Driver to Driver - A Stokes Trucking Podcast
Episode #12 - MPG Matters!!! Part 2
On this episode we finish our discussion about fuel mileage with Mike Pollock, driver of truck 693. We also talk with Rick Clasby, executive director of the Utah Trucking Association about their purpose and the award the our founder, Val Stokes, received at the UTA annual convention in St George. Segments can be found at the following time stamps.
2:57 - MPG Matters!!! Part 2 with Mike Pollock
42:44 - Utah Trucking Association w/Rick Clasby, executive director of the UTA
1:00:06 - Question from the Road - The delivery address on my bills is different than my dispatch
Thanks for listening!
On this episode we finish our discussion about fuel mileage with Mike Pollock, driver of truck 693. We also talk with Rick Clasby, executive director of the Utah Trucking Association about their purpose and the award the our founder, Val Stokes, received at the UTA annual convention in St George. Segments can be found at the following time stamps.
2:57 - MPG Matters!!! Part 2 with Mike Pollock
42:44 - Utah Trucking Association w/Rick Clasby, executive director of the UTA
1:00:06 - Question from the Road - The delivery address on my bills is different than my dispatch
Thanks for listening!
Welcome to driver, to driver, a Stokes trucking podcast on driver to driver. We will discuss everything related to trucking. And put a stokes trucking spin on it stokes trucking doing the right thing since 1979.
Grace:Welcome back
Mark:everybody. Thanks for downloading driver to driver, a Stokes trucking podcast. I'm your host mark. Laufer. I'm joined once again, this episode by my cohost.
Grace:grace lover.
Mark:And I'm tired. I may have stayed up a little too late last night. sitting around the campfire
Grace:you're not in college
Mark:of my friends and I am so not in shape for that these days, but we're going to, we're going to power through, get through another episode one way or another. what's up first on the podcast today, grace.
Grace:First is the second part of the fuel mileage discussion with Mike Pawlik.
Mark:Mike Pollock. Again, he drives truck six 93. This is the second half of the discussion that started on the previous episode. Most of the previous episode, we talked about. Mechanical drag things that affect fuel mileage. We have pretty extensive discussion about the aerodynamics in this part. the drivers don't generally have any effect on that other than. One thing I didn't really mention was like gap how big the gap is between the truck and the trailer. The smaller that gap is better. The fuel mileage is going to be, although with our trucks, even if they had them stretched all the way out, it's probably not going to be a huge effect, maybe one or two tents. but the closer you've got them. Better off are less chance for turbulence. I didn't really, and that's these days with our trucks, that's about the only effect the driver can have on aerodynamics. we discuss all the things we've learned at Stokes about aerodynamics in this segment. I don't think we included any of the. future truck discussion. Me and Mike did have a little discussion about the future of trucking, electronic electric trucks, alternative fuels, things like that. I'm hanging on to that for a future episode about the future.
Grace:Okay.
Mark:All right. here we go with, part two of our discussion with Mike Pollock on fuel mileage, why don't you get us going, grace?
Grace:Let's roll.
Mark:Do you know what the two, there are two factors that affect fuel mileage in a semi two big
Mike P.:Well, I, I know the first one is speed,
Mark:it's so that the two things that are going to dictate your fuel mileage or mechanical drag and aerodynamic drag. so speed is going to affect both of those. mechanical drag are the load weight, what the rolling resistance of the tires are, what the gearing and the transmission and the rear ends of the truck, how much the bearings in the wheel ends can affect drag too. Aerodynamic drag of course is how aerodynamic the truck is and trailer and the back of the trailer. so let's, we didn't really, I sort of skipped over aerodynamic drag. So I want to, I want to go there. you know, you might, you're really smart guy and you were in the air force. What's the most aerodynamic shape your close, a teardrop. Right. So it's round on the bottom where it's fallen from, and then it kind of tapers up and it'll either come to a point around, off at the end. The easiest way to see the most aerodynamic shape is if you ever are, if you see rain on a window the water's rolling down, you can see it's rounded at the bottom where it's fallen down got kind of a little tail at the top right, That's it's thinner towards the top. so aerodynamics are big, right the front of our trucks they're slicked up just as much as they can be. stars are not as good as the Cascadia as a Freightliner Absolutely Every, if you square up the front of that, you're going to lose a half mile per gallon. The physics never change, no matter how good looking the truck is, I love w nine hundreds. One of my first trucks was a w 900. I loved it Yeah I had a, it was my dream truck. I had a K 100 E Aerodyne cab over the first year when me and my wife would actually, I drove that truck for three years. I put 450,000 miles on it. The first year we lived in Missouri or no two years, I slowed down to 55 in that truck, Poland tanks, the best I could get for a yearly average was 7.25. I sold that truck. And I bought an old Walmart truck that had it. Wasn't 9,400 aerodynamic front end direct drive 10 speed. It was ugly as hell. It was terrible.
Mike P.:right.
Mark:It got 8.2 doing the exact same thing. It was a mile per gallon better. So
Mike P.:you're the one putting the fuel in it, that's, that's
Mark:Hey man, I was supporting my wife while she is going through grad school and paying for health insurance for our two kids. I, I couldn't, I didn't have the luxury of losing$10,000 a year because I wanted to look cool in my cab over.
Mike P.:Right?
Mark:I loved that cab over it didn't it would, money, but I could make more with the old Walmart truck. So
Mike P.:All right. That'd be three 89. I drove the guy. I drove four. Eventually he got rid of it for that reason,
Mark:You're you're just you just you won't if you're doing everything else right In an aerodynamic tr in a non aerodynamic truck you're going to get a half mile per gallon better in in something that's aerodynamic I don't care if it's Freightliner Volvo or a Peterbilt their five 79 looks really nice I don't care what it is as long as it's sloped and it looks like a teardrop That's what going for now.
Mike P.:So what about trailer tails? I noticed some of our trailers have tails and some
Mark:Yeah. So trailer
Mike P.:boost with the trailer tail.
Mark:yeah, it was hard for us to measure because we're dropping hook. We can look at drag coefficient numbers. They work, but they were problematic. we backed into dock doors with them. a dock door is pretty expensive, like to the tune of, we paid as low as 4,000 and as much as 10,000 to repair them. If you're getting a couple of tents gain over your fleet and the drivers, aren't always deploying them. That was the other, like, it was really hard to measure because it wasn't something that the driver was, it was just going to happen. he had to actually physically put them out
Mike P.:right.
