2020 was nothing if not a wild and often confusing ride for most. From the early fears and uncertainty lingering for months after the COVID-19 pandemic first reached U.S. shores in February to the long-lasting impacts on freight and rates and, obviously, the human toll the virus has taken in terms of illness, death and loss — it’s been a trying year for many owner-operators and small fleets.
Below is a collection of the year’s top stories, podcasts, videos and essays published on Overdrive. If you feel like taking a walk back through the year that was — hours of service reforms, how COVID changed drivers’ lives on the road, managing money amid the chaos and turbulence, the stories of truckers weathering what descended, custom truck videos, the serialized Over the Road podcast, truckers’s rights on the road, and much more — peruse the sampling below. Think we missed something? Drop us a line.
Pandemic, closures snared owner-operators.
Many owner-operators and small fleets’ businesses fell on sudden, unanticipated hard times in the early weeks of the pandemic, with many clinging to what few load options were available and holding out hope for federal relief funds amid the worst of the early spring downturn.
Though not all freight sectors rebounded, a few prominent sectors eventually did, helping buoy many through to year’s end.
Overdrive explored the toll the pandemic took on truckers’ businesses first-hand in conversations with dozens of operators throughout the year and via surveys in the first months of the downturn. See a few of those stories here — and a few stories of rebounding business.
Small-business truckers also flocked to the Paycheck Protection Program and other disaster loans offered by federal relief packages from Washington, with many reporting leaning on the relief options to bridge through the downturn. Many truckers also reported, especially in the early months of the pandemic, hanging up the keys to wait out the risks and the poor rates.
Life on the road evolved.
OD Senior Editor Todd Dills throughout the year explored how COVID had affected truckers’ day-to-day. See this series on the acceleration in telehealth options available to drivers, and this one about how truck stops’ food services have shifted. This series from November explored the growing opportunities for shipper-direct freight amid an upended freight market, and the rise of contactless paperwork. Lastly, this story from early April detailed the immediate measures shippers and receivers were taking at the freight docks to ward off virus transmission.
