Trucking History – February 2025

Feb. 13, 1987

“Over the Top,” a movie about a long-haul truck driver who hopes to be reunited with his son, was released. The main character, Lincoln Hawk – played by Sylvester Stallone – enters an arm-wrestling tournament in Las Vegas and plans to start a trucking company with the winnings. Hawk sells his truck and bets it all on himself at 20-to-1 odds. Menahem Golan produced and directed the screenplay written by Stallone and Stirling Silliphant. The movie grossed more than $5 million in its opening weekend.

February 2003

OOIDA broke ground on its headquarters expansion. Coincidentally, 2003 also marked the Association’s 30th anniversary. On hand for the groundbreaking were employees and officials, including local and state lawmakers. The three-story expansion provided OOIDA with an additional 40,000 square feet of office space.

“It is our challenge to develop and expand the resources necessary to continue to provide the much-needed benefits and representation,” the late Jim Johnston, OOIDA’s longtime president, said at the groundbreaking event.

February 2015

OOIDA was one of 26 industry stakeholders named to the entry-level driver training advisory committee, a group tasked with putting together the framework for mandatory entry-level driver training, including behind-the-wheel training.

After decades of lobbying efforts by OOIDA and other trucking stakeholders, an entry-level driver training rule went into effect in February 2022. Still, more needs to be done, OOIDA Executive Vice President Lewie Pugh said in August 2024.

“We need more comprehensive driver training in this country,” Pugh said. “In the airline industry, they train the pilot how to fly the plane, then they give him safety technology to make him a much better, safer pilot. In trucking, we just give you the safety technology and hope it works. We don’t teach these people how to drive a truck.”

Feb. 5, 2021

OOIDA President Todd Spencer was named chairman of the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee driver panel created by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

“FMCSA believes in listening to our drivers and hearing their concerns directly,” FMCSA acting Administrator Wiley Deck said in a 2021 news release. “We know that many of the solutions to the challenges we face don’t come from Washington – they come from the hard-working men and women who are behind the wheel all over our nation.”

The 25 drivers selected were from all sectors of the commercial motor vehicle industry.

“It’s long overdue. Input from the people on the frontlines is crucial to highway safety and efficiency in moving goods and people,” Spencer said in 2021. “Hearing directly from those most impacted by the traffic environment and rules and regulations can certainly be a tremendous benefit to FMCSA and also lawmakers.” LL