The Adventures Of Daniel B.

I have a friend who has been a OR DOT officer forever ( I swear)...He sez that the DOT training states that trucks you will likely write up on an inspection are dirty trucks, trucks with obvious damage, and trucks with alot of stuff on the dash ( go figure)...

I have a friend who has been a OR DOT officer forever ( I swear)...He sez that the DOT training states that trucks you will likely write up on an inspection are dirty trucks, trucks with obvious damage, and trucks with alot of stuff on the dash ( go figure)...

Hmmm... Dirty trucks. This goes right along with the truck wash thread. Hopefully, I will end up with a company that gives us wash coupons or something to keep the truck somewhat clean.

Wow Daniel, what an incredible thread!

It has taken me a while to get caught up on reading the forums after CDL school. I saved the threads you and Old School had going for last because I really wanted to have the quiet time to enjoy them.

Thank you so much for the effort you have put into this. I am sure there were many nights you didn't feel like or want to do it. But believe me when I say those of us coming in appreciate it more than you and OS will ever know.

I was very touched by some of the posts, the one about the homeless person showed a lot about you and the man you are. But I must admit I'm glad I was alone when you started talking about your wife. It brought tears to my eyes. I start my journey with Knight Transportation this coming Monday and last Friday I think it finally started sinking in to my wife and I how much I will be gone. I will be working towards getting into the 14/7 home time, can't even imagine what it is like for all of you that are gone for so many weeks at a time.

Woody

So Daniel, I have read EVERY single word you've written with intense interest. I sincerely appreciate the time and effort you took to share your experiences. My school doesn't start for a few weeks yet, and you don't know how valuable your posts have been in giving me insight into the daily experiences of drivers. Here are a few things I took from your posts:

1). Every day is different, with new challenges and decisions.

2). You have to manage your time efficiently, plan for any unseen events, keep track of time, expenditures, etc.

3). It's vital to have a great deal of patience, communicate effectively and frequently with the DM and others at the delivery locations.

4). SAFETY! SAFETY! SAFETY!!

5). Get a laptop with a spare power supply (just kidding!)

SO, coming from the 'cube' world of Information Technology, this indeed will be an awesome adventure!! I'm excited, anxious and a LITTLE intimidated all at the same time! Please keep the posts coming!!

12/2/13

Current Load: Stockton, CA to Seattle, WA - 796 miles. Total Weight is 76000.

Good to be back comrades. I've spent about 4 days at home. My hometime was great. My entire family had a bad fever and so did my wife. Well, they got me sick too. I spent a full day with a high temperature and basically slept all day to try to heal. When I came home I noticed that the refrigerator had everything that I love in their. Food I don't have access to on the road. Its very comforting knowing that my wife will go out of her way to pack the refrigerator with the things I like so that I can eat healthy when I'm home.

Me and my wife recently got an apartment. I was on the road during the move so I couldnt help her at all. That short 4' 11" girl had to do everything herself. I felt very bad knowing that I couldn't be there to help with it. But she did a very good job with the place.

She also surprised me with 4 more Mint plants. Yep, now I have 5 total in my truck. And they are decent size too so I don't think I will ever run out! I had to buy another pot to plant the 4 in and I bought a pretty big one. Its in front of my passenger seat. It barely fits between the seat and the dashboard when the seat is all the way back.

I was given my load on my departure date which was 12/2. However, the pickup was at 2130 and it was only an hour away. So I spent the day on a date with the wife and playing CoD with my best friend and his brother. Yeah, we get really really into it. We are all extremely competitive. So there was a lot of noise, but we kicked ass together! Then I had to go...

My wife dropped me off at the truck at 1945. We said our goodbyes. I did a 13 minute pretrip inspection and then quickly planned my route which took a few seconds literally. I put my bags on the ground since I didn't have time to sort through them. I only took out the important things for now.

Hometime is great. But leaving your family for another extended period of time is always tough. In fact, I would say that it is probably the hardest part in trucking. You can never get used to it. Its not normal to say goodbye to the family and hope you'll come back alive to see them again. In this job, theres always a chance that that might be your last time seeing them. I've been at it for almost a year now and it just doesn't get any easier.

Anyways, I arrived at my shipper 30 minutes early. Im supposed to be picking up a preloaded trailer. I park and theres a sign that says "check in here" and right by that sign is a sliding metal fence door with a speaker that you push to talk through to check in. Well, I pushed, talked, and nothing happened. I stood at this sign for 15 minutes and finally just drove up to the gate. The gate opened and I parked and walked to the security shack. Apparently they dont use that door anymore. Umm, ok. Then take the sign down, I said to myself.

