend some timestudying that stuff because it
(24:48):
will tell you little smallerinsights.
It will tell you little smallerinsights, but it's mostly also
generic that it doesn't really.
You're spending more timestudying than you're going to
get out of the test itself well,the tests that the bmvs offer
are generic.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
for example, when I got my cdl, they're so easy to
take.
Yeah, I took the tankerendorsements Only one I was
interested in, no studying,guessed all the answers and I
was able to get my tankerendorsement.
That shouldn't have happened.
I should have failed that testsignificantly and it should have
caused me to want to study, towant to learn how to do it
(25:25):
before I got it.
So the endorsements that youcan get, they're easy, they're
not hard.
That's what we want to do withthe flatbed industry, I believe.
What do you think, daniel?
Yeah, he wanted to make flatbedclose, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
I was gonna say we want to make flatbed more in
line with hazmat, where youactually have to spend some time
studying, you have tounderstand your material.
Uh, the hazmat test, they throwa lot of curveballs at you
where they will intentionallyget you thinking one path and
then give you a curveball at theend and see if you caught it.
So there's little things likethat.
(26:04):
That it's like that.
That's how they prove that youtruly studied the hazmat test
and that you're going to be safeTheoretically, you're going to
be safe and competent intransporting it.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah, we do the same as teachers.
We do the same thing when weput the tests together.
There's traps.
There's the same question areais covered three or four times
in different ways.
Mr Shipley, how many questionsare there on your endorsement
exam that you didn't even studyfor?
Do you remember how manyquestions there were?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Well, that was about 10 years ago.
I want to say it was less than25, just for the tanker.
I couldn't give you an exactnumber.
It wasn't a lot.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
No, no, that's cool.
So all of our assessments theshortest we have is 90 multiple
choice questions and with 90questions I can get a really
good bead measure of your skillsand knowledge and we get a
score out of that that then Ican put you back into your
(27:16):
material.
If your score is less than,let's say, 75%, here's the
places you need to go.
If it's less than 50, here'sthe places you need to go, and I
think that everything I've beenhearing and all the material
you've sent me says that's theway we should approach.
This makes sense yes, it does sowe haven't built those 90
(27:42):
question exams yet and let's notthink about that just yet,
because we got to get thematerial up there.
We have all the questions thatwe have on each of the chapters,
if you will, or sections thatwe can draw this from.
But what I'm visualizing is wehave somebody's interest, they
want to drive, so we give them afree taste of a CDL type of
(28:05):
test, kind of trying to promotethe job function, kind of trying
to promote the job function butalso focusing, like Dan you
started, that you want to comehome every night safely, because
safety should be our primaryconcern.
Getting the load there, that'simportant.
Cost-effectively, that'simportant.
But to have the driver be ableto go home at the end of the day
(28:27):
alive, to me that's moreimportant.
To me that's more important.
Once they get excited, we canstart them into the material,
into the classes with somefundamentals, with basics, and
(28:49):
then we can tree it off to eachof those endorsements and
specific assessments for each ofthose endorsements.
That are more than 20 questions, they're much more real.
I'll give you anotherhelicopter approach.
Electricians in America have noexam To become a certified
(29:10):
electrician in America you needto work five years as an
apprentice with a certifiedelectrician in America you need
to work five years as anapprentice with a certified
electrician.
It blew my mind.
The guy that's putting ourclasses together for electrical
has been teaching it for 50years at the university, at the
technical school level, and itblew him away as well.
(29:30):
So when we started talking,like Bob and I did with the
flatbed road transportation, ifwe're careful on how we design
the structure, get theminterested free, introduce them
to the fundamentals, safety andsecurement basics, introduce
(29:55):
them to the differentendorsements 720, doesn't matter
, but the different endorsementsand have specific material from
your classes, the material yousent to me, designed and put in
there.
There might be repeats crossingdifferent endorsements,
designed and put in there.
There might be repeats crossingdifferent endorsements, but at
the end of it there'll be anexam that's meaningful, that
(30:19):
says yeah, you earned thatendorsement on bus, you earned
that endorsement on tankers, youearned that endorsement on open
trailers, whatever.
And all of a sudden we've gotsomething meaningful that I
think both of you guys werelooking for when you started.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
So to people that are going to listen to this drivers
on the road, et cetera I'd liketo suggest we open up some kind
of a suggestion box for theguys on the website, letting
them participate in the creationof it.
You've got the foundation,you've got the material.
(31:01):
We'll find some way.
When it's there let's call thisa week or two away that we can
promote and then ask the driverstheir thoughts and opinions.
Good idea or not?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I think there might be some pushback from a certain
group of drivers.
You got the the old school, aswe call it who don't want to.
You don't accept any kind ofchange whatsoever.
So I think testing the watersis a good idea, but we should
(31:40):
also prepare for a lot ofnegative feedback as well.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Yeah, I agree with that, mr Kinsman, you're in the
same boat.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
I'm in the same boat.
I understand a lot of drivers.
I've been pushing for years forrewriting the entire licensing
process and categories and I'vegotten a lot of support out of
people in the safety field atcompanies and people that work
(32:08):
in insurance companies at forcommercial transportation.
Even some driver trainers havesupported the idea.
What really comes down to is alot of the drivers of the
industry look at it as this isthe way it's been and this is
the way it should always be,whereas Mr Shipley and I have
(32:31):
really taken the approach of wedon't want to want it to just
sit like that.
We want to challenge that itcan be better than what it is
now and to try and preemptivelycreate that better for the
industry and for the future, forpeople in the future.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Yeah.
I mean for the industry and forthe future, for people in the
future.
Yeah, one of the things thatchanges our enemy.
It always has been, probablyalways will be, and the example
I use and I put a blog up lastweek on this but the example I
use is when we changed from asteam engine to an electric
engine, everybody saw thebenefit.
They changed the tool, but theydidn't change any of the
(33:13):
processes around it until thegeneration went away.
So we've got generationalpeople that I call protecting
the status quo.
That's how we've always done itthis way.
Don't rock the boat.
There's an equilibrium.
We're all at peace with this.
That ain't me.
It never has been.
(33:35):
Can't we do this a differentway?
I mean, my parents must havegone crazy.
I know every employer.
That's why I had to work formyself, because they go away.
Yeah, that's the way we do it.
Darn it.
But what's happening right nowis intriguing.
My grandkids are 23 and 19.
They're both very smart.
They work very hard, butthere's a thing that the younger
generation calls quiet quitting, where people are only doing
(34:05):
what they have to do to get paidso they can get on with their
life elsewhere.
That we don't have justgenerally in our American
society and this is true of usmy experience around the world
we do not have enough skilledpeople to do the work that's
required today.
I'll give you an example.
I live in Honolulu and there'sa shortage of people in the
(34:27):
waste management side of theworld.
So all the apartments that wehave here, hotels we have here
nobody can pick up the garbagehospitals, not enough nurses,
doctors, etc.
It's all over the place.
So one of the things that I wasintrigued with is that in
drivers on highway flatbedovernight, it's a lot of
(34:53):
hispanics doing that driving now.
So we've got a language issuethat we have to play with as
well.
Now we can do Spanish, and wemaybe should start off with that
too English and Spanish both.
But we're in a changing worldand safety isn't something
that's going to go away, and thematerial seems to.
(35:16):
The trailers seem to get longerand longer.
I call this putting profit overpeople.
