OOIDA on the Road – July 2020

OOIDA’s tour trailer, the Spirit of the American Trucker, is a rolling resource for professional truck drivers as it travels across the continental United States.

For instance, when OOIDA issued a Call to Action this spring asking drivers to request rate information from brokers that is a legal right for drivers to get, the Association produced forms that drivers could use. Drivers who stopped by The Spirit were able to get copies printed to hand to brokers.

If a driver needs a mask to get service at restaurants or stores and can’t lay their hands on one, Jon Osburn, skipper of The Spirit, lays in a store of them to make sure they are available.

The Spirit also is a place for drivers to let OOIDA headquarters know what is going on.

For instance, there have been some serious discussions at The Spirit in Oklahoma City, Okla., of double or triple brokering loads. That’s where a broker gives a shipper’s load to another broker instead of a motor carrier, and each broker takes a cut. The fees pile up. It is a serious problem, drivers explain to Jon, and Jon relays that back to HQ to inform policy. That’s one way OOIDA knows what it has to take a stance on.

At The Spirit, you can get copies of Land Line Magazine to read while on the road, as your mailed copy probably is sent to home base. And you can get vouchers for flu, shingles and pneumonia vaccines there.

OOIDA reaches out to its members in a variety of ways. The Spirit of the American Trucker helps connect the Association with its eyes and ears, and its heart and soul. LL