Comments By Travis

One benefit to living in Mexico is you don't need to kiss a doctor's butt for regular medicines. Narcotics/addictive substances and antibiotics are the only things that need an Rx.

Honestly don't understand the US system after living there. We can buy cars and trucks that go over 100mph, eat refined sugar, drink or smoke(nicotine) ourselves to death and buy guns but god forbid I do some research and buy my own bloof pressure meds or boner pills.

Thanks, you know a lot about diabetes meds. I see my doctor this month. I'll run these by him.

Given you're not scared of injecting, and assuming they're not disqualification meds, ask your doc about liraglutide, semaglutide and related meds. They crush your appetite and would probably help with the eating.

You'd still want to develop and maintain healthy eating habits on the road and some level of activity. I carry shelled pistachios, a 10lb bag of whey protein, powdered oats, fish oil and a few other relatively healthy snacks with me on the road.

Would metformin and maybe a GLP-1 agonist or SGLT2 inhibitor get your diabetes controlled enough to qualify? What part of diabetes disqualified you? Is it using insulin or just at a certain a1c/fasting glucose they say "disqualified?"

As a tanker driver I use my hoses if they're clean and buckets with fittings in them and do some basic exercises. I use fitness rooms at our operating centers if I'm at one and occasionally Uber to a planet fitness.

So here is my situation. About 10 years ago I had a job in electronics that I traveled all the time. Loved it. Longest I was gone was 4 weeks I think. I decided that I wanted to switch careers and drive a truck. So I paid for school and got my CDL. Found out I have diabetes and can't pass the DOT physical. I ended up getting a Govt Job that is Intrastate DOT exempt. It pays decent little less than 70k with great benefits but I miss traveling. I started exercising and losing weight in hopes of passing the physical. So my question do you long term drivers love being on the road as much as when you started? Are you able to maintain fitness while driving the truck? I don't want to put on a ton of weight. And be kicked off the truck. I thought maybe I could bring exercise bands and one of those bikes where you sit on the bunk and pedal? I've seen some fit trucker videos but I don't know if it's realistic. I'm hoping to exercise every other day. Also my worst fear is forced teams. Does that happen often? I enjoy lots of solitude. If they tried to force it on me I'd hop out of the truck and hitchhike home. Oh and one last question. Does management ever inspect the inside of the truck to make sure you haven't altered the truck? I'd probably immediately install an inverter and sound system. I heard some companies don't allow inverters?

I was over a 10% A1c which is an automatic disqualifier. I went to the Dr and was put on insulin. I finally am to the point I don't need it anymore just metformin. So I'm pretty sure I can pass the physical without issue. I just need to be able to maintain my current workout and healthy diet when I'm on the road. If I start eating greasy truck stop food and not exercising I'll put on weight and it'll be game over for me being able to drive interstate.

Would metformin and maybe a GLP-1 agonist or SGLT2 inhibitor get your diabetes controlled enough to qualify? What part of diabetes disqualified you? Is it using insulin or just at a certain a1c/fasting glucose they say "disqualified?"

As a tanker driver I use my hoses if they're clean and buckets with fittings in them and do some basic exercises. I use fitness rooms at our operating centers if I'm at one and occasionally Uber to a planet fitness.

So here is my situation. About 10 years ago I had a job in electronics that I traveled all the time. Loved it. Longest I was gone was 4 weeks I think. I decided that I wanted to switch careers and drive a truck. So I paid for school and got my CDL. Found out I have diabetes and can't pass the DOT physical. I ended up getting a Govt Job that is Intrastate DOT exempt. It pays decent little less than 70k with great benefits but I miss traveling. I started exercising and losing weight in hopes of passing the physical. So my question do you long term drivers love being on the road as much as when you started? Are you able to maintain fitness while driving the truck? I don't want to put on a ton of weight. And be kicked off the truck. I thought maybe I could bring exercise bands and one of those bikes where you sit on the bunk and pedal? I've seen some fit trucker videos but I don't know if it's realistic. I'm hoping to exercise every other day. Also my worst fear is forced teams. Does that happen often? I enjoy lots of solitude. If they tried to force it on me I'd hop out of the truck and hitchhike home. Oh and one last question. Does management ever inspect the inside of the truck to make sure you haven't altered the truck? I'd probably immediately install an inverter and sound system. I heard some companies don't allow inverters?

I'm still new but you'd have to run recaps if you didn't plan on doing a 34. I think I heard it was around 8.75 hours a day you can work if you want to run continuously.

Anyone can correct me if I'm wrong on what my understanding of recaps are and if what I heard is wrong on it being 8 3/4 hours a day. I didn't check the math but it sounds about right

What is the maximum amount of hours you can run so you can be able to always run that same amount of hours and don’t have to do a reset or recaps

I don't envy the tank wash guy who had to go inside there. You said this was inedible division? Does that mean the tankers are seperate from food grade? If not I'd think they'd need a special washout/prep or at least a couple high temp washes before I'd personally want food to ever go in it again

Did you get a whiff when you checked for heel? Probably don my respirator for that 😳🤮

This is actually pretty common for the inedible tanker division at Prime. Not necessarily that the load was rejected outright, but that you have to wait a day for the customer to have room in their storage tank.

