Dolly Parton: The Queen of Tennessee and a Legacy That Keeps Giving

0:28This podcast features Michael Vincent and Dolly Parton and Malcolm Harris.

0:30Malcolm Harris: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a Wednesday edition of What's a Truck? I'm your host, Malcolm Harris, joined by my partner in crime, the dynamic duo, Mr. Michael Vincent. Mike, what's up, boy? I'm working nine to five, bro. That's what I'm doing today. Working nine to five, Dusty. What a way to make a living. Dude, dude, what a loss, man. What a loss. We're going to get into it in a minute, but how are you, bro? I'm doing fantastic, brother. Fantastic. It's Wednesday, bro. You're looking good. Look at you, man. You look studious. Man, that's what Craig said. He was like, you kind of look nerdy today.

1:11I was like, man, I just really can't. I wouldn't say nerdy. I wouldn't say nerdy. I don't think you're nerdy.

1:17Malcolm Harris: I hardly ever, because I don't like the glare from the lights on my glasses, but I just could not see today. My eyes, I was just like, no, I can't do this. Yeah, mine glare like crazy. So I got the ones like the blue blocker thing, you know, because computer screens looking at data and crap like that all day long. So they work, but then they throw off a lot of glare off of lights. You know what I mean? For sure, for sure. We got the lights lit up. Yeah, that's right, because we're in the spotlight. We're spotlight. We're some stars here, man. That's recognized, bro. You better recognize. That's it, right?

1:52Malcolm Harris: We got two stars with us today. I'm excited about this. What? Two-piece. Yeah, we got some great, great, great stuff to talk about. All right. The doctor is in. Dr. David Fletcher. All right, he's joining us. This is going to be probably a 35-minute conversation. I just want to kind of preface this because Michael Vincent is going to ask all the right stuff. And you guys should hear about it. Yes, absolutely. I mean, this man has performed 20 ,000 DOT commercial driver exams in his lifetime. And we're going to get into all of it. What's actually changed with driver health over the last few decades.

2:29Malcolm Harris: Of course, your favorite topic, GLP ones and what they can mean for the industry. We're talking sleep apnea, fatigue, and what happens after a crash when medical history gets pulled apart. All right. So that's data conversation. That's going to be an awesome one. That's like the next. We're going to do this. This is like a month long series. Is that what it is? I mean, it feels like it. It feels like it. We just talk about GLP ones because I got so many questions about that shit. Every good team needs a closer, though. Mr. Greg Haber is going to be in the building. All right. He is the president of Babico Fulfillment and Alarm Systems.

3:02Malcolm Harris: He's breaking down the new face of cargo theft. He took me through a little demo on his pre-show call with me. I was blown away. So we're talking fictitious pickups, criminals impersonating drivers to walk off with entire loads, and why the traditional ID checks at the gate just ain't cutting the mustard anymore. Greg is dynamic. This is going to be a long show. We're going to talk about literally two headlines and get to them because it is just it's going to be a good one, man. I'm excited for it. Yeah, baby. I can't wait to hear about fictitious pickups. I mean, how does that happen? They didn't really pick.

3:38You know what I'm saying? I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. It's a new conspiracy. Never pick it up. Just say you did. Oh, man. I love it. And I love you, man. I love you. Whoa. I love you, bro. You know who else I loved? What? Dolly Parton was awesome. Mmm.

3:57Malcolm Harris: Dolly Parton was awesome. She was - I love Gnocchis. I love Gnocchis too. Should we talk about Gnocchis first? Let's do that for a second, and then we're going to get all to Dolly. Let's get our breakfast in. She is the queen. Let's get our breakfast in. Sponsored, of course, by Gnosis Freight. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're still checking carrier websites, copying container data into spreadsheets, chasing updates through email chains, you got to get Gnosis. It's an AI operating system for global logistics. one platform to track every single container, automate execution, and protect your margins across the entire full container lifecycle.

4:29Malcolm Harris: All right, go check them out right now at nosesfreight.com, book a demo, and make sure you tell them that the boys at What the Truck Sent You. And then, of course, the boys are back in town. You're about to be back in town here in Chattanooga on October 27th and the 28th for the future. Yeah, very good. The future. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Boom. Future of Freight Festival here at three is going to be here October 27th and the 28th. All right. Make sure you guys are there or you're a square. All right. You're going to see a bunch of different folks, whether it's Craig Fuller, whether it's going to be Charles Gracie, whether it's going to be Isaiah Buchanan, whether it's going to be Frazier Goodgame, whether it's going to be Cody Dowler.

5:09Malcolm Harris: You're going to see everybody there. I'm excited for this one. It's going to be a huge event, the event of the year here for Freight Waves. And promo code is still up right now. The code is TAKE20, all right? You got 20 % off with that code. So make sure that you guys are taking full advantage of taking 20 % off of admission to the show. You're going to see the Lizard. You're going to see Craig Fuller, but you're not going to see them together. So make sure you guys are taking full advantage of that right now. The future of Freight Festival F3 is going to be October 27th and the 28th. All right.

