The Rise of Freight Fraud & The Trucking Age Debate

0:01As Le nogal

0:27Malcolm Harris: ladies and gentlemen welcome to a hump day edition of what the truck i'm your host as of course as always i'm alco maris and i'm joined by none other than my brother the one and only mr michael vincent mike what's up boy what's going on man i'm out here rocking out playing the airdrums and everything. I'm not even on camera, dude. What the heck am I doing? I just want you to know that I'm working hard for you, the viewer. That's all that matters. That's all that matters, bro. That's all that matters. I see you in that Spartan red. Shout out to Carlos and the team. Of course, that Spartan Carrier group, baby.

1:09One, four, six, media studios. Freight waves. What the truck west? What the truck west, man? Spartan. Spartan Carrier group. What's going on, brother? Brother, you got KC hat on again.

1:22Malcolm Harris: You know, I'm just shining, man. I'm just trying to, you know, just be a guy. That's it. That's it. You'd be wearing your Mookie Betts jersey or something. Ah, buddy. I don't know. I don't know. The Dodgers. We'll see. We will see. What's up with that? I mean, shoot fire. Well, my Indians took one in Tampa. I'm happy with that. Yeah, yeah. Tampa's probably the best team that's still in it. I mean, they got Junior Caminero. He's looking like a shell of himself. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what happens. They got to go back to the land, I guess. They got to go back to the land and get it done.

1:57Malcolm Harris: You think they'll get it done? Or you think you're Indians? You think they're going to get it done? I mean, dude, you got to play the games, right? And that's why these are serious, right? It's different than football. You know what I mean? One and done. You know what I mean? Basketball, I don't understand. basketball, I don't understand the whole why seven games, I don't understand that at all. Baseball, I do, because you got to test the, there's so many different parts to the team that make up what, if the team is good, right, to decide who's better, in my opinion, right? I mean, you don't have a bullpen and that type of stuff in basketball.

2:38You don't have that in football, that type of thing. but in baseball there's different elements that you have to test to decide which team is better, right? You don't have five aces at quarterback.

2:54Malcolm Harris: You know what I'm saying? I know what you're saying. That's why I think football is the hardest when it comes to the playoffs because you got one shot. It's one game. You got one shot. You got one shot, and that's it. That's it. But what are you going to do? You can't play a seven-game series. you should all be dead. Yeah, they don't pass away for sure. Of course, they do it in hockey, which is arguably just as tough or if not more brutal. Yeah, they do play these long series. I will say something I want to do, man. I want to go to a Preds game. I've never been to a Nashville Predators game. I've heard great things.

3:31Mate, you should go. I mean, just live hockey is fantastic. It doesn't matter who's playing, in my opinion. No, no. It's freaking, it's phenomenal. I used to go to the Red Wings games all the time, back when they were, you know, the Russians, man, when you had everybody on there. Of course. They were winning a cup every year. It was fantastic in the late 80s, early 90s.

3:52Malcolm Harris: It was fantastic. Absolutely. I mean, the Red Wings, they brought that live entertainment, but we're bringing this live entertainment to y 'all today. Mike, give me the rundown, brother. We got some hitters. We got some hitters today, dude, and there's some crazy stuff going on. I mean, what's going on here, brother? We got it all. Wow, we got it all. We got it all. We got it all just for you guys. All right, looking at the road ahead. Excuse me. Looking at On Deck. I said the road ahead like I was getting out of here. Come on, Malcolm. Be a professional. Prepare better. Looking at On Deck, we got three guests.

4:22Malcolm Harris: All right, the first one is Andre Dratenko. All right, you guys remember Andre's face, but we didn't give Andre enough time. Was that like Rocky V or something? Did he fight him and run? No, he is handsome. He's got the jawline like Rocky, though. We're going to get to Andre here in a minute. And he's, of course, the president of strategic relations at Verified Carry. He's joining us to talk about something we talk about on the show every single day. That is fraud. So it's officially Freight Fraud Awareness Day. He helped establish today. And we're going to get into the biggest threats, what they are right now, how fraudsters are getting more sophisticated, and what brokers and carriers need to do before they accept a low.

5:02Malcolm Harris: That's always, always a good conversation. And then she has also been on the show welcoming back the CEO at Carrier's Edge, Miss Jane Jazwari. All right. So Jane, I'm excited for her. She's going to be our last guest. Of course, CEO, she is joining us to talk about what makes a great fleet. So of course, after 18 years of best fleets, she's breaking down what drivers say and what they matter in terms of what matters most. All right. So they're also talking about what fleets refuse to cut when money gets tight and then what drivers should know before nominating their carrier with nominations open through October 31st.

5:38Malcolm Harris: That's a big day in my household. That's Halloween. And then, of course, we're going to have Alex Frazier. He's a VP at Cox Fleet. He's joining us to talk about why equipment is the driver experience. All right. So he's talking about why equipment is the driver experience. New research is showing that equipment is leading the source of driver dissatisfaction and ahead of pay. All right. So the source of driver dissatisfaction is equipment and that's the head of pay. So we're going to dig into the breakdown of really what that costs the driver in time, why maintenance is a retention strategy and how predictive maintenance could stop the problem before the driver is stuck on the shoulder and the side of the road.

6:19Malcolm Harris: All right. So three great guests. Jane is going to end the show. We got Alex in between and then we're going to kick it off with Andre. But before we get to it, we got to get to it. All right. We got two things. The first thing is this show would not happen without that logo in the bottom right corner. Right there, Michael Vincent's pointing at it. Right there, right there. We'll put it on the screen. It's truckstop.com. The great team at truckstop.com is our presenting sponsor for the month of October when it comes to what the truck. Okay, for more than 30 years, truckstop.com has helped carriers and brokers move more freight profitably.

