Profile For Davy A.

Day9

We stopped at the Loves on i59 bout 2 hours from Hattiesburg. We knew we would be arriving a day early and no one avail at the receiver. Load isnt scheduled til Mon 0800. Since Im running on recaps, and wont be driving today, coupled with the 15 hours of off duty from yesterday afternoon on, that gives me a 34 reset, so Ill start the week with a fresh clock. Yes, we have the luxury of doing that because there are two of us on the truck, but I figured that might be a handy scheme to keep a mental note of in the future. We caught it as I was doing the pretrip (we have to show 15 minutes of on duty). I can edit on duty, just not driving. So I did. Doc redid the pre trip and we headed out.

Got to the Receiver, Hot and muggy down here. PC over to wally world for supplies, and were camped out in the receivers lot til 0700. We have our next load, Macy's DC to DC in Houston TX. Its another one day load. Im liking the southern routes weve been on, although the blower fan in the truck isnt working, I checked the cabin filters and we reset the AC unit a couple times, but no luck. It will come on intermittently when we are driving, usually when its cold enough that we dont need AC lol. Neither one of us want to mess with it until after we get done with my training, Were setting a good pace, thats sustainable and working. Doc is a DIY kind of guy, as am I. I dont want to spend my training time waiting at a terminal for a non essential gremlin fix. From Houston, which drops Tues I think, but we will get it in Mon, we will be routed to hit Denver Friday.

I need to set up my fuel points cards and I have lists of things I will get for the truck. I like the systems that we have for paper work, Its very methodical and logical but efficient if that makes sense.

Ive found I can build custom routes in google maps that are hybrids of our suggested routes, the Rand McNalley truckers atlas and googles route by zooming in, adding a stop along the route I wish to take so it forces google to use my route instead of googles. I then set the origin as "My current location" so it will always route me from where ever Im at. Lastly I save it to my homescreen on my phone. Our Zonar system has a GPS on it, with some good features but it is difficult to use and from what Ive seen isnt as customizable nor as detailed as google. As and added backup, I also check it on Truckerpath, which Ill probably keep running for the benefit of Truck stop info. Doc relied on my route today, which saved us some grief getting to our receiver, though it was based mostly on our directions on the Zonar.

I have very little experience, still in training, but I havent seen any micro managing. Yes there are procedures to follow at shippers and recievers for paperwork, which is in my opinion mild compared to insurance restoration on fires, and your logs, but again, very mild and I find it helps give me a guideline for managing my time and work flow. In fact, Ive seen the opposite of micro managing, I would say this is the closest career to being a business owner as i can find. It seems to me, you have to politely take charge of getting the things you need and communicating your needs to the office. It really seems up to the driver to run his program the way he needs to do it.

I had best buy deliver a mouse and batteries, headphones cables as well as had pizza delivered and someone else had whole foods delivered at our terminal in denver while i was waiting to get into training, our truck was broke down for two days. I live like 15 minutes from our denver terminal but I didnt know I could leave my persoonal vehicle in the yard while out working so I was there for a bit.

Couple typos I didnt catch. *subtract the steers from the tractor. *Im doing all the components of the load myself but Doc will.....

Day 7-8

Made the load to Tennessee, Lowes flatbed DC. Drove through some rain, but nothing major on I 40, Some hills, nothing too major, but I handled them well, set and kept appropriate speed. Learning a ton of stuff still. Trainer and I had looked at the route carefully. My recommended route had me going pretty far out of the way, Google had us down state highway 59 which the RM truckers atlas still lists as a truck route to a road called national campground road....I nixed that choice, any road that says campground road doesnt sound promising, but I did take 59....Very very tight road, lots of 25 and 35 mph turns, very narrow and zero shoulders, coupled with nice deep ditches. Alot of the corners on the blind side I had to encroach on the opposite lane just to keep the tandems out of the ditch, did a little tree trimming in a few places too. Other than that, although I was very nervous for about half of the road, I managed to avoid hitting anything and remodeling anyones mailboxes. Our suggested routes are very truck safe and I will most likely use those as the basis for the route when Im solo, also our fuel solution is based off those routes.