Mark:and that would get avoided quite often. And as they age, they became really maintenance, intensive and heavy. the answer to the trailer Taylor question is if they could make them so that drivers don't have to deploy them so that they're out no matter what. And so they weren't so expensive to repair when it's over. And so that they sucked in on their own. So we didn't back into things with them.
Mike P.:Yeah, but none of those, none of those things are ever going to happen.
Mark:No those things are ever going to happen. Just because their design, they weren't, as they age, they got really bad. even when I was, when I'd hook up to one of those trailers, sometimes it was really hard to get them to deploy. And it was just because of how old they had gotten and, and they were beat up and that yeah they they did not age very well They just didn't but yeah, when they were brand new, Yeah, we got pictures. We'd get pictures from people going down the road past one of our trucks and the tails were closed. so the tiers, so there's a lot of drag at the back of the trailers. There's a lot, a lot of drag back there. I hope there's a really smart person. That's, that's how we achieve that. And so all these things we've talked about, right? We went from 6.2 to 7.1, which that mile per gallon is$10,000 a year per truck. And, and you take that over 35 trucks. And now we're at about$400,000 annually. That, that savings has got us. We're paying far more to our today than we were 10 years ago And it's not just because of inflation Some of it is supply and demand but we we are able to pay more if we were still getting six miles to the gallon
Mike P.:No way.
Mark:Yeah I I the money's got to come from somewhere
Mike P.:Right So I was thinking about that today I mean
Mark:when
Mike P.:fuel costs
Mark:go up, insurance costs go up then all of these costs go up.
Mike P.:that's just money that the carriers can't pay to the
Mark:Yeah. so whenever there's a big shift in the industry, you know, in the late two thousands, it was when fuel went to$5, a gallon, in 2012, Freight slowed down The more efficient we can be, and the better we can save for a rainy day, the better chance we have of surviving when there's a change like there, like COVID we
Mike P.:This pandemic.
Mark:we, we soldiered right through we're okay. We were talking a little earlier about the spot market. We're not taking advantage of those ridiculous spot rates because we have contracts in place and Thank the Lord. We had those contracts in place. When the pandemic hit, we stayed busy and never missed a beat. Not everybody did Yeah
Mike P.:carriers that closed their
Mark:There's a lot of drivers that that's, what's caused. The big demand for drivers is because there's a lot of drivers that they either retired or they quit. And they're still on unemployment. You know, that's, what's caused the supply crunch right now is carriers that went out of business a year ago.
Mike P.:Right,
Mark:So, so now we're paying the price for, for those, those carriers that hadn't changed what they were doing. Right. I can't remember where I heard it. I was, I'm a big Dave Ramsey guy. It might've been him. all this stuff, all this fuel mileage stuff, the things I've. How I've got Val the change, do things a little differently. I learned all that from listening to the radio and talking to other drivers. Kevin Rutherford was a big one. I listened. He used to listen to him all the time. I think he, maybe he said it, the easiest money you ever make is the money you don't spend. for me, when I was doing this for, for my own, I owned my own truck back 15 years ago, I was kind of locked in with the rates. You know, I wasn't working the spot market or anything. I couldn't just, the only way I could earn more money is to, to work more or not spend it while I was working. And that's what I did. And I got really, really good at it. got a buddy that got really, really good at it, too. he did over eight miles a gallon. I want to say for seven years in a row, Wow. Running slow. He was, well, a lot of it was running slow. We were wide based tires. We bought trucks that had good specs. We were running aerodynamic trucks. I mean, we were doing everything right to get there. It's the only way you get there. It's all these little, a 10th here in a 10th there. And pretty soon you're, you know, seven, fleet we're seven miles ago.
Mike P.:I think that it's important for the drivers to realize how much they affect all of this. I mean that when they help save the company money, that money comes back to them.
Mark:our fleet average is 7.12. if you look at the outliers, the variants in that sheet, there are trucks as high as seven and a half, and there's trucks as low as six. The six is the, those there's a few there's two or three of them. One's the flatbed guy. no matter what he did, if he was like perfect on everything and in a different truck, he
Mike P.:yeah, he's driving that Western star,
Mark:yeah. He may get in the upper sixes, but probably not beyond that, just because his loads, his loads aren't aerodynamic and the two other low ones are local trucks. Steve Hepner. Backs up almost as many miles as he drives forward. I mean, he's just, he's not to, he's not going to get very good fuel mileage, but if we can get his truck up one or two tents, you're talking about a couple thousand dollars a year because his he's slow so low. Right? No.
Mike P.:Right.
Mark:there is a big effect the driver has, right. If we get rid of those outliers way at the bottom and. We look at everybody that's up top. You know, now we're in a range of six and a half to seven and a half. Well, obviously the driver is having about a half mile per gallon or more effect on his truck or on his fuel mileage. Some his load, there is a little variance in load. Some is luck. We can't control what mother nature is doing and how hard the wind is blowing or things like that. Yeah. But of it is idle time. Some is controlled by the driver. Some isn't you're in a truck that's got up to Seattle. Not much you can do about it. You need, you need comfort obviously, and you want to set So it manages, it monitors the batteries, but a lot of it is in how you take off when you get going, slowing down. When you're wanting to stop, and IPM, and we talk about, I feel
Mike P.:Are we sure we want to talk about the IPO?
Mark:I IPM is good for two tents.
Mike P.:If you just let it go and let it do its thing.
Mark:If you just leave it alone and let it do its thing, it's two towns and IPM will cost you. Two or three minutes between the yard and Sacramento, California. How much time did you have when you stopped today? Um,
Mike P.:Like eight
Mark:minutes. even if it So even if it took an extra 10 minutes, let's say it took 10 minutes, 15 minutes. You would have been seven minutes over when you stopped today and the exact same spot.
Mike P.:and I may not have been because I ended up burning a few minutes of drive time today that I shouldn't have. So I probably even, even then I probably would have been okay.
Mark:I mean, it's not like that every single time, they're to be times when you're doing everything right And it slows you down just enough and you end up behind an accident and there you sit two or three hours you know
Mike P.:But the thing is, is you would've been behind that accident anyway.