6:53Malcolm Harris: It is an all-in-one freight platform covering load matching, compliance, and payments. And there's things for carriers as well as brokers. Now, for my carriers, you can meet ABA, which is Truck Stop's voice assistant inside the truckstop.com go app. You can search the live load board check rates and get patched through to the broker all without taking your eyes off of the road. It's included with the load board advance and pro at no extra cost. And then for my brokers out there, truckstop.com's broker assistant and risk factor helps you actually feel capacity and spot carrier risk before it becomes your problem.

7:25Malcolm Harris: You can learn more right now, of course, at truckstop.com. Thank you so much to the great team there at Truck Stop. And then also, it's that time. In about, what, two weeks? Yeah, I think two weeks today or yesterday, actually. It's going to be the event of the year. And I'm talking about the Future of Freight Festival that's going to be located here in Chattanooga, Tennessee. You do not want to miss it. It is going to be phenomenal, all right? at the signal one of the best venues in the state of tennessee it's not the biggest but it's got a lot of charm a lot of care uh a lot of uh character and i really really enjoy this we're going to have so much to get into of course leading off with day zero uh the the freight broker symposium that's going to be fantastic and of course the freight tech 100 uh announcements and conversations as well as uh dinners on day zero and then from day one as well as day two you're going to see what you always see at F3.

8:20Malcolm Harris: There's going to be conversations. Of course, we're going to have keynote, fireside chats, and we're going to have a mixture of it all. What the truck is going to be there. It's going to be fantastic. Brake check with Charles Grace is going to be there. The Lizard's going to be there because it's Craig Fuller and he is not fooling me. I know he is behind that mascot suit and I'm excited, man. It's going to be a fun time. Make sure you get your tickets right now. It is on our website. It's the top banner. You cannot miss it because we have made it as large as possible. So if you're not there, it's not because he didn't know about it.

8:54Malcolm Harris: It's because he chose not to be about it. And that's on you. All right. So future freight festival F3, October 27th and 28th. Well, technically the 26th to the 28th. You guys get what I'm saying. All right. So with that being said, the bills are paid because we have a lot of guests. We went very, very heavy on the headlines just to kind of give you guys some insight. If we're not talking about it, you can visit FreightWaves.com as well as look at our social media for your morning minute. Diesel is crazy. Technology is wild. There's some stuff happening in the international market that we really need to get to.

9:30Malcolm Harris: You can check all that out right now again on the website. But I wanted to bring a debate topic before we got to our guests because I know we got a lot to talk about. A debate topic? Yeah, Yeah, for sure. This article is bananas. All right. So I want to talk about this one real quick. There's a truck driver. All right. Unfortunately, who has passed away? All right. He was killed in an I-84 rollover in Idaho. All right. So technically he's from Reno, Nevada, and he died after his tractor trailer left I-84 and overturned east of Boise, Idaho early this week. All right. So the single vehicle crash occurred at approximately 3 a.m.

10:06Malcolm Harris: October 12th near mile post 62 in Otta County along the eastbound lanes of I-84, according to Idaho State Police. Authorities said that the driver was operating a 2024 International Semi, pulling a trailer when the vehicle left the roadway, traveled along an embankment for a short distance and overturned. The driver was transported by ground ambulance to a local hospital where he later passed from his injuries. Authorities did say that the driver was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash. The driver's identity has not been released in the initial police report. What I wanted to talk about, because obviously this is just super sad, and there's some data.

10:42Malcolm Harris: The FMCSA database lists 3 ,784 fatal large truck car crashes, and then 4 ,209 fatalities for the calendar year 2025. Of course, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that 5 ,340 people died in crashes, including large trucks in 2024. And that was down 2.5 % in 2023. Among 70 % of those killed were occupants of other vehicles. So a couple things, Mike. First off, this is sad. This is really sad. Really giving thoughts to the family of this driver because, I mean, this is awful. I mean, drivers are the backbone of our industry and they are why we get paychecks. we get to talk about this industry that we love we talked about this you're the reason why a lot of people get paychecks because come on they wouldn't have anything to sell yeah to do or yeah yeah the economy way beyond us right for sure for sure for sure my question to you is you know i was debating this with with craig and you remember that discrimination story that we were talking about with the driver you remember that on monday percent yeah okay so this is why I've slept since then, but I do recall.

11:54Yeah. Yeah.

11:56Malcolm Harris: This is why I wanted to bring it up because we now see this is a 74 year old. Yeah, but that's just a stat. That's just a stat, dude. We don't know anything about this guy. We don't. But should there be a cap? Should there be a cap on how old you can be to be behind the wheel of a truck? That was my debate point to you. What do you do with the guy? what are we going to go full soil and green on us now man you turn 35 years old we turn you into into fertilizer is that what we're doing here i'm asking you that's i'm with you bro i understand the debate i i get it and it's and it's real but it's it's a slippery slope bro no we don't maybe you have to maybe you have you have to pass the same safety test that everybody else should have to pass for sure all the time right well um but you know what i'm saying i'm not saying that every 74 year old out there should be driving but I've driven behind many 25 year olds that should not have a license either.

12:56I agree with that. I agree with that. You know what I'm saying? So no just because he's 74. No absolutely there should not be a cap. No I would never condone that at all. It's ridiculous and I think it's a slippery slope. You don't want to go down.

13:10Malcolm Harris: I was debating there's movies about that crap. I was debating Craig on this on Monday on Freight Waves today and we had differing opinions he i'm not saying he was in favor of this but he was like as a pilot there is a cap for how old you can be before you're kind of forced out i don't i think it's either 60 or 65 i need to verify that information so he asked me what i feel more comfortable with an older pilot or what i feel comfortable with an older driver and why i necessarily older well i'm i'm older older pilot 90 90 of that is is automated and 100 of it could be if there weren't regulations pilot pilot ain't doing jack up there he doesn't need to do jack up there in most cases yeah he can pretend like he does but we all know he doesn't that it's been automated for a long long long long long time no i get that i was just very curious about your stance because i i i yeah no An older pilot, for sure, over.