Planning the trip, checking to make sure my HOS lines up for me to get it done and get the next load, triple checking my routes for safety and to prevent accidents has been forefront, My trainer had been down that road today and he knew I was capable of doing it, I didnt think I was at first. It definitely gives me a valuable lesson in route planning and checking the map, satellite and then checking again

Dropped at the DC, cool old timer at the desk, very nice guy. Picked up an empty, swept it out and headed over to Kimberly Clark plant in Loudon, bout a half hour away, I was out of hours for the day, had 1.5 left. Doc drove to the KC plant, Kind of a zoo there. I took care of the paperwork with the s/r gal, nice gal, We dropped our empty and grabbed our load for Hattiesburg MS. We scaled out at their scale, its a light load 19K. The scale is a single plate, so, steers, then tractor, then total, then tandems. Subtract the drives from the tractor gives you approx drives. we were 21k on the drives, 20k on the tandems with em at the 40' Oh yeah, almost forgot, we went down a winding road through the business park to the front entrance of the place, had to turn around, luckily they had a spot to. It pays to look at the place through google earth. Another lesson there. Doc drove for a couple hours and we shut it down for the night.

Im doing all the components a trip by myself not. Doc will still give me pointers, but Im able to plan, execute and conclude a load from preplan to delivery and get the appropriate documents and paperwork done and sent. Im preparing for not having my trainer there after next week.

We dont have a load lined up after this, but we will be on it like a hawk, We drop this tomorrow, its supposed to be a 24 hour drop and hook DC, and then will be setup to arrange loads that put me back in Denver on Friday. I will take a couple days off and will be getting my truck. Nervous but excited.

Quick update. Doing good, brought my 70 hour clock to 3 hours and stopped. Recaps start tomorrow. Will make the load in Tennessee, pickup next half hour away and head to haddiesburg MS. Exhausted, to tired to get laptop out and do proper update. Will tomorrow though. Trainer says I. Good to go Solo after next week.

Coopers BBQ and grill in TX 377 and I10

For sure, My thoughts too. I practiced not so much on backing but learning to be smoother and the dynamics of the trailer turned and it really helped. I was much smoother and one shot it in at a walmart DC. It wasnt speed I was looking for, more for not stopping and starting, I would hit the brakes to hard and then hit the gas too hard. I was able to do it after Doc had me do some drills, totally smooth and even controlled speed with no stops and starts until I got it in the hole. My instincts for where it needs to go and how to control it usually seem to be spot on, its just fear that was causing issues. I still have a long way to go, but it felt good to feel like I was driving the truck instead of it driving me.

Day 4 and 5 updates.

Did 576 miles yesterday, easy miles, 20000 pound load, so was light and easy to run, also we ran an average of 10.1 mpg brought the truck average back up 8.2. I got within striking distance of our drop one day ahead of schedule. DM already had two more loads for us. Was a great day, I burned more off my clock than I should have, but will be ok. I had 25.30 left on my 70, and I dont get recaps til sat. So, I have essentially three 8 hours shifts left. That will work out, its Tuesday, so weds-Friday and then I pick up days starting sat.

Day 5, stopped for BBQ in Texas, really good, ill post the place in the hole in the wall food joints thread and pics. Did a bunch of two-lane road driving from I-10 up to Pflugerville, got to our receiver, totally cool guys, let us drop a day early and pick up our empty. I got to practice parking, the lot was wide open. Only two empties on the lot, one was in bad shape, missing a mud flap, the other had the safety latch on the electrical pigtail connector broken off, but there was bailing wire rigged on to hold it in place, so I secured it, tested the lights, checked out the rest of the trailer and we hightailed it for our next pickup at the wally world, sams club DC. Again, guy was totally cool, explained to him Im in training and he ran me through everything there. This load is 44000. Scaled out fine though close. 33604 on the tandems, 31300 on the drives and 11.7k on the steers, not exact numbers but anyway, were good. I drove out the rest of my 8 hours for today, I cant afford to burn anymore. We have the luxury of my trainer being able to run too, so we semi teamed it, he put in 5 hours to bring us to the receiver and were ready for drop tomorrow, there's 4 knight trucks here and 4 empties. should be interesting in the morning lol. I did 392 I think for miles today, but with two drop and hooks, that's not bad, we got in and out pretty quick.

Definitely increased my skills driving tight two lane roads in TX and Austin area has some very heavy congestion and really narrow lanes with lots of construction, interesting and challenging, I like it and find it rewarding.

Off to Tennessee next.

Thank you. When I first got in the truck, the trainer said two rules. 1. Everything we do must be safe. 2. If it it doesn't violate rule 1, make money.

