Comments By Bud A.

I have never heard that, but the document you posted seems to indicate they want it down. I don't remember any toll roads in Arkansas though lol, so I doubt that's the reason. It probably has more to do with bridge weights.

Anyway, I hated those lift axle trailers that Prime has. I almost always dropped the axles when empty or light. It really sucks to only have one axle down 48 feet back.

You should add this post to our Local Thread.

I have done that. Maybe Brett can consolidate the two threads.

Oh, by the way, did I mention that my company doesn't even own any tarps?

That is too funny! Hey, could you send me an application? I might even move to Iowa for that gig!

Congratulations Bud! You probably won't even end up having any beard-cicles in the winter time with that job - another benefit!

Just kidding about that application. I experience a lot of the same benefits you are referring to when it comes to establishing relationships with fork lift operators, and others that you work with. I am still basically an Over The Road driver, but I often go to the same customers. It is just part of the way this dedicated account works. There is a world of difference in getting things done that are maybe a little out of the ordinary when you have a rapport already established with these folks.

I'm really glad to see you found something that is working well for you!

Oh, I'll get beard-cicles sure enough, even just strapping and unstrapping. It's hard not to when it's below zero, and that happens quite a bit around here.

And yes, you don't have to be local to get to know people. Dedicated works well for that. My job is like a dedicated account, without the trucking company in between.

Recently I took a job that is local. (By "local," I mean home (almost) every night and every weekend.) I pull open decks, mostly stepdecks, but occasionally flatbeds and an RGN. Others here have described their local jobs, including LTL , Walmart, beverage distribution, gasoline tanker, and other jobs. Pat M. has posted pictures of his local open deck job, which was mostly heavy haul and OS/OD loads up in Montana.

What is different about this job is that it is not for a trucking company. I am one of two drivers for a local manufacturer. They make utility poles and communications towers. Most of their loads are hauled by third-party trucking companies, including two flatbed outfits whose names anyone here would immediately recognize. But it is cost effective for my company to have two trucks to haul some of their loads.

Most of my loads are to and from a plant about 100 miles away. A lot of days I will haul four loads in a day, one down, one back, then repeat. Some days I will take a load to a different plant that is a little further away. (Usually the other driver takes those loads, but not always.) Some days my backhaul load will be from a different plant about 50 miles further on from my usual plant. And then some days I deliver finished product to job sites or laydown yards, which can be just about anywhere in a 300-mile radius.

This job also has quite a different feel from working for a trucking company. Like any great trucking company, the equipment is top notch. The benefits are stellar. Pay is hourly, and I only get paid for the hours I log, so I never go off duty unless I'm on my 30-minute break. I'm on a 7-day, 60-hour clock instead of the OTR clock (8-day, 70-hour clock). I'm working about 20 hours a week less than I did when I was OTR for roughly the same pay. And I'm home every night. (It's still feels a little weird, actually.)

My boss is in charge of making sure all of the companies loads get delivered on time. One of the functions we two drivers fulfill is to ensure that any really hot load gets done on time. Sometimes that might involve being out overnight, but that has only happened once in the first month that I've been there. It also means that very often I know what I'll be doing a day in advance, and sometimes almost a week in advance.

Another aspect of the job that I really like is I know all of the forklift operators who load my trailers. They're very experienced and know exactly how to load the truck. And they're fast. I never have to wait on either end of my daily journeys.

There are definite benefits to being a regular. I have been working hard to build up good relationships with everyone that I work with, which is something I learned before I became a truck driver. It is often preached here, and for good reason.

For example, little things like remembering something personal someone mentioned in a conversation go a long ways toward building good relations. That might just make your day go a whole lot better if you ever make a mistake. I don't know about you, but I make mistakes more often than I'd like to admit. With this job, since I deal with the same people over and over again, I can use some of those things to really help make my life (and hopefully theirs) a lot more pleasant.

That was one thing about OTR that was a little more difficult. It can be hard to build an instant rapport with the folks whose help you need to make your job easier. With a local job, you can work at it, so that even if you're a bit socially awkward like myself, you can really have a positive impact on how your day goes just by being friendly and reliable.

Oh, by the way, did I mention that my company doesn't even own any tarps?

Flatbedders! Not every local job involves unloading a truck into a dollar store or hauling dirt to construction projects! Think outside the box and look for local manufacturers who have flatbed freight. Maybe there's a job there for you. Remember, Old School was once the guy who hired drivers to haul his stuff around. You might find someone like him to give you a job and be your boss. How great would that be?

I found this job by searching craigslist and the local paper and a few other job sites. It took a while, and the job description didn't paint the full picture of how awesome this job is. The process I used was to write down the phone numbers of every job that sounded like a possibility, then calling every single one of them and asking them questions. It helped that I knew what I wanted, and it helped even more that I had over two years of OTR flatbed experience to offer them. Most every company I talked to seemed to be interested in me as a candidate.

