Comments By Rob T.

Julio the only advice we can really offer is to apply everywhere and see who is willing to take a chance. Make sure it's a W2 position meaning you're a company driver receiving benefits and work comp.

Anybody willing to hire you is going to want details and what you learned from this. It will be a tough battle given the current freight market but apply everywhere and see what happens. It likely will be for less pay than you were receiving just keep that in mind.

It looks like Keurig Dr Pepper drivers voted at 3 separate facilities in Wisconsin to get rid of the Teamsters. According to Freightwaves:

Local 200 has been representing us for the entire 20 years I’ve been working here, and in that entire time, we’ve had four contracts,” Cotts said in the statement. “All four have been poor. Constantly getting five-year contracts, which are of no benefit to us employees. Poor vacation, poor pay, subpar benefits, no real job protections. Our contract wages were way below standard for our industry.”

The article also mentions the union claiming a big win at US Foods but doesn't have information of the contract, and also a potential strike at Anheuser-Busch.

This just goes to show that local leadership for the union matters. Dr Pepper drivers at those 3 locations weren't happy with their contracts, but UPS and US Foods seem to be.

For some reason when clicking the link I'm trying to provide it pulls up page not found on freightwaves despite copy/paste. It may be due to TT censor putting stars in link as shown below.

Teamsters ousted at Dr Pepper Wisconsin, face off against Anheuser-Busch

Drivers have different preferences for where they like to run or maybe certain customers they service. In a standard OTR setup you're not likely to frequently get the same assignment as dedicated or local but I'm sure it happens.

For me, I enjoy a run a route I occasionally will take Wednesdays and/or Fridays. It typically consists of leaving Des Moines for 1 store in the Kansas City metro before going to Lawrence KS for 1 store and 2 gas stations with a backhaul in the KC area. It's a pretty laid back drive, rarely run into other drivers, the stops in Lawrence are easy and ends up paying about $500 for 12 hours. I have to hand unload at gas stations (with employee help) but it's usually 50ish cases and the exercise is nice. The only downside is the drop/hook backhaul frequently, but not always, paired with it. They have you check in then assign you 1 of 4 offsite locations to drop it a couple miles away. Go drop your empty and come back to grab your loaded. It takes about an hour so it's not terrible but it's 42k of butter we pick up. Fortunately I've done it enough I have a sheet of paper I've written down load weight and tandem placement for various heavy backhauls. I still hit a scale to double check but it saves time. Yesterday I scaled legal with 11,880 33,180 32520 with a total of 77,580.

What's your favorite?

As the other 2 guys mentioned keep focused on the task at hand. Do everything you can to keep a clean record and you'll have many opportunities after a year. We've had many new drivers pop in here and have their entire career planned out then can't make it through school for various reasons.

With that being said money isn't everything if you're not happy with what you're doing. After you get experience you'll have a better idea of the type of job you want. I see you listed Ankeny IA in your profile as your location. You have a lot of LTL carriers to the south like Old Dominion, FedEx, and a few others. We have drivers active on this forum that drive for them (different terminals) and are happy there. Personally I don't think I'd enjoy it due to running the same route every day/night.

I drive for PDI (Hy-vee) in Ankeny and enjoy the job enough that I commute 45 minutes each way. We don't have the turnover problem many companies in this industry face. To some drivers they wouldn't enjoy it because most routes start between midnight and 2am but it works great for me and juggling family life.

You also have Casey's and Kwik Star frequently looking for drivers. Kwik Star is advertising $105k a year for fuel haulers your first year with them. The opportunities I discussed are only a small fraction of what's available that gets you home daily in this area. If you're looking to stay OTR there's far more. Let's get through school, keeping a clean record then focus on what's next after you get a year of safe driving 🙂

Now the full point of termination. I was in my company yard they had a stop sign placed behind a bunch of trailers and trees. everyone on the yard pulls past the stop sign because you cannot see anything where the sign is placed. so you have to pull a bit after the sign and stop. stop and check if any yard trucks are coming. I did what I have done and everyone on the yard does and it follows. I pulled a bit past the stop sign about to where the sign was visible in the passenger window to the head of the trailer that was blocking all view in order to see and stop. company records everything on their dashcam. safety called me in a week later I was fired no chance auto-termination.

In that instance stop BEHIND the stop sign. THEN creep forward as needed to see and proceed when safe.

Hogan is hiring out of Plant City. Job linkI've not worked there but worked with a guy that nobody would touch due to termination for safety. He claims drive cam came loose and was hitting windshield so he unhooked it to not break window.

Most companies will be willing to hire you after 6 months of safe driving elsewhere after termination for safety.