Somebody wants to make moremoney, so I can carry 60,000
pounds instead of 40,000 pounds,or I can go 60 feet with a hook
instead of 40, or I can go 320s.
I mean, where's theadjudication on this?
(35:37):
Don't think there is much?
Speaker 3 (35:41):
So part of my approach when I said I was
redoing the licensing, it waslicensing and size and weight.
I wanted to see us come onlinemore with the rest of the
world's weight allowances.
Most of the rest of the worldis allowing higher weights than
we are for gross weight.
So when we export stuff theloads are light.
(36:01):
When they import they're heavy.
So my objective kind of inredoing the licensing was to
look at areas like that and thengo through and hand-select
drivers.
It wouldn't be open to everydriver, it would be a
(36:21):
hand-selected group of driversand even a hand-selected group
of companies with specificroutes assigned.
One of the most densely traveledroutes is New York City to
Omaha, nebraska, interstate 80.
That is a very heavilytruck-trafficked route.
So from New York City to Omaha,nebraska, we could look at the
(36:44):
possibility of taking a select.
Say we take 500 drivers fromthe 15 safest companies.
They get to hand select theirsafest drivers, their best
drivers.
They would get a speciallicense and endorsement.
They would be able to operatetrucks that are a little bit
longer and a little bit heavier,but along with that their
(37:07):
license would actually be anumber that is displayed on the
truck that shows this is thedriver's license.
So then it creates a progressionand a goal for new drivers.
If you want to make that highermoney, if you want to be in
that elite tier, you have tospend the time being extremely
attentive to safety, beingextremely attentive to what
(37:28):
you're doing, learning the skillof your trade, and then you can
move up to that position.
But then that also means thatthere's going to be a small
market For those drivers.
So companies, initially thethought.
Everybody says, well, they'renot going to pay anymore.
Well, when you've only got aset number of drivers, they are
allowed to do this.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Now, yep, yeah, one of the one of the things that
you're crossing there, though,and it's going to be interesting
, and and I wish you well onthis the roads in Europe are
built completely differently.
Yeah, they're built for heavierloads, they're built for longer
life.
In America, we use you know,it's almost like we use asphalt.
(38:11):
A kiss and a promise, right.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Yep, I deal with trailers that are actually.
I have extensive experience nowwith trailers built in Belgium.
My current employer does a lotof work with the manufacturer to
custom build, custom createmodels specifically for North
America, and that's somethingwe've had to explain to them is
(38:35):
you've overbuilt the trailers somuch because you're allowed so
much weight per axle.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
But we can't.
We don't come close to maxingout, so we have to add more
axles, more length.
It works for us.
But initially they were kind ofconfused as to why we needed so
much extra.
And it's like well, we onlybuild our roads around that,
they don't.
(39:01):
The last time I saw a paper onit, the government was still
building the road around.
An average truck weight ofseventy three thousand two
hundred and sixty pounds.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
And what do you think ?
The?
Speaker 3 (39:15):
average weight is, should be now.
We're probably over I'd saywe're probably nowadays over
90,000 pounds for the averagetruck weight.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
So basically, you're moving from 30 tons to 45 tons.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Yeah, between the number of permit loads, as every
piece of construction equipment, agricultural equipment, gets
heavier, everything gets heavierand heavier.
Our average weight is justskyrocketing.
Yeah, we're paying for thepermits to go overweight, but
you have to build the roadsaccordingly, and as a country
(39:47):
we're not, and it's a blind areathat nobody really wants to
discuss.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Yeah, well it's, yeah , we get ourselves in traps here
, but that's why I rememberabout three, five months ago, we
, we were talking about puttingsensors, and that idea has not
gone away a sensor on each side,about 10 feet on each wheel, on
each hub, so that we'd knowwhat's going on with the tires,
(40:14):
with the rims, with the load,and, and we'd have a specific
geometry and a center of gravity.
You know, use good science forsafety and you know it all
dovetails together, doesn't it?
But there's a hell of a lot ofwork that has to be done here.
I like the idea of picking aspecific route New York to Omaha
(40:35):
.
What's the other side?
Omaha to where?
Speaker 3 (40:39):
From Omaha, nebraska, branches out a lot.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
So it's not as much point to point.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
It's not as much point to point From Omaha it'll
branch south, it'll branch justwest of Omaha.
Well, the west side of Nebraska, you can go down to Denver, you
can go up to Salt Lake, you cango out to Seattle.
Everything just kind ofspiderwebs out from there.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Yeah, I got you.
So, from Omaha going east isthe same type of thing, true,
yep York to Philly, to Baltimore, to Atlanta, da-da-da-da.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Yep, I think it's five major corridors.
You have Interstate 80,interstate 40, interstate 75,.
Interstate 40, interstate 75,interstate 95, and Interstate 90
(41:35):
are your five major freightcorridors where a significant
amount of the population livesalong those corridors and a
significant amount of thefreight traffic travels on them,
which means, for instance, whenyou go up I-95 or Interstate 81
, it is just a constant,constant bumper to bumper,
semi-trucks, there's cars mixedin, but even at two o'clock in
the morning it is still.
It is still a severely heavilytruck routed road, and that was
(41:55):
before the hurricane took out alot of north carolina so.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
So let me ask you a crazy question.
With the way that this currentadministration I don't want to
get into politics, but has beentrying to get us to electric
vehicles, do you see autonomousvehicles hitting the flatbed
business, or not?
Not soon?
Speaker 3 (42:20):
We've discussed this, yeah, hitting the flatbed
business or not, not soon?
We've discussed this, yeah, soI'll put my two cents in the
complexities of securing a loadand the nature of doing flatbed.
For some freight you could havean autonomous vehicle pull it
For a lot of the loads, having adriver in the cab that can look
(42:45):
in his mirror and see thatstrap is getting loose, even
with sensors.
A driver that's trainedproperly will be able to pull a
truck to the shoulder with aload that's barely even secure.
He will know and understand howto safely slow the truck down
that's barely even secure.
He will know how, know andunderstand how to safely slow
the truck down.
Um, similar to tanker.
They have a lot of issue withtanker flatbed.
(43:07):
Um, we have twisting motionsthat you don't have in van
trailers that can cause thetrailer to start rocking a
little bit.
It's a very uh, I call it humanintelligence heavy operation
that is often overlooked.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Mr Shipley, are you of the same mind?
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yes.
So me and Mr Kinsman discussedthis early on about well, what
do we have to look forward to ifwe can form FSSG into a company
?
And that is autonomy is coming.
Whether we like it or not, it'sgoing to come.
But how can autonomy enter theflatbed industry?
Well, it's a lot harder becausethe load has to be monitored.
(43:50):
So we've been discussing thingslike sensors on the top of the
trucks that monitor the load,sensors on the flatbed itself.
But we also have to advance intomore significant securement
technologies, like the winch hasto be tight, the binder has to
be tight.
If the strap breaks or thechain breaks or a tire blows or
a hub goes, how?
(44:11):
What do you do?
So it's it's going to be aproblem.
It's going to take a lot ofresearch and a lot of great
minds to to figure it out.
But but it's something that meand Mr Kinsman have been looking
at is how can we contribute toit?
So I guess what we can do iswait for it and just cross our
(44:33):
fingers they get it right, or wecan try to put our brains
together and figure it out forthem.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Yeah, I look at this in a different way and I think
both of you will understandwhere I'm coming from.