14:15But, I mean, the thing is this. You can't legislate that in there. You start losing grace. I mean, what are we talking about here, man? The guy's not allowed to make a living because he's 74. It's ridiculous. If they're kicking out people at 65, are they kicking them out at 65 or kind of, which means that they're doing it in a way that they can't get caught for ageism, but it really is ageism. Todd, you're so smart. You're so smart. Well, I mean, you just follow the BS, right? Come on, man. The sad part about this thing is here is this guy died. But the worst part about this is we've got all this autonomous truck going on and all this autonomy happening and all this technology and all these things happening and it couldn't prevent a rollover.

14:59It couldn't help this dude not roll over. We've got trucks that can drive by themselves. You're going to argue that an 84-year-old guy or 74-year-old guy I can't manage a truck. What are you talking about? Are you insane? This 74-year-old guy can't drive a truck, but we can have autonomous trucks in the same sentence? I'm not advocating for either one. I'm just saying that is an incredibly illogical argument to make.

15:25Malcolm Harris: No, I agree. I mean, we should have the safety of carriers that a 100-year-old dude could sit in that freaking car, truck, and just make sure the safety beacons go on when he pulls off to the side of the road. You know what I'm saying? Here's the thing. 15 people died on that same day because a truck crashes with cars on average. Those are the facts. You went through the numbers. That's the big story. I mean, this guy died, and that sucks for his family and everything. But the bigger story is we got all this safety and all this stuff going on. We're arguing over whether, you know what I'm saying?

16:00Two and a half, 2.5 drivers died that day, truck drivers as well on average, and 15 people involved in truck caches died on that day. Now, I'm not saying they actually did on that day, but by the numbers, that's what happens every day.

16:13Malcolm Harris: For sure, for sure. No, you're not wrong for one. I will say the last thing too on this one, seatbelt. Not sure why seatbelt wasn't worn. That's just a big thing. That's a huge thing. That is a huge component of this piece. It is a huge component of this piece. And, I mean, why you're not wearing that seatbelt, I don't understand. It makes zero sense. It makes zero sense. Sending our thoughts and prayers to his family, of course, just bringing you guys the latest news when it comes to that. Bringing awareness to the situation. Speaking of awareness, let's get into Freight Fraud Awareness Day because officially joining the show, he is the man with the plan.

16:56Malcolm Harris: He is officially on with the truck. welcoming back Mr. Andre Dratenko, the president of strategic relations at Verified Carrier. Andre, welcome to the show, my man.

17:09Malcolm Harris: Oh, man, I can see you, but I don't know if I can hear you. And that's good looking. Good looking guy right there, man. Oh, there he is. Volume. Gotcha. One, two, three. One, two, three. Gotcha. Gotcha. What's up, Andre? Looking good, man. How's everything been? oh we're staying busy unfortunately uh things have been good but especially with with the freight fraud awareness day uh working with a bunch of different companies organizations um you know thought leaders in the space uh about what to do about it so um that's been keeping me busy and then of course you know verified carrier um the bad guys are not letting up so we are where we are but we're working on really great stuff, you know, both as a company and I'm really glad to see the industry to come together to do something about it.

18:02Malcolm Harris: No, we appreciate you for just being a driving catalyst surrounding this issue, man. I know that it's been, it's been wild. I mean, to say the least every single day, Mike and myself, we get to get three times a week, anywhere between 45 minutes to a little over an hour. And we talk about issues that are in your wheelhouse each and every single day. Before we get to those issues, though, I want to say and maybe, Fraze, he's a quarterback now. He's been working by himself. I'm going to be impressed. Is he getting it by himself today? Yeah, all week, man. He said the boys had vacation plans. So he was like, you know what?

18:38Malcolm Harris: I'm going to send you guys. So Fraze and Jess have been holding us down. We may have some clawed images. We may not. Oh, we do. Goodness gracious. Let's check this one out. Mike, go ahead. Talk to me, man. Hey, this is Andre's picture, man. I just throw these things in. I asked Claude to describe people based on their background in four sentences. And this is your picture, man. Look at this guy, man. That's so fake. How do I actually have that much hair? No. Well, it's from a couple years ago, bro. Oh, yeah, no. I miss my shoulder cam. A lot of people don't know that. I used to wear that like a pirate with a parrot.

19:22Yeah, your shoulder cam. And a lot of people don't know that when you're driving one of these cab over trucks, these Azuzus, you usually keep a broom right there with your picture on it, right in the window. Of course. Also, am I drinking chocolate milk? Or is that Soylent? I think that is chocolate milk. Is that a chocolate milk? It says Soylent on it. And we did talk about Soylent Green earlier. So that's kind of weird. That is extremely weird. Yeah, the phones are not listening, though. I'll tell you that. Oh, my God. Speak openly about every subject. Yeah, they're not. I just have one question, Andre.

19:56Why are you giving this guy a POP ISO 9001 compliance quiz? That's a good question. Is that... ISO 9001, actually, there is a little bit of history. I was in Saudi Arabia working on getting a Northrop Grumman subsidiary ISO certified. So we're working on that project. So that's actually from... That's real. That's from my past. Why am I looking at a barcode with a magnifying glass is my question.

20:21Malcolm Harris: Just trying to verify, I guess. There's beauty in the details. I think I would want to maybe look at the front with a picture. These are great. I just want to know, what are you holding that clipboard with, dude? Bring that picture back. What is it? What is it? How is he holding up that clipboard is what I want to know. Listen, it's magic. It's attached to his wrist. Yeah. Attached to his wrist. That's what it was. I got you. Andre, talk to us, man. Freight Fraud Awareness Day. All right. You have been a driver behind this. How do we come to this? Obviously, it's something that's needed, but we're here officially October 14th.

