Q&A

The voice behind the OOIDA

Norita Taylor shares what the OOIDA is up against in 2026

(Photo credit MMI Events)

For nearly 20 years, Norita Taylor has served as a spokesperson for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, the Missouri-based lobbying group for the nation’s truck drivers. Officially, she is the OOIDA’s director of public relations, and the group weighs in on behalf of drivers consistently when government policies related to trucking shift and when Congress proposes legislation that could alter the status quo.

We caught up with Taylor, whose grandfather was a trucker, for a look back at an eventful (and pretty successful) year for U.S. long haulers and a catch-up conversation about what may lie ahead.

— Interview by Alan Schmadtke, edited by Bianca Prieto

OOIDA constantly has a major issue on its plate, and usually more than one. Broker transparency seems to be at the top right now.

Broker transparency is a big issue—brokers in general, and fraud are big ones. There is a regulation in play regarding transparency, and OOIDA petitioned FMCSA to enforce it and add a couple of things, a couple of provisions that we think would benefit our members.

There’s a misconception about this issue that small business truckers just want to find out how much a broker is getting paid. And that’s not true. The issue here is that brokers are requiring our members to sign away their rights to see these documents.

The federal regulation in play—371.3—states that all parties are entitled to see all the documents related to the ride. And when you get on the other side of a load, and there’s a claim or a fine or some other issue, then it’s making it difficult for our members to find out what really is at stake here.

"What should I have gotten paid?" Or, "what’s the basis for the claim or the fine?" And because [the brokers] asked them to sign their rights away, they’ll have a hard time getting that transparency. And that’s a big problem.

You hear from owners and owner-operators all the time. When they email and call, what do they say or want to know?

Most of the time, they want to find out what we're doing about a particular issue. There might be a particular challenge for their business that they’re facing, and they’ll want to know what OOIDA is doing or saying or what we think about a particular issue. They are curious about the non-domiciled CDL issue. I also talked to a member recently about the challenges of finding a safe place to park due to rest areas in Kansas closing simply because some locations do not have operating restrooms or are under maintenance.

You won a long fight earlier this year when truckers secured more parking across the country. But it’s not over, is it?

Well, the new law provides more parking now, but also for more over the next few years.

What’s on the horizon to fight for?

Autonomous trucking is a newer thing. But it seems like, at the same time, we’ve been talking about that for 10 years, too, right? We have expressed concerns about transparency from manufacturers regarding safety and cybersecurity. We think all data should be reported, and more research should be done. We recognize the potential, but believe the implications of new risks mean possible dangers as well. Right now, reporting is voluntary and leaves the motoring public in the dark about reliability and performance.