Quick question, mentally I know I can get trailer in the hole and manipulate it to do what I want it to most of the time, but fear steps in and I keep hitting the brakes. Doc says he can cure it, and it's pretty normal. Id like to not resemble a teenager in drivers ed when backing, any suggestions for getting through that fear or staying off the brake pedal so much?

Im learning how budget my clock in planning. I really enjoy the logistics and planning, its like playing chess.

I love that statement. It tells me that you are really getting it! Keep it up. It sounds like you are having a great training experience. That is wonderful.

Thank you very much. I still have such a long way to go, but a little bit more falls in to place each day.

Training day 4.

Ran down from Idaho falls to our Fontana yard. I got a lot of experience on hills, and keeping a sweet spot between, the RPMs, the Jake level and the speed. We burned an hour of my clock at the big huge truck stop getting white castle burgers just outside of Lost Wages NV. Traffic was pretty much solid from there to Cajon pass a lot of the way south. The pass was screwed. most of the way down. I drove 392 miles today, with an two long breaks and left 2.5 hours on my clock.

Each day, ive been keeping 2 to 2.5 hours unused. The load were on is Billings to LA, Drop Tomorrow at 11:00 AM, We stopped yesterday knowing we had approximately 11 to 13 hours it would take to get to the reciever. Our company policy is that we cant park in the LA area except at our yards. I knew that I wouldnt have enough time to make it to our Fontana yard, but also want to be at the reciever with a fresh clock. If I had been by myself I would have parked just outside the greater LA area as there is some leeway with the policy. I would need enough time to get to my drop, grab an empty and go pick up my next load in Perris CA going out to TX at 14:30. I would see if I could get both the drop and the pick up done early but I cant count on that. If I start my day too soon, needing too much time to get to the drop Id run out of hours. If I started too late, Theres a chance Id miss my appointment at the drop, which I find unacceptable. Right now, my trainer drove the last 130 miles to our Fontana yard, its a nice luxury, but Im not going to have that luxury in two weeks, So Im planning and learning for when im solo. Right now were 45 minutes or so from our drop.

I really want to go over the route to my drop and to my pick up and to TX right now, but Im tired and need some sleep. Ill do it in the AM. Also, backing went better today again, not so abrupt, although my trainer did guide me in, the guidance I recieved was what I was planning on doing, when I was planning on doing it, so it served to confirm that my thoughts were in the right place. I asked him if he thought I would have it in suitable condition for going solo in a few weeks, he said yes. I do too, I will probably be slow, but I know I can get it where it needs to go without hitting anything.

Totally forgot, I drove right through old downtown Boseman MT today. Little kids were staring at the truck waving for me to honk, I didnt think it was appropriate to light up the air horn lol. Was fun as fun can be, felt like being in a parade. street was packed with people as it was Sat morning.

I. LOVE. your. diary~!!

The verisimilitude is phenomenal.

Thanks, Davy.

ps: Future members/readers will glean SO much from your diary, I'm sure.

~ Anne ~

Thank you, I had to look that up for the definition. Hopefully someone stumbles across it and helps cement decisions for them. I cant thank everyone here enough for the help.

Training Day 4 but it may actually be day 3.

Well last night we had to really hustle since we got the 9:00pm dock, The shipping and receiving people at Lowes in Billings were fantastic to work with. They hustled as much as possible, Let me use their restroom back there, were really understanding of our situation. We had to get across town and pick up load from Grain West. Another bunch of great people, very professional and easy to deal with. We had to unhook our load, hook up the empty, unhook it and rehook our load, put in the dock and then take the empty to Grain West. This was going to be my first docking which would have been great experience, but due to the issues from lack of communication and the DM being very unprofessional and snotty with my Trainer about it, we didn't have time. I did the outside work, coupling and uncoupling, etc. Doc (my trainer) did the backing and pulling. As it was I didnt have enough hours left to anyway.

I thoroughly swept out the trailer, got all the debris out of it and we tossed them out. (separate rant here). Sweeping and cleaning is a good break for a minute, keeps you active and kind of resets your mind. No one is above it. I volunteered immediately and made sure to do a damn good job. We knew we would be late, and wanted to make sure not to **** off the guys at Grain West. It was a live load. They really appreciated it. So a little bit of thinking ahead and a little bit of common courtesy goes a long way. Also, nothing ****ess me off more than someone who thinks they are too good for a broom. In general, I hustle, I volunteer to clean the windows when we fuel, I move the chocks, I clean up the cab. Im a guest in the cab and my trainer is giving me something that is hard to put a price tag on. knowledge and experience. Ok, rant done.