21:04Malcolm Harris: Of course, Phil Brink, he's going to be weighing in on this as well, putting out articles. Phil and yourself have a great relationship, as do we. Shout out to Phil. talk to us a little bit about the day and how it came to pass and give us some details about it all right yeah i guess this was a few years back on the on the tail end of covid um we just saw just this explosion of the fraud piece you know i think cargo theft has been with us from you know time everlasting i think people have been stealing fruit off wagons and you know robbing barrels off of ships and you had the the covered wagons going out.

21:41So that has never changed. I think what's changed now is that deceptive piece, that fraud by deception, strategic cargo theft. There's a number of different ways that people refer to it, but that's the piece that's on the rise. And I think that's kind of the worrying part where we thought, hey, this could use another day to highlight this. I know whether it's F3, and actually shout out for F3, that's where we did our original pitch, just when we were just starting as a platform. So I went up on the, you know, on the stage over there and got to do that piece. So that was a great, great event. So if anybody is thinking about going, do go, you'll have a great time.

22:20Um, but just in general, it was just, it was exploding. So while different events have a component to talk about, you know, the cargo theft or different tactics that the bad guys are using, there's no just one day dedicated to it. And that, that was our thought is let's do something to create this awareness. Let's have companies share so that people know it's not just me, not just my company. Because I know oftentimes, and we're getting better, we're getting better. We're seeing CargoNet and Overhaul put out statistics, the TIA. So more companies are willing to share. But before it was really just everybody wanted to keep their cards close to their chest, not make it look like they're struggling as a company in this area.

23:00But it's not just any one company. It is the entire industry. So that's what it was about and bringing people together, you know, coalescing all this knowledge, getting people talking and sharing, um, so that we can stand a chance against fighting some of these things, because when it's all siloed out, you know, that's when we're not going to have a good time. Yeah. I get hit a certain way. I don't tell any of my friends and then, you know, somebody steals from them and then I could have prevented it, but I didn't. So that's, that's where we're all, you know, was born out of and why we put the effort into promoting this every single year and getting all the people that we do together to talk about it.

23:38That's real.

23:39Malcolm Harris: That's a really good request. So how long have you been doing this and how big is it right now? Which are just two real quick things that I want you to put out there. But my real question is, is a symposium where discussions happen, right? And they're very good at bringing ideas and eventually infrastructure. Is that the goal is to build some sort of infrastructure so something is planned and comes out of this? Because you have these discussions and they're really great and everybody goes home with a lot of great information, but a lot of times it dies there because there's no follow-up infrastructure to the intelligence that has been gained, right?

24:21There's no actionable infrastructure or infrastructure to take action with that great intelligence that is gained through these discussions. Yeah, so, you know, part of the thing that we're doing is collecting information from different companies, from individuals, you know, sharing about their specific cases. My thought process is I love having the experts weigh in on different cases and then disseminating that information. So that's a piece that we want to take, you know, make a heavy push, get more people to come in, sign up for the newsletter, sign up to, you know, receive information and then disseminate information back to the industry.

24:57At the same time, I think it really would be great to have some sort of event come out of it as well as we get more companies behind it. I think we are in year three or four. And so every single year we get more participants, more people jumping on board to support it. You guys mentioned Truck Stop earlier. They're one of the original people from a big organization that jumped on. We partnered with Gen Logs. It was really great to see Ryan Joyce, you know, get behind that as well. I love the things that their company's doing. And I think since we've, we started this just more companies are working together.

25:37I know, you know, one of my colleagues, Dale Prax with Freight Validate was actually able to put together a group. And I think within the last six months, a whole group of vetting companies made it out to BC to talk to, I don't know if Derek Bars was there himself or just it was his team. but present this piece of what we need to do, how the industry can help. Because I know we're working on some great bills. The 3PL policy forum with the TA recently happened. So I'm glad to see there as they're championing those bills, you know, to help the Household Goods Act, Cork, the carrier vetting, you know, setting a baseline.

26:16We need to do all those things. But I'm not, you know, holding my breath waiting for the government to fix this. I'm really glad to see companies jumping together and working on it. And having that group come together in the first place, that's already huge, right? Because we're competing against each other. But our real enemy right now is the people stealing freight. Because a lot of us, we do another job, frankly, to be honest, making a living moving freight. And that's what we should be doing. So this is a drag in the economy. And again, I'm really glad to see the support that this day has seen.

26:50but just at large beyond just this event, just how much the industry is willing to actually work together now.

26:57Malcolm Harris: Now, Andre, there's a lot of threats. I mean, we talk about it often and this is a really hard question. It's not a curveball, but I really want you to think about this one. What's the biggest threat out of this list I'm about to mention? So you got identity theft, double brokering, fictitious pickups, cargo theft, or is it something else that I didn't even mention? Again, I'll give you the list one more time. Identity theft, double brokering, fictitious pickups or cargo theft or something else you know to be honest yeah i actually feel like i'm afraid that the best way each one of those is an issue and it does result in strategic cargo theft but they're almost symptoms of larger problems and i think that it's the fact that you can systematically take advantage of some of the systems we've already put in place.

27:54We're getting better at checking IDs. We're getting better at writing SOPs. We're getting better at knowing about the big ways that they can hit. The scary part is that they weaseled themselves in, in this process that we've established. And again, it's been fragmented. said there's been there's been holes and we're tightening up but it's kind of like walking into a highly automated factory the scary part is how easy you know the less people there are how easy it is to walk in and do whatever you want you know driving in your box trip with a broom no just you need that human element you need that human element to see what's happening to know what's happening.