The security guard just checked my reefer fuel level and then walked away. I was given 8 PO numbers on my qualcomm so I wrote them all down. Thankfully, the receieving lady was specific on which one she needed. So I gave it her the number and the desination. She said they just started loading my trailer and to drop my trailer in the drop lot. I slid my tandems and dropped the trailer. They never told me to drop the tandems but I did it just in case. Better safe than sorry.

I then hook up to my trailer that is currently being loaded as we speak. I go under the trailer but dont immediately bump into it. I wait until the loader comes in and then as soon as I hear him get out of the trailer I bump into it and hear the jaws lock. I didn't do the pullup test because the light is red on the dock and theres people going in and out of it. Instead, I take out my flashlight and go under the trailer and visually check that my jaws are around the kingpin. They are. So I connect my air lines and electrical line and raise the landing gear.

I take a look at my pressure gauge on my drive axles and the weight on my drives is very low. This tells me that theres only a few pallets on the trailer and it just got started. It took them exactly two hours to load my trailer and give me my BoL. During this time I sorted everything and put all the groceries away. My wife bought me a bunch of canned food. This is my emergency food. In case the road gets shut down somewhere and I'll be stranded on the road I will have enough food to survive for a long time.

That took about an hour. Then I sat for about 20 minutes. I got very bored so I took a 30 minute nap. Last night I didnt have as much sleep as I wanted to. And now since I had to wait for the trailer to be loaded I am now running behind on this tight schedule load.

12/2 Continued

Its funny how I am just coming back and my new DM gives me a load thats tight. Testing me much? Yeah, I told him I am never late and he can always depend on me. But it'll take more than this load to make me late. Not going to happen. I get my bills at 2300 and I immediately start driving. I drive away from my home and its never easy to do that. I trip plan my load right before I get my BoL.

Pickup 12/2 @ 2300.

Delivery 12/4 @ 0400

Total miles is 800.

2300 to 2400 will be spent reviewing my paperwork, scaling my load, and driving to the truck stop to scale myself. So I will leave this hour out.

12/3 @ 0001

12/4 @ 0400

If I drive from 0001 to 0600 I can do 300 miles in that time period. So I will end my driving shift at 0600.

0600 to 1600 will be my 10 hour break. So 300 subtract 800 equals 500 miles left.

I have from 12/3 @ 1600 to 12/4 @ 0400 to deliver this load. 500 miles in a 12 hour window. I got this.

My scale ticket was perfect. So I started driving. Like always it was emotional to be driving away from my wife. But without trucking we really wouldnt afford what we have. Plus I love the job, except for that part. I started to get sleepy at the wheel. I know my limits, I'm not at my fatigued limit yet but I am getting there. At about 0200 I get way to tired and start to daze off. So I find a place to park to take a quick nap. Upon hitting the bed, I instantly pass out. I obviously set about 12 alarms to ensure that I will wake up. My nap was supposed to be an hour but it took 30 minutes for the alarms to wake me up. I felt a little better with a 90 minute nap. I have about 180 miles to go for the night. So I start driving again. I go to my stash of tea and take out my 5 star caffinated black tea. This tea is made to keep you awake and I use it for emergencies like this.

If I don't drive I will be late. Theres no room for anything but 1 last shift to get it there and I cant get it there when I still have well over 600 miles to do. So I brew my black tea, sprinkle some lemon in there and put 3 mint leaves in it. Delicious, but strong. Right now, I really need something to keep my eyes open. This entire night is a struggle. I drive for about two hours and again I start to feel extremely sleepy. I park at a rest area and walk around my truck a few times. The cold mountain air has a way of waking you up. I then jogged around the truck a few times and stretched. I head back to driving. I turn on the radio and sing loudly. When you're tired, you have to do anything to keep you awake. I didnt care what I was singing, I just needed something to occupy myself with instead of staring down at this desolate, dark road.

Then it started getting light outside. My body instantly woke up and I didn't feel tired anymore. I parked at the Pilot in Weed, CA. The parking spot was pretty tight and I was exhausted.Tis is when you really learn how to back up trailer. Slowly and carefully I got it in there and headed inside the Pilot to brush my teeth and call it a night.

I got back in my truck and the May drivers to my left were doing a pretrip inspection. I noticed that they had no coolant in their coolant reservoir. I asked the guy about it and he said he has a bad coolant leak and it leaks all the coolant out at night. Hes headed to Portland to their terminal for repairs. I know my truck is good on coolant for awhile so I offer him my two jugs of coolant. He fills his reservoir up about half way with it. He thanks me for giving him a hand and says "we truckers need to look out for eachother, thank you". It really wasn't a problem, I get it for free. But it was nice to help a fellow driver out. He spoke to me further and told me hes on his first month of driving. Poor rookie!