Mark:Uh maybe maybe not I mean I've I've man I last time I went to LA I was coming out of LA There was an Amazon truck flipped over right at the end of the Gorge like the very last bridge before you get out of the Gorge he was flipped over and blocking the entire lane going southbound I was going the other way but there was a truck like 10 cars behind him sitting there in the middle of that And I thought man
Mike P.:Unbelievable.
Mark:if you would've just passed that guy cause it was going to be ours Right That guy was Chuck There was nothing He could do He like I don't even know how they were going to get a tow truck to him I think they were going to end up coming up way Yeah it was bad So things like that are going to happen
Mike P.:Like that wildfire I told you about when I was coming up out of LA was caused by
Mark:trunk fire
Mike P.:I mean what by the time I got up there it was a truck that had burned No it
Mark:it is what it is So so the IPM now even I override it at times I pass somebody going up a Hill and I get to the crest of the Hill and that thing kicks in I ain't going to be that guy that drifts back
Mike P.:Right
Mark:the guy I just passed Yeah But for the most part I pretty well set my cruise and don't pay any attention to what the truck's doing from that point forward
Mike P.:Yeah, I'm really trying to condition myself to stop overriding it.
Mark:it, test it, test it for yourself. I've had a few drivers that are, you know, that always every time I'd kick in, they'd hit the pedal and overriding And a couple of guys, I convinced, Hey, just this trip. You're going, you're going to the 49ers in Sacramento. You know exactly how long it takes you to get there. Tell me what the difference is. Just don't don't do it this trip two minutes. That's what I got told both times two minutes now they're And they're also towards the top of the fuel mileage list. I know it. See it like, yeah, you got all day long. You're going down the you know? And it seems like, Oh man, this has just taken forever. It's not as much time as you think it is. You can still override it
Mike P.:Right.
Mark:try it for a week and you hate it, I mean, I can't do anything about it. I, I can't tell whether you're using the only way I can tell whether it's being utilized or not is in a drivers fuel mileage. We've got a lot of really good drivers, like really good drivers that are towards the bottom of the fuel mileage list. I'm not calling them up every day, trying to give them a master's class on how to get their fuel mileage up.
Mike P.:Right.
Mark:I'm gonna put the information out there and if they choose to use it great. But one of the things we're looking at when we do we're reviewing our drivers every 90 days. One of the numbers the Thai polls to put on that quarterly review is MPG. And then when it's time for his annual, if it's a driver that's getting 6.7 versus a guy that's getting 7.3. it's four or$5,000 a year Yeah. So
Mike P.:Yeah.
Mark:yeah, we're probably more likely to give the seven three guy they probably both get her A's, but maybe seven, three guy gets a bigger raise. Cause there's more money to give him, he saved us more money.
Mike P.:Right. So another question I have is on the dashboard of my truck. It has my fuel economy. How accurate is that?
Mark:It varies from truck to truck overall though, we're, uh, we're off about a 10th and it reads higher than it actually is by about a 10th
Mike P.:Okay.
Mark:And I can actually tell you on your truck specifically, what the difference is. I got a handy-dandy little spreadsheet here, cause I'm a spreadsheet nerd. Sam Saraj, which is also what's reading on your dash. Samsung has just given us the data that's coming out of the ECM on the truck. Samskara fuel mileage for fourth and first quarters put together on six 93 was 6.8, seven actual. So gallons pumped versus miles driven. Actual was 6.84. Your idle time your idle time was 12.74. Yeah. You're I mean, it's three tenths, three tenths below our average. However, we talked about Opti idol
Mike P.:Right?
Mark:why we're not doing it. you go. that was across the board on the trucks that just have Opti idol and don't have an APU, unless there was some other extenuating circumstance. Like one of those guys that's running up the idol, he goes to Thermo a lot. So I sorta throw his fuel mileage out. You know, he it's really good. Well, it should be really good.
Mike P.:right. He's only pulling 10,000
Mark:Yeah. Yeah. I, when I go to, when I go to the Thermo, I get 99.6 on my way down
Mike P.:Yeah.
Mark:By the time I get home, I'm down to eight. Well, he's not even at eight he's at 7.4 as an average. Now not every single load of his is a Thermo load either, but for the most part first, low of the week, that's what he does. he should be higher than 7.4. He's not, but he should be, he could be.
Mike P.:And I experienced the same thing when I come to Kate KGB S
Mark:and bring the cans
Mike P.:back. That's
Mark:be 16,000 pounds.
Mike P.:at the box.
Mark:Exactly If we've got some guys that are in the white city a lot Quite often they're running empty from white city down to Sacramento and then they're bringing cans back where their fuel mileage is a little inflated because of but I be in the operations manager I know what generally all the trucks are doing So
Mike P.:for?
Mark:yeah. So I can look at the outliers and say, ah, this is why, you know, so, uh, another example here, Six 89 Dale Swinson. He's been on the podcast, his dash fuel mileage. So it shows 7.24. His actual was 7.16. It's off by eight hundreds. Uh that's that's pretty common. There are some outliers. Six 85 dash was 7.17 actual was 7.47. It was it. He better now even looking at a six month timeframe. Let's say he started that six months. Plum full of fuel. And he ended that six months completely out of fuel, Like right before. Cause I got to like draw a line. This is, days we're looking at If That's the
Mike P.:150 gallons.
Mark:yeah If if you say it's on both sides and he would've got it he needed or he got 150 gallons right before the six month period started and he needed another 150 gallons at the end That could be a 300 gallon variants
Mike P.:Right,
Mark:Which could make his fuel mileage look artificially good Or on the flip side a guy filled the first day and he was plum full the last day So that's why you can never go off a week. There's it's too short of a period. There's too many variables weather conditions. You could have a tailwind all the way down to Texas, and then the front goes by and you have a tailwind coming all the way back from Texas. And
Mike P.:Right.
Mark:you've got 8.4 on that trip. That's not what you're going to do, It's just that week. if any of our drivers want to know where they're at on the list, I don't have them ranked, I didn't bother ranking everybody because they're like, I think of it more as tears. We've got one, two, three, four, if you're in tier one or two, Good on you. We could, we could probably work on it a little bit, but chances are, you're doing, you're booing about everything, right? If you're in tier three or four. Yeah, we could. I'm sure we could find something.