28:42So it's all of those things, but it's just not staying on top of it, not really updating what's happening, not watching what's happening, what's on the landscape. I think we spend too much time worrying about horse stables and we're not really watching out for the growth trend of the Model T, so to speak. And so it's different threats. And among those, Those are all huge. The identity theft, that's a number of different ways that that can happen. But it could also be somebody impersonating you online by phishing for your contact information, email, load boards. The scariot one for me is probably the cyber piece where somebody isn't just impersonating one part of you digitally.

29:26They're literally in your laptop. It's like team viewer. They are you for all intents and purposes. And they'll send emails and set things up and get confirmations, delete emails so that the real owner doesn't even know. And, you know, it's shockingly, how would you say it? Normal. Once they actually pull it off, you know, it's not going to be some bandit. It's not going to be some guy with a hoodie pulling up and trying to like even freight, man, you know, load it up. I got to get out of here. That's not what it looks like. It'll, everything will seem so routine after, you know, within that process that somebody makes their way in and weasels in, and then creates that fraud, the carrier they might hire or the driver that might be on it, there's going to be so many people that are going to be unaware and everything will seem shockingly normal until the freight's gone.

30:20Malcolm Harris: So I guess to wrap this one up, because obviously we got two other guests and want to be mindful, but this is just such a topic that we had to touch on. On today, I mean, Freight Fraud Awareness Day, But what's the one action you want every company in this industry to take instead of simply just acknowledging that the problem exists? What's the one action you're just like, hey, you need to be doing this right now as an organization? I mean, some companies need to acknowledge that it exists. Yeah. But two, the next step, well, yeah, you can't fight a problem if you don't admit you have it, right?

30:59But the next step is past awareness is get dialed in, sign up to the Midwest Security Council, sign up to the Southwest Transportation Security Council, sign up for TAPA, sign up for the TIA. There's a ton of resources that people put out that I think the next step would be gives you ammunition if you're in compliance. If you are in that, you know, profit retention, you're not profit generation, your profit retention part of the company, that's not the not the sexiest part of the company. But I'll give you legs to stand on with powerful information about things that are out there that you can do about it.

31:41You know, trends and technology that's recommended and how to implement it and then take that to your team. Because I think you can hear about cool stuff, but you just don't know how to present it. Or you see, you know, cool tools and you buy something and, you know, your company's willing to pay for it. But if you don't actually implement it, you know, that burns the chance of them doing that again because it wasn't done the right way. And you're not following the best practices and you're not actually looking out for things. There is no silver bullet. But I think just we have a plethora of information through these great organizations.

32:15You know, sign up. I would say that's the place where you want to be. That's the people you want to hear from. That's the information you want to take, the bullet, pointed documents that they put out and presentations that you could bring back to your team and then have the great discussions that I think could lead to making the right decisions for your company. Because one tool that's going to work for one organization is not going to work for another. One type of tactic that some companies are suffering from might not be what your company is experiencing at the moment, but you want that knowledge and you want to be able to implement that knowledge in your company in a practical way that actually works, you know, and justify the ROI on that freight spend that you're going to have.

32:54Malcolm Harris: Very, very well said. Again, representing Verified Carrier as our president of strategic relations, Mr. Andre Dratenko. Andre, as always, so good to see you and thank you for everything you're doing for the community. Yes, sir. I appreciate it. Freight Fraud Awareness Day officially is here and Andre was a major and is a major piece of it. We could not thank him enough for what he is doing. So with that being said, we're going to keep the conversation rolling, man. This has been a great episode. I told you it's going to be fast and furious. This is probably not going to be the fastest 45 minutes in Freight.

33:26Malcolm Harris: We might go a little over, but some good information and some good knowledge for you all. And let's go to the fleet side of the house. Let's go to Cox Fleet because joining us is their vice president. He is got the same name as the man that makes this show happen. The last name is Frazier, but the first name is Alex. So I want to bring you guys now Mr. Alex Frazier. Alex, welcome to What the Truck, man. How's it going? Great, man. Thanks for having me. Appreciate being here. Appreciate you for being here. How's the week been so far? Everything been good? It's been a week. You know, as it turns out, trucks break down every day, and some days they break down a little more than others.

34:04And, you know, we make lemon, we turn lemons into lemonade, and sometimes we get the sugar just right. So, you know, that's what we're doing.

34:14Malcolm Harris: Hey, man, sometimes you just have to start a little bit, you know? Screws fall out all the time, sir. It's an imperfect world. It's an imperfect world. You know, Alex, we got a picture of you, too, my friend, man. We put you into Claude. Frazier's got to have this picture. Does he have this picture? Yes. There he is right there. Look. Now, I'm not sure why you're a janitor there cleaning up, But you're obviously running an auction and cleaning up a bathroom. Where does that come from? Do you understand where that comes from? I don't know. Well, I got a lot of questions going on here. Take us through it.

34:57Malcolm Harris: Take us through it real quick, Alex. What's really funny is like you talk about things that are not online, but like are funny stories I tell through my career. There's one time I did take a maggot-ridden fridge out of an RV with one of our mechanics in Statesville. But I don't think Claude knew about that. But here we have a maggot-ridden fridge. One of my interview questions that I often ask is if a customer comes and says, the bathroom's flooding, what are you supposed to do? The answer is you go look and clean it up, not call someone. But again, not anywhere online. But yet here we are, right in it.

35:37I think we're uncovering some deeper things in AI, man. It's all up in your business, bro. Clearly. Because is this like... I mean, if you look closely enough, there's probably aunts and uncles and cousins standing in the crowd over there. They'll probably have all your classmates from high school and everything else back there if you look closely enough. That's crazy. I mean, I'm guessing. Yeah, well, that's about it. Frazier knows all. Well, raise your nose. But I know that you were in auction houses and all that kind of stuff before you got into this business, right? Yeah. So as you guys may be aware, Cox is a 128-year-old company.