5:44Malcolm Harris: So tickets are on sale now. Go get them while they are hot. All right. So with that. They're hot. They're hot. You got to give us that. Give us that. Give us that little sound effect again. What was that? Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.

6:03Malcolm Harris: Oh, man. Well, the queen has officially got her wings. All right. So, yeah, I don't know. Miss Dolly Parton has officially passed yesterday at the age of 80. We had a story that dropped on Freight Waves yesterday. She recently, of course, just opened a truck stop. It's a little bit more than just this. All right. I mean, Dolly, I cannot state enough. You could kind of tell these losses that we have in entertainment and media. She's one of the people that to me, everybody kind of stopped what they were doing yesterday. It didn't matter who you were. Yeah. It didn't matter where you came from. It didn't matter what you looked like.

6:44Malcolm Harris: I mean, I think every single community was impacted, but specifically our community here in Tennessee. I mean, she was the darling of Tennessee. I mean, she's done so much. And, man, it's sad. I mean, I got on the Dolly tee today, and I actually bought this a couple of months ago, so it's kind of ominous. But yeah, man, Dolly, the queen herself is now officially in heaven at the age of 80. Mike, what was your thoughts yesterday? Take us through how you were feeling, man. Yeah, you know, it was one of those surprising ones because usually when somebody famous dies and I see all the hype, I'm like, yeah, okay.

7:24A million people died today that were probably better people. This is one where it wasn't the case, right? And it's interesting because it's not interesting. It's impactful to me because she was one of these people who wasn't like a famous person who happened to do like charitable things. She was a she was a person who grew up and wanted to do charitable things and was became famous at the same time. You know what I'm saying? She didn't she didn't kind of give back. She's her life was about giving back and she became famous while doing that. You know what I'm saying? I mean, look, what the article, and I know it's truck-centered, so it's the trucking, it's the Tennessean truck stops that she was bringing, which were cool, right?

8:11I mean, they were going to be cool. There's a picture of it, the grand opening over there, kind of dealing with your Buc-ee's type of thing, right? You can see the image of her there like the – was she the inspiration for that mudflap?

8:25Malcolm Harris: I mean, if she was not the inspiration, she certainly was an influencer in that decision. I would think so. Right. But look, listen, 330 million books she gave away. She didn't just give away free books to kids. This is a cost multiple countries and continents. 330 million books to kids to fight illiteracy. She had an illiterate father. she was fourth in 12 children in a single room cabin in Tennessee. That's how she grew up. So her mission in life was to fight illiteracy. 330 million books. She paid every graduating senior in Sevierville County in Tennessee 500 bucks and dropped the dropout rate from 35 % to six while doing that.

9:14$12 million in disaster relief. COVID vaccine funding she did. Every single employee of hers, their children got full college tuition.

9:26Malcolm Harris: Full college. Full college tuition. Every single employee. She made real impacts. That's why Trump said half-mask people. Yeah, for sure. We lost a humanitarian. A real one. yesterday. I think everybody went on that decision. I saw that stat about, I guess she told people in school to pick a buddy or something like that? Yeah, the buddy program. That's right. Yeah, and they got$500 upon graduation. Man, that's crazy. I just can't say enough about this woman. I know she was really big for Tennessee, and Tennessee football is actually going to have a dolly decal on the back of their helmets for the 2026 college football season.

10:15That's cool. They should. She should. She's a hell of a Tennessean, American human being. She's fantastic. Her soul is resting in heaven right now. I guarantee it. She's fantastic.

10:27Malcolm Harris: You know, I thought about this the other day. You know, Dollywood is closed on Tuesdays. That would have been – I mean, I'm so – I'm not happy, obviously, that we lost Dolly. I'm devastated. No, no. I'm happy it happened on a Tuesday and Dollywood was not open. Could you have imagined the scene there? Oh, yeah, it would have been awful. That would have been awful. Like, that would have been just diabolical. So I'm sure that's going to be wild. I think that this is – yeah, again, we can talk about this for the next two hours. But, again, the rest of Miss Dolly. For sure. And we're thinking about her family and her estate right now.

11:08Malcolm Harris: And I saw also on her 100th birthday, I think it's 2046, she has locked away a time capsule and her last song is going to be released in 2046. So the Queen has even given us something to look forward to. Oh, really? Yeah. And she's no longer with us. So that's awesome, man. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. How many people you think yesterday for the first time realized that she actually wrote and sang, I will always love you, and it wasn't Whitney Houston?

11:38Malcolm Harris: How many people have been, what? Malcolm Harris is guilty as charged. I saw that on X yesterday, and I was like, are you serious? She covered that tune. Wait a minute. She was 20 years before her singing it. Yeah. I was like, okay. I had no idea. I had no idea. Well, let's go to a Kingston article before we get to, of course, Dr. Oh, yeah. Let's bring in the Kingston. He's not at all. Is he there? Is he going to do a surprise visit? He's not going to do a surprise visit. I wish he was, but our show's not that long. Come on, now. We got a little bit of time. You're right. There's a newcomer to road check driver violations in the top five.