Mike P.:So how does, driving through say the flat lands of Nebraska? Compared to driving through the mountains. How much of a difference does that make in fuel
Mark:it's about a half mile difference, a whole. Here's one for you. It's all downhill from Cheyenne.
Mike P.:right.
Mark:If you're driving slow and you have a nice little tailwind. It's pretty easy to get 10 or 11 miles a gallon running Cheyenne and Omaha There's no Hills
Mike P.:Right.
Mark:almost put it in neutral and Cheyenne and post all those right
Mike P.:Yeah.
Mark:now You're going to come back So so that's going to get evened out thing is the shifting and up and down Hills, there's a few things that we found that hold true. If a truck gets good fuel mileage. He's going to have good brake wear and he's gonna have good tire where if a guy gets bad fuel mileage, he's going to go through brakes fast. And he's going to go through tires fast because everything, the mechanical side that affects fuel mileage also affects your tires. All that power is getting to the ground going through your tire. So harder you're on, on the throttle. And the harder you're on the brake, the more you're going to wear out your tires. And obviously the more you're going to wear out your brakes. And we have a big variation in that too, throughout the fleet. one of our lowest fuel mileage guys, and I'm not going to call them out. I'm not going to put them on blast on the podcast, but he gets about 200,000 out of a set of brake pads, best fuel mileage guys, one of the best fuel mileage guys, Mike Hampton. We may go the entire life of that truck and never put brakes on his truck.
Mike P.:Wow.
Mark:He's really, he's like steady Eddie man. You know, he's using his engine brakes and, and he's off the throttle early, so he's not using as much brake to get boat up somewhere. The other The other, guy super efficient. But when I compare those two, they're doing the same amount of miles. One guy is not covering more miles than the other. They're doing all the same loads with the same equipment, but one guy is getting 7.4 and the other guy's getting 6.71 guy more aggressive
Mike P.:the other guy
Mark:I've driven aggressively.
Mike P.:I, have to
Mark:I I I'll I'll admit it. I just don't do it all the time. we have a few drivers to do it all the time, but it's not so bad where, like I said, I'm not calling them up every day to tell them what they're doing wrong
Mike P.:down.
Mark:Yeah. I you're still delivering freight safely. And even that, that bad, a fuel mileage, we can probably make a penny or two on you
Mike P.:Right,
Mark:when it comes time for a raise though, Mike Hampton's probably got a better chance of getting a raise per mile then Then someone who's lower
Mike P.:right,
Mark:for an owner operator for a contractor you know that's it like I said whatever the best the easiest money you ever make is the money You never spend Garren George Gary George in six 72 the owner operator desk he looked at his breaks look like Mike Hamptons He's probably never going to put brakes on that truck You know he doesn't wear out tires as fast it's money in his pocket, it's would be great if we could pay everybody by the hour. All of a sudden you'd have an incentive to slow down. Right. The problem would be how slow and, you know, are you, be hard to figure out.
Mike P.:And this was one of the questions that I had. When is, a company driver has a different list of priorities than the company owner who's paying for those tires
Mark:and paying for that
Mike P.:fuel. how did you, and how does Stokes. Find that balance between
Mark:the
Mike P.:that the driver has compared to the priorities that the company has.
Mark:It's really hard W w like it's really hard because we all get it. We've, we've all driven. Every one of us has driven.
Mike P.:Right.
Mark:Some of it is some of the way we've done it. As in focusing on this driver friendly drop and hook freight. So that's that's one, one way. We get guys here. We say, yeah, you can't do 80 mile an hour in a big hood Peterbilt. If you come to work for us, but you can drop and hook a lot and you can get home a lot. And the other part is it is passing it along, passing savings along we've. That's why I, I started spending so much time looking at our costs on a buy power unit basis is so that we can reward the guys that are doing really good. But also try and coach up the guys who aren't we do. We do some coaching. We just try. And that's a really hard balance, you know, because like I said, nobody, nobody who's here. Who's on the bottom of the fuel mileage list. Do we not want to be here? We want them all here as drivers. Can we get them to be a little better? Probably. But they have to be willing to come along on that journey too. They have to why it's a benefit to you know if if we're not making money nobody has a job right. So if you like your job do what you can to try and help make us profitable so we can share Right
Mike P.:because that money that you're paying to those drivers
Mark:has to come from Yeah Sometimes we can get customers but we can't we can't just go to a customer and say well this guy he just he's really bad on the on the throttle and the brake We need more money whenever he's hauling a load
Mike P.:right right When you you start When you start raising
Mark:fuel costs and insurance costs and business costs that money has to come from
Mike P.:And as company, drivers, we need to understand and appreciate more the
Mark:savings are attainable, our
Mike P.:miles per gallon,
Mark:whenever you can
Mike P.:knowing that we work for a company
Mark:that is going to
Mike P.:back to us
Mark:That's what we want to do We'd much rather give it to our drivers than to pilot flying J
Mike P.:Right
Mark:right Pilot flying J does not care about Stokes trucking I promise you so so I'd much rather give it to Mike Pawlik or Larry Nielsen or Mike Roberts I want to give it to one of those guys I don't want to give it to pilot give us the option
Mike P.:right
Mark:to give you and not someone else And and you know it's little things It's how you accelerate up the ramp or canceling your crews and coasting up to a stop sign or an on-ramp when you can so another question for you is I will, at times going down I know I'll actually reach up and put the transmission in your coat That helps it does there Could be a safety concern potentially
Mike P.:I
Mark:I mean, you gotta be
Mike P.:careful,
Mark:Yeah You've gotta be mindful And one thing to keep in mind there isn't a there is not a semi tire manufactured not other than racing tires There are some racing tires but nothing that's available commercially that is rated for more than 75 miles an hour I break 75 going down a Hill Um yeah but 80 eighties where my line is in my head
Mike P.:Right right
Mark:I have seen the fastest recorded speed on one of our trucks was 97 I I've seen that in any and I can see that when I pull ECM data so be aware and I'm pulling ECM data I better not see 97 miles an hour Again
Mike P.:So the thing is, is even doing 80 and one of these big trucks is scary. I can't imagine 97.