An airplane has a pilot.
For that reason, 99.999% of thetime the pilot's not necessary,
but that 1% of the time, or the0.1% of the time that he has to
come down on the Hudson Riverand save lives, I don't care
(45:02):
what that pilot's worth, whatyou pay him, I want him on the
plane.
If I'm lying on the table andyou got me open and you're
playing with my heart, I don'twant DEI, I want the best damn
surgeon you can find.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
I think the bottom line here is they're going to
have to keep a driver in thetruck, an experienced technician
in that truck that knows what.
They're going to have to keep adriver in the truck, an
experienced technician in thattruck, that knows what they're
doing.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
No matter what load is behind you, we need somebody
in that truck period and Ibelieve, as we get more into
autonomous vehicles, you'regoing to see a quick separation
of the cream rising to the top.
The best drivers, the safestdrivers are going to be weeded
out of the industry and pulledinto positions where their
(45:45):
attention to safety andattention to detail is going to
be compensated very well,because they're going to be the
few remaining drivers thatthey're actually out there
tasked with making sureeverything gets safely delivered
, making sure everything getssafely delivered.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Yeah, you're getting into the world of very specific
skills, and data is going todrive our world.
It's going to be driving yourworld much like.
I'm not going to see it all,but, as an example, md Anderson,
which is one of the medicalcenter companies in America, is
digitizing all patient data fromthe year 2000 to 2020.
(46:23):
Everything blood tests, doctorvisits, everything, operations,
recovery, rehab Just imaginewhat that gives us.
So when we talk about sensors,now I can drive a mining truck
in a mining pit and I'll knowwhat the engine temperature is,
what the brake temperatures are,how much wear there is on the
(46:45):
brake lining, all of this stuff.
We're getting to the point.
We get a lot of information,but it scares a hell of a lot of
people because we don't knowwhat to do with it yet.
So I'd like to commit to youguys we'll get the flatbed
safety and securement programstarted and up in place by the
(47:08):
end of January.
All of it that the three of uswill try and noodle out how we
want to entice people to thecareer of a driver with some
kind of an interestingpromotional type of test, but
then look at the endorsementtest and, mr Shipley, so that
(47:31):
it's more than something thatyou can just sit down and fake
your way through it and get apass.
It's meaningful from a safetypoint of view, a technology
point of view, a load balancingpoint, all of it, and we'll
start pushing this thing around.
I'd like if you guys could puttogether a blog for me for
(47:52):
sometime between now and middleof January, talking about our
launch and what you're trying toget done.
We've done it in pieces, butlet's start a program where,
every month, we devote a night aweek for you guys to have
something, and it doesn't haveto be just the two of you.
It can be other people that youwant to draw in and take, like
(48:15):
Bob Rutherford.
He's got experience.
He can introduce us to otherpeople as well and just start
promoting this.
I love the idea of thecorridors, mr Kinsman.
I like the fact that Europe andAmerica are starting to come
together.
That was the intent with theEuropean Union in the first
place.
Europe happens to be fallingapart right now.
Germans' government's messed up, france and England, blah, blah
(48:38):
, blah, all over the place.
We are too, but we've got a lotof work we can get done.
I think we can do iteffectively.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
I think this is a good introduction.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
We've gone about 45, 50 minutes.
Do you want to give me a wrap,Mr Shipley?
What do you think we've done sofar?
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Well, I think we've talked about a lot of good
things and covered a lot of goodbases, and one of the bottom
lines about where technology isgoing and how it ties into the
flatbed or trucking in general,is data is very important.
We learn a lot from data.
We need to be open to that andlearn what we can about data.
(49:24):
Um, that's going to makeflatbed safer in general for
everybody.
We need to understand theg-force uh of a load to see when
it's going to break.
We need to understand stoppingdistances.
We need to understand whathappens in the rain with a truck
when you try to stop.
I mean it's.
There's so much that we canlearn with data, not just in the
(49:44):
flatbedders but in trucking asa whole.
I think it's important that weall get on the same truck, for
example, and get to thatdestination to figure out what
we can do to make thetransportation industry safer as
a whole, not just flatbedding.
Speaker 1 (49:58):
One of the better professors of leadership in
America's name is Bennis.
He said we all got to get inthe bus together, so I'm not
going to call it a truck.
You know, we got to geteverybody on the bus.
Mr Kinsman, do you want to giveus a little bit ofa wrap?
Speaker 3 (50:14):
I would say where we're at right now.
We need to be able to take amoment to analyze the data we
have and also, as an industry,as a group, come together to
preemptively plot a routeforward for us.
(50:51):
We can have all the data in theworld, but recognizing where we
are short insufficient on, andtraining individuals to utilize
that data, to understand thatdata, is a major aspect of it,
and part of this is also aneventual goal of mine personally
is to take the knowledge andunderstanding that we're
(51:13):
creating in this program andapply it to other fields.
Agreed, it's you have to have abrain that can really think
through problem solving, becausethey don't place on there, a
lot of times, any good places tohook load securement to.
So, having this course where itis tied in with college if
(51:35):
you're going to school for, say,mechanical engineering yes, sir
, perfect.
Now you need to take this is acourse that you need to take,
not because it's going to helpyou design something, but
because it's going to help youdesign something to be
transported, because nothing isbuilt where it's going to be
used.
Everything is built where it'snot going to be used.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
So, to expand, on that a little bit.
So to expand on that a littlebit ports, ships, rail yards,
(52:24):
railways, cranes, containerhandlers it opens up a
completely different avenue thatI don't know that very many
people.
I congratulate you guys forbeing that far ahead of the
world.
I teasingly say to people theonly person that has a
half-decent view on a dog sledis the lead dog, and we all know
what the rest of the dogs arelooking at.
So, with that, thank you,gentlemen.
I really appreciate it andthank you for listening to us,
and we're going to do more onflatbed safety and securement, I
(52:45):
promise you.
So, for those of you listening,tune up, tune in and look
forward to having you withanother candid conversation in
the near future.
And, while I'm here, happy 2025.
Make it the best and the safestof your life, Mahalo.
Aloha and welcome to another Candid Conversation.
We're going down a differentpath today.
We're going to introduce aflatbed safety and security
program with two gentlemenBecky's who've been involved in
they're going to introducethemselves, but who've been
involved in putting this thingtogether from the get-go, have
(00:23):
wonderful material.
It's a lot of work and we'rejust going to be putting it up
on the Learning Without Scarsplatform so everybody around the
world will be able to haveaccess to it.
So with that as an introduction, I'd like to have I call them
the two Dan's One of the Dan'sto start and then we'll go back
and forth as a ping pong ball.
But how the devil did you guysmeet?
(00:45):
How did you start?
Where did this idea come from?
We're gonna say nobody's everdone this before right.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
So back in early or late 2021 going into 2022 my
company pushed me into theflatbed industry first time I've
ever done it Never done itbefore in my life and they
promised me that I'd get thetraining that I needed.
And their training was me goingout on the road, meeting up
(01:16):
with a driver at a shipper, andthe driver showed me how to
throw two straps over a load ofshingles and that was it he left
and that was all the trainingthat I received going into the
flatbed industry and I didn'tlike it.
I wanted to know more.
I wanted to be safe.
I have a family at home.
I want to come home to myfamily.
That's my number one prioritybeing a flatbed driver.
