The Florida Truck Crash - One of Far Too Many - How Did We Get Here? A Roundtable Discussion

Voice Of GO(r)D has convened something of an emergency roundtable in the wake of this horrific tragedy in Florida last week, as much of the reporting on it that’s out there is weak, inconsistent, politically motivated, and lacking in substantive context and background.

This tragic incident, for those who follow this Substack, or pay close attention to the North American trucking industry, is but one of many in a long line of completely unnecessary and preventable crashes, and the causes of all of these crashes are many, but there are notable through-lines and historical context. The media, along with many online commentators, are trying to pin this on bad immigration policy, which is certainly a component, or the corruption of politicians like Gavin Newsom, which is also a factor, but this is merely to find convenient villains who are a regular feature of life in America in 2025, and to miss all of the other problems; which are, quite frankly, of far more consequence to this incident.

To help describe the view of this problem in its entirety from 30,000 feet, I have invited colleagues and former guests of this show to join me in a wide ranging roundtable which tackles all of the angles of this story, to help you make more sense of it and arm yourself with accurate complaints to make to your relevant authorities.

Shannon Everett is a co-founder and the public face of American Truckers United. He is, like myself, a trucker who comes from a multi-generational trucking family. Shannon now manages an Arkansas based carrier, and his group has done some incredible research into the suspicious and massive increase of CDLs being issued across America over the past 5 years.

You can listen to our previous interview here, and find his very active Twitter here.

Danielle Chaffin is the granddaughter and daughter of old school truckers in Tennessee, and she has been a freight broker and a social worker, but is now behind the scenes at a TMS company that helps fleets manage all of their data. She is also an independent researcher into the industry, and writes the excellent Highway Veritas substack, which I quote here often. You can find Danielle’s previous appearances on this podcast here and here, and Danielle’s prolific and informative Twitter here.

Justin ‘Supertrucker’ Martin is a former trucker and social media operator, who has held many roles behind the wheel, including hauling high security loads for the United States military, mail for the United States Postal Service, and was once the co-host of the FreightWaves podcast ‘Back The Truck Up’. You can find Justin as a guest on my show here, here, here, and here, and his meme-heavy Twitter account here.

For the first time, and for those folks who prefer to watch things online, I have made the video from our roundtable available on YouTube. I’m not a fan of the video format, mostly because I don’t have time to watch almost anything, but if you like an assemblage of talking heads, here you go -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5I5mxcYgJI

I am a few short days away from submitting the rough manuscript for this book, which will likewise describe the insourcing of unskilled and illiterate labor onto our highways, as well as many other issues of consequence during the twilight days of the last American cowboy.

https://autonomoustruckers.substack.com/p/book-project-announcem