12:20Malcolm Harris: All right. And it is speaking English. It's now a top five driver. Oh, I thought you were going to say speaking in tongues. The category right here, guys, of driver violations last year It was not in the top five of reasons why a driver was given an out-of-service order as opposed to an out-of-service order for a vehicle violation. In 2025, the top violations were accounting, again, for 86.8 of the total. English proficiency was not in the top five where it fit in the remaining 13.2%. All right. So for this, we saw the ones that were the biggest. It was hours of service. That was then from there, no medical card was then there.

13:08Malcolm Harris: And then after that was just different, I guess, OOS infractions while the HOS violations dropped from to 929 rather. That was 23.4 of all OOS. But it stayed first, right? Yes, that is correct. I'm glad that you— Stayed first. There were just fewer violations of it, right? Yes. Yes, this is correct, Mike. Yeah. So they said that brakes were at the top as well. Brake systems. Always. Yeah, brake systems were at the top. Was there any surprises when you saw this from Kingston? I'm surprised he didn't find the actual real. I mean, dude, he skirted around the entire story. Maybe I'm scooping our own scooper, but, dude.

13:53I was choked on my water. You can't do that.

13:59um look here's the real story okay you want to hear the real story come on i'm all ears it's it's uh look the real insight here is that an announced priority that doesn't move the needle suggests that enforcement follows political pressures and not stated compliance goals. In plain English, there's a conspiracy theory here, and it's called the medical card proxy. And we can talk to our guest about this, but I'm standing by this, dude. This is, okay, cargo securement, right, was announced. They announced what they're looking for publicly.

14:46Malcolm Harris: Okay. Okay. And it was English proficiency, right? Yes. And it was cargo securement. Cargo securement did not move at all. It didn't move. I think it actually went down a couple points. Okay. English proficiency showed up, but medical cards did not. It threw the roof. plus 117 % is what they nailed. And they didn't say they were going to look for these. Now, here's my, it's a bait and switch. Public announcement. We're going to secure, we're going to prioritize cargo and securement for safety. What actually happened? Medical cards up 117%. English proficiency. Gee, why would those two be there?

15:36Could it be that illegal CDL holders, Holders, illegal immigrants might fall into those two categories. 100%. 100%. Medical card, you think, why medical card? Well, let's see. In order to get your medical card, you have to have what? A valid government ID. Do illegals have that? No. Work authorization? No. No. Background check cleared? No. Legal residency confirmed? No. Okay. Yeah. You hear me, bro. No, I hear you. I can keep going. I can keep going, but do the research because I got like another half hour of proof of why this is what happened.

16:17Malcolm Harris: I mean, they talked also about brake systems. We touched on this. Tires, defective brakes, cargo securement, and lights. Yeah, the usual suspects, bro. They're all usual suspects. It's the newcomers that weren't announced that are blowing this up, dude. Why not use these guys instead of ICE? Ooh. Come on, man. It makes sense, bro. Am I wrong? No. Question for you that is on my brain that I just want to get to real quick. Something that I thought would make top five that didn't, EODs, bro.

16:55You thought that was going to show up. Why would you think that was going to show up? I'm curious. I'm not against that. I just don't know.

17:02Malcolm Harris: What's your logic there? Because there's so much falsification happening when it comes to these laws. Like, I would think that there would be like a more of a focus on it. But again, that there's so much. I don't even want to say that because that sounds like I'm not being genuine when it comes to it. But it's like to me, it seems like there's a lot more focus on other pressing issues than it comes. Because ELDs don't get illegal drivers out of the seat. It just puts them out of service. medical cards in English proficiency get them out of the seat they attack the driver you know what I'm saying that's that's that's why I see plus dude if you and I let's say you and I were we we did these inspections we were driving we were carpooling the work because obviously we would right we live next door to each other we're carpooling the work we're going I ain't doing that ELD shit I just it what a pain in the ass I'm just asking for a medical card and getting I get my quota through the medical card.

17:58I ain't doing that ELT shit. Takes forever. You know what I'm saying? It seems like it'd be a bad. Here's the easy way to get your quota, right? No, facts.

18:09Malcolm Harris: Oh, man. You were hilarious. Guys, you guys can check out these articles from Noy and, of course, from John Kingston. And we have some. Noy's awesome, dude. Both of them. They're both great writers. I mean, I think they're. You said two stars today. That's four. That's four stars. Four stars. And five. We had Dolly. We talked about Dolly. We had five stars. We're a five-star show. Go give us a nice review. You guys can look at that right now. We didn't even count ourselves yet either. Come on, man. Just star studded, all right? Let's get to right now, of course, the doctor who is officially in.

18:44Malcolm Harris: We got him and excited to speak all about the important things. This is, of course, Dr. David Fletcher. Dr. Fletcher, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to What the Truck, sir. Well, it's really nice to be on with you guys this morning, and I enjoy your discussion about Dolly Parton. Well, thank you so much. Awesome. There's another guy that we need to talk about, bro, a dear friend of yours. I think we got a picture of you with your dear friend. What's his name? Buck Weaver, I think. Oh, wait a minute. Yeah. There he is. Oh, Cody, my man. It looks like you're going to throw that ball way too hard for only being five feet away from him, though.

