Trucking news from the working lane.
Overdrive Radio is a brisk trucking-industry report built around interviews, panel audio, shop detail, and small-business realities. It suits listeners who want policy, freight economics, equipment, and driver stories tied back to daily operating consequences.
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Overdrive Radio is a reportorial trucking show built for people who care about how the business actually runs. Todd Dills sets the table with compact context, then gives room to owner-operators, small-fleet owners, regulators, repair-tool builders, permitting officials, and freight analysts. The result feels closer to an industry radio magazine than a casual chat show. It is brisk, detailed, and anchored in consequences. Recent episodes spend time with Diesel Laptops founder Tyler Robertson on diagnostics, repair information, parts support, and tools meant for independent shops and truck owners. They also follow broker vetting and fraud concerns through Dale Prax of Freight Validate, where the practical question is who gets checked and who does not. Policy is a regular working surface. FMCSA, non-domiciled CDLs, ELD rules, chameleon carriers, and safety enforcement are treated as forces that change real operating conditions, not as abstract Washington topics. The show also gives space to the messier local mechanics of trucking, including oversize and overweight permitting and the state-by-state limits that make a national system unlikely. Its economic coverage is equally grounded. Fuel volatility, Mack equipment, owner-operator income trends, contract freight contraction, maintenance costs, and miles all appear as parts of the same operating picture. Small-fleet stories keep the show from becoming only regulatory audio. Jamie Hagen, Jason Shelley, and Renita Shelley appear in episodes where business structure, family support, buying decisions, and resilience matter as much as rates or rules. The show is not polished into broad-market simplicity. It assumes listeners can handle acronyms, agency names, and shop language, then supplies enough plain-English framing to keep the thread moving. Long excerpts are part of the appeal. They preserve the texture of panels, presentations, and interviews. The pacing can feel packed, but that is also its value. Overdrive Radio is for trucking listeners who want the quote, the context, and the operational meaning in one place.
Made for: Built for owner-operators, small fleets, repair professionals, compliance-minded carriers, and trucking observers who want practical detail. It also fits listeners trying to understand how freight policy, equipment, and economics land on independent businesses.
What sets it apart: The show pairs compact editorial framing with long firsthand voices from trucking rooms where decisions and frustrations are already in motion. It favors operational specificity over broad transport commentary.
The Overdrive Radio podcast is produced by Overdrive magazine, the Voice of the American Trucker for 60-plus years. Host Todd Dills -- with a supporting cast among Overdrive editors, contributors and others -- presents owner-operator business leading lights, interviews with extraordinary independent truckers and small fleet owners, and plenty in the way of trucking business and regulatory news and views. Access an archive of all episodes of Overdrive Radio going back more than a decade via this link: http://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Overdrive Radio connects trucking policy and freight operations to the risks, costs and working realities faced by owner-operators.
Overdrive Radio follows trucking from the driver's seat into the offices where regulations and freight decisions take shape. Todd Dills combines interviews with recordings from industry conferences, framing technical discussions around their consequences for owner-operators and…
A national oversize permit system? State officials answer 'no'; your paperwork headache gets a witness.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A founder's account of moving truck diagnostics from costly equipment toward a Bluetooth-linked repair tool.
Diesel Laptops comes through as a practical story about making truck diagnostics easier to reach. The episode follows Tyler Robertson's company from expensive diagnostic tools to a Bluetooth scanner tied to a smartphone app, then widens into the repair ecosystem around it:…
A freight panel that turns vetting, risk, and AI into one practical argument.
Overdrive Radio's April 6, 2026 episode stays locked on freight operations, using the opening Mid-America Trucking Show panel to make a simple point: carriers have long been vetted, while brokers have not.
Safety policy meets owner-operator reality at MATS.
Overdrive Radio links federal safety policy to the daily concerns of owner-operators and other small-business truckers through the Mid-America Trucking Show.
A candid permitting Q&A explains why national uniformity still feels distant, while Iowa eases one paperwork step.
Overdrive Radio brings a practical permitting question to officials who live with it every day: can oversized and overweight haulers ever expect one national system for size and weight permits?
FMCSA's administrator links CDL rules, electronic logging, and carrier identity games to trucking's operating risks.
This Overdrive Radio episode puts FMCSA Administrator Derek D. Bars in a practical conversation about non-domiciled CDLs, CDL recertification, electronic logging, DOT-number access, and chameleon carriers.
A practical check-in on owner-operator judgment after a difficult year.
Overdrive Radio's December 16, 2024 installment returns to much of its 2024 Trucker of the Year field, with owner-operators weighing what the year demanded and what they would pass along to peers.
A grounded trucking policy episode on sleeper-berth flexibility, fatigue, dock delays, and the incentives shaping life on the road.
Overdrive Radio puts trucking rules on the road, tying the policy fight over non-domiciled CDLs and highway bill reauthorization to the daily pressures drivers face.
Truck talk with lived-in road sense.
Odd questions, followed patiently down to the incentives.
This episode features an interview with Ken Brodeur, the January Trucker of the Month, discussing his journey from IT and music careers to becoming a successful owner-operator in the trucking industry.
Host Todd Dills interviews OOIDA Executive VP Louie Pugh about regulatory issues, including non-domiciled CDLs and English proficiency enforcement at roadside inspections.
Host Todd Dills checks in with four 2024 Trucker of the Year candidates to see how they navigated a sluggish market.
Howes Products tested 15 diesel samples and found cloud points spanning 52°F, from 14°F to −38°F.
Overdrive Radio presents oral arguments in Jorge Rivera Lujan's challenge to FMCSA's non-domiciled CDL restrictions.
Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills interviews Diesel Laptops founder Tyler Robertson about building a truck-diagnostics company from an eBay side hustle into a 200-employee business.
Carriers have been checked over and over.
The show opens at Mid-America Trucking Show with a blunt claim about trucking safety.
The host opens with a question about a national system for size and weight permitting.
This episode previews a panel discussion at the Mid-America Trucking Show, focusing on small fleet challenges like extreme costs and revenue volatility, with insights from owner Jamie Hagen.
Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills interviews February 2026 Trucker of the Month Adam Mackey, a Mustang, Oklahoma owner-operator running Moser Mackey Trucking with a 2007 Freightliner Columbia and 2005 Utility flatbed.
Todd Dills introduces Derek D.
This episode presents ATBS's Owner-Operator Income Trends update, analyzing cost, revenue, and income data from thousands of trucking businesses, along with wider freight economy trends.
This episode features an interview with trucker Jason Shelley, who discusses his family's support in his business, homeschooling children on the road, and advice for new owner-operators.
This episode revisits a talk by fleet safety consultant Jeff Davis on how truckers and fleets can avoid inspections during Brake Safety Week by focusing on fundamental maintenance practices.
This episode features an interview with independent trucker Ron Kelsey, who discusses how strong customer relationships have insulated him from freight recession challenges, highlighting his direct freight work and consistent pay.