(01:48):
So I read a bunch of literature,watched a bunch of videos, and
then I turned to social media,Facebook groups and I looked for
Facebook groups and there's onein particular.
I'm not going to name it onhere, but I joined it and I put
my input in trying to receivehelp and I never got it, or I
got laughed at or I got toldimproper securement and it
wasn't what I was looking for.
So I teamed up with anothermember of that group His name
was James Goodson, and I reachedout to him and said hey, how
(02:09):
would you feel about starting upa Facebook group specifically
focused on flatbed safety andsecurement?
He loved the idea.
Me and him worked for a couplemonths to get it going and
shortly after that that he hadsome personal things going on so
he stepped.
He stepped down, so we startedbuilding the group up from there
(02:33):
.
Um, and it just so happenedabout two years into it I was
talking to my admin team.
I had the team of like 15 or 20people that were helping
monitor and run the group at thetime, and Daniel Kinsman was
one of my admins and I was veryclose with him.
We didn't have a lot ofconversations and I reached out
to him.
I said I'm tired of this beingjust a flatbed group.
(02:54):
I want to turn this into aorganization, a safety
organization.
How do we turn this into asafety consulting firm?
And he said, hey, I know a guy,and that guy was Bob Rutherford
.
So he contacted Bob and just sohappened.
Bob had just talked to you andjust so happened it was.
You got, believe, you guys weretalking about something to do
(03:15):
with the commercialtransportation industry and then
that's that's when all of usgot connected.
What do you?
You got anything to say to thatDaniel Kinsman?
Speaker 3 (03:25):
So yeah that's.
I came into flatbed.
I came through a really, reallyrigorous training program at
TMC.
They have probably one of thebest in the nation for training.
From there, I went to anothercompany called Hunt
Transportation out of Omaha,nebraska.
They don't hire a lot ofinexperienced flatbed drivers
(03:45):
but they do have a trainingprogram because they have
primarily agricultural equipment, so there's a lot of specific.
You can only tie down this loadin this specific manner, so
they teach you that side of it.
From there, I went to a localjob doing LTL flatbed for a
custom steel company.
To a local job doing LTLflatbed for a custom steel
(04:09):
company, the company I workedfor as a contract driver through
AIM Integrated Logistics.
I wound up becoming a trainerthere and through that process I
started to notice how therewasn't really a good method for
training on flatbed.
Aim did a good job at it, asgood a job as they could, but
there was no real standard.
And then in what would thathave been?
(04:32):
That would have been 2022,middle of 2022.
I actually got pulled into theweigh station near where I ran
out of in Hubbard, ohio.
The one officer in thereactually asked me if I could go
and assist a driver that barelyspoke English and had no idea
(04:52):
how to fix a load securementissue.
The load didn't come off thetrailer, it just wasn't secured
legally.
After working quite a bit withhim to walk him through using
hand motion and gesturing andjust like trying to explain to
him how it worked, I wasfrustrated at the fact that he
(05:14):
was allowed to just get in aflatbed with no training and he
didn't understand even thedanger to himself that the way
he had secured the load was thedanger to himself that the way
he had secured the load was.
So after I delivered that loadagain still doing local, so I
only had about a 20, 25 minutedrive.
I delivered that load, came backto the building I ran out of
(05:36):
and in Hubbard I got on Facebook.
I'm like there has to be agroup where I can go and find
other people that have amentoring mindset about flatbed,
that want to see it become asafer organization, and I found
flatbed safety securement group.
Uh, initially I was reallyhesitant because, like Dan
(05:58):
Shipley said, I'd been in abunch of other flatbed groups
and it was mostly they claimthat they're trying to help but
they just really ridicule newdrivers and it was all uh, they
wanted the drivers to learn byhard knocks, not mentoring them.
And I'm very much to this day,all the students I've trained in
flatbed.
I still have their phonenumbers.
(06:19):
They still contact me from timeto time.
I I'm a mentor, I'm not atrainer.
So I found that that is exactlywhat FSSG had become was a
mentoring page where we weretrying to help new drivers.
From there, my posts where Iwas posting up about coils and
specifics about securing coils,which was most of what I did, as
(06:41):
well as some of the other loadsI would do how to secure them
safely I moved up to admin andthen eventually, like I said,
like Dan said, he contacted meone day.
He's like this needs to becomemore than just a Facebook group.
We need to turn this intosomething that's actually we're
helping the industry in the realindustry, not just on Facebook.
(07:02):
It just so happened that BobRutherford was a good friend and
I had talked to them quite abit, so I reached out to him
real quick.
He's like yeah, give me a call.
I told him what was going onand he was like I just got off
the phone with Ron Slee 45minutes ago and I think this is
right up his alley.
This is exactly what we weretalking about.
(07:23):
We were needing, and from therewe all met.
We all met each other on thephone and had what I think it
was supposed to be a 15 or 20minute quick conversation.
It turned into two hours and welaunched this into a more
professional thing.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
So the first thing that strikes me, guys, is I
cannot believe, and I couldn'twhen we first started talking
and I couldn't when I wastalking with Bob Rutherford.
Almost everything that we getin our lives comes over the road
, whether it comes in a port,whether it comes in an airport,
(08:03):
whether it comes out of a field.
It has to go in a truck and ithas to get delivered somewhere.
And the thing I couldn'tbelieve was what, dan, you went
through.
Here's the keys.
What I lovingly say is I justhired a salesman.
Here's the keys.
Here's your customer list,there's the door.
See ya, that's kind of whatboth of you had, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
That's exactly what I had.
It was no training.
Go out there, get those loads,and I didn't like it.
It was not safe and I wantedmore.
I earned for that learning.
I wanted to be as safe as Icould and, more importantly, I
didn't want to hurt anybody else.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
And so, mr, importantly, Robin Abel.
She's the founder of a highwaypatrolman came at you at a rest
stop right.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Yeah, at a at a way station, a DOT officer, my local
run.
I went by the skill all thetime, multiple times a day.
They knew me really well, notbecause I did anything wrong but
because they knew I always hadeverything on point.
So the one officer in there heapparently had been having
trouble with this driver and hedidn't want to just leave him
(09:19):
sitting there and they legallycan't tell them how to secure
the load, right, you're, we're,expected to know how to secure
our loads.
So he actually had to take um.
He saw me pull in and he justtook a shot at hey, you know, I
know he trained his new drivers,I know he his trainees.
When I inspect themeverything's always on point,
(09:42):
they know what they're doing.
So he just took a shot in thedark that I'd be willing to help
which I'm always willing tohelp a driver because I don't
want to see, I don't want to seea load in a cab or on the side
of the road, any load in a truck.
I always want to see it on thetruck.
Even if it's been put in aditch, if it's been rolled over,
I want to see it still on thetruck.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
So, Mr Shipley, did you get any training like that?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Have you received any ?
Speaker 1 (10:10):
since.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I can't say I've received any formal training.
I've never been put through aclass in flatbed.
Everything that I know in theflatbed industry I taught myself
.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Okay, so one of the things that I think I have
learned from you guys and Bobthere's 11 different commercial
driver's licenses, or somethinglike that Is that close to true.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
So with the endorsements, depending on which
endorsements you get, you haveyour uh, class a and b that
would be for trucks, um, andthen with your endorsements you
could probably get 11 differentcombinations.
Passenger is the one thatnobody usually gets unless
you're pulling a bus.