19:30I don't. That's how they played back in the 1910s, you know? That's how they played. Do you still have that glove? No, I don't have that glove anymore. Listen, the reason he's on here with Buck Weaver, the third baseman from the Black Sox, Malcolm, if you're wondering, is because our good doctor here was instrumental in conceiving and starting. What was going to be the Chicago Baseball Museum and Jerome Holtzman Library, and now it's the Jerome Holtzman Library, right? Did the museum ever actually get built, doctor? It did not. A lot of funding problems. It's a virtual museum. So virtual museum.

20:16But one of the things. So Jerome Holtzman was like the first Major League Baseball official historian. Is that correct? Am I saying that right? And then Buck Weaver was part of the Black Sox scandal and was actually in some of the meetings where the the the the the throwing of the World Series against Cincinnati was being discussed for money and backed out of that and tried to stop them from doing that. and then his family spent, what, the next 70 years trying to exonerate him, right? And he has been. Well, he wasn't fully exonerated. He was with the rest of the people who was given a clearance by, you know, with the Pete Rose gang.

20:57And so, but, you know, we're still actually trying to get an official exoneration. Still a work in progress. There you go.

21:05Malcolm Harris: There we go. There you go. Well, the more we know here on What the Truck. Now, Doctor, you've done a lot. I mean, when I say you're a very humble guy, I read your bio, you are not nearly as braggadocious as you could be. Over, what, 20 ,000 DOT driver examinations. When you compare drivers, I guess, walking into your office today compared to 10, 20, 30 years ago, what's changed the most? well i think what's changed the most is the fact that i think truck drivers are further unhealthy it just because you know obesity has been a big issue it's certainly gotten much worse when i started out in the 80s so i think that's probably what i see i think also because a lack of health care is a big aspect not every driver is able to get access to you know for medical treatment.

22:02So it's very fragmented. So that's what I see. Why do you see, why is the obesity there? What is the difference in the drivers? What's the difference in the industry or the environment that they're working in from then to now? Is it the type of food that they're consuming? Is it the food industry that has done this? Because theoretically, driving is driving, not much has changed in the cab or has it? Well, I don't think it's changed in the cab. I think it's just changed in how, you know, 40 years ago, there was a lot less processed foods, a lot less fast foods. People had to, you know, have less options of, you know, really getting quick eat and run type of bites.

22:44So I think that's what's changed. It's just there's not been the focus on nutrition that should be. And I think that's one of the big things we try to really work with with trucking companies is to do that, is to give them some strategies to eat better and to make some selections for meals before they go on the road, do a lot of packing of fruit and stuff like that. I mean, that's probably the biggest thing that I think that could be really improved for the health of truckers. And I think that is one of the things the FFCSA is trying to improve is getting truck carriers to really focus on driver health and i think that's something that's going to you know play a lot of benefit for the nation's highways with fewer health related crashes and so forth like that but i think it's it's the nature of the work i mean driver health today is you know is is just really challenging and the whole culture of being a truck driver is you know being with the circadian rhythm disruptions the sleep disturbance away from friends and family all that just doesn't make for the most conducive health environment for drivers.

23:57Dr.

23:57Malcolm Harris: Fletcher, you've helped develop the first national DOT medical certification training program for physicians, and you were really like an early advocate for this entirety here in this space. What do drivers misunderstand, I guess, about what actually happens during the DOT physical? Well, I think the DOT physical is oftentimes the only time a truck driver ever sees a doctor, if they see a doctor. Because chiropractors can do DOT exams, so there's nurse practitioners and PAs. But oftentimes it's the only contact with a healthcare professional. And so even though you don't have a patient physician relationship with that truck driver, you can talk about, you know, health promotion ideas about weight, about smoking and things like that.

24:46So even though it's an exam that's set up to protect the public safety, the truck driver can get a lot of benefits with it, especially if he's honest and forthright about his health history and that medical examiner can help guide him to make changes and to work with him to enable him to continue driving, even though he may have some chronic health conditions that would limit the length of time for certification for a driver.

25:19So what is, is there a, is there a trend or specific, how do I want to say this? There's a lot of things that are threatening the health of the drivers these days, right? What is the one that is most concerning for you? Because we see all these people and they're all trying to do good things. There's many out there, you know, exercising, doing the squat challenge, doing all these different things, get themselves up and moving and that type of stuff what is your biggest concern what is the biggest driver that you impart to them and say this will have the best if you do these things or this one thing it will move the needle the most for you well i think first thing would be if they're a smoker which a lot of truck drivers are is quit smoking i mean that's probably the best thing they do secondly i think is really focusing on their sleep schedule i think that optimization of their sleep is really, really a very important aspect for drivers.