Mark:that's a lot of mass to try down if there's a you know it it just it's not for me there was a time I could there in the year 2002 when I had my w 900 and I didn't care that I was getting five miles to the gallon there was one night that I did a hundred miles an hour all the way across Wyoming God's honest truth me and me and three bull bull haulers swear to God I'm lucky I'm alive
Mike P.:Yeah. Yeah,
Mark:I did some really dumb stuff in my twenties like really dumb for young guys If I would have been smart let's say I was getting seven miles a gallon instead of five Think about all the money All the extra money I would have had$20,000 a year I if I would have invested that
Mike P.:Oh
Mark:I'd be retired by now I'd be done I wouldn't be working You know the earlier you can start on investments And if you look at that that cut that money savings as that's what I'm going to do with it You know one of our drivers gets his fuel mileage from 6.8 to 7.4 and we're like wow that's amazing We want to give you would be 50 but we want to give you a 2 cent a mile race We're going to give you 2 cents a mile extra because you're you're you're killing it on fuel
Mike P.:Right.
Mark:Invest that$3,000 and 40 40 years from now the$3,000 is What would be$3,000 invested at 10% over 40 years Probably in the 150,000 range somewhere like that you know I mean
Mike P.:And what does that, I mean, that gets you up retired several years earlier.
Mark:yeah yeah That's an extra an extra at least one more year maybe more
Mike P.:least. Yeah.
Mark:or you got a baby at home start a college fund and all of a sudden your kid can go to college for nothing. So you're young it's a lot more fun to money and retire early So save your money and put it in retirement Give it to your kids Getting back to the miles per gallon thing There are so many facets to maximizing your miles per gallon and the things you get out of it and so forth I mean it's almost mind boggling all of the stuff that goes
Mike P.:into
Mark:maximizing model
Mike P.:per gallon.
Mark:Yeah we really have tried to base this whole thing around how quick can, can everybody get back Right Maximize our miles but still get home as fast as possible So
Mike P.:now, my number one
Mark:goal is huh what our drivers do is hard They work a lot Our drivers lot and we actually me and Val and Tyler had a conversation yesterday We're looking at our break even costs like per power unit because I know a lot of fleets in the mountain West 35 36,000 miles is average But as our drivers age they want to slow it down a little bit you know So how can we still make money but let them run instead of 150,000 miles a year maybe it's 120 or 25,000 miles a year What do we have what do we have to change? What do we have to charge our customers? Where can we save money to get there? So our drivers. Especially the older ones can slow down if they want to and still a good wage,
Mike P.:right. Make a living.
Mark:yeah. Yeah. So we're actively working on that I think the big takeaway from this episode is the driver. We, we do all these little things. We work really hard. You know, we, we run the best tires. We order the most fuel efficient sleekest trucks. We can get, we, we get the best trailer aerodynamics we can get and drive, train, and all those things. And all those things we do have added up to about a mile per gallon. Over the last 10 years, I've been involved with Stokes trucking, but there's still a half a mile per gallon. That is all the driver. the driver Has the biggest effect on fuel mileage And it can be from the fleet's perspective for the lowest cost And we just want to pass it along Like we're happy with seven miles per gallon we'd be thrilled with 7.3 and everyone would see that in increased pay And now that we're really drilling in on each power unit and the fuel mileage for each power unit and what our fleet average with these were these are new numbers we didn't necessarily get to look at And we certainly weren't tracking We didn't have a good quarterly reviews or semi-annual reviews or annual reviews we're doing that Now Fuel mileage is going to become very important for us to be able to give our drivers more pay we want to give everybody a raise every year Everybody should get a pay increase every single year The better that you can get on fuel mileage the bigger your raise is going to be I mean we're we're passing it through especially we know the driver is working on it Yeah And you you're a good example You wanted to do this I've got other drivers that are calling me and asking me questions and that's the reason they're do a better job
Mike P.:right
Mark:review time That's all gonna come into play
Mike P.:Yep in the effort, realize that, the better fuel economy you can get as a driver that money's coming back.
Mark:that's what we want to do for sure And I don't, I don't feel like. We have a single driver in the fleet who doesn't care, who doesn't care, whether we're in business or not. maybe I'm looking through Rose colored glasses because of my position, but I talked to everybody at, you know, not necessarily every single week, but every other week or so. I've never gotten the impression from a single person that's working here that they don't care. Right.
Mike P.:Which is probably not the same thing you
Mark:get,
Mike P.:from, Like a
Mark:mega carrier,
Mike P.:You know you have a lot of
Mark:drivers, that, those kinds of places that really don't care. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. A lot of that starts with, with Val, he really, truly. Cares in his heart about every one of, not just our drivers, all, all of the employees, everyone who works at Stokes trucking and their families, he's emotionally invested in every single person here and that sort of permeated through the entire office at this point, that, that We're trying to do things to make our power, our equipment, our power units, more attractive to drivers. the raps we felt really strongly. We wanted to do military appreciation, first responders and truckers. All
Mike P.:those trailers,
Mark:three groups that were, you know, when the pandemic hit, they, none of them got to work from home.
Mike P.:Right,
Mark:They had to keep doing what they were doing. We felt very strongly that we needed to do that, but it's a promotion too. Yeah. It costs us a lot of money to put those trailers on and, you know, nobody's paying us anymore for hauling their load in a first responder trailer, to be, they need to be bragged on truck. Drivers need to be bragged on they don't, don't get yeah, Yeah So so we did it Pumping that out on social media trying to get it out there that Hey look at what we did
Mike P.:I thoroughly, yeah. I thoroughly enjoyed pulling that trailer. I mean, just the whole time I was pulling
Mark:that trailer, just knowing what was on the site.
Mike P.:of it. I loved it.
Mark:I got to, you probably saw it on Facebook. I got to take the USU truck with,
Mike P.:Yes.
Mark:trailer out to California a couple of weeks ago. And just feel a little better driving down the road with that. I I, mean a little bit more
Mike P.:and yeah.
Mark:driving the USU truck, you'll get acknowledgements that you wouldn't otherwise I've I've gotten bull horns people bull horns in the window, passing me. it's a little different driving that truck and. Those trailers are Val putting the design together. That was, that was his baby. And he nailed it. I
Mike P.:Like I said, it makes it a little bit easier to have some pride in your job and a little bit easier to have pride in who you're driving for.
