Comments By Attila

Gotta love how the shop acts as if you're inconveniencing them by bringing in the company truck for work.

My dad and I noticed some very odd wear on one of our drive tires (entire chunks of tread missing) and some uneven wear on our steers.

If your working for a large carrier that has multiple shops you will find out all of them are not equal. SWIFT has shops all over (I have not even been to many of them) and will send in a request to get me to my favorite shops. Columbus, Salt Lake, Oklahoma City have been excellent and I get the major fixes done at those. Juarrupa and Phoenix are so so if they are not swamped. I stay far away from Houston, Memphis and Denver. Takes awhile but you will be able to know the good ones and get your DM to dispatch you to them for maintenance.

If the company and/or your state is "at will" employment you can leave anytime you want. These companies do have the authority to make your CDL life hell though through DAC reporting or starving you out on your last two weeks. If it is a medium to smaller company, you know most the staff and are on good terms you can give the two weeks. For a large corporation I would clean out and shop the truck at a terminal, set my availability for a few days after you are leaving, write a short letter telling them why you are leaving, then leave. This will make sure you are covered legally, monetarily and morally.

I can see automation coming to shippers/recievers, ship yards ect... fairly quickly. Any environment that you can control with almost absolute certainty (private property), probably can be automated. I have worked in Intel fabrication units that automated 75% of its stocking and shipping departments back in the late 90's. If you can keep the civilians out and employees follow very strict pathing rules these yards can be automated. The only way I see our roads becomming automated is by mandating all vehicles have to be automated and zero civilian (foot) access to the roads. Otherwise very unlikely. The day trucks can drive themselves is the day we no longer need doctors, lawyers, judges, politicians ect... Maybe a good thing :-P

Lots I love about trucking. Working with a team but not having to deal with human pecking orders (mostly). Driving semi's is just awsome. I'm a introvert, don't get me wrong, I am the life of a party but when that party is over I need days to recharge. In trucking with the isolation I am always recharged. I solve 90% of the problems I face out here alone and that is where I thrive. The trucking community/culture is great, it's like I have found my people. The nomadic ways of a trucker feels almost natural to me. Nothing like a good long haul on a lose schedule to make my month!

Ah, you're dedicated, they prolly wont budge on that :-( ,,who knows though.

Tom, ask your DM specifically if you are in regional or the lower 48. They accidentally placed me in regional without any notification and I was stuck doing CA, OR, NV runs. Asked them what was going on and someone messed up in safety by placing me there. Once you go lower 48 you will be all over the place. They will expect you to run around 3 weeks at a time before going home FYI.

Eckon, I had that lady yard dog of yours yelling at me to park my t call somewhere else. I just reved my engine until she turned red and stomped off. Also watched a couple of bull's games with the guys, best place to watch basketball IMO.

No joke here, I saw a guy fueling up his nice Pete using a freaking walker while his woman sat holding the puddles. I was like, U go Bro :-P

Jarod, this is going to be real hard on you and family. Bret has a great article called "is trucking right for me?" Read it if you have not already. It goes into the family man mindset. SWIFT probably won't let you take the truck home the first couple months, so be prepared for that. You will also want to shop your truck on home time. Nothing sucks more than you stuck somewhere for days, away from home, while they fix your truck. Thats why I brought up the smaller yards, I'm sure they would be OK with you parking in one of them if close to home. After a few months SWIFT will trust you with the equipment. Then again it never hurts to ask.

That map does not tell the whole story. SWIFT has many smaller yards or contracts with other institutions on parking. Your DM most likely won't know that info. Best bet talk to a Planner at Memphis, they know the logistics infrastructure better than DM's.