This may not be advice for newcomers to trucking, but there are plenty of folks who started here and are wondering what to do after getting through that initial time of getting established in the industry. There may be others who are wondering how it might go in the long run. Hopefully this will help someone.

Recently I took a job that is local. (By "local," I mean home (almost) every night and every weekend.) I pull open decks, mostly stepdecks, but occasionally flatbeds and an RGN. Others here have described their local jobs, including LTL, Walmart, beverage distribution, gasoline tanker, and other jobs. Pat M. has posted pictures of his local open deck job, which was mostly heavy haul and OS/OD loads up in Montana.

What is different about this job is that it is not for a trucking company. I am one of two drivers for a local manufacturer. They make utility poles and communications towers. Most of their loads are hauled by third-party trucking companies, including two flatbed outfits whose names anyone here would immediately recognize. But it is cost effective for my company to have two trucks to haul some of their loads.

Most of my loads are to and from a plant about 100 miles away. A lot of days I will haul four loads in a day, one down, one back, then repeat. Some days I will take a load to a different plant that is a little further away. (Usually the other driver takes those loads, but not always.) Some days my backhaul load will be from a different plant about 50 miles further on from my usual plant. And then some days I deliver finished product to job sites or laydown yards, which can be just about anywhere in a 300-mile radius.

This job also has quite a different feel from working for a trucking company. Like any great trucking company, the equipment is top notch. The benefits are stellar. Pay is hourly, and I only get paid for the hours I log, so I never go off duty unless I'm on my 30-minute break. I'm on a 7-day, 60-hour clock instead of the OTR clock (8-day, 70-hour clock). I'm working about 20 hours a week less than I did when I was OTR for roughly the same pay. And I'm home every night. (It's still feels a little weird, actually.)

My boss is in charge of making sure all of the companies loads get delivered on time. One of the functions we two drivers fulfill is to ensure that any really hot load gets done on time. Sometimes that might involve being out overnight, but that has only happened once in the first month that I've been there. It also means that very often I know what I'll be doing a day in advance, and sometimes almost a week in advance.

Another aspect of the job that I really like is I know all of the forklift operators who load my trailers. They're very experienced and know exactly how to load the truck. And they're fast. I never have to wait on either end of my daily journeys.

There are definite benefits to being a regular. I have been working hard to build up good relationships with everyone that I work with, which is something I learned before I became a truck driver. It is often preached here, and for good reason.

For example, little things like remembering something personal someone mentioned in a conversation go a long ways toward building good relations. That might just make your day go a whole lot better if you ever make a mistake. I don't know about you, but I make mistakes more often than I'd like to admit. With this job, since I deal with the same people over and over again, I can use some of those things to really help make my life (and hopefully theirs) a lot more pleasant.

That was one thing about OTR that was a little more difficult. It can be hard to build an instant rapport with the folks whose help you need to make your job easier. With a local job, you can work at it, so that even if you're a bit socially awkward like myself, you can really have a positive impact on how your day goes just by being friendly and reliable.

Oh, by the way, did I mention that my company doesn't even own any tarps?

Flatbedders! Not every local job involves unloading a truck into a dollar store or hauling dirt to construction projects! Think outside the box and look for local manufacturers who have flatbed freight. Maybe there's a job there for you. Remember, Old School was once the guy who hired drivers to haul his stuff around. You might find someone like him to give you a job and be your boss. How great would that be?

I found this job by searching craigslist and the local paper and a few other job sites. It took a while, and the job description didn't paint the full picture of how awesome this job is. The process I used was to write down the phone numbers of every job that sounded like a possibility, then calling every single one of them and asking them questions. It helped that I knew what I wanted, and it helped even more that I had over two years of OTR flatbed experience to offer them. Most every company I talked to seemed to be interested in me as a candidate.

This may not be advice for newcomers to trucking, but there are plenty of folks who started here and are wondering what to do after getting through that initial time of getting established in the industry. There may be others who are wondering how it might go in the long run. Hopefully this will help someone.

Hey Bud, that is a nice rig! You need to give me a ride sometime!

Thanks! I really do love this truck.

I saw one of your Knight SAPA trucks out in the middle of South Dakota last week, but it wasn't you. Let me know next time you're in Sioux City!

That goes for anyone from here, actually. I go past the Sioux City truck stops every week day on the way to and from work, and I'm home every weekend and it's not a far trip. Post something and I'll probably see it. I check in here a couple times a day.

Laredo flatbed freight availability varied wildly when I used to go there. Usually I'd get in and out the same day, but a couple of times I had to sit a day for a load. I knew guys who got stuck there for a weekend too, and sometimes I heard about drivers being stuck for a couple of days during the week. As ChickieMonster said, the loads from Mexico don't come over the border 24/7, so sometimes you have to wait.