So each one of those kind ofwill tailor you into a field of
(11:06):
work within the industry.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
And with each of those licenses, there's
obviously a driver's test inorder for you to get the license
.
True?
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Yes, there's testing for all of them Is there a
written exam as well.
It primarily focuses on awritten exam and then you have a
driving test for the overalllicense.
So the structure is you get thelicense, you can have a Class A
CDL and you can have noendorsements.
You can just drive a box truckor a temp control truck and
(11:37):
that's it Right.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Else you have to actually go through additional
education and take a paper testthat just shows your knowledge
of the field and both of youwork out of.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Ohio, correct Correct .
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Does this apply across the country, in every
single state?
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Yes, so the written exam that they have is there
anything that would stop us fromincorporating that into our
program.
Every state's exam is a littlebit different.
That's okay.
Very easily incorporate it intothe program to also add it as a
(12:27):
back end or book end to theprogram wherein you'll actually
get through our course, and thenyou could go through the
process to get that through theknowledge test for your CDL.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Precisely that's what I'm thinking of putting in
assessments along the way thatleads into the classes.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Okay.
So what the two Dans have donefor me is create a hell of a lot
of work, but it started from alot of work from them too.
They've given me 10 differentsections covering 57,000 words,
(13:19):
which is about 16, 17 hoursworth of talking, and we're
putting that into five-hourclasses, no-transcript.
(13:47):
So when the two Dan's, via Boband the three of us, or four of
us, got together and weretalking about it instantly, I'm
thinking to myself well, thisfits.
How do we get the material outof their heads and put it into
the computer?
They've given me this material.
We've segmented it down intoclasses.
(14:10):
Then we take artificialintelligence and transcribe the
words, the word document, intoan audio track so that a student
can sign on to a class, choosea voice that they want to listen
to At the moment there's fourmen and two women.
(14:34):
They can choose the font theywant to read.
If they want to read, theycould also just listen, and we
give them subtitles, and at themoment it's only in English, but
it can be in 130 differentlanguages.
We'll just start with Englishand we'll see where we go from
there.
So the reason that I was askingMr Kinsman about the different
(14:54):
states I think it would bebeneficial.
I'd like you guys to chime inon this.
I think it'd be beneficial tohave each state test on the
program on the site.
A student can take it we mighteven make it free and we'll get
a score on how they did on thattest.
(15:17):
Does that make sense to youguys?
Speaker 3 (15:23):
It would be.
It would make sense as they'retaking a course that's designed
more for uh, driving driver yep,so having that in there where
you could then give them thefree kind of a practice test
that, hey, you've now gotten toa point through this that you're
not just prepared for flatbedor load securement, you're also
(15:48):
prepared to go and start lookingat getting an actual license.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
And what did you call those?
Your 11 different endorsements?
Use the word.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Yep, it would be your endorsements.
So, within your endorsementsyour endorsements.
So within your endorsements youhave hazmat tankers, double,
triple passenger.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
I believe I'm missing one, aren't I?
Well, we can get them all.
We don't need to remember.
That's the good thing aboutcomputers.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I don't have to remember a damn thing.
I don't at my age anyways.
So there are seven endorsementsavailable for the CDL.
In the US you got doubles andtriple trailers, passenger
transport tank vehicles,hazardous materials, combination
of tanker and hazardousmaterials, school bus and air
brakes restriction removal.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
So if we had a basic driving test like you would have
in every state, just like it'sa car test up on the website
that a person coming in can take, that we get a feel for the
kind of person, kind ofknowledge, kind of skills they
have.
Then we ask them which one ofthose endorsements they're
interested in and from that wedirect them to the different
(17:08):
content to help them learn thatgo through the testing in the
segments and a final assessmentthat would allow them to go and
get an endorsement.
Is that kind of the way that wewant to evolve this thing Is?
Speaker 3 (17:23):
that kind of the way that we want to evolve this
thing.
I believe we very well could.
With the amount of informationwe're providing, coupled with
the additional endorsements,that would be a good process
forward.
That would be a good evolution.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
What do you think, Mr Shipley?
Do you?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
agree with that.
Yes, I do do agree with that.
I think that'd be a great idea.
It gives, uh, another avenuefor individuals looking for
additional training to achievethat, that level of training
okay.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
So we have what we call centers of excellence,
which are schools.
We have five schools now in thecountry.
We're going to have 15 by thecenters of excellence, which are
schools.
We have five schools now in thecountry.
We're going to have 15 by theend of next year that carry all
of our products.
Do you think that your driverswould, in any case, be
(18:21):
interested in going to a schoolto take classes, or would they
be rather doing it online, likewhat we're doing with what we're
developing here?
Do you think anybody would wantto go to a classroom, or would
they want to stay online only?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I think that's a tricky one.
It might even depend on thedemographic or the location.
If it's somebody out in thecountryside, it might be more
feasible for them to dosomething online, or for
something more urban they mightbe willing to go inside and do
it physically.
So I guess it just reallydepends on where the services
(19:01):
are offered, where the servicesare offered.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
I would also go so far as to say it would depend on
the current standing of thedriver.
Do they currently have a CDLand they're just looking at
endorsements?
Are they new to the industry orare they looking to start fresh
?
Somebody starting fresh mightbe more inclined to go to a
(19:25):
classroom where they canactually sit down and review
everything.
Somebody that's got a CDL butis looking to add the
endorsements and knowledge theymight already be working a job
where adding that classroom timeevery day is going to be a lot
more difficult.
So being able to just getonline and do it online.
So I think it would be more ofa 50-50.
(19:46):
Half will be in person, halfwould be online yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
It's see, I used to teach university and I talked to
a lot of schools and I tellthem they're dealing with 25
year olds and down with aprofessor I call it a sage on
the stage talking to people andsomebody in the audience
listening to people taking notes.
(20:11):
Maybe, but it's anold-fashioned learning process
versus what we're doing istaking people.
I'm trying to drive this thingto people from 16 to 76.
They're in the workforce.
Many of them be married, havechildren, they're busy.
(20:32):
Some of them are overnight onthe road.
That's an easy thing.
Our classes are five hours.
We say, take an hour and aquarter a week and you got it
done and you can listen to it.
You don't have to go to aclassroom, you don't have to
travel anywhere.
You can be in the tiniest townin the middle of nowhere or New
(20:52):
York City and everything's cool.
And that's kind of what's beenin the back of my mind.
I think that's been what's inthe back of your mind as well.
True, yes, yes.
So let's wave a wand.
How many people that aredriving flatbeds?
(21:16):
I'm going to call them flatbedsgenerically, would call it open
deck, anything where you haveto secure the load to the
trailer.
Yep.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
I'd say you're probably looking at.
70% of flatbeds are overnight.
They might be home on theweekends, but flatbed is one of
the fields where there's onlypockets of local work.
There's not like van freightand box freight.
They have a lot of local workeverywhere with LTL and like
(22:04):
well, they're now defunct yellow.
But like Arendelle Carriers andSIA and Estes they have drivers
everywhere.
But those are the big companiesthat do LTL.
Flatbed companies are usuallyout for at least five or six
days a week.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
And I'm assuming most of them are owner-operators,
most of them are independentcontractors.
They're not their ownbusinessmen, they're not
affiliated with anybody, they'renot part of a union.
They just go get a contract andget a job and go do it.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
I'd say probably about half of the ones that are
out all week are going to be.