26:17Trying to have a consistent sleep schedule if possible, but also if they sleep in the cab, make sure they got blackout curtains, earplugs, things like that. So I think just any modest sleep improvement is going to help them with their weight gain prevention. So I think those Those are some things I would really focus in on, as well as also on the nutritional aspects of what I like to call a cab-based nutritional planning. Having a cooler with some portable food containers that got fresh foods. Upgrade your selections at truck stops. Again, getting back to your earlier question about what I've seen change is, again, there's just so much junk food available at truck stops.

27:06And I think that the driver needs to think ahead of time, you know, what can I do to optimize, you know, my, my nutritional selections for the day?

27:16Malcolm Harris: Now, we're going to come back to sleep schedules here in a moment, but I do want to talk about something that is sweeping, not only the nation, but the world, and that is DLP1 medications. And And I think we could spend a 30-minute segment on this. But, of course, it's changed the entire view about obesity as well as weight loss. Are these medications potentially a game-changer, doctor, for the industry? And what are you currently seeing right now that you could share with our audience? Sure. I mean, there's certainly been a game-changer. And it's something I've advocated for motor carriers to really – this is a way they can improve the health of their drivers the quickest, especially with sleep apnea.

27:57You know, what's changed as far as the last couple of years, the cost used to be horrendous, you know,$1 ,000 a month. Insurance wouldn't cover it. Now you've got almost every insurance company will cover it for sleep apnea. You know, probably 30 to 40 percent of drivers in the United States have sleep apnea. That's a wide swath of drivers that can get the medication for less than a couple hundred bucks a month. In some of the health plans like United, they get it for$35 a month. And it worked. I mean, it's a very safe way to lose weight. It's not a fad diet. You basically just eat less. Your brain is changed that you don't feel as hungry.

28:38And it's just a very natural way of losing weight because you're just not consuming as many calories. And I've had so much success with the drivers that I've been able to get started on it. And also the ones who've got sleep apnea that, you know, some have been able to even get off CPAP. which is the continuous positive air pressure to prevent the trachea from collapsing and obstructing breathing because they've lost weight because of GLPs. I mean, I think it's probably you're going to see the biggest impact if you interviewed me five years going forward that will really change trucking. And it'll definitely help the health of drivers in the United States.

29:22So I really advocate the access to these medications for drivers. These medications also help with diabetes. So you get weight loss, you get diabetes control. With that, you also, because you've lost weight, you get less pressure on your lower back and your knees. And so you have less musculoskeletal problems. There's even some belief that GLPs help in prevention of dementia and addiction. so it's certainly been a game changer in my practice the last three years of seeing drivers you know i love to get drivers started on this we're gonna bring it up to them uh and it's it's been encouraging to see a positive trend and i think more and more drivers need to learn about these and again you know the cost has gone down you know significantly that makes a lot of sense

30:14Malcolm Harris: for sure. Mike, I know you got some questions on this one. Hours and hours on this one. But the positive benefits are from the effects of taking the GLP-1s, not from the GLP-1s. So, I mean, if you lose weight and you eat healthier and you don't binge eat and you're not addicted to sugars and carbohydrates and all these things, you'll get all those benefits without GLP-1s. The GLP-1s don't lower diabetes. They don't get rid of sleep. They do treat diabetes. That's the really nice thing about them. And that's how we discovered about the weight loss was because of the diabetes treatment. Okay. Okay.

31:08Because there's, there's, and that's what I'm trying to get through is, is the hype between what do they do and what don't they do. Right. Cause there's a whole argument on the side of, well, if you were healthier, you wouldn't need these. This is like a, a, a, a quick fix instead of actually doing something and a changing your lifestyle. Right. Well, I would disagree. I think it's just they're just basically it's a it's a help for people who can't control their weight on their own and it basically because it resets their brain i mean it's something you you can't just lose weight you got to take it continuously it's a lifetime commitment you know obesity is a chronic disease just like blood pressure you got to take it for a lifetime and so people that are on glps they have to take it you know forever if not they're going to gain weight back again And, you know, so far, they're very safe drugs, very few problems associated with them.

32:06You know, I would say right now some of the latest statistics I've seen is 10 percent of the population in the United States is currently using them. I believe it'll as the cost further goes down, access becomes more prevalent. Gentlemen, you'll see an even higher percentage of Americans using these medications on a permanent lifetime basis.

32:26Malcolm Harris: Now, Dr. Fletcher, I want you to talk to us about and you touched on it with sleep apnea. I mean, say, for example, a driver is diagnosed with sleep apnea. I mean, you see this as a threat to their career or an opportunity to address their health. What are the conversations that you've had surrounding sleep apnea and kind of the career trajectory of when that diagnosis happens? Well, it's something that as a medical examiner, I have to be very vigilant for, because if I allow a driver who's got sleep apnea to be on the road and he kills somebody, I could be negligently held for issuing a medical certificate where a person didn't qualify.