36:22And one of our longest held things is the auto side. And the kind of keystone property for that's always been Mannheim. And so I did grow up in the Mannheim or just like Matt Trapp and Patrick Brennan, my colleagues here at Coxsleep. But when we started the mobility team back in 2018, so eight years ago, is when I left the auction biz and came into all this and started learning how to spell fleet.

36:54I love it.

36:57Malcolm Harris: It's crazy, man. For sure. I want to talk about this because I want to make sure I got the data right. All right. So Q2 research from you and your team found equipment was the leading source of driver dissatisfaction at 31.5 % ahead of compensation, which in my brain, I would not think would be correct. But it is. I mean, the data is pointing to it. Why do you think equipment has taken such a major advantage over compensation in terms of being an issue for drivers? yeah i mean i think for a lot of folks who may not be in the driver world for them to equate to you can think about your workplace right do you have a coffee machine do you have a refrigerator is your chair comfortable do you do they keep the bathroom clean right like talk about your own work environment do you like it to be nice or do you like it to be dingy right and so i think why would a driver be any different?

37:53The only difference for a driver is they're probably spending a lot more time in the seat in their vehicle than most people do at their desk, wherever they work or at their workstation, right? And so it only highlights how important it is to be comfortable, to be something they enjoy working in, but also is it working, right? Like if you got to work every day and, you know, there was a 20 % chance your laptop turned on, you probably wouldn't be very happy either. Yeah, no, especially since it's the tool with which you make money. If it's breaking down all the time and you can't get maintenance done and there's no preventative maintenance, that type of stuff, it makes your life very, very difficult.

38:35I found it interesting that it hasn't changed in 38 years. It just hasn't. 38 years ago, I started in trucking. And back then And in your P &D fleets, we kept drivers in specific trucks. They had the same truck every day because they would take care of those trucks better. But it worked both ways. They know who was using the truck. They left it better for themselves the next day. We had less maintenance issues, and we did better on preventative maintenance because those drivers kept you honest with your preventative maintenance, right? I mean, that's what we're talking about here, right? because these guys go out on the road.

39:18They've got to make money with that sucker. They don't want to not be upkept. That's exactly right. And I think the short answer to that is yes. I mean, it is rare. It's not zero, but it is rare where you're in a situation where you have team members who are abusing the equipment out and out. Like they, they want, they are proud of what they're do. Like they, you know, I mean, heck look at all these people out on TikTok and Instagram who, Hey, look at me. There's a day in the life of the trucker. Like people are proud of what they do and it's a great job. And so a lot of folks want to take care of their equipment, but they do need support from, you know, their boss.

40:01Malcolm Harris: Yeah, they absolutely do. Let's talk about this because you talked about the importance of experience and really kind of driving this one home. judgment and fast action as well when a breakdown happens how much does that response determine whether a bad situation becomes a nightmare for the driver yeah i mean obviously everything starts with safety right like we live uh we live by safety and you know actually this weekend uh in chattanooga i don't know uh is if you guys know this but at the towing and recovery museum and Hall of Fame, this is their big weekend. And one of the opening things that happens at that weekend every year is names go on the wall of the fallen, right?

40:47And these are service providers who unfortunately didn't make it home at the end of the day. And the most shocking thing is how many names go on the wall every year, right? And that's the service providers, right? Obviously, wherever they are, there's a driver in nearly all cases who's right there near them, right? And so those drivers are in just as unsafe a situation. So I think first and foremost, to answer your question is how do we keep everyone safe, right? Or as safe as possible. And look, but at the same time, you're also weighing, this is freight. Is it loaded? Is it moving? Is somebody waiting for it?

41:26Is the airplane waiting for it? Is it refrigerated? Whatever, right? And so can I fix it right there on the side of the road safely, right? Do I need to tow it to somewhere and then fix it? Do I just need to tow it to like an actual shop? Is it an accident? So, I mean, I think with our team, we're constantly trying to get that right as quickly as we can, understanding we're also talking to somebody who's probably in a pretty stressful situation, right? So they may not have the most sound thinking in the middle of being broke down, the cars and trucks are flying by, right um and so yeah it's it's a lot all the time each time absolutely so we got time for another question yeah yeah of course of course okay fantastic alex this i'm glad you brought this i was really excited to see you on here because recently uh waivers were given to autonomous trucks just put beacons on on their on their on their equipment right for breakdowns and and without getting into the details of those there's redundancy in those beacons there's very specifics and you can't use them for specific loads or triples and things like that.

42:33So they're trying to be as safe as they can, right? But this goes against what we've all known to be the absolute fact in safety, man. You got to get those triangles out and they have to be placed at the exact distances and all this stuff, walking along a highway where people speed by and all that other kind of stuff, right? What are your thoughts on this? Because originally mine were like, well, does everybody get to just use beacons now? And then looking at the studies that Aurora did and other ones did, I said, why the hell isn't everybody just using these beacons? They seem to be much safer.

43:05What are your thoughts on this? I mean, there's some interesting things that are out there. There's actually a couple of startups who are trying to do like plug into the Waymos and Google Maps and, you know, any of the mapping things that are out there to effectively notify everyone who's staring at their Google Maps or their navigation on their screen. hey, something's coming up. Because the issue is, I put it away so it didn't distract me, which is funny because now I'm using it to point out the answer. No matter how many cones you put out, no matter how many triangles you put out, this is the problem right here.

43:41This is the problem. Because you driving in your passenger vehicle who are staring at your phone, it doesn't matter if you put out 50 cones, three cones, six cones. It doesn't matter if you go put out a concrete barrier. If you're not paying attention, then that's the issue, right? And in 50 out of 50 states, it is a law that you are expected to slow down and move over. 50 out of 50. We can't get anything passed in 50 out of 50 states. That's a law in all the states, but nobody follows it. That's the issue. I do see it very rarely. When I see somebody do it, I kind of secretly in my mind applaud them like, hey, all right, we got somebody with a brain.