I plan on being diplomatic and going through channels as needed if I have issues like this with my DM when Im solo. Could just be that he was having a bad day, my trainer said he has never seen this type of thing from him. In any case, if there is a problem, I have a DDM, the Terminal Manager, and several other managers i could escalate it too if needed. As it was, we got our duties done without complaint and on to the next.

We fueled and scaled out at the Pilot, headed out for a bit and called it a night. I started out this morning outside of billings, Drove 534 miles, with an hour left on my clock. I drove 119 down through Yellowstone. Loved it, beautiful scenery, some technical driving, lots of curves, hills, and on a two lane road. Really enjoyed the Jake brake, reminds me of how we use engine braking on the race track, stayed off the brakes aside from a couple of situations. Really cool drive. Road construction and traffic was a pain in the rear end through Odgen and SLC. on the 15. We stopped at the Flying at the south end of SLC, Doc drove the last hour or so down to the new J at 50 and 15s. Were done for the night. I killed half the run or so. Our appointment time is 0800 Monday AM. We will be in our Fontana yard well ahead of time tomorrow, so we got some of our buffer back. From there we will head out early monday to drop our load, then go from there to TX.

Im getting a handle on trip planning, We get a fuel solution and trip plan from the office on Zonar and our mobile app, but Id like to route the whole thing out using the Rand McNally paper atlas and then manually input the waypoints and stops into a GPS. I dont trust any GPS as far as i can throw them and I grew up using Thomas guides and Atlas for directions. Also, Im learning how budget my clock in planning. I really enjoy the logistics and planning, its like playing chess. Im feeling very comfortable driving the truck and Doc seems very confident in my abilities, same with backing. He summed it up today, He said, yeah, you have the skills, no doubt. Quit second guessing yourself. If your gut told ya to put it in, have faith that you can do it. Otherwise you keep thinking yourself into trouble.

Still kinda scratching my head Zach. You, even if you dont know it, inspired me to keep going no matter what. In training right now. I back up a trailer like kid in daycare after you gave him mountain dew and candy til I settle down. Its just life, Ill get better, ill get worse some days Im sure too. Whatever you do man, Hope ya find success and foster that part of you that says No, I wont quit. Keep on keeping on man.

Oh yeah, forgot, Got pulled into the port of entry in MT on 90. Was easy, in and out fast. Had permit book ready open before they asked for it. They simply asked if we had our red IFTA stickers on both sides. Said Yes Sir, and we were off.

Quick update, drove up to Billings, Apparently someone got our 3 oclock dock and we now have their 8 oclock dock. Trainer was peeved but gently yet firmly urged dispatch to notify us of changes other than messaging as we cant access messages while the vehicle is being driven. So, no shower tonight, and it puts a bit of a squeeze on us as we have to pick up our socal load at 10:00, its 44k so well be heavy, we will definitely be heading to the cat scale as were going to be in CA so the tandems have to be at 40'.

Other than that, driving went great today, had a good time, easy run, and good one learn on, baby hills and a few decent grades so I learned using the Jake to modulate speed and distance. Really pleasant drive.

Backed into a couple easy spots but I was like a hyper 5 year old on mountain dew. Once I settled down it was fine. Did some sight side circles in the Lowes lot so we could park while waiting. They went well, but the trainers nerves were a bit on edge. He was very patient and helpful notwithstanding, so major props there. Overall things are great, I get standard newbie nervousness but it quickly dissipates and I trust when the trainer says Im getting the hang of things, I may not see it, but he does.

I know very little, I just try and keep the same positive can-do attitude especially towards safety and profitability that I had in school and top gun. I also try to be helpful and respectful of my trainers time. Ive had very positive experiences with all the shippers and receiver's that Ive met thus far. I figure that my job right now is to learn all that I can, not just give the okey dokey and brush off valuable lessons.

Training day 2.

At the terminal at 0900, forgot employee badge at home, called trainer, he laughed, plenty of time, part was next day aired, so plenty of time. Returned home, got pass back to terminal to wait some more. Met one of my fellow top gun class mates there. She was having a horrible time with her trainer. Only has 6 days left to do, says she will make it. She called her DDM and DM, also, our top gun facilitator. As her trainer was pulling my class mate sent me a text, her trainer was driving and on facebook live at the same time. I said document it, she did.

