They Represent 130,000 Truckers in Washington DC

They represent roughly 130,000 truckers in Washington DC, and they have been at it since 1973. We visited the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association headquarters in Grain Valley, Missouri to talk with OOIDA President Todd Spencer and the leadership team about what the organization actually does, how it started, and the fights it is in right now. Broker transparency, insurance requirements, truck parking, hours of service, autonomous trucks and the driver shortage debate all come up. OOIDA was founded in 1973 by five or six angry owner-operators during the Middle East oil embargo, when fuel rationing meant trucks ran from one truck stop to the next and waited in line. Jim Johnston, one of the founders, became president two years in and held the role for 43 years. The numbers behind the mission are striking: about 93 percent of carriers registered with FMCSA run five trucks or fewer, and roughly half run a single truck. Todd Spencer joined as an owner-operator member in 1976, was elected to the board in 1978, and sold his trucks to come on staff in 1981. The back half gets pointed. Spencer explains how deregulation and investor capital reshaped the industry into one run by MBAs, attorneys and accountants rather than truckers, why he calls the driver shortage a myth pushed by carrier executives to lawmakers, what worries him about autonomous trucks, and why he believes people are using technology to exploit the regulations outright. We also hear about John Taylor, who drove into his late eighties and logged somewhere around nine million miles without a recordable accident, and we get a look at the photos on the wall, including the press conference where OOIDA parked triples in front of the Capitol. OOIDA membership runs $45 a year. Call in and mention BulkLoads with code [BULKLOADS35] and it's $35 a year.