33:03So the conversation is very positive in that sleep apnea is not the end of a trucking career. You just got to get treatment. And we have so much treatment available now. You know, right now, as I said before, I would probably say about 30 % of drivers in the United States have sleep apnea. You know, in my practice, I've probably ordered more than 500 sleep tests in the last, you know, five to 10 years. Almost every time it's confirmed. The driver who gets treatment really likes it because they feel better. They're more energetic. They can continue driving. They know they're going to be safer. They're not going to have the eight times somnolence and nodding off when they're driving.

33:46So the message is this isn't a career-ending diagnosis. It's like blood pressure. Blood pressure, you've got to take medication to keep it controlled. Or things like weight loss can help that. And so I style it as a positive conversation. You know, some of my drivers, they don't like particularly like CPAP. There are other treatments besides CPAP that can be utilized. There's this new device called Inspire, which is a device that basically stimulates the hypoglossal nerve to stop the obstructive breathing when a person is sleeping. So it's always, for me, the message as a medical examiner is to focus on what they can do.

34:29It's not the end of their career. and so many trucking companies you know for instance you know snyder they have um programs in place for the drivers and you know pay for the equipment pay for the testing uh when i was early in my career back in the 90s i had a very pioneering trucking company they're unfortunately out of business now called robbers and transportation and we were one of the first trucking companies in the united states that would do sleep tests and they actually found that they saved money. They also had less crashes. It was obviously best for, from a loss prevention aspect, but their drivers stayed with them longer.

35:04Their health insurance costs went down. So I think the message is, is that all these things you can do to deal with sleep apnea are positive for the driver and also, you know, positive for the industry.

35:18Malcolm Harris: That's good stuff right there. i think one last comment i also say i use cpa myself so i've had it for 12 years so when you give that personal uh you know touch to it to that i think it helps you know when i share that uh you know i think i've missed about four or five nights in the last 10 years you know and i know the difference when i don't use it oh that makes a lot of sense i want to talk about after the crash and a couple more questions before we get to our next guest i mean you've been involved and served as an expert witness in a lot of litigation, right? I mean, we talk 40 states, 1 ,500 depositions and trials.

35:56Malcolm Harris: When it comes to when you're reviewing the medical history and qualification records after a serious crash, I'm sure that there, and I would love to see the data around this, but really looking at the reoccurring trends and themes, is there something that you can speak to that just keeps popping up whenever you're looking at these serious crashes? Yes. Usually it's because the medical certificate is just one point in time that person's met the physical qualifications of a driver. That doesn't mean the driver in the time period before his next exam is going to remain fit to drive. And so the biggest thing I see is a driver has a self-responsibility if their health changes that they should make sure they get checked out before going back in the commercial motor vehicle.

36:49Same goes for the trucking company. If you have a driver who's off work that has some kind of medical illness and has been not driving for 10 days or so, you are required by the regulations, 345G, to have an updated evaluation. And that's the thing I see the most is ignored about a situation leads to a crash.

37:13Malcolm Harris: That makes a lot of sense, Dr. Fletcher. Mike, did you have a follow up to this one? Yeah, I did. I mean, I have a follow up to responsibility, right? Because we always talk about the driver's responsibility, driver's responsibility and things that they can do, that type of stuff. Right. And you're alluding to what the carrier can do as far as, you know, you check them once and they're good for life. And that's that's not necessarily true. Right. You got to keep doing these physicals and stuff like that. Not just physicals, it's monitoring employees. You know, what is the dispatch? Getting that getting that feedback back from them.

37:49Right. Staying engaged with your employees, one of the biggest things that they can do. Right. and understanding what's going on that's right mike i mean you have to stay involved you've got to monitor these drivers and and if you have any concerns get them examined the tools are available a motor carrier can have a driver examined every day in the united states if they have concerns about their health and ultimately the motor carrier is responsible for only putting medically fit drivers on the road they can't hide behind the medical examiner who was given a certificate And so the medical certificate is one point in time.

38:24And that's the biggest message I give. And that's, you know, when I've testified for both defense and planes around the United States, I really stress with that. So. So, yeah, it's crazy because, look, I just looked up something really quick, Malcolm, as a follow up. Yeah, no, you're fine. But really quick, because when you look at it and it's true, one of the safest demographics on the road are the CDL drivers. OK, as far as cause of crash. Right. There's some of the safest there. But when there is a crash, the one that is cited by a wide margin for health being an issue for the crash is the CDL driver.

39:00Right. They're not the cause of most most crashes, but the cause of their crashes is by far higher in the CDL as health related than. Yes. Anything else. And I just want to put that out there. I mean, that's what we're talking about, but this is a seriously important issue. It's a very serious, important issue. You know, I've put my whole career on this. I tried to get the FMCSA to do an FAA-like medical system. That got watered down for the National Registry system. The resources need to be there. And, again, you want to make it so the drivers feel comfortable being honest about their medical conditions, which can be treated and keep them from out there on the road.