I then went to sleep at 0700. Behind schedule because I was passing out at the wheel. But safety first. I will still make the delivery on time but I will definitely need to hussle tomorrow.

12/3

Current Load: Stockton, CA to Seattle, WA - 796 miles. Total Weight is 76000.

After night driving all night, I wanted to make sure I have sufficient sleep today. For my entire rest break I forced myself to stay in bed and sleep. I have 515 miles to do today and I have absolutely no room for a nap. So I need to be on my game.

I did my pretrip inspection at approximately 1650 and that lasted 12 minutes. I started driving at around 1700. As soon as I got my hours back it was showtime!

My fuel stop was about 330 miles away from me and I honestly didn't think I can make it there without running out of fuel. When I was about 120 miles away from it I decided to play it safe and not attempt to make it there. I know my truck, and I am positive that I won't make it. So I quickly stopped and sent the macro for a new fuel stop. I got the new fuel stop quickly. I didn't want to stop to look at it so I just made the Qualcomm lady speak the message and I wrote down the exit number. It wasnt far away. The new fuel stop had me fuel 50 gallons at this location and then fuel again an hour before my delivery. I don't want to have to fuel twice but I have no say in it.

I fueled at my first stop and took a 30 minute break. I then hustled to my next fuel stop and fueled as fast as possible there. Turn and burn, there was no messing around.

I finally arrive to my delivery at 0305. The appointment time was 0400. I definitely had to work hard to get it there on time. I wasn't myself yesterday, I put myself behind schedule. But in the end, I got it delivered on time.

Its so difficult knowing its your last day at home and sleeping all day. I had been sleeping all day already at home because I was sick. I didn't want to spend my last day at home sleeping all day again. Its very difficult to choose to sleep when its your last day and your friends want to hang out. Maybe I should have sleep. But I chose to enjoy my last day at home. It made my delivery more difficult but whatever.

The customer took only 2 hours to unload me. Very rare for this place. I got my new load while waiting to be unloaded. My new load is a local delivery that delivers at 2200 on the 4th. Not to happy about that but complaining does nothing. I had 40 minutes left on my 14 hour clock. My pickup location was a drop lot so I wanted to park there and sleep there. I plugged in the address on my McNally and quickly verified the route. I head out of the facility and its a right turn only. I need to go left!!!

I make a right and it starts leading to the airport. This road doesnt go into it but its right alongside the airport. Theres a specific route only for trucks. I didn't like what I was seeing. So I found a large intersection and went in the left lane for a left turn but instead made a U-turn. It allowed U-turns, but I don't think that was legal for me. But I wasn't caught. I pass my delivery location and see that if I went to the facilities truck parking area I could have made a left out of that driveway. You don't see everything after a 13 hour and 30+ minute shift of night driving. Two days of night driving already and I was exhausted.

Mistake made. I learned my lesson and quickly forgot about it. I got to my pickup which was a drop lot and I shut down with 6 minutes left on my 14 hour clock. I forced a 5 minute post trip inspection. I went to bed as the sun came up.

On the 2nd I worked 1 hour and 33 minutes and 1 hour and 17 minutes of that being driving. I did a total of 65 miles.

On the 3rd I worked 10 hours and 47 minutes and 10 hours and 25 minutes of that being driving. I did a total of 572.5 miles.

Remember that I'm night driving so my shifts go into the next day. My hours are completely unbalanced so far. But I had no choice. You can't always drive what you want and when you want. Sometimes you must drive as soon as possible and as much as possible no matter the time of day. This entire load was exclusively done in the dark.

Daniel B.'s Tips for Night Driving

Night driving is far more difficult than driving during the day. You can't see everything around you, so you need to use extra caution for everything you do. The roads can get iced much faster in the dark. There is no sunlight drying up the wet spots and the temperature is usually colder at night. You have to be more attentive to the possibility of black ice and slippery bridges.

These past two days of mine have been mountain driving. Downgrade after downgrade, hill after hill, curve after curve. Its a lot harder to gauge just how bad a curve is in the dark. You can only see what your headlights show and you don't always have access to high beams. You must always go slower around the curve than the sign suggests. My load was a top heavy load so I had to be even more vigilant. If the sign says 45 then take it at 40 maximum.

The proper way to go around a curve is to slow down before the curve and accelerate in the curve. By accelerate, I mean press on the pedal lightly. There's no need to ground the pedal on a curve. The trailer responds better and is much more stabilized when you're accelerating on the curve instead of just coasting around it. And never break hard while on a curve. You need to fully understand Kinetic Energy and how it works.

