Comments By G-Town

So your safety violations are the fault of the trainer? If you were driving, then own the mistakes, they are yours to deal with and learn from, not to be shared with anyone else.

Regardless, has anyone dealt with a trainer that you butt heads with and how did you through it?

No way for me. I had a trainer at Schneider's orientation that yelled on me on the road all the time. Guess what? Sure. I've made some mistakes (safety issue) during road practice. They terminated me after 10 days of training. Now I have 10 days of experience and bad DAC record. No one want hire me. So, still have no idea how to fix myself when someone try to intermediate you from the right passenger sit or by the others way. Keep doing your best (c) motto not work for me. All the best!

For the record (no pun intended), criminal background and MVR are both used to qualify a student applicant, each carrying a high degree of importance favoring or disqualifying a candidate.

Simple traffic convictions are not criminal convictions, meaning they won't show up on background check of your criminal history. Unfortunately for you, there is both a DWI and a moving violation on your record. There is no magic recipe for how to avoid these being found.

What type of deliveries?

Now the last couple of weeks have gone by quickly!

Just got a call the other day informing me of a new dedicated lane opening right in the area I live. Three deliveries a day, 5 days a week, and home nightly. It's an answered prayer, I tell ya! We had just asked St. Philomena for a job that will get me home nightly and basically the next day I get a call from dispatch.

Practically no downside for trying it out. If I don't like it I can just keep on doing what I'm already doing. So I opted to give it a try. My friend, who also works in this company, also opted to try it out, as well.

For now, we'll use our sleeper trucks. The dispatch said that they don't have a day-cab for us as of yet. If we still like the dedicated lane after a month, or so, we can be transitioned into one.

Until later...

Tanker is not a good choice for a rookie driver. Especially smooth bore food grade. The surge can push you off the road or through an intersection.

Revisit this after a year of experience.

I suggest getting familiar with Trucking Truth’s primer content:

• Truck Driver's Career Guide
• Brett's Book: The Raw Truth About Trucking (free online version)
• High Road CDL Training Program
• CDL Practice Tests

I’m bumping this with an added comment.

The blog section has some of the best content Trucking Truth has to offer. The ensuing conversations occurring with each article are also valuable as the article is discussed and in some cases debated.

Like others, my freetime is divided among many things now.

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I think this strategy was planned out before the recent economic issues. Turtle spoke of it while I was still domiciled at Pottsville 3 years ago. It was inevitable.

Many of my friends that made up the core of drivers I worked with have either applied to WMPF, already been hired by Walmart, or moved on to other fleets like Wegmans or Sherwin Williams (to name a few). There are lots of trucking jobs in that region.

I’m glad Walmart is not relaxing standards. One of the things that infuriated me was when Swift dropped theirs. Although not as strict as WMPF; when I joined the 7039 fleet, minimum 3 months of safe driving. Then there was training on dry and reefer before going solo. Covid killed that and it was never reinstated. Newly hired DMs and planners knew nothing of the WM operation…doesn’t mix well with rookie drivers. Sad, because quality suffered.

New drivers fresh off their mentor truck had no business attempting Walmart. Although many did make it through their first 90 days, many did not. Very high rate if attrition.

Turtle will attest to this truth… it’s not for everyone.

However I thoroughly enjoyed my run at 7030, made lifelong friendships and performing on the account made me a better truck driver, faster than if I went true OTR. I’ll never forget it and will always remember it fondly.

Carry on.

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The Ego Can Be the Downfall of Trucking Students

A house full of furniture is very light in comparison to higher density loads.

Banks wrote:

Say what you're used to saying. It works, it's not cracked or broken and it's the appropriate color. That's what they're looking for.

I agree. Good advice.