I'd put it as small fleet underfive trucks, or five trucks and
less, yep trucks and less.
The owner of the fleet isprobably driving one of the
trucks himself all the way downto a single truck operation.
I'd say that's probably abouthalf of the industry, half of
(23:02):
the flatbed industry, becausethen you do have big fleets TMC,
maverick Rail and I'm trying tothink there's a couple others
out there.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
PGT the one.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
I-65.
They're several hundred toseveral thousand truck fleets,
but we're looking at 375,000 to525,000 flatbed trucks on the
road of all registered sizes.
So out of that number you'relooking at a lot of them being
(23:36):
small companies and independentdrivers.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
So let's just take 500,000 just as a round number.
Should each person who has aCDL with an endorsement be
required to pass a test everyyear, every two years, kind of
like you do with your driver'slicense, your car driver's
license?
Or am I interfering too much intheir lives?
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Right now it's usually every four years for a
commercial driver's licenselicense.
Um, and testing we do do a testwhen you renew.
The only difficult test theyreally have is hazmat.
Yeah, other than hazmat mostall the other tests are.
It's just common sense test.
(24:26):
It's like simple things.
When you hook up a set ofdoubles, you should always have
the heavy trailer as the leadtrailer, not with the light
trailer as the rear, and justlittle things like that that.
If you understand basic physics, you'll understand how to
answer the question.
Should you study?
You should spend some timestudying that stuff because it
(24:48):
will tell you little smallerinsights.
It will tell you little smallerinsights, but it's mostly also
generic that it doesn't really.
You're spending more timestudying than you're going to
get out of the test itself well,the tests that the bmvs offer
are generic.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
for example, when I got my cdl, they're so easy to
take.
Yeah, I took the tankerendorsements Only one I was
interested in, no studying,guessed all the answers and I
was able to get my tankerendorsement.
That shouldn't have happened.
I should have failed that testsignificantly and it should have
caused me to want to study, towant to learn how to do it
(25:25):
before I got it.
So the endorsements that youcan get, they're easy, they're
not hard.
That's what we want to do withthe flatbed industry, I believe.
What do you think, daniel?
Yeah, he wanted to make flatbedclose, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
I was gonna say we want to make flatbed more in
line with hazmat, where youactually have to spend some time
studying, you have tounderstand your material.
Uh, the hazmat test, they throwa lot of curveballs at you
where they will intentionallyget you thinking one path and
then give you a curveball at theend and see if you caught it.
So there's little things likethat.
(26:04):
That it's like that.
That's how they prove that youtruly studied the hazmat test
and that you're going to be safeTheoretically, you're going to
be safe and competent intransporting it.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah, we do the same as teachers.
We do the same thing when weput the tests together.
There's traps.
There's the same question areais covered three or four times
in different ways.
Mr Shipley, how many questionsare there on your endorsement
exam that you didn't even studyfor?
Do you remember how manyquestions there were?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Well, that was about 10 years ago.
I want to say it was less than25, just for the tanker.
I couldn't give you an exactnumber.
It wasn't a lot.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
No, no, that's cool.
So all of our assessments theshortest we have is 90 multiple
choice questions and with 90questions I can get a really
good bead measure of your skillsand knowledge and we get a
score out of that that then Ican put you back into your
(27:16):
material.
If your score is less than,let's say, 75%, here's the
places you need to go.
If it's less than 50, here'sthe places you need to go, and I
think that everything I've beenhearing and all the material
you've sent me says that's theway we should approach.
This makes sense yes, it does sowe haven't built those 90
(27:42):
question exams yet and let's notthink about that just yet,
because we got to get thematerial up there.
We have all the questions thatwe have on each of the chapters,
if you will, or sections thatwe can draw this from.
But what I'm visualizing is wehave somebody's interest, they
want to drive, so we give them afree taste of a CDL type of
(28:05):
test, kind of trying to promotethe job function, kind of trying
to promote the job function butalso focusing, like Dan you
started, that you want to comehome every night safely, because
safety should be our primaryconcern.
Getting the load there, that'simportant.
Cost-effectively, that'simportant.
But to have the driver be ableto go home at the end of the day
(28:27):
alive, to me that's moreimportant.
To me that's more important.
Once they get excited, we canstart them into the material,
into the classes with somefundamentals, with basics, and
(28:49):
then we can tree it off to eachof those endorsements and
specific assessments for each ofthose endorsements.
That are more than 20 questions, they're much more real.
I'll give you anotherhelicopter approach.
Electricians in America have noexam To become a certified
(29:10):
electrician in America you needto work five years as an
apprentice with a certifiedelectrician in America you need
to work five years as anapprentice with a certified
electrician.
It blew my mind.
The guy that's putting ourclasses together for electrical
has been teaching it for 50years at the university, at the
technical school level, and itblew him away as well.
(29:30):
So when we started talking,like Bob and I did with the
flatbed road transportation, ifwe're careful on how we design
the structure, get theminterested free, introduce them
to the fundamentals, safety andsecurement basics, introduce
(29:55):
them to the differentendorsements 720, doesn't matter
, but the different endorsementsand have specific material from
your classes, the material yousent to me, designed and put in
there.
There might be repeats crossingdifferent endorsements,
designed and put in there.
There might be repeats crossingdifferent endorsements, but at
the end of it there'll be anexam that's meaningful, that
(30:19):
says yeah, you earned thatendorsement on bus, you earned
that endorsement on tankers, youearned that endorsement on open
trailers, whatever.
And all of a sudden we've gotsomething meaningful that I
think both of you guys werelooking for when you started.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
So to people that are going to listen to this drivers
on the road, et cetera I'd liketo suggest we open up some kind
of a suggestion box for theguys on the website, letting
them participate in the creationof it.
You've got the foundation,you've got the material.
(31:01):
We'll find some way.
When it's there let's call thisa week or two away that we can
promote and then ask the driverstheir thoughts and opinions.
Good idea or not?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I think there might be some pushback from a certain
group of drivers.
You got the the old school, aswe call it who don't want to.
You don't accept any kind ofchange whatsoever.
So I think testing the watersis a good idea, but we should
(31:40):
also prepare for a lot ofnegative feedback as well.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Yeah, I agree with that, mr Kinsman, you're in the
same boat.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
I'm in the same boat.
I understand a lot of drivers.
I've been pushing for years forrewriting the entire licensing
process and categories and I'vegotten a lot of support out of
people in the safety field atcompanies and people that work
(32:08):
in insurance companies at forcommercial transportation.
Even some driver trainers havesupported the idea.
What really comes down to is alot of the drivers of the
industry look at it as this isthe way it's been and this is
the way it should always be,whereas Mr Shipley and I have
(32:31):
really taken the approach of wedon't want to want it to just
sit like that.
We want to challenge that itcan be better than what it is
now and to try and preemptivelycreate that better for the
industry and for the future, forpeople in the future.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Yeah.
I mean for the industry and forthe future, for people in the
future.
Yeah, one of the things thatchanges our enemy.
It always has been, probablyalways will be, and the example
I use and I put a blog up lastweek on this but the example I
use is when we changed from asteam engine to an electric
engine, everybody saw thebenefit.
They changed the tool, but theydidn't change any of the
(33:13):
processes around it until thegeneration went away.
So we've got generationalpeople that I call protecting
the status quo.
That's how we've always done itthis way.
Don't rock the boat.
There's an equilibrium.
We're all at peace with this.