44:23Yeah, that's right. slow down and move over.

44:25Malcolm Harris: Absolutely. Alex, talk to us. If you could give every fleet manager somebody that has some real skin in the game when it comes to managing a fleet, whether regardless of title, just one piece of advice about keeping drivers happy through equipment and maintenance and the things and concepts we've talked about today. What is that one piece of advice? Because you all at Cox, I mean, you guys are doing so much from taking the data and then making it trickle down to the actual ground. And you've seen returns on that data in the investment you guys have made. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, they, you always talk about eat your own dog food, right?

45:02And obviously we have a fleet of our own assets and, you know, look, I think the easiest, it's not so easy is not the right word. The cleanest way to do this is have a plan and stick to the plan. So if you're going to have an eight-year cycle on your equipment, if you're going to have a 10-year cycle, if you're going to have a 12-year cycle, 14-year cycle, whatever it is, have that plan and stick to the plan. And then I think what happens is your drivers know, hey, this is a six-year-old piece of equipment. This is generally what happens on a six-year-old piece of equipment. This is a 10-year-old.

45:40Hey, this is 13 years old and something bad happened, they're probably not going to do it to get it eight more months. Maybe I'll get a new thing a little bit early. But I think if everybody within the organization, both the fleet team, the finance team, the ops team, and of course the driving team, knows exactly what the cycle is on the equipment and you really follow that plan, it creates a much healthier relationship among the whole team on how to use the equipment and how to get the most out of it and what to expect from it.

46:16Malcolm Harris: That's a great response. Now, I know we're short on time, so I just want to say, Alex, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. Alex Frazier, again, Vice President at Cox Fleet. Where can we go to get more information about our conversation we've had today and the great work you guys are doing at Cox? I mean, obviously, you know, Google Cox Fleet, we're all over LinkedIn. We're, you know, we put out papers on our website. Cox Automotive also puts out economic updates. So, yeah, I mean, we are generally, like Coach Prime says, we're not hard to find. Hey, not hard to find. You know, I like the Coach Prime reference.

46:49Malcolm Harris: You're all right with me. He needs to get it together, though. Hey, dude, I'm from Boulder, Colorado. Go Buffs. Go Buffs. Go Buffs. Let's go. Go Buffs. Are you still a fan of Coach Prime? Hey, man, I have been a fan and will be a fan of every coach we have until they're not our coach because i am a if you grow up in boulder right it's all rainbows and sunshine so of course i think tomorrow it's all turning around like we got this it's all gonna come together so yeah i'm still i'm still a believer perfect time and that's all we need so uh alex i appreciate you man see y 'all see you see you and of course uh again that was alex frazier he is the vp of cox fleet now this last guest all right she is no stranger to what the She has been waiting patiently.

47:38Malcolm Harris: I've seen her and we are about to have a conversation. She's smiling right now off cam. Let's bring that smile here and live here to you guys, because joining us is going to be the CEO at Carrier's Edge, Ms. Jane Giswari. Jane, what you been doing? Welcome to the show. I've been sitting here waiting for you and dreading what Claude is going to draw of me. Like that's kind of what I've been thinking. oh no oh no oh no and you're thinking about everything oh no but there it is it's not bad look it's not bad at all that's that's we love that this is awesome she's a teacher in there she's getting things is that parent teacher conference all the teach all the parents it kind of is yep well we also do driver training in our spare time so carrier's edge which is a driver training company, but we run the Best Fleets program every year to identify the best workplaces for North American truck drivers.

48:45And you can see all the fleets at the door asking if they get a gold star. I like that. I think it's interesting that you're teaching trucks and not like drivers, right? You know?

49:02Yeah, well, see, this is the problem. this is what we're trying to do with best fleets is trying to get people to uh get companies to treat drivers like people not like not like equipment there you go there's my tie absolutely

49:17Malcolm Harris: absolutely love it absolutely love it you're great now jane we talked in february so it's been a couple months a little overdue for us for you to be back on the show talk to us what's changed since we've talked in in february specifically in how fleets are thinking about driver experience And then, of course, anything that is major that you'd like to share with us in our audience? Well, basically, it's a pendulum. And what happens is sometimes the pendulum swings to we need more business. And sometimes it swings to we need more drivers. In the last three years, it's been swinging to we need more business.

49:56We need more freight. We need more money. We need more sales. This freight is soft. And now that things are picking up a little bit and we're not sure how it's going to go, but the idea of having now we need to pay attention to drivers. So that's kind of where Best Fleets does really well, because the top 20, the people who win year after year are thinking about both of those things at the same time. But a lot of carriers kind of go, OK, we can't think about drivers right now. And I think that's why your previous guest was talking about how fleets or how drivers are complaining about equipment.

50:34They're not paying attention to equipment because equipment prices have been high and because they've been worried about keeping the lights on. But now that freight is starting to come back, now they're worried about everything else. And if you can't keep both of those things kind of balanced, then you're going to always have this swing back and forth of, you know, oh, it's the drivers. Oh, it's the freight. Oh, it's the drivers. Oh, it's the freight. So I guess, sorry. No, no, please go ahead. I guess what's changed is that it's swung. It's swung now towards drivers and we're seeing driver pay go up.

51:17That was the short answer. That makes sense. Go ahead, Mike. But, I mean, you covered so much stuff out there. And it is amazing how we talk about drivers and not to drivers or with drivers. And it's great to see you talking with drivers to understand what they think about all these things that we sit here and pontificate about, right? And oftentimes, we really don't know what we're talking about. I'm sure the drivers would say that sometimes, right? But I get out there and talk to them sometimes, not as much as you do. But the question that I have as far as what you're hearing from those drivers is, do you hear or is there significant noise around the push for autonomy and autonomous trucks and the adoption of that in certain fleets?