Mark:love those trailers. I really do. I like
Mike P.:do too.
Mark:them.
Mike P.:Since 1979.
Mark:to, we don't always nail it, but we're at least putting some effort in
Mike P.:Yup.
Mark:that's yeah. all right, man. That's been awesome. yeah, yeah. thank you for taking time. You probably better get some, some rest. All Thanks so much ya. Welcome back everybody. I hope everyone learned something that they can use out of our little discussion about fuel mileage. One thing I do want to address real quick and I heard. It was on a NASCAR race. One of, no, it was the Indy 500 today. One of the pit reporters was talking about them drafting and he used the analogy of someone in their road, car drafting off of semi. And there is an episode of MythBusters. Where they tested that, and that is a myth you would have to be like within a foot or two of the back of the semi to actually see any fuel mileage improvement from drafting off the back of a semi. So don't do that. Don't believe it it's really super dangerous,
Grace:MythBusters was such a good
Mark:show. It was such a good show.
Grace:I remember the one they did about JFK does see if the bullet could actually.
Mark:Oh, the magic bullet.
Grace:Yeah, because you know, conspiracy theories,
Mark:I can't believe you're into conspiracy theories.
Grace:So I went on the Reddit conspiracy theory page, and it's bunch of baloney and there's people like me who are like, these. they were like, this isn't even like real conspiracies. It's just like people posting. Twitter screenshots about somebody making a false claim?
Mark:No, my, the, uh, the internet has, is fraught with misinformation. Like there's so much information available, but they're like half of what's out there is just, just crap.
Grace:and as someone who like Loves history. I see so much misinformation about historical events or people or stories. Like today I saw this girl on Tik TOK being like, did you know that the oldest story of Medusa was actually a, Thena making her air into snakes to protect her. And like, there's no archeological evidence for that. And that's not true. That's a modern retelling of the story because you want to make. Greek engine Greek DDS girl bosses, like stop it.
Mark:All right. A little more Greek history there. Uh, grace what's what's next up on the podcast.
Grace:The second segment will be with Rick CLASBI from the Utah trucking association. And Val on the 2019 president's award at the UTA annual conference in St. George.
Mark:So Rick is the executive director of the Utah tracking association. We have a little discussion about what UTA is, what their purpose is and why. We think, when I say we I'm talking about our management team, it Stokes think that that it's important that we're members of UTA and why it's important for our drivers, that we're members of UTA. And we of course discuss Val Val winning the president's award. And he's. I know he's already angry that I put this on the podcast. He was very embarrassed that he won the award and he shouldn't be, he was extremely deserving of it. So we have a little discussion about Val, me and Rick do anyway. we'll roll into that and be right back for questions from the road. Val's a real advocate when he talks to other trucking companies about it. But what is YouTube you taught trucking association do. And why is it important for our drivers that we're members of it?
Rick:Well, mark, thanks for asking. I, I, I appreciate your interest and I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the association. and I just have to say that your support and bowel support through the years is just been terrific The the reason why the trucking association exists, or the purpose for our existence is to first and foremost. Advocate on behalf of trucking. And that means means that we work very closely with our state legislators. Uh, We work very closely with our regulatory agencies, within the state eight, to make sure that they consider legislation or rules and regulations that they're doing. So with all of the information possible and that their understanding of our needs. As an industry. And so we often find ways to support legislation that would be business friendly, or that would be transportation friendly. of course we would support legislation that would be an enhancement to safety or any of those types of things. that would Make the truck driver's job better. And the trucking company more successful.
Mark:a couple of things, I think real-world examples of this that have happened recently. The most recent one was the initial when COVID happened and they were wanting to have everybody register when they entered the state UTA, got really involved with kind of putting the kibosh on that. Didn't they,
Rick:we, we really did. And In fact, that came as a bit of a surprise because we heard the announcement that, contact tracing through a mobile app was going to be a requirement for all vehicles entering the state from, from one of our bordering states. and we quickly got on the phone and called the department of transportation to find out if they really did mean that truckers coming from another state or potentially crossing state lines once or twice. or three times in a given day were to stop and enter their information into this mobile app. you.at the time said, yes, they thought that that was the case. So we, we jumped on the phone with folks from the governor's office and legislators who happened to be engaged in trucking and knew a little bit about trucking. So we rallied some of our friends from the legislature and started texting and phone calls. Met with a Lieutenant governor via text and and got heavily engaged and it quickly engaged with those folks to explain how just difficult that was going to be, and that it was going to be so time-consuming, our neighbors, my, my counterparts from all the other states heard about it and they were on the phone immediately and then very concerned about, just the. Difficulty that was going to cause to the trucking industry. Fortunately for us, our regulators and the governor's office saw that that was going to be a problem and quickly, quickly backed away from it and said, Let's, uh, let's not require truckers to have to stop and do that that app. And that all happened probably within a 30, 40 minute time span. So They were, they were very responsive and once they understood the challenges that that would cause, they, they really came to bat for
Mark:Wow. That's a great, the other one that comes kind of at the top of my mind was, the fight about legacy Parkway when legacy Parkway was supposed to open back up, I know UTA was kind of front and center in. Getting that open to truck transportation that I guess that would have been what a year and a half ago.
Rick:yes, that's about right. And you're right, mark. That was, that was something that was very threatening to us. I was a member of the department of transportation when the original agreement was pinned. legacy highway initially was being built, to accommodate. and to Allow for a reduction in congestion on I 15. And and I knew that that part of the goal there was to minimize congestion and, and governor Leavitt at the time had seen that that lake C highway was going to be something positive, from an efficiency standpoint, of course 10 years ago or more now, uh, there was a big fight about legacy highway, whether it should be built. Whether it should be built, along those waterways. And there was an agreement, amongst many that said, okay, well we'll build it, but we'll put a speed limit on it. We'll use special material that will reduce sound and will prohibit trucks for a ten-year period. But the agreement said that there was a sunset to that truck prohibition. And so as that came. Close. And there were other legislators from the Davis county area that wanted to extend that prohibition. We got really involved and it started meeting with them and they were reasonable. They tried to understand our needs, but had constituents that wanted to continue to see trucks banned from that. freeway. Fortunately, we were able to rally some of the folks that were involved in the original agreement. and We were able to rally legislators on the transportation committee, both in the house and the Senate. And, uh, and they recalled the original agreement. We reminded them that we pay a really high percentage of all the roads, use taxes in the state as an industry. fortunately we won that battle and, and we're able to see that prohibition lifted. So That that was, a, that was a nice win for us, mark.
