Profile For Klutch

Schneider has an account at blue beacon. They set you up with a free wash credit after each PM. I never bothered with the wash stations at any of the terminals.

When I was at Schneider you paid for your own truck wash. They would do a quick was during a PM but that was it. Some OC's with a truck wash would give you a code, but that was rare and depended upon who was working the desk.

I left my first company after the one year mark. Money was not the primary reason but it certainly made the decision easier. I wanted a local, home daily position with weekends off. The fact that I am making more is just icing on the cake. Do what’s going to make you happy, what good is more money if you don’t have time to enjoy it and are miserable to boot.

Hey all,

I am coming up on my one year mark with my company and I had a few questions regarding potential decisions.

So I'll start with: I really really like my company. They are a mid sized carrier, my DM is great, the team is great, the equipment is great, and I genuinely do not want to leave. They also have a heavy haul fleet that does dedicated runs along the corridor my house is on. So I could, one day, get OTR miles / Per diem / no touch freight but with a semi local home most days setup.

That said, I am currently sitting at .42 per mile. One of those pennies is a safety mile. We do get slight mileage bonuses if we hit 12k in a month and the miles are good. But..... I do this because I want to ensure my wife and kids are cared for and taken care of. After one year, is .42 cents a mile decent? What is a general median rate after year one? What is a good earning potential bracket if you had a safe and productive first year?

I only ask because, while I have nothing but love for my company, I am out here to make money. So you can see the moral dilemma.

On a side note, I only ever had two jobs before this. Spent 11 at one and 6 at the other. And the only reason I left that second job was because I moved from WA to ID. So I do enjoy earning stripes and gaining seniority. But I also know trucking is very different when it comes to personal politics and job hopping. Thoughts?

I had two preventable accidents with Schneider my first year, as long as you take ownership and stay positive they will just have you do a training session and send you back on your way. I had a “hit fixed object” in my first week, nothing you can do now just learn from it and move on. I know they hammer it into us in training but seriously, if your questioning it just get out and look.

I’m not sure how long that stuff stays on the DAC, I want to say 3 years but hopefully someone will pipe in that knows for sure.

And do you think I’ll get fired?

They report everything. It will be a preventable accident, hit fixed object.

Every potential employer is different. When I had interviewed with other companies none of them seemed concerned about my DAC, only my clean MVR. The seasoned drivers will have better information on that I’m sure.

They report everything. It will be a preventable accident, hit fixed object.

Every potential employer is different. When I had interviewed with other companies none of them seemed concerned about my DAC, only my clean MVR. The seasoned drivers will have better information on that I’m sure.

I agree with folks who recommend staying with your first company for a year but I do not see a point of staying to the two year mark if your not happy.

I personally started looking at the 9 month mark after my contract was completed and accepted a local job after my year was in. Life’s too short, get your year in sure but after that if you can improve your quality of life… go for it. That’s just my opinion, I couldn’t be happier moving to a local job.

Good luck with the search.

There is a whole lot that I like about driving for my company. This 20 months (roughly) has been great. I think it's time for me to look at other opportunities. Oh, I know full well that the grass can look greener, but once standing on it... completely different story.

I don't want this to be a complaint thread, so I will lay off getting into specifics. I have put my application out there with a few companies and three look pretty promising:

JBS Carriers with their Midwest beef hauler (not live cattle hauler) regional.

Marten Transport with their Northeast regional.

Titan Transfer with a regional out of Detroit.

Ok, so I am not specifically looking for regional opportunities. It just so happens that the companies that have shown interest in my application and seem to be worth making a switch to mostly offer regional positions in my area.

I really want to stick this out until I hit two solid years, so I am really in the feeling out phase with the applications.

Newer drivers, those in training, and those thinking of becoming drivers: Stay with your first company no less than 2 years, when possible. One of the benefits to working for a large carrier is that you don't have to quit and go to another carrier, if you find that you have circumstances requiring that you do something different, driving wise. Typically a large carrier will allow a safe and reliable driver to make a switch to do something different after 6 months or a year, and you have the benefit of having just one employer.

I will keep TT posted as this potential transition to a new phase for my career develops.

Schneider always paid for the trip to my home time park location unless I bobtailed which was very rare. That was their policy anyway.

One secondary aspect to mileage pay is driving to a home time location. That mileage is not paid, but the company furnishes the truck and the fuel for those trips. Tomorrow I am driving over 100 miles for home-time, where I will park the truck and then go on vacation for one week. Pretty generous of the company.

I took a local shuttle driving position running doubles after my year of OVR. Pay and benefits are great, home daily and weekends off. They are starting guys at 31hr but there’s another pay scale for mileage/drops so you get whatever is more… 10k sign on paid at months 3,6 and 9. Even if people don’t want to be a delivery driver there’s still local gigs for shuttle/linehaul positions. I would never go back over the road but I know guys who love it.. it’s just not for me.

