Profile For Snappy

You do realize what will happen to you if you get pulled in for a DOT inspection and they find an unauthorized passenger in your CMV right? You might as well start looking for another industry to join if that happens.

As for the underlined, you terrify me. That type of mentality has gotten innocent people killed.

Has anyone mentioned how much this forum could use a "like" button?

I was talking to a parking garage driver last winter while checking into a hotel (truck was broken). He said they do really well, which is what I've heard elsewhere too. As far as how well, that I don't know for sure.

I do have to say though, I'm wondering about how easy some of those rigs are to see out of!

In the two years I have been driving I have never run out of time before managing to find a place to park at.

Mostly because I drive regionally out of Dallas, have not touched the coastal states since my training days.

You have your 14 hours, and your 11 driving hours, (or your recap), plan wisely!

And plan for contingencies. Because you don't know when you're going to be stuck behind a wreck for three hours.

This dude needs to be locked up. No bail, sit in county til your court date, do not pass go, do not collect $200.00, and charged with one count of negligent homicide per victim.

That's awesome, Shannon! I'm looking forward to tarping and untarping in a Michigan winter, myself! :)

I gave Pam three months. Most of that time was spent doing solo runs from Laredo to Detroit and back, putting in about 3000 or so miles a week. At .25cpm though (and even after a raise to .26cpm) I was barely making a living.

Now I'm not one to badmouth Pam, if you have a teammate that you can live in a truck with and sleep through their driving, you can make a living with them. But solo drivers tend not to get the miles I got with them, and they are very focused on the team driving.

What I hate most about today's set of rules is the 14 hour rule. Studies have shown a million times over the years that after 8 hours of work a person's safety and productivity drop off dramatically. So what do they do? Force you to put in 11 hours in a 14 hour period.

I hate the 11/14 hour rules too, for completely different reasons. Mostly for long runs with tight schedules. So I can drive 11 hours, then I have to sleep in this arbitrary 10 hour window. How many hours are in a day again?

Just make it 14 hours for driving, sleeping, or whatever, and suddenly you're not messing with someone's circadian rhythms.

Yep Errol V. I just launched it to plan a trip to Ga. And there they were Pesky weigh stations. Even tells the status. And rest stops. Great app to have

Never trust the status for the weigh station on the app. I have caught it in a lie before. ;)

Good choice going for a cheap Cobra. That's what I have, a DX IV. For what I usually hear on the CB, I'm glad I didn't spend any more.

As far as signal quality, the FCC regulates how much power the unit can put out, so unless you want NOAA weather radio, lots of chrome, or other fancy stuff, you're basically getting the same thing no matter what you spend.

Quality improvements come primarily from tuning the antenna to the radio. You can pay a CB shop to do that, or if you can see how to adjust your antenna, a $20 SWR meter and a 3 foot patch cable can be used. Just YouTube search for instructions. SWR meters are built in to most of the fancier radios.

I usually try to shut down at a consignee... I've only shut down at a shipper once, their machine making the parts I was hauling broke, and I ran out of hours before they let me know.

Melton is another good flatbed company if you want to go that route :)

That's one of the cooler things with my company. They build layover pay into the contracts, and after two hours, the driver sends in a detention notice. I've only got held up long enough to be paid for it once so far, usually the shipper or receiver starts moving pretty quickly when they realize it's going to cost them more to have your truck looking pretty in their loading area! :)

As a new driver I know I get the bottom of the barrel loads. He occasionally throws me some sweet ones to make up for it too. Cuss him one day, man crushing on him the next.

That's exactly what it's like and that never changes. Every load is a new adventure. Some are fantastic, some you loathe. It's a roller coaster running OTR. The weather, traffic, schedules, terrain, and population density change continuously. Then to add to it you're paid by the mile. That's great because the more work you do the more money you make, but when your truck breaks down or you sit at a customer for seven hours it can be super frustrating. You know it's best to keep your emotions on an even keel for your long term health and sanity but it's not easy sometimes.

Man, that 7 hours thing was my day yesterday. Putting a tarp back on a multiple stop load in high winds. :( I finally got it on "good enough," and busted tail to the 2nd stop. But do you know what it would take to make me a happy trucker right now? A new load and a shower! That's all I want!!! ;)

Going to Prime orientation in July and I want to know will it affect if I get a 3 year, 1 year, or 3 months check if I already take blood pressure medicine. Is this something I need to disclose to the doctor?

Yes you will need to disclose it, and yes it will limit you to a 1 year cert. I'm in the same boat.

It's been a while since I've been that way, but I usually get my 34 hour resets in on I-35 through there. ;)

Thanks guys, just needed the sanity check. I wouldn't and won't haul coils without at least two chains, even small ones, and more as needed. Whenever I'm in doubt, I add one. I just wanted to make sure I was thinking clearly - the guy said it so confidently, like I was a moron for doing all that extra work.

One thing I've learned in the short time I've been flatbedding -- never let someone else tell you how to do your job! Make sure everything is done right, legally, and to your own standards. Recently, a guy at a receiver came up to "help" me fold and roll up a tarp. His greeting was "you can tell you haven't done this too many times," or something very similar. After thinking he was going to teach me something new, he was trying to pressure me into half-assing the job. I told him thanks, but I need to be able to get this tarp into that sidebox when I'm done. It took longer than it should have to do it right, and all I could do was "grin and bear it" as I fixed my tarp. Sure enough, the next load was a no-tarp load that took the whole bed, on a different trailer. I'm glad I stuck to my guns and did it right the first time!

That's funny because we do the same thing only it is anything east of the Mississippi, South of I80 or west of Arizona. Although we do talk about putting up a fence on the western boundary of Arizona.

That's fine by me, I escaped into Oregon, not Arizona. ;)

Hey Papa G! I actually just drove past a public course in California that had truck parking! It's out there if you look hard enough!

I stopped playing a few years ago. I just don't have time to make it worthwhile anymore. Doesn't mean that you can't bring a few clubs and some practice balls out on the truck with you if you'd like :)

Phew, I'm glad this thread turned away from the secular v. non-secular debate, I was almost tempted to throw my own two cents in! Not that anybody else would care... ;)

Pat / Old School / anyone else, what are your thoughts?

I think I'm glad I'm just hauling formed steel today! :D

The FMCSR is very clear on how coils are to be loaded and secured. I would check very carefully before I tied down coils any other way than how I usually do it. Beyond that, a wise person once said, nobody has ever seriously regretted using too much securement. ;)