52:06Because there's fleets there that have some autonomous and not some autonomous. There's organizations that promote autonomy that also promote drivers. You know what I'm saying? I mean, the TCA doesn't exactly have a negative view on autonomy, but they're there for the drivers and the carriers, et cetera, as well, right? Same with OIDA and IANA and all of them, right? Do you have a significant feeling of where the drivers are or what do you hear? Drivers don't talk about it at all. The fleets are more interested in it. Oh, yeah. Drivers are not. Drivers tend to think about. I mean, actually, it's a really good question, but we could ask them directly.

52:49But it hasn't normally in driver surveys, which is where we hear most of the opinions of drivers. It just doesn't come up like the word autonomy doesn't come up. They don't think they're losing their jobs to autonomous trucks. There's no fear. I don't see anything about it. um and actually in it's been i know that autonomous trucks have are starting to to actually work but like fleets are really not talking about it they're kind of experimenting with it mostly in right mostly what i hear is about chunt trucks and things like that not necessarily going cross country or anything like that over the road but drivers are more concerned about their day-to-day They really are.

53:33They're not concerned about what might happen to the company, because what might happen to the company is that the company goes out of business in the next two weeks and they've lost their job and have to go find another one. I mean, that's where they're at. They're really thinking more short term. In the long term, we've been talking about autonomy for like at least a decade. And it is still one of those things that is just kind of, is it coming? Is it coming? And until it's actually here and it's actually significantly taking over the driver role and the driver role starts to shift, it's not going to be a, it's not concerning drivers.

54:12It's not up there. It's not maybe concerning at a lower level, but not up here. That's interesting. Interesting. So their view is much shorter term basic needs on a daily basis type of thing. How am I being treated by this? How stable is the company, etc.? Yep, that's exactly it.

54:33Malcolm Harris: That makes a lot of sense. I want to talk about the splits in the program because it's open now through the end of the month. What should drivers consider before nominating their carrier? And what does this program look like in a nutshell, Jane? okay so best fleets starts a day after labor day so it's nomination period is going on right now it goes on till halloween because i like having everything around the holidays so nominate your fleet before the end of the month and there's basically four stages so you have the nominate driver nomination has to be a driver who nominates for uh for hire a company operating in the u.s or Canada.

55:13And then we go into the questionnaire. So the carrier is invited to complete a questionnaire and it's the mother of all questionnaires. And then we also do an interview with them because it's kind of hard to sometimes tell your story. So that's what the interview is for. Then we turn it over to the fleets for a driver survey. And then the driver surveys are due New Year's Eve. And then we have basically what happens is at the beginning of January in 2027, we score the carriers based on the questions. The scoring changes every year as the industry kind of evolves. And then the driver surveys are part of that score.

55:58And then whoever has the top 20 scores are the top 20 of 2027. And that's how Best Fleets works. That's fantastic.

56:08Malcolm Harris: Now, one last thing, because we're up on time, but what is one thing you wish every trucking executive understood just about the life of a driver? And then also, you've done this for a little while. I'm not going to say how long, but you are not, this is not your first rodeo, Jane. Not my first rodeo, Joe. What has surprised you the most about how driver experience has evolved? okay i don't know which question to ask so we're doing two hard ones it's two hard ones i know got to end the show right the driver experience has evolved it's mostly technology it's it's how how drivers have had to deal with the amount of technology that's well even the whole trucking industry it's only been in the last like maybe seven years like since the pandemic that technology has really just like been dumped on trucking.

57:04And these are people who were not interested in technology before. When we started, we started Best Fleets. I think this is our 18th, 19th year. So when we started, like there were a lot of people who say, we don't use technology. We don't like it. This program is not fair because you emphasize technology. And that was kind of unfair because people were starting to use tech and we were starting to talk about it. And so, but now, since, you know, just every single piece of equipment and hardware and like blinking lights that you can put in a truck gets put in a truck. And so it's really interesting watching the evolution of how fleets are dealing with it, how fleets are, and especially with AI, you know, how are fleets dealing with that?

57:52How are fleets implementing that in their workplaces? And how are they trying to make sure that drivers are included in that? because you're not going to have success with any technology unless the drivers understand it and accept it and understand the implications of it and are fine with it. Because I think what makes a great fleet, it's not pay, it's not equipment, although those things have a place, it's really transparency and fairness. And that's what a driver is really looking for. And they may not be able to tell you that in specific words, but from what I see over the last, you know, zillions of years that I've been doing this, it's really, it boils down to, are you being honest with me?

58:39And are you being fair to me? And everybody has that, you know, really different definition of fairness. It's a tough job. It really is.

58:49Malcolm Harris: Absolutely is. But listen, we try to do it. And you do your job very well. Again, Jane Desuari, the CEO of Carrier's Edge. Jane, it's always so good to see you. And thank you so much for being here on What the Truck. Yes, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Of course, it was a pleasure. Thank you, Jane. It's a pleasure with all of our guests. I mean, shout out to Jane. Shout out to Alex. Shout out to Andre. And shout out to you, our listeners and viewers, wherever you're getting this. We really appreciate it. We're going to take a look at the road ahead here momentarily before we get out of here.

59:18Malcolm Harris: Because we have some awesome guests for your Friday as we head into the weekend. The ones that we have, they're fantastic. All right. So I want to put this one out here. Juan Perez, he's a senior director of trading at Monex USA. He is going to be phenomenal. Alex Pugachev, all right. He's the VP of growth and communication at OVN LLC. And then Steve Schmidt, all right. He is the VP of product management at Samba Safety. All right. Steve, Alex, and Juan are going to be phenomenal. and you guys are phenomenal. We appreciate you guys for watching. Peace and love. We'll see you when we see you. All right.

1:00:21We'll be right back.