That ain't me.
It never has been.
(33:35):
Can't we do this a differentway?
I mean, my parents must havegone crazy.
I know every employer.
That's why I had to work formyself, because they go away.
Yeah, that's the way we do it.
Darn it.
But what's happening right nowis intriguing.
My grandkids are 23 and 19.
They're both very smart.
They work very hard, butthere's a thing that the younger
generation calls quiet quitting, where people are only doing
(34:05):
what they have to do to get paidso they can get on with their
life elsewhere.
That we don't have justgenerally in our American
society and this is true of usmy experience around the world
we do not have enough skilledpeople to do the work that's
required today.
I'll give you an example.
I live in Honolulu and there'sa shortage of people in the
(34:27):
waste management side of theworld.
So all the apartments that wehave here, hotels we have here
nobody can pick up the garbagehospitals, not enough nurses,
doctors, etc.
It's all over the place.
So one of the things that I wasintrigued with is that in
drivers on highway flatbedovernight, it's a lot of
(34:53):
hispanics doing that driving now.
So we've got a language issuethat we have to play with as
well.
Now we can do Spanish, and wemaybe should start off with that
too English and Spanish both.
But we're in a changing worldand safety isn't something
that's going to go away, and thematerial seems to.
(35:16):
The trailers seem to get longerand longer.
I call this putting profit overpeople.
Somebody wants to make moremoney, so I can carry 60,000
pounds instead of 40,000 pounds,or I can go 60 feet with a hook
instead of 40, or I can go 320s.
I mean, where's theadjudication on this?
(35:37):
Don't think there is much?
Speaker 3 (35:41):
So part of my approach when I said I was
redoing the licensing, it waslicensing and size and weight.
I wanted to see us come onlinemore with the rest of the
world's weight allowances.
Most of the rest of the worldis allowing higher weights than
we are for gross weight.
So when we export stuff theloads are light.
(36:01):
When they import they're heavy.
So my objective kind of inredoing the licensing was to
look at areas like that and thengo through and hand-select
drivers.
It wouldn't be open to everydriver, it would be a
(36:21):
hand-selected group of driversand even a hand-selected group
of companies with specificroutes assigned.
One of the most densely traveledroutes is New York City to
Omaha, nebraska, interstate 80.
That is a very heavilytruck-trafficked route.
So from New York City to Omaha,nebraska, we could look at the
(36:44):
possibility of taking a select.
Say we take 500 drivers fromthe 15 safest companies.
They get to hand select theirsafest drivers, their best
drivers.
They would get a speciallicense and endorsement.
They would be able to operatetrucks that are a little bit
longer and a little bit heavier,but along with that their
(37:07):
license would actually be anumber that is displayed on the
truck that shows this is thedriver's license.
So then it creates a progressionand a goal for new drivers.
If you want to make that highermoney, if you want to be in
that elite tier, you have tospend the time being extremely
attentive to safety, beingextremely attentive to what
(37:28):
you're doing, learning the skillof your trade, and then you can
move up to that position.
But then that also means thatthere's going to be a small
market For those drivers.
So companies, initially thethought.
Everybody says, well, they'renot going to pay anymore.
Well, when you've only got aset number of drivers, they are
allowed to do this.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Now, yep, yeah, one of the one of the things that
you're crossing there, though,and it's going to be interesting
, and and I wish you well onthis the roads in Europe are
built completely differently.
Yeah, they're built for heavierloads, they're built for longer
life.
In America, we use you know,it's almost like we use asphalt.
(38:11):
A kiss and a promise, right.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Yep, I deal with trailers that are actually.
I have extensive experience nowwith trailers built in Belgium.
My current employer does a lotof work with the manufacturer to
custom build, custom createmodels specifically for North
America, and that's somethingwe've had to explain to them is
(38:35):
you've overbuilt the trailers somuch because you're allowed so
much weight per axle.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
But we can't.
We don't come close to maxingout, so we have to add more
axles, more length.
It works for us.
But initially they were kind ofconfused as to why we needed so
much extra.
And it's like well, we onlybuild our roads around that,
they don't.
(39:01):
The last time I saw a paper onit, the government was still
building the road around.
An average truck weight ofseventy three thousand two
hundred and sixty pounds.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
And what do you think ?
The?
Speaker 3 (39:15):
average weight is, should be now.
We're probably over I'd saywe're probably nowadays over
90,000 pounds for the averagetruck weight.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
So basically, you're moving from 30 tons to 45 tons.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Yeah, between the number of permit loads, as every
piece of construction equipment, agricultural equipment, gets
heavier, everything gets heavierand heavier.
Our average weight is justskyrocketing.
Yeah, we're paying for thepermits to go overweight, but
you have to build the roadsaccordingly, and as a country
(39:47):
we're not, and it's a blind areathat nobody really wants to
discuss.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Yeah, well it's, yeah , we get ourselves in traps here
, but that's why I rememberabout three, five months ago, we
, we were talking about puttingsensors, and that idea has not
gone away a sensor on each side,about 10 feet on each wheel, on
each hub, so that we'd knowwhat's going on with the tires,
(40:14):
with the rims, with the load,and, and we'd have a specific
geometry and a center of gravity.
You know, use good science forsafety and you know it all
dovetails together, doesn't it?
But there's a hell of a lot ofwork that has to be done here.
I like the idea of picking aspecific route New York to Omaha
(40:35):
.
What's the other side?
Omaha to where?
Speaker 3 (40:39):
From Omaha, nebraska, branches out a lot.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
So it's not as much point to point.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
It's not as much point to point From Omaha it'll
branch south, it'll branch justwest of Omaha.
Well, the west side of Nebraska, you can go down to Denver, you
can go up to Salt Lake, you cango out to Seattle.
Everything just kind ofspiderwebs out from there.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Yeah, I got you.
So, from Omaha going east isthe same type of thing, true,
yep York to Philly, to Baltimore, to Atlanta, da-da-da-da.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Yep, I think it's five major corridors.
You have Interstate 80,interstate 40, interstate 75,.
Interstate 40, interstate 75,interstate 95, and Interstate 90
(41:35):
are your five major freightcorridors where a significant
amount of the population livesalong those corridors and a
significant amount of thefreight traffic travels on them,
which means, for instance, whenyou go up I-95 or Interstate 81
, it is just a constant,constant bumper to bumper,
semi-trucks, there's cars mixedin, but even at two o'clock in
the morning it is still.
It is still a severely heavilytruck routed road, and that was
(41:55):
before the hurricane took out alot of north carolina so.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
So let me ask you a crazy question.
With the way that this currentadministration I don't want to
get into politics, but has beentrying to get us to electric
vehicles, do you see autonomousvehicles hitting the flatbed
business, or not?
Not soon?
Speaker 3 (42:20):
We've discussed this, yeah, hitting the flatbed
business or not, not soon?
We've discussed this, yeah, soI'll put my two cents in the
complexities of securing a loadand the nature of doing flatbed.
For some freight you could havean autonomous vehicle pull it
For a lot of the loads, having adriver in the cab that can look
(42:45):
in his mirror and see thatstrap is getting loose, even
with sensors.
A driver that's trainedproperly will be able to pull a
truck to the shoulder with aload that's barely even secure.
He will know and understand howto safely slow the truck down
that's barely even secure.
He will know how, know andunderstand how to safely slow
the truck down.
Um, similar to tanker.