My trainer is awesome. old school guy, been driving for 30 years. He says the same things Old School and Gtown and PackRat and Bret and Eroll and all the others here do. We get along well. I have a ton of questions that get answers. I try to be as helpful on the truck as possible, Find solutions and treat him and his living working space with respect.

Had a brake recall as well as the tail light cluster fixed. We got out of the terminal at 5:30 PM. Went to Lowes DC at Cheyenne, Dropped empty, picked up our load. 28k. Not too bad. Headed for Lowes in Billings MT. Load had been canceled or given to someone else because of our downtime. We took the load anyway since we had the trailer and sent in a macro that we have it. The office can sort it out in the AM. Stopped at the sinclair in Wheatland WY. He drove today as it was technically my first day out. From now on I do all the driving, but he will finish the day out after my hours, Makes sense to me. Learned trip planning a lot today, he had me figure out how many hours we need to get to receiver, when to stop, when to start etc. We have Billings MT at 4pm tomorrow, (we call it 3 pm though) and have to be in SoCal at 8:00am Monday morning.

Really liking this, Learned a ton today, Trainer says I have a good attitude and will do just fine at this. Really grateful that I got a great trainer, and was patient enough to wait to get him. Especially after hearing my classmates issues with hers. She is a tough self motivated individual and will make it through her training. Something my instructor at top gun said on our last day was that one in five of us in the class (of five people) would fail from lack of or improper training. I dont plan on being that one. Its our training, our license and our career.

I have a ton to learn but looking forward to the opportunities.

I have very little if any experience, and hopefully not trying to interject anything too ignorant. I also dont know if it is applicable, but the clip about the article mentions suspension. At least on a motorcycle, and car as well, the suspension functions to disperse weight to the wheels and tires under breaking. When entering turns or stopping, we load the front tires up with weight, it increases traction and friction to the tires that need it. As we exit the turn, we accelerate, the rear suspension compresses and transfers the weight to the rear tire which is receiving more force against its contact patch. Lighter bikes, or bikes with less weight on them at the tires accelerate better but take longer to stop in the sense that they are more prone to exceeding grip and thus skidding.

If you have ever driven and empty pickup truck on a washboard gravel road and braked hard, you may have noticed that it takes it longer to stop than the same pickup loaded. Im assuming that the suspension in a truck and trailer has similar characteristics, I would think it would be stiff enough to handle the loads that it might not transfer weight to the wheels and tires as effectively when empty?

Day 1 of training. Met my trainer, we get along great. He says a lot of things like Old School and the gang here, we talked a while about life in the truck, expectations, etc. Anyway, truck had a bad tail light, turns out the pins went and the wiring sub harness for that light has to be replaced. I met his DM and the guys in the shop, asked if there was any way we could temporarily patch in a universal replacement (never hurts to ask), also me and the trainer volunteered to go grab the part out of will call in our personal vehicle or borrow the van from the terminal. Im a pretty good wrench and its plug and play, so I asked if I could replace it myself (again, never hurts to ask) but they already had it out for delivery. So longish story short, Trainer and I talked for about an hour and I went home. Back to the terminal tomorrow and on the road after it gets fixed.

He couldn't find an empty in Cheyenne, so he bobtailed back down to Denver to grab one and pick me up. We need to be back in Cheyenne, drop the empty, Pick up our load and head to Billings. Were now down a day from this, so I think were going to run hard to see if we can make some of that up. Interesting start of training. Plenty to be learned even when not driving.

Sounds like that's all it is, you are eager to get going as you said.

I have been communicating with Knight, waiting to see cardiologist so he can clear me, so I can get my DOT physical...so I can get my CDL permit.

Had a heart attack in 2016, but I need to have a recent echocardiogram for my DOT...clearance won't be an issue - as of last checkup Dr says I am 100%. It is up to me to maintain it.

Deep breath. Enjoy the break. You’ll be up to your eyeballs soon enough!

Good luck and safe travels.

Thanks. Have been in my head obviously, feeling like I was slacking, guessing it's probably normal. And just excited to get started.

Awesome, Hopefully you get it. Ive been really pleased with what I have seen from Knight so far. My trainer called, I head out today at about 2 or 3 pm to Cheyenne and then on to Billings. Hes swinging by the Denver terminal to pick me up and off we go.