Profile For Truckin Along With Kearsey

A sign.... That is all??? I knocked an axle off the trailer the first month out. You are doing great!!!

The company will want you to get to the doctor... and the car .. well... just make an appointment then tell dispatch you need to be home 2 days prior.

Keep a list on your phone calendar with an alarm to alert u.

Good goin!!!! You will soon have the luxury of privacy whoooo hooo! 😁

I am a TNT trainer at Prime. There will be days you will want to give up and will question if this is worth it. Work through the emotions. Do not get bogged down in that emotional mud as you call it cause it can cause accidents and ruin your career before you start.

You are not alone... we all went through it. And we are here for you

The problem could be the route.... it is new and the DM is new to it. I run reefer so it isn't less miles cause of the reefer. Ask if there is a place to drop the load if you are a day early... or another driver out of hours who can sit on it. Then get another load to keep rolling. Call the customers and see if you can just run it in. If you have to sit, it is better to sit at a customer with the potential to unload early than elsewhere.

My pharmaceuticals are usually high val loads which we can't park more than 2 hours and they want them ASAP. Try just running it in. Worst they can do is turn u away

Every load I have I think "how do I get this in early and get my next one"

What you need to KnowAbout CDL Schools

Here's a video I did that will give you some insight. Check out my channel for lots more info

Would.it surprise you to know that my experienced lease friend over the course of 3 years averaged 64cpm.... in the end he makes about the same as me with a lot more headaches.... while team training 6mos per year and not taking more than. 18 days off per year.

Line haul at old dominion paid my other friend 70cpm and he was home every day. Plus was a company employee with all benefits.... as lease you have no workman's comp, health, life, dental, disability insurances. No 401k.

I'm at Prime and the lease purchase plan is indeed better than many other companies... but that doesn't make it good. Most lease ops I know stay out 3 to 4 months without home time. They team train to try to make money and always feel pressured. Get a lemon of a truck? You just spent your profits on hotels and downtime. They claim they have control but they don't it is fiction.

I only know one lease op who is on a dedicated flatbed account who gets home every other weekend.

Yeah.. but I make $2000 to $2800 running team per week and take the home time, in addition to shutting down 24 hours per week to reset us. So taking normal hometime may increase your pay, not destroy it.

You said in the picture "this is how my shifts go" but now state that is your co-driver's log. You never explained the prolonged on duty time. If this is indeed your co drivers logs... he could be the problem. On the second picture there are. Couple excessive on duty days. Using on duty can cut your truck availability. If this is your log... please explain why you are using on duty.

And BTW. They always say things like "we are only taking the best.... you are the best trainer" etc... it is called schmoozing to get you to do what they want. A business man should know this. It is possible no one wanted this account due to low miles and they suckered you into it.... just as new drivers get schmooze into believing Dollar General accounts are great for newbies. So when PackRat suggested changing accounts and you got snarky.... it was unwarranted. That "I deserve better" attitude sounds like entitlement, rather than ambition. The concept of solving problems by going up the chain of command was a good response.... something else a good business man would know. So please stop bragging... it is unbecoming. Answer the questions asked so we can help.

Why all of the on duty time?

not watching mirrors too. The spotter was in the blindside mirror and the newbie never looked so the spotter ran behind to be in the driver side mirror. SAD

Drop the arrogance for one. If you get an attitude with the DM he will never help you.

Some of those days you have 2+ hours of on duty time... that could be an issue. How much of your 70 are you burning? If you are using 1 to 3 hours of on duty per day you are burning up 5 to 15 hours of drive time each week. Go off duty or sleeper while sitting in doors.

And it looks like you are driving the night shift by those numbers... the first day you only drove 300 miles (30 miles before midnight 270 after)... is that normal? And if you stopped driving at say 0500 that night... your hours would be back by 1500. So that means you didn't drive again until about 2200 to have 114 miles on that day. Why? Was it because you burnt up almost 3 hours of on duty? What did you use that for?

PJ yes... many of my customers have trains running products into them and the horns and brakes screeching are crazy. Also so many trucks and yard dogs constantly blowing horns or beeping when backing up. ... some places really stuck to sleep. Most truck stops quiet down as the night goes on.. many of my reefer customers get busier.

If you read the article, the truck backing did not bother to even GOAL because the diagram clearly shows he was setup to back into a space already taken by another Swift driver. He basically need to do an offset in which I'm sure he didn't have enough room.

Goal people

I hear this a lot from new drivers at Prime. Sorry to tell ya... but your 9 months of crushing it is nothing. There are drivers and teams out there you are competing against who have been doing this for years and decades. You feel you are crushing it and have proved yourself, but 4k a week is the kiddie end of the swimming pool. Also, it isn't long enough to have built a true relationship with the DM. The DM is still feeling you out.

It is also possible that although you brag about not taking home time in 9 mos... they may see that as a negative. Some.people who don't take time off get burned out. We had a newbie here on a very tough dedicated account who had 3 accidents in 10 weeks. She hadn't had home time, but she wasn't fired because the head of safety felt she was too new for that account and had stayed out too long without rest. She was ordered off the account and to take hometime every 5 weeks for 6 months. She has now been at Prime about 3 years.

At Prime if I have a lot of time on a load, I can drop it at yard and get another load. During Feb & March, the average load for teams was 4500 miles due to covid starting. I was running 5000 to 5500 because I was dropping at yards and getting my next load.

Still your numbers don't add up. 1000 per day, only a couple hours in docks at 5 days... should be 5k per week. How long are your loads? Are you running 2 loads per week or 8? Just curious. Cause shorter loads are gonna cause you more dock time... whereas a regular OTR team situation could have you one one load for 3 days. It sounds to me that you are running "super solo" loads.. not true team loads. But that is a guess

Almost 17 years of postal work makes trucking perfect for me. 😁 Perhaps he prefers Mr Groves or Fernwood.... over Todd

I see now the errors in my calculations but found more. I see now your talking about getting home Friday and leaving back out Monday once a month. Now in that case I think the income potential is greater but much less home time than a regional driver would get. I was thinking home not driving for 5 days in a row. Which is what a new driver might of believed when you say 4 or five days home.

you are still wrong. I can run 500 miles a day running 8.5 to 9 hours of recaps.... that is 7 x 500 is 3500 miles per week. Then I go home on sun.. don't drive from monday to Friday. I go back out on Saturday (the 6th day).

Realize that a 34 is actually 1.5 days... so if you take a 34 once a week (4 weeks) you are taking 1.5 + 1.5+ 1.5+ 1.5 = 6 days of not driving.

Also keep in mind that most rookies do nothing but sleep the first day of home time cause they are exhausted. So if you slept 1 day of your 1.5 day off each week... you may get burned out. I think 34 is weird anyway....some people are ready to go back to bed when they need to get up and drive.

We have swifties here that can better explain.... But I thought swift had you stay two whole years before the schooling was free? Is it a veterans program?

You need to READ the contract not just remember it cause they can change from time to time.

I would get it transferred before orientation. Some states allow the permit to transfer and some don't so you may have to retest for the permit in MO. You won't be going to the DMV once at Prime. After you test you can then take a bus to the DMV and get the CDL. otherwise,you may have to go back to CO to get the CDL after testing then back to MO to transfer. Why cause a headache?

Dedicated would require 2 things.... Your home location and