Mark:Yeah. So how long have you said you worked? the department of transportation, I believe. How long have you worked for the Utah tracking association?
Rick:Yeah. Thanks. Um, so, so my career started, as a highway patrolman and I began work there, in the late eighties, 1988 in their commercial vehicle bureau. So that's where I got introduced to trucking and, and the commercial industry from an enforcement standpoint later, I transferred over to the department of transportation and ultimately, spent 15 years as the motor carrier division director. I left state service for a little while and went to Phoenix and, and, uh, ran a program down there. That was, uh, well, it was the PrePass uh, operation. and did that for a couple of years. And then the trucking association members said that they called and said, would you be interested in being the executive director? And boy, I was, I immediately wanted to jump on that because I knew all of these guys, all of the members of the association for many, many years and saw that it was a really good group to work with and, and a responsible. group. They're not ones that were looking for somebody that would hide stuff or, or make, trucking look better than it really was. And uh, so I jumped on the opportunity, and came to work for the association in 2012. So I've been here going on nine years. in November.
Mark:Awesome. Since Val started bringing me to things which, uh, started in, I think it was 2018 ish. Uh, it's it's a great association to be a part of it's. So all the members, all the other trucking companies are so open with information, which is just so different from what I'm used to in the Midwest, where everybody's pretty pretty tight-lipped, you know,
Rick:Yeah, throughout my career, I've had opportunities to work with other association other trade groups. And the one thing that made it so attractive for me to join this group, was that I saw lifelong competitors come together and find solutions to transportation problems, and they would call each other for advice. And they would ask each other about, you know, which vehicles were working best for them or what, you know, what tires. were Working best for them. And I saw that collaboration and, and admired that these guys who are very successful businessmen, extremely good at what they do, we're humble enough to call a competitor for help. And I saw that especially through COVID where we're folks may be having trouble early on in the COVID problem, getting loads or, or. Maybe their industry was not as, recognized as essential as somebody else's and members of our association would call and use their power units, or they would call and use their drivers and they would keep people working. And it was just, It just continues to amaze me at how professional this group is and how easy they are to work for. and to, you know, I never once have to question my art, my integrity, because they're as interested in safety and efficiency as I am, or always have. been. So anyway, I agree with you.
Mark:Yeah, it's great. I wanted to have you, um, I want to have you on again, later on, um, a later episode, two in the fall, we can talk about some legislative issues that you think might be coming down, that our drivers could get involved with, you know, but today, yeah today I wanted to talk to you about, and Val's going to be. So mad at me that I'm putting this out there, but he, he won the grand president's award. Is, am I saying that correct?
Rick:Yeah. So yeah, the official title is the Utah trucking association, 2019 president's
Mark:there you go
Rick:yeah, and, and by way of explanation. the President's award is one of the highest recognitions that the association offers. And it it's, it's given to those individuals who have had a significant impact on the trucking industry, and the association. these are people that have been lifetime supporters of safety, lifetime supporters of transportation. they're people that have served as leaders within the trucking association, many have been state representatives or state senators or officials within regulatory agencies. and So it's really reserved for those folks who just really stand out as terrific examples of what the trucking industry is. And what the trucking industry ought to be. And, and So yes, Val was the 2019 recipient of that award, but because we were not able to hold our convention in 2020, we were not able to present that award to him. So we did that, just two weeks ago in St. George and presented both the 20, 19 and 2020 president's ward recipients who, with that recognition.
Mark:Well, he was very surprised. I, I got a lot of questions after the fact did you know? And no, I didn't know until, until Stacey Betteridge was about halfway through his speech, describing who he was given me, me and my wife looked at each other and kind of tipped her heads towards Val. And about that time he realized they were talking about him too. And. Poor guy. He's just a, he's so humble.
Rick:Yes. Yeah. I, and I, I knew that he would react that way. Every time I've thought about recognizing bow or as he advanced. In leadership through the executive committee, and look like, he was, he was one of our he was our treasurer and, and had to he basically, had to withdraw from our leadership because of the family health. issues that he was dealing with. And, And we respected that and appreciate it so much. But what he never did was withdraw support. he never, he never withdrew, his ability to see problems on the horizon and call and try to find ways to, to find solutions to those problems. Uh, I mean, the legacy highway thing, he was one that came in and presented to the legislature and was one that uh, was able to say how important that road was. And, and he's, he's just always willing to do those things and he never wants credit for. them. He he's. So, he's so shy, Should I, I don't want to mislead anybody shy only in that he, he is humble and, and is shy about being recognized. but he's, he's a competent man, as you know, And is so willing to, to say things in a, in a straightforward and honest manner and, and he can do it professionally. But it's always in a in a direct way, uh, an honest way. And, uh, and boy, that's been helpful. Just so helpful. to the association.
Mark:Yeah. He's a, I don't know how I got so lucky stumbling into the Stokes trucking office. When I moved to Utah,
Rick:Yeah
Mark:know how else to say it.
Rick:You know, I uh, Val was not one of those trucking company owners that I knew, During my time with Utah and the highway patrol, we met vow, just going out and doing member visits. and we, the president at the time, Scott Godfrey, and I tried to meet with Val and he was dealing with some difficult things and we couldn't meet. And so sometime later, Dwayne bragger and I took bowel to launch. and that was an instantaneous friendship. One of those guys that I, I could instantaneously see had wisdom, and was honest and was caring about his business and his family. And boy, he became just a An overwhelming supporter of the association. and, and quickly started to run up the leadership ladder just because he is who he is. And, And when we talked about president's award recipients, and his name was mentioned, it became immediate and unanimous the executive committee and the, and the, and the president who gets to present that award, at least that's how that worked in this case, the discussion, just stand it you know, Val's the guy, and, they were so agreeable to that. And, and for Me. it was that's, That's an easy thing to support an easy thing to gather information and, you know, right, right. Accolades about. So it was really fun.