They have a lot of issue withtanker flatbed.
(43:07):
Um, we have twisting motionsthat you don't have in van
trailers that can cause thetrailer to start rocking a
little bit.
It's a very uh, I call it humanintelligence heavy operation
that is often overlooked.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Mr Shipley, are you of the same mind?
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yes.
So me and Mr Kinsman discussedthis early on about well, what
do we have to look forward to ifwe can form FSSG into a company
?
And that is autonomy is coming.
Whether we like it or not, it'sgoing to come.
But how can autonomy enter theflatbed industry?
Well, it's a lot harder becausethe load has to be monitored.
(43:50):
So we've been discussing thingslike sensors on the top of the
trucks that monitor the load,sensors on the flatbed itself.
But we also have to advance intomore significant securement
technologies, like the winch hasto be tight, the binder has to
be tight.
If the strap breaks or thechain breaks or a tire blows or
a hub goes, how?
(44:11):
What do you do?
So it's it's going to be aproblem.
It's going to take a lot ofresearch and a lot of great
minds to to figure it out.
But but it's something that meand Mr Kinsman have been looking
at is how can we contribute toit?
So I guess what we can do iswait for it and just cross our
(44:33):
fingers they get it right, or wecan try to put our brains
together and figure it out forthem.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Yeah, I look at this in a different way and I think
both of you will understandwhere I'm coming from.
An airplane has a pilot.
For that reason, 99.999% of thetime the pilot's not necessary,
but that 1% of the time, or the0.1% of the time that he has to
come down on the Hudson Riverand save lives, I don't care
(45:02):
what that pilot's worth, whatyou pay him, I want him on the
plane.
If I'm lying on the table andyou got me open and you're
playing with my heart, I don'twant DEI, I want the best damn
surgeon you can find.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
I think the bottom line here is they're going to
have to keep a driver in thetruck, an experienced technician
in that truck that knows what.
They're going to have to keep adriver in the truck, an
experienced technician in thattruck, that knows what they're
doing.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
No matter what load is behind you, we need somebody
in that truck period and Ibelieve, as we get more into
autonomous vehicles, you'regoing to see a quick separation
of the cream rising to the top.
The best drivers, the safestdrivers are going to be weeded
out of the industry and pulledinto positions where their
(45:45):
attention to safety andattention to detail is going to
be compensated very well,because they're going to be the
few remaining drivers thatthey're actually out there
tasked with making sureeverything gets safely delivered
, making sure everything getssafely delivered.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Yeah, you're getting into the world of very specific
skills, and data is going todrive our world.
It's going to be driving yourworld much like.
I'm not going to see it all,but, as an example, md Anderson,
which is one of the medicalcenter companies in America, is
digitizing all patient data fromthe year 2000 to 2020.
(46:23):
Everything blood tests, doctorvisits, everything, operations,
recovery, rehab Just imaginewhat that gives us.
So when we talk about sensors,now I can drive a mining truck
in a mining pit and I'll knowwhat the engine temperature is,
what the brake temperatures are,how much wear there is on the
(46:45):
brake lining, all of this stuff.
We're getting to the point.
We get a lot of information,but it scares a hell of a lot of
people because we don't knowwhat to do with it yet.
So I'd like to commit to youguys we'll get the flatbed
safety and securement programstarted and up in place by the
(47:08):
end of January.
All of it that the three of uswill try and noodle out how we
want to entice people to thecareer of a driver with some
kind of an interestingpromotional type of test, but
then look at the endorsementtest and, mr Shipley, so that
(47:31):
it's more than something thatyou can just sit down and fake
your way through it and get apass.
It's meaningful from a safetypoint of view, a technology
point of view, a load balancingpoint, all of it, and we'll
start pushing this thing around.
I'd like if you guys could puttogether a blog for me for
(47:52):
sometime between now and middleof January, talking about our
launch and what you're trying toget done.
We've done it in pieces, butlet's start a program where,
every month, we devote a night aweek for you guys to have
something, and it doesn't haveto be just the two of you.
It can be other people that youwant to draw in and take, like
(48:15):
Bob Rutherford.
He's got experience.
He can introduce us to otherpeople as well and just start
promoting this.
I love the idea of thecorridors, mr Kinsman.
I like the fact that Europe andAmerica are starting to come
together.
That was the intent with theEuropean Union in the first
place.
Europe happens to be fallingapart right now.
Germans' government's messed up, france and England, blah, blah
(48:38):
, blah, all over the place.
We are too, but we've got a lotof work we can get done.
I think we can do iteffectively.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
I think this is a good introduction.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
We've gone about 45, 50 minutes.
Do you want to give me a wrap,Mr Shipley?
What do you think we've done sofar?
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Well, I think we've talked about a lot of good
things and covered a lot of goodbases, and one of the bottom
lines about where technology isgoing and how it ties into the
flatbed or trucking in general,is data is very important.
We learn a lot from data.
We need to be open to that andlearn what we can about data.
(49:24):
Um, that's going to makeflatbed safer in general for
everybody.
We need to understand theg-force uh of a load to see when
it's going to break.
We need to understand stoppingdistances.
We need to understand whathappens in the rain with a truck
when you try to stop.
I mean it's.
There's so much that we canlearn with data, not just in the
(49:44):
flatbedders but in trucking asa whole.
I think it's important that weall get on the same truck, for
example, and get to thatdestination to figure out what
we can do to make thetransportation industry safer as
a whole, not just flatbedding.
Speaker 1 (49:58):
One of the better professors of leadership in
America's name is Bennis.
He said we all got to get inthe bus together, so I'm not
going to call it a truck.
You know, we got to geteverybody on the bus.
Mr Kinsman, do you want to giveus a little bit ofa wrap?
Speaker 3 (50:14):
I would say where we're at right now.
We need to be able to take amoment to analyze the data we
have and also, as an industry,as a group, come together to
preemptively plot a routeforward for us.
(50:51):
We can have all the data in theworld, but recognizing where we
are short insufficient on, andtraining individuals to utilize
that data, to understand thatdata, is a major aspect of it,
and part of this is also aneventual goal of mine personally
is to take the knowledge andunderstanding that we're
(51:13):
creating in this program andapply it to other fields.
Agreed, it's you have to have abrain that can really think
through problem solving, becausethey don't place on there, a
lot of times, any good places tohook load securement to.
So, having this course where itis tied in with college if
(51:35):
you're going to school for, say,mechanical engineering yes, sir
, perfect.
Now you need to take this is acourse that you need to take,
not because it's going to helpyou design something, but
because it's going to help youdesign something to be
transported, because nothing isbuilt where it's going to be
used.
Everything is built where it'snot going to be used.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
So, to expand, on that a little bit.
So to expand on that a littlebit ports, ships, rail yards,
(52:24):
railways, cranes, containerhandlers it opens up a
completely different avenue thatI don't know that very many
people.
I congratulate you guys forbeing that far ahead of the
world.
I teasingly say to people theonly person that has a
half-decent view on a dog sledis the lead dog, and we all know
what the rest of the dogs arelooking at.
So, with that, thank you,gentlemen.
I really appreciate it andthank you for listening to us,
and we're going to do more onflatbed safety and securement, I
(52:45):
promise you.
So, for those of you listening,tune up, tune in and look
forward to having you withanother candid conversation in
the near future.
And, while I'm here, happy 2025.
Make it the best and the safestof your life, Mahalo.
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