Unfortunately knight won't put a deer slayer on.

Any idea why? At PFG we didn't either but that was far more city driving. I'm guessing Knight choosing not to utilize them is cost/benefit. It blows my mind hearing some OTR drivers hitting 8 or 9+ MPG. I'm usually right around 6.9 - 7.5 MPG but I also run 70 when possible as opposed to 65 or less.

Just before I hit the deer there was a class B tanker oil truck that merged on the highway behind me. He was tailgating me decently and alot of cars were out and about. After hitting the deer (and leaving it in travel lane I'm guessing due to tandems rolling over it) traffic backed off very quickly. This is another example of why following distance is so important.

Here's a list of Approved schools in the state of Washington. While many companies may choose to not bring WA residents to their out of state schools you still have options for paid training. Many of the large companies partner with private schools.

One option for you would be contact a private school. I attended 160 driving academy and part of their enrollment process was getting pre-hired at numerous companies they partnered with. I attended the school in Moline Illinois and had a great experience. We had students that had contracts to work for Schneider, Swift, USA Truck and US Xpress among others. Each school runs independently for the most part and your experience would vary depending on the quality of the instructors.

It'd be worth a shot to check those out but the license suspension is likely to hold you up. If it does, find a job doing something to establish work history.

The dash board garbage, made me wonder HOW the H3LL, they get thru a scale without being flagged in for inspections !?!?

I remember quite clearly the pretrip we learned in school included the dashboard being clear. In my daycab I have a small trash can with a plastic grocery bag I'm able to put my trash in and keep it out of sight. A dirty truck drives me crazy. Our wash bay has been down for 2 weeks waiting on parts and I'm not happy.

In addition to what others have mentioned, When you move over to let another driver on and they wait to blow your doors off until you're able to get safely back over. Not having too much pride to back off the pedal for 5 seconds to allow a truck that's slightly faster to get by rather than getting into a turtle race for 5 miles.

I've personally been called out on the CB for good behavior. When it's raining/wet road and no traffic I'll hang out in the left lane longer to avoid throwing all that water on the other guys windshield and give him extra following distance. I was also complimented for not moving back over right away as we approached a hill because I know the limitations of my truck and I was going to fall on my face trying to climb it. No other traffic than the 2 of us so I hung out in the left lane so I didn't make him lose momentum climbing the hill and i didnt lose mine by slowing down to stay behind him. Coming down on the other side I passed him and moved over when it was reasonable to do so.

After 6 1/2 years of driving truck I finally got my first deer. I've had plenty of raccoons and possums but never a deer. Ironically enough I was talking to my mom 2 days ago and mentioned many close calls lately with my van and the truck both but never hitting one.

It happened about 650am this morning on Kansas state highway 10 west of Kansas City about halfway to Lawrence. Deer came running out and caught the deer guard on my passenger side, made a huge mess down my tractor before getting run over by my tandems. I pulled off at the next ramp about a mile down the highway to inspect the damage. Fortunately the only visible damage was snapping off 8 of my plastic lug nut covers on my steer.

I made it back to our yard without issue and wrote it up for the shop to take a better look at it and filled out my accident report. Company policy is to report ALL events that involve damage to the truck though animal strikes aren't held against you as long as you don't swerve.

When I was at my first stop I slid my tandems all the way to the front because I had 2 gas stations in Lawrence that are tight, and the backhaul i had in Lenexa is tight as well. I noticed my airlines under trailer were hanging pretty close to the ground so I zip tied them up. I'm glad I did, who knows if the deer would've caught them and left me helpless even though I was empty at the time.

I knew it was just a matter of time but figured it'd be in Southern Iowa. Almost without fail anytime I go south i see a couple dozen deer just standing along the interstate from Osceola (MM 32) to the state line but they're smart enough to not run across in front of you.

I'm guilty of taking it off when I enter our yard and not buckling up until I use my badge to leave. I figure I'm not going far and need it off to reach the badge reader anyways. I don't use it while backing though as I don't want it to restrict my movements if I'm readjusting to see better. My company is strict about seat belt usage on the road, but didn't fire a driver that got a seat belt ticket like other carriers may do. I'm not sure what sort of discipline he faced, other than paying the ticket, but he'd just left a store lot and was putting it on when the cop seen him.

At PFG I got coached about moving around the yard without my seat belt. My trainer there was lectured about not having his seat belt on while backing despite legally the seat belt not being required while in reverse in many states.

My father in law that drove for over 40 years only used his seat belt near weigh stations. In his personal vehicles on the other hand he ALWAYS wore it.