39:47And right now the system doesn't really encourage that. I sort of have this three-tiered system. The system relies on the honesty of the driver, giving their health history. Second tier of the system is the medical examiner doing a quality job, asking probing questions, getting medical records. And finally, the third tier is the trucking carrier. They ultimately can only put medically qualified drivers in the road Just because a driver has a certificate doesn't mean they're medically qualified. And my message is to the medical motor carriers, vet their medical examiners. There's a wide range of different quality of medical examiners.

40:2546 ,000 different people can do medical exams on truck drivers as opposed to only 2 ,000 medical doctors can do exams on pilot. Big difference in quality of the systems.

40:36Malcolm Harris: It's a huge difference. Dr. Fletcher, we've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. I would like to ask you one last question. Five to 10 years from now, what's going to have the biggest impact on driver safety and health? I'm going to give you a couple of options. Is it going to be better medical screening? Is it going to be GLP-1s? Is it going to be wearable technology? Or is it going to be a wellness program or something I haven't even mentioned yet? Well, I think all four of those are great topics. I think the wearables is going to be a big thing. I think especially with driver alertness with the wearables.

41:11I think is a really cutting edge thing. I think better screening will be helpful. I think, again, trying to educate motor carriers about their responsibility that you just can't assume a medical certificate is a blank check and their drivers fit the drive. They got to stay involved. That's my message.

41:32Malcolm Harris: perfect that's a perfect way to end it out again dr fletcher uh thank you so much looking forward to getting this up and into the hands of our listeners and viewers you were fantastic and excited to have you back here on what the truck fantastic thank you thank you so much yes sir thank you that was a fantastic segment really we could talk about all kinds of stuff because you brought up you brought up the wearables dude can you imagine like you get in your cabinet reads your aura ring and says, no, dude, you didn't sleep enough for HR. No, and then like not activating the truck too. That's what I was thinking too.

42:05Malcolm Harris: I was like, this is crazy. This is crazy. Now, we could have gotten into that entirely, but I'm excited. You know how Cody has to blow into that thing when he starts his car? That's, we're not supposed to say that. Was I not supposed to talk about that? We're not supposed to say that, man. He's a good guy. Don't tell HR I said that. No, Cody, we're playing, man. Cody does not drink anymore. Not today. The president of Babico Fulfillment is in the building. All right. For the last few minutes of our show, we're excited to bring him out. We've been waiting patiently in the bullpen. Mr. Greg Haber, we are always one LinkedIn message away from changing your life, and he's going to change ours today.

42:45Malcolm Harris: Greg, welcome to What the Truck, sir. How's it going? It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much. Oh, man. Pleasure to have you. I appreciate you reaching out, man. Greg, of course, watches the show. It was like, Malcolm, I think I got something that you'd really be interested in. And I was like, no, you don't. He was like, let's get on the call. You argued with him? Yeah, I was like, let's get on the call. He was like, all right, I'm going to get on the call with you. Got on the call. And he showed me a demo. And I was like, all right, I'm sold. Let's talk about it. So now we're here to talk about it.

43:16Malcolm Harris: That's how this all got set up. Well, the first thing I want to mention is that I actually have Watt the Truck shirts. And I've been wearing them for years. So this is really exciting for me. You got some of the original ones? Do you have the T-shirt? It's a black shirt with white letters. And my wife's always like, why don't you get a new shirt? And I'm like, no, I like that shirt. He wears it to weddings and church and stuff like that, just special occasions. I was doing some research on you, and I noticed that you were owner of Eurosound. And I found a Eurosound, but I'm not sure it's the right Eurosound.

43:52I did find, I think I got a picture of you with like Bon Jovi or something like that with the Eurosound mobiles. I think there it is. I don't know if I'm accurate on this, but because there's several Eurosounds, but I found one that was really interesting. It was, they were mobile like recording and broadcasts up for like for concerts. And Bon Jovi would actually use the Euro mobiles, but I'm not sure that's the same Euro mobiles that you were involved with. But anyways, it's a great picture either way. That is a great picture. I'd like a copy of that. I think we can make that happen, sir. I think we can make that happen.

44:31Malcolm Harris: Greg, for time's sake, I'm going to combine like five questions into one. I want you to talk to me about what you and your organization are currently doing. And basically the conversation that we had on our pre-show call, I'm just going to get out of the way and let you talk because you are doing some fantastic work. And I need you to tell the world about it. Please, sir. You got the floor. So years ago, from being involved in security and transportation for almost 30 years now, I noticed that there are so many facets of security and transportation that really needed to be digitized and brought into the latest century.

45:11And it wasn't really until all this fictitious theft and fraudulent pickups have really been getting so much publicity that people are coming back and saying, hey, talk to me about that technology. How can that actually work? How can you make that work? And it's really simple. What we've done is we've built a platform that is easily configured so that we can, it's almost like an a la carte menu. So any customer can tell us what their process is, and then we can emulate that process, duplicate that process on a cellular phone, any smart device, whether it be a tablet or a phone. So automatically, almost 99 % of the people on the road would be familiar with working with an app.