One of the things I think this site is skewed on, is how local is looked at. I did two years OTR, have been local for another three years, and while I work with guys who do fourteen hour days with a two hour commute on both ends (which seems to be the prevailing belief around here that all local work is), it's literally by choice. You want to make six figures and live in the sticks, that's what it's going to take. There are other choices though. When we got pregnant last year, I dropped into a 0400-1400 five days a week shift, live seven minutes from the terminal, and still made over 85k for the year. My terminal offers 4, ten hour days weekly shifts and we're not even the only carrier on our block that offers that. I talked to a driver last week working for an equipment rental company who literally works bankers hours and made 75k. You can't tell me local drivers working these shifts aren't getting great family time at home. All I'm saying, is once you get some experience, the local game is not all doom and gloom.

Have you talked to your dispatcher/supervisor?

When I was OTR, if an assignment was showing a “significant” difference between the practical miles and the actual truck route my DTL advised me just to let them know and they would adjust it.

Most of the time when I saw major differences it was because the practical miles were based off the shortlist possible route and then when I would receive my fuel stop(s) it would be on a much longer route but there were ways to bypass that. If there wasn’t then they would just adjust the miles for me. Sometimes I chose to drive more miles because it was actually faster. To each their own, just discuss with your boss

Does it have to be OVR? I did my year over the road with a mega but so glad to be local now. Home daily, weekends off and more money than I ever made on the road. To each their own.

You could look into Performance Food Group. They are located in Essex Junction but they run some drivers out of a shuttle yard in St Johnsbury and offer a training program. Unfortunately I do not know any of the details of the training program but it is another possible option for you to checkout.

Really helpful, like most of your post. 👍🏻

Keep trying to be funny, you’ll get there.

Drama like this really defeats the entire purpose of these forums.

Every time I poke my head back in there’s drama and it’s always the same guy.

Your a know it all ass, knock it off already.

Drama? Who would expect any drama from a group of truck drivers? Shocking.

And Ryan is not an ass. He’s just Ryan.

Drama like this really defeats the entire purpose of these forums.

Every time I poke my head back in there’s drama and it’s always the same guy.

Your a know it all ass, knock it off already.

I don’t even let them get into it. There’s plenty of others way to help out those in need but the beggars that target those areas will never see a dime from me.

What’s the company policy? When I worked for Schneider If you were going to be off for more than 5 days or something like that you were supposed to have your truck cleaned out. I know your situation is a bit different but off for 5 days and then going to the ER to be out another 2 weeks… I personally would have cleaned the truck out. It would have been nice to get a heads up yeah, but can you expect them to let their equipment sit for 3 weeks when they have drivers sitting idle?

Schneider hires inexperienced drivers for a few dedicated accounts in your area. Dollar General which is not recommended for new drivers but also Target and Tractor Supply. I know for Target they were getting the drivers home weekly.

There are some apps that do this.

Checkout “Weather on the way” .

Is there an app that will let you enter your starting point and your destination and keep you informed of weather conditions along or ahead of your travel? Now THAT would be very useful.

I know it’s not what your asking, but if you can swing it… pick up a Steam Deck. IMO it doesn’t get much better than that for PC gaming in the truck. You can still throw it on a docking station and use it with your TV/KB&M as well. I know the specs are not comparable to a high end desktop but it’s just unbelievable for gaming on the go.

Good luck with the inverter, wish I could help with that but I’ll leave that to people who know what they are talking about.

The drivers I used to work with swore by kitty litter. I leave a small jug in my side box with my extra fluids.

I carry two shovels with me. One is a regular snow shovel. I cut the handle down on one I already had so it would fit underneath the bunk, but I know foldable snow shovels can be found at truck stops. My second shovel is a short handled stirrup grip shovel with a sharp point for tackling ice and hard packed snow. Also carry some road salt and sand in small amounts.

I prefer recaps. I’m usually at 66-69 hours for total on-duty in current cycle. When I was trying to run out my 11 every day I would still have a solid chunk of hours left on my 70 when I would be parking for my 34. Just wasn’t enough for the planners to work with when I wasn’t picking anything back up the next day.

For my situation my hours are being utilized better running recaps and I feel much better running the shorter days.

Someone else from the Adirondacks? Grew up in Saranac myself 👍🏻

Anyone living in this part of the country, my heart goes out to you

Oh, you don't have to worry about 95% of those people. I grew up outside Buffalo, and I live in the Adirondacks of Upstate New York now. These are normal events for us that happen regularly every year. As you would expect, the overwhelming majority of people handle it with little trouble, and a small percentage act as if they've never seen snow before and wind up completely unprepared. Fortunately, these types have family and friends that will come to their rescue.

It is very localized to Buffalo and a little bit east.

Yes, the bands of snow are very narrow. Winds blow off the lake in narrow bands and dump the snow. I just took a screenshot of the radar. As you can see, it's actually a very small area getting hit at any given time. That area will shift from North to South as the winds change direction. Right now the band is about as far North as it goes. Most of the time it stays south of I-90.

It is not uncommon to see what Chief Brody is seeing. You will have relatively small areas with 4+ feet of snow and whiteout conditions. Drive another 10 miles and there's barely a hint of snow on the ground and nothing coming down. But if you're in the area getting hit, you can get buried under several feet of snow in a few hours.