Many of our customers have one or two storage tanks for products such as sunflower oil, canola oil, beef fat, or chicken fat. And they go through the product in the storage tanks in matters of days. Thus, they have to schedule loads so that they 1) don't run out of product and 2) have capacity for the product in their storage tanks when we arrive. I had to wait the next day at one delivery because they had to use what they had in their storage tanks before they could off load me. And even then, we split the sunflower oil load between their two tanks.

In addition, most of our customers take samples of the product and we have to wait for the "lab" to test it before we offload. I've never had a load rejected on that basis. However, I did haul a "courtesy load" for a customer in Iowa. The customer had rejected a load of eggs that was in of our tankers. They made arrangements with a local farmer to off load the eggs into a broadcast spreader that the farmer would use to fertilize alfalfa. I hauled the rejected egg load, which had been sitting in the tank for more than 40 days, to the farm where they pumped the eggs into a broadcast spreader.

I could smell the stench from the ground. The guys who pumped off had to hold their breath when they got anywhere near the lid. As far the heel, I took their word for it. I ended up taking the trailer to Prime's tank wash in Springfield. They said is was pretty ripe.

Rob.

Why don't they just tone down the alerts? I assume the telemtry has the exact data as well as just "alert." So if the sensors ready x.xx° lean and y.yy G force unless the sensors are bad just adjust it so the alerts only trigger at the readings they do in the older trucks.

My 22 has had 0 alerts aside from the bridge and other phantom "collision imminent" silliness.

The new trucks are overly sensitive. I had no critical events in my first two trucks, in this new one I had multiple in a few days. Going over the analytics with my DTL, for me it was coming out of turns and speeding up to merge. Any time I start to speed up coming out of a turn it triggers roll stability. Really have to baby it on those ramps/turns. It can make getting up to speed to merge a real pita.

Hi. Iam a 5 year driver and work for schneider. I used to drive the 2018 freightliner. Just got the new 2023 and am having issues. I had 1 roll stibility in 4.5 years. In the new truck 5 in 4 months. It seems that in rain its really sinsitive. Is it just me or anyone else getting lots in the new trucks? Will need to quit before i get a bad rep.

Did you get a whiff when you checked for heel? Probably don my respirator for that 😳🤮

This is actually pretty common for the inedible tanker division at Prime. Not necessarily that the load was rejected outright, but that you have to wait a day for the customer to have room in their storage tank.

Many of our customers have one or two storage tanks for products such as sunflower oil, canola oil, beef fat, or chicken fat. And they go through the product in the storage tanks in matters of days. Thus, they have to schedule loads so that they 1) don't run out of product and 2) have capacity for the product in their storage tanks when we arrive. I had to wait the next day at one delivery because they had to use what they had in their storage tanks before they could off load me. And even then, we split the sunflower oil load between their two tanks.

In addition, most of our customers take samples of the product and we have to wait for the "lab" to test it before we offload. I've never had a load rejected on that basis. However, I did haul a "courtesy load" for a customer in Iowa. The customer had rejected a load of eggs that was in of our tankers. They made arrangements with a local farmer to off load the eggs into a broadcast spreader that the farmer would use to fertilize alfalfa. I hauled the rejected egg load, which had been sitting in the tank for more than 40 days, to the farm where they pumped the eggs into a broadcast spreader.

First time here as an actual driver. I came here once when we did our "victory drive" in CDL school once we had our CDLs but we're still rounding out hours before the certificate.

First truck, 2019 Cascadia. Second truck, I got a day later was a 2022 Cascadia 👌👌

It's a contract through an agency, 90 days to possible hire. I emailed them and asked for a copy of the contract with all the days on and off, travel being paid(or not) and man camp accomodations and any per diem as well as any other stipulations and benefits etc made to me.

I'll let you know what I hear back. It's through Fieldbridge

Travis -

Where is the job located?

Schlumberger, or as they are changing the name, “SLB” is the world’s largest oilfield service company. I’ve not worked for them, but I have worked for other service companies and been in the business for over 40 years.

The advantages I see for the job for a driver are – hourly pay, time off, and full benefits (health, dental, & vision insurance, 401k, etc). There’s also room for promotion – normally a bulk truck driver would move up to cement pump operator, and from that to cementer (service supervisor). For housing, they will probably put you up in a man camp – I’d ask about that to be sure. I’m surprised that SLB is paying for flights for operators, so get that in writing. You will travel on your time, which makes that 6 days off more like 4 depending on your travel schedule.

The hours for your two weeks on duty are long. You will be out in the weather no matter what it is. I work on the frac side, and the only thing we shut down for is lightning since we have so much electronic equipment on location. You will also eventually work every day of the year. Drilling rigs, which you will be delivering to, generally don’t shut down for holidays.

Other companies that should have positions like this are Halliburton, BJ Services, and Nextier. Plus there’s some smaller companies, but I’m not sure which of them are in the cementing side.

There are other driving jobs. Hauling frac sand, fuel delivery, rig moving (specialized trucks for this), hauling drill pipe & casing, and so on. I don’t recommend hauling sand – it’s done by a lot of small companies as third-party contractors, and I suspect that a lot of them are 1099 companies. Fuel delivery, on the other hand, I’ve had every driver I’ve asked say that it is the best driving job they’ve had.

Not to be pedantic, but it is cement, not concrete. Concrete has aggregate in it and is used in construction. Cement is what holds the aggregate together. Oil field cementing does not use aggregate.

Hopes this helps!