45:57So it's very intuitive. You automatically, as an owner of the service, you pick the order and the types of steps that you want to be done, and then it's emulated on the phone. So the person at the gate who may not be trained, maybe the first day can actually do a security check at a much higher level simply because they're just following the steps on the phone that you've created. and today with all the fraudulent thefts and pickups um michael you mentioned something before about you know drivers and ids and uh you know you know what we can do is we can and if we have the time i can actually do it within a minute and show you if i could share my screen but if we don't i fully understand it but we can actually send an invite to a driver so that the driver can do a front and back scan of their license, do a selfie, less than 30 seconds.

46:55Our software will take that, put it through some of our partners' proprietary research, and I'll tell you if that license is real. I'll tell you if that person theoretically ever lived at that place, and if that's a legitimate license, not just does the picture match the selfie, does the information on the back barcode match the front? And then did that person actually have history? So did they live at that place? And did they have credit at that place? Did they have a license issued at that place? And all those points of information add up to about 150 different point checks. So that actually if you get something back and they say, you know, and our software says, you know, that's legit.

47:43That's a score 90. That's a 90 score. you know that the person that you're giving your load to is actually a legitimate person. That license is legit. The person at the gate, you know, I have some licenses here, and if I gave you this license and you were in law enforcement, you'd say, oh, that's real. I run it through the software and it fails immediately. And that gets done in less than 30 seconds without any type of special training. You just have to follow the app and follow the steps. see that's really interesting because that's those these are these are the gaps in in the security that i talk about all the time the windows are cracks the the the the actual tactical things that that that that happen after the vetting process right that that need to happen those those checks that are really hard to get done because there's different bits of pieces of information in different government agencies and some of them are legal and some of them aren't legal and if they're insurance then you can get to this database but if you're not then you can't and this kind of is your in to that fort knox of verification information if you will right absolutely and every dmv is a separate entity um and then you know you have to really worry about you know you know all types of licenses coming from overseas for 50 or 75 dollars with scannable barcodes on the back and holographs, holograms on the front.

49:11So there's really a lot of technology out there. And to trust the human eye and an untrained person, or even if they are trained. I mean, recently I was at a conference and I handed this Texas license to somebody in law enforcement, asked them if it's real, and they said, yeah, it's real. They compared it to their own front and back. And I ran it through the scanner and they were shocked that it failed. I can even take this off. non-domicile drivers fail immediately. You can do any of these things.

49:39Malcolm Harris: This is incredible, man. This is incredible. We could talk about this for 35 minutes, but of course, we did not expect to lose our dear queen, Miss Dolly Parton, so we got a little bit of our time lost. In 60 seconds, Greg, what does the future look like for you, and what does the future look like in terms of cargo theft, and how can we get ahead of this? What can we be doing? Well, we have to keep building a better mousetrap. And technology is out there today. And, you know, 10 years ago, if you were going to say, you know, what's the biggest threat in cargo security? You'd probably say, you know, you know, I'm only repeating it because I was at these conferences.

50:24They would say they were Cuban gangs back in the time and they were doing it and they were in the most advanced. But today it could be somebody from the Middle East. It could be Eastern Europe. It could be any one of these companies that are actually bad actors and they're hiring legitimate truckers to do bad things without even knowing it. So you really need technology to combat what's what's going on and to address it and to see by by having be able to run exception reports. What's wrong? Is this low misdirected? And when it's being delivered, is it being delivered at the wrong address in real time simply by taking a picture of the seal?

51:04Now we know that it's being delivered at the wrong place in real time instead of finding out for two weeks. Or, you know, if a driver is going down the road and they say, you know, they say they have a delay and they have a breakdown. instead of believing that driver with the app, there's a control board and they just take a picture of, they say, take a picture of the flat tire, take a picture of the dashboard, simply by getting that metadata on that picture. I'll know time, place, location. So if this driver is supposed to be going from Texas to New York and they take that picture and we see that they're going to California, like, you know, what was going on with that tequila heist, you would have known.

51:46And the idea is knowing real time makes a big difference instead of weeks or months to try to dig up the data for old camera pictures.

51:53Malcolm Harris: I cannot say that better. Greg, thank you so much for being here on the show today. We're looking forward to having you back. We're probably going to have to get a full 45 for you at this point. It's so much we didn't even get to. I just appreciate you for being here on What the Truck, man. I appreciate meeting you guys in person this way. This is great. We appreciate it, man. That was awesome. And you guys are awesome. And this woman on my shirt is awesome as well, Ms. Dolly Parton. Let's take a look at the right ahead before we get up out of here. All right. Because coming up to end the week, we got two great guests.

52:23Malcolm Harris: All right. The first one is going to be Michael Schramm. He is the CEO and co-founder at Anordian. And then we're also going to have one of the most difficult names that we've had on What the Truck, Mr. Phil Schmidbauer. All right. He is a VP of solution design at ODW Logistics. some great guys some great content on the way make sure you guys like subscribe follow do all the things for Michael Vincent at What The Truck West and for Malcolm Harris here in Chattanooga Tennessee peace and love we'll see you on Friday we're out peace and love everybody peace and love peace Dolly Park

53:31Outro Music

53:40Thank you.