Mark:Yeah. That was awesome All right, Rick, thanks so much for taking time to join me
Rick:You bet. Thank you. It's been a lot of fun and Congratulations for what you're doing. I think it's right on. a well done.
Mark:All right, sir. We'll uh, we'll talk again soon. I promise. Great segment with Greg CLASBI from the Utah trucking association. We are we're going to have Rick on again, the next podcast, which is going to be audio. I recorded at the UTA convention. They had a legends panel and Val was a member of the legends panel. It was actually six different trucking company owners from Utah. I thought it was really interesting, kind of fascinating to listen to these fellows, discuss the origins of their various companies and things they've learned, through the years. So that audio is going to go out really unedited. We're not, we're not going to do much with it. Other than introduce, I'm planning to introduce each owner. So that as you're listening, you'll know who who's talking and what company, he owns. but, so what's our, uh, question from the road. Grace
Grace:The question from the road this week comes from Gary Hughes and truck 683, and he asks, I need to know which address to deliver to the address on dispatch. Doesn't match the address on the bills.
Mark:This was an excellent question from Gary. So, and it's kind of truck driver one-on-one, but I, things go so steady for Stokes trucking quite often. I think it gets forgotten some of the little detail things we need to do. So you should always, as a driver, check your bill of lading and make sure the address on the bill of lading the delivery address matches the address that was sent to you by dispatch. A couple other things you should check is. Wait piece count seal seal is very important. Make sure your seal number on your bill of lading matches the seal number on the back of your trailer. And if there's a discrepancy in any of those contact dispatch, which is exactly what Gary did, turns out the address he had was would have been correct when he was going to Amy's kitchen in Pocatello. And Amy's kitchen is actually located in an old or Ida potato, French fry factory. So the address there used to be two to one or Ida Coke court, O R E Ida. Now it's two to one fill meter court, which I assume Phil meter is someone. Who's famous in Pocatello for some reason, I don't know. Anyway, the place where he had loaded, they were using the old or Ida address. Really. If you throw either one into a GPS, it's going to take you to the same, the same location, but there was a discrepancy. Gary was doing his due diligence. He contacted me, we figured out what the deal was and off he went to Amy's kitchen and folktale. So as a reminder to everybody the truck driver, one-on-one. once you're loaded, look at your bills. See if the address you're supposed to go to according to the bills matches what dispatch has told you. If it doesn't contact your dispatcher, check your weight piece count, make sure your seal matches. And then if you need to, you're maybe heavy, go weigh yourself before you get too far away from the shipper. Because if there's a problem, you don't want to find out about it. 150 miles down the road. Anyway, that oughta cover the question from the road this week. Next week, it's going to be all about the legends panel from UTA. It's going to be really just, a little discussion with Rick CLASBI about that. And then what was said at the legend panel, You're going to hear me apologize again next week because the audio from the legends panel, isn't great. They didn't have any way for for me to plug my recorder into their sound system. So I could just record whatever was coming over the microphone. Unfortunately. So I had to just set a microphone on a chair next to me in the auditorium,
Grace:you must've looked pretty silly,
Mark:I actually was sort of strategic. I went all the way to the one side of the room, because I needed to plug it in. Right. And I set the microphone on the chair pointed towards the panel. And then I kind of put, I had a couple bags with me while I had the bag. I keep all the podcast stuff in and then I had gotten a bag from great Dane and I sort of set those around the microphone so that if there were people behind me talking, or if I was moving around on the chair, you wouldn't. The mic wouldn't pick it up. It did pick up some of it. So it's, the audio is a little rough and the very first guy who talks wasn't up on the microphone hardly at all. So it's like, he's really quiet. And then it goes to the next, I can't remember who was next. I think it was Dwayne bragger, who owns tram Corp, and he was really good. A couple of the guys were really good about using the microphone couple warrant. but there's some good. I think some interesting facts that are our audience will have some interest in, especially our drivers, CR England pride, Val tram, core alpha transport and that's The, the gentleman who founded debts, or was the president. I think, I think his dad founded it. He talks about that, but anyway, it was, it was cool. It was really neat to hear. All these guys with all this experience in the trucking industry, talk about uh, they, all their stories are really similar, you know, started with one or two trucks and almost went broke. And like, it's like, it it's just, it's the same thing for every trucking company. It seems like. So that's coming up on the next podcast, which should release sometime towards the middle of June We'll keep on going. We're going to start football prep is next. Grace, are you excited for football season?
Grace:I was going to say something
Mark:Go Aggies.
Grace:go Aggies.
Mark:Just say just, Just say, go
Grace:away,
Mark:There you go
Grace:quack. I hate it. I hate when people use that. I think it's so dumb. Like, are you like, as somebody who went to speech therapy all throughout elementary school, when people mispronounce words for fun, it pisses me off. Cause I still struggle with it. I still struggle with speaking.
Mark:All right. So, so football, the truck is done at the USU football truck is done. Ready to go. We've been using it a little bit. ran around Northern Utah We're I know for sure, uh, three different parades We're going to be in the summer. We're going to take it to the truck show.
Grace:There's going to be an actual football season this year.
Mark:I think We will actually have a football season and there will actually be football played this year. Yes. So, um, we're, we're starting to starting to ramp up, get ready for that. It's three months away, but it's going to be here tomorrow. It seems like. So, especially with vacations and oh, Wedding prep too. Nobody wants to hear my personal problems. All right, everybody until next time, make sure you rate and review our podcast on whatever service you're listening to. we're nearing 1500 downloads. Yep. Go driver to driver patched ag go driver to driver. I continue to get really, really good positive feedback on the podcast. So thanks everyone for listening. It's a lot of fun to do these, even when I'm really tired and mostly hung over. What, it's not a secret. Every everyone who listens to this knows. All right, everybody we'll catch you next time. Thank you.
Thank you for listening to driver to driver. Uh, Stokes trucking podcast. For more information on Stokes trucking, please visit our website Stokes trucking.com. You can also learn more about us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram at Stokes trucking. The intro and outro music is I can't keep still. The bumper music between segments is fetch me another one, Both performed by the caffeine creek band Driver to driver is a frankfurter studios production