Comments By James R.

Not a bad idea! I had forgotten about that thread, i'll try to get some stuff posted.

I'm sneaking back in to poke around for a while. I started here 6 years ago and went to TMC and i've been on the oversized john deere division for the past few years.

It's awesome to have a seasoned hand back around; especially a flatbedder!

Maybe you can grace us with some pix in the 'Flatbed Variety' thread, from years ago?!?!?

Thanks!

~ Anne ~

Walking away from their leases with enourmous debt. What a company can do, that you as an individual cannot, is divide the various forms of risk.

Lets say for example you lease a truck, and it experiences a serious mechanical failure. Not only could you be on the hook for the repairs, you also can't work to pay for them or need to rent another truck to work. Lets say someone steals your load or equipment, you become liable.

A company can spread the loss of one truck needing repairs, buy keeping a rotation of "down" trucks, and simply putting you into the working ones, and even if you did have to wait at least you don't have to pay for the repairs. Similarly, things like load or equipment thefts are spread across an entire fleet. If those sorts of things happen to you as an individual you can be put behind extremely large amounts of money that take years to recover. Think on the order of 30-50k$ major repairs. In other words, buying or leasing are both a roll of the dice where you're hoping nothing major happens until you can get ahead and that if something major does happen you can commit to the years of work it could take to pay for it.

Honestly the most reasonable bet is to find an employee owned company because you get the best of both worlds, but if you really want to be an owner then having a lead of savings and more knowledge about dealing with problems ahead of time will go a long way.

I'm not sure if the general requirements for testing vehicles, but your best bet is to get with the dmv for your local area. If you can't get them a school might have that info.

The big problem with the inspections tied to warnings is that he doesn't have to prove your guilt. It's something that's fundamentally at odds with the constitution since it can affect your livelihood but what can we do.

Guess this was a learning experience for me, as I’ve never had any contact with any law enforcement. I told him 3 times I wasn’t speeding! He never said I clocked u, or what speed he felt I was going, just I looked like I was going over speed. Just really felt like it was a raw deal!

A few years ago Prime used many tactics to try to push drivers into it including saying they had no trucks for company drivers but you could drive today as a leaser. Really scummy stuff in my book.

I always try to tell guys to watch out for those tactics just in case.

No trickery. Respectfully decline by saying; “no thank you” and read everything you are signing...

Next.

Agreed and don't let companies trick you into it.

Artic Fox wrote:

I’m a total newbie, so take what I say with a grain of salt. My advice would be, in addition to what type of freight you want to haul, be sure to consider things like hometime policies, lease options, duration of training, benefits, company culture, etc.

Lease options for a rookie? Not an option at all. Not a consideration. Off the list.

Most people are bad at things they haven't done before, that is there nature of learning.

I think you might have some deeper personal issues mixing in. Even though my trucking career has no accidents, my general approach to life is that " I will succeed in spite of my greatest failures" Own your mistakes and keep charging forward. Billionaires that make multi million dollar mistakes do exactly that.

If you use that Methodology*

The most important skill, by far that you should be mastering is learning how to deal with new and difficult situations safely, independently, and without hitting anything. Being good at backing is certainly helpful, but more importantly you need to be prepared to recognize the difficulty of a situation and handle it with safety as the top priority.

If you use that methodoly, you'll realize that it doesn't actually matter how good you are at backing, because you'll never hit anything anyway. You'll just be a little slower on occasional backs while developing long term skills that will eventually pay off with more speed.

Then think of what you don't want to do and pick based on that. I've seen a lot of people come and go and switch companies 20 times because they never like what they pick. Put some real thought into it.

I would prefer dry van or refrigerated but I'll do whatever it takes to make decent money. I'm not afraid of hard work.

Do you have a preference for what type of freight you want to pull? (Dry Van, refrigerated, tanker or flatbed) That can make a difference.