Beyond Costs: How Drivewyze Fuels Efficiency and Savings for LB3 Trucking

Brian Lindley isn’t your typical trucker. He took a varied path to get to where he’s at today – which is running LB3, a successful 35-truck reefer operation from his hometown of Wedowee, Alabama. It’s a far cry from his days as a chicken farmer, and later, a hauler of chicken litter. In 2012 he found gold in waste – starting a small business in buying, collecting, trucking, and then re-selling chicken droppings as organic fertilizer to local farms.

“I didn’t realize I was a trucking operation until my accountant told me I was,” said Lindley with a laugh. “It started as a small side business, but we grew and I soon had two trucks with two drivers. That’s when my ‘trucking’ days really started.”

To combat slowdowns and diversify, Lindley started cold calling poultry operators and soon negotiated contracts to haul processed chicken. He began leasing trucks and purchasing refrigerated trailers and as routes and business grew, so did his fleet size.

Still very new to trucking, Lindley wanted to be the best at what he did. To improve his operation, he joined the Alabama Trucking Association, and absorbed as much as he could – especially when it came to the Association’s expertise and counsel on becoming a safer fleet.

Today, he operates as a dedicated contract carrier, hauling not only poultry, but paper products and some general freight.

His hard work has paid off. In April 2020, LB3 was given the Association’s President’s Award as its safest overall fleet for miles driven in the state of Alabama. “That was very rewarding,” said Lindley. “When we started, we didn’t know as much about safety and regulations as we should have – we didn’t have the best (FMCSA) Safer score. But, we learned. My wife, Valerie, became our safety manager and we put programs in place. We brought down our Safer score to 28 (from a scale of 1-100 with 1 being best) to become an extremely safe and well-run operation.”

Challenge

“Our partners have been great to work with, and set up was simple,” said Lindley. “These experienced partners have helped us with regulation compliance. Plus they encouraged us to use to use some very innovative dash technology. I had read about Drivewyze in trucking publications – their technology made a lot of sense since we were stopping at so many inspection sites – including one that’s not too far from our operation in Alabama”.

Solution

“All it took was turning on PreClear through our ELD provider. We were up and running in no time.” 

According to Lindley, it’s making a difference. “It’s a stress reliever for our drivers,” he said. “Just the one Alabama weigh station alone – we were having to go in all the time. It’s only 30 minutes from our headquarters. We never would know if we could go right through, or be held up a half hour for an inspection. Now, since our bypass rate is so high, we typically get a bypass and start the trip off right.”

Result

With monthly reports given by Drivewyze, Lindley knows exactly how many bypasses his company is getting, and the time, and correlating money, the company is saving. “It’s very measurable and bypass is something we wouldn’t want to be without,” he said. “On average, each driver gets over 20 bypasses per month.” From October through December 2023, LB3 saw:

• 301 gallons in fuel savings
• 63 hours of drive time saved
• 3.4 tonnes of CO₂ saved
• $6,527 in operating costs

Lindley said the biggest benefit of Drivewyze comes on the company line-hauls to the North East, delivering paper. “On that route, there can be up to 10 open inspection sites — on the way there and the backhaul back. That used to be costly in time. I can’t begin to tell you how much our drivers, and our five owner operators, like driving right by when the Drivewyze bypass display pops up on our ELD along with the bypass ‘chime.’ We stay out of the line and the unknown. Our wheels are moving and that allows us to make the timely deliveries we promise.”

Reputation is everything to Lindley, and he and his wife Valerie have worked hard to create a growing and reputable trucking company. “Part of that is taking advantage of technology that makes you more profitable,” said Lindley. “I don’t look at what Drivewyze costs me. I look at what it saves me. We wouldn’t want to be without it.”