If you're adventurous, I know you can find some really good restaurants there. There are probably lots of other things to do in the area too. Listen to Johnny Cash's version of Streets of Laredo if you can't think of anything else to do.

I love my truck. It has everything I need, and nothing I don't. It took a while to get used to the longer wheelbase, since I'd been driving a short Cascadia right before this job, but I'm used to it now.

I'm never quitting this job as long as I can drive this truck.

Despite the headline, this would have also affected truck drivers.

Experts: Lives at risk if no sleep tests for train engineers

U.S. officials are abandoning plans to require sleep apnea screening for truck drivers and train engineers, a decision that safety experts say puts millions of lives at risk.

The Federal Railroad Administration and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said late last week that they are no longer pursuing the regulation that would require testing for the fatigue-inducing disorder that has been blamed for deadly rail crashes in New York City and New Jersey and several highway crashes.

The agencies argue that it should be up to railroads and trucking companies to decide whether to test employees. One railroad that does test, Metro-North in the New York City suburbs, found that 11.6 percent of its engineers have sleep apnea.

I'm pretty sure Daniel plays the newest game for old Russians, curling with cars.

In his youth, though, he was a major player in motorcycle racing on ice.

I just felt tired and upset and found my mind drifting well driving , so I said screw this load I'm not driving !

Sure I'm afraid of being fired now, not because I refused to drive illegally but because I didn't make delv time.

Anyhow the point of this word salad is, always risk your job and not others lifes.

Fact is if you push yourself or ever put this job before your own personal health or well being , you are the reason we need more regulations in this industry .

Pushing yourself when you know you are not driving in a safe manner is never good , and anyone who does it should have their drivers license and not just cdl taken away.

So I shut down for a 2 hour nap, try and make me out as a villain all you want. You're just showing your true colors .

I'm not sure the point of your story , you mean your wife has to do her job ? Things don't always run smoothly or as planned otherwise i doubt she would have much to do.

And for explaing all she has to say is , driver got fatigued and that's that. If people are being rude to her she should polity ask them to be kind or hang up and refuse to do business with them unless they can act more professional .

I have thought about this for a couple days now, so if you are just a troll, you have succeeded in wasting my time. You didn't make me angry, though, so that is a troll-failure.

There's one thing I want to add. Werner, based on your posts here, I think you are the type who is so sensitive to everything that is happening to you that you probably cannot see that it has nothing to do with you. What I mean by that is, we all face difficult circumstances in life from time to time, some more than others, but how we deal with those circumstances makes all the difference.

You are not dealing well with your circumstances. You are not very tough mentally or emotionally. Crying about safety and looking for sympathy because you know you might have really screwed up and get fired as a consequence is no way to go through life. You would do better to learn to accept the consequences of your actions sooner rather than later.

For example, you said initially that you got your rest but your mind was wandering so you stopped for a two-hour nap. Honestly, I'm OK with that. I have stopped a few times when I was sick or overly tired myself.

What I didn't do was risk a delivery time and just say, Screw this load! No, I called dispatch, let them know what was happening, and did what I needed to do to be safe. Once I missed a delivery time because of illness, but it wasn't a problem because I communicated and dispatch helped me by contacting the customer to move it back a bit.

Once I started feeling a little sick while I was about an hour from delivering. I called dispatch and let them know that I needed a day to recover, but that I would deliver the load. By the time I got done unstrapping and untarping, I was drenched in sweat even though it was about 50 degrees out. I drove to the nearest truck stop, which was 25 miles away, and parked it for two days until I felt better.

Was I unsafe in doing that? No, I was able to control the truck and pay attention, though it was more difficult than usual. My dispatcher did not give me a hard time at all because I communicated clearly and did what I needed to do to get the job done safely.

Your comments tend to indicate that at any sign of difficulty, you are going to fold up and quit until everything is perfect. Calling for more regulations means that you think that is the only way people change their behavior, which means that is likely the only reason you ever change your behavior. The reality is that many of us change our behavior because that is how we are going to improve, whether there's a regulation for that or not.

You are not the safer driver, despite your attempts to make yourself look like you are. You are less safe, because your worldview doesn't extend much beyond your self-interests. You lack the ability to see yourself clearly, and you lack empathy for other people's points of view.

Lack of empathy is the root cause of road rage and a host of other bad driving behaviors. Here are a few examples:

* Not yielding for a merging vehicle, even if it's technically not your problem

* Continuing to follow too closely when a car cuts in front of you but then slows to drive the same speed as you

* Making a turn onto a roadway instead of waiting another 15 seconds for oncoming traffic to pass when you know it's going to be close for them and they may have to slow down until you can get up to speed

This career really isn't for you, frankly. Personally, I will feel safer if you do get fired and are unable to find another job driving a truck, because that will mean one less prima donna is on the road. Maybe you can get a job at a government agency writing more regulations to make this job even more difficult. I suspect you would fit right in there.