The general rule with mountains is that if you climb up a mountain, expect to be going down it soon. Its always better to take downhills slowly. Remember, you can always upshift on a downgrade but you cannot downshift. I went down Siskiyou mountain. Which is a 6% grade for roughly 6 miles. I went down in 6th gear averaging about 25mph. Do not mess with downhills. At 25mph I can always stop myself if I need to. But if I was going 45mph then I likely wouldn't be able to stop myself if I had to. Going down a hill slower is always worth it. You save a few minutes going fast down the hill but think of the dangers. If you're willing to risk your life to get to the bottom 45 seconds before me than you're an idiot in my book.

Its not a race. Go the speed you're comfortable. I've burnt my brakes before. I know just how frightening it can be to be traveling with no breaking power. And I'll tell you from firsthand experience that its not worth it. I was a rookie back then and made a mistake, but thank God that he spared me and gave me an uphill that I used to come to a stop.

The biggest challenge with night driving is fatigue. Its a different kind of fatigue. You can run 10 miles, you can do any intense workout for hours, its not the same kind of fatigue that you encounter while night driving. Night driving fatigue puts you to sleep. The more tired you are, the more your body shuts down against your will. You can't win. From my journal, I hope you noticed that I fought the fatigue, but when I felt like I couldn't fight anymore I gave up. That's never necessarily a bad thing. We're all humans. But you need to be able to accept the fact that you need to pull over and rest. Rest is the only solution.

Here's my secret foods that help with night driving. You wont read this anywhere else.

Skip the coffee. There's more potent foods out there.

Skip the sugar-filled mocha's. They are nothing but sugar.

Skip the energy drinks unless you want a heart attack. We have enough stress in this field, drinking a drink that forces your heart to overwork will ruin your health in the future.

What to eat instead:

Apples.

Apples are loaded with natural sugars. That's the difference between a mocha and an apple. A mocha latte is artificial, an apple is a natural source of sugar. An apple is extremely effective in keeping you awake and waking you up when you need it.

And my secret weapon:

Cucumbers.

Yep, you heard it right. Just when you all think highly of me, I expose my weapon for night driving and now I confuse you all.

But hear me out. A cucumber is everything you need to keep you awake.

It has that tart taste that makes your mouth feel dry. Honestly, who can fall asleep with that tart taste in their mouth?

It has a crunch.

And lets not forget Carrots!

There's a million in a bag. They're cheap. They replace chips.

The thing in common between an apple, cucumber, and carrots is that they all produce a crunch when eaten. When I'm night driving and I'm crunching on something. That crunch always wakes me up.

Try it!

Here's a link with further details.

Do apples wake you up?

12/4

Current load: Kent WA to Puyallup, WA - 17 miles. Total weight- it's a local delivery I don't care about weight.

Well I spent the night here. Not much for looks but at least I was all alone and it was peaceful and quiet.

I spent the entire day either sleeping, cleaning, or wasting time. My delivery was at 2200. I left this yard at 2100 and I arrived at my delivery at 2123 exactly.

I was 35 minutes from my appointment time. Perfect right!!??

The guard tells me I'm too early so he tells me to leave and come back in 6 minutes. I am not even joking. Leave. Come back in 6 minutes.

So I made a U-turn and wasted 6 minutes just driving around. I came back to the same douchbag security guard and he checks me in at 2140. A line formed and I had to wait in the back of it.

I back up to my dock door, slide my tandems , break my seal. Not in that order. I then proceed to the receiving office. I come in and there's a line of 16 drivers and I'm about 10th in line. This place is intensely annoying.

They finally get to me and the lady takes my BoL then tells me she's done with me, go see the lumpers or unload it yourself. Since Central literally only pays us 20$ to unload a trailer ourselves we drivers always hire a lumper. I would gladly unload it myself because I have experience doing that, but I'm not a charity and won't do it for dirt cheap.

I get the lumper service name and their federal tax id. They tell me the total is 188$. I write a comcheck request and It gets approved. I fill out my companies paperwork for it and fill out the check. I give it them the guy and he tells me to come back when it's done for the receipt.

I wait in my truck for 2 hours and its finally unloaded. I head inside for my BoL and my lumper receipt. This place is a pain, it's frustrating how I'm basically only getting 5$ for doing all of this. But it's whatever.

My day is over!

It's sad that the company will only pay you $20 to unload, but will turn around and cut a check for $188 to the lumpers. But this was the case with pretty much all the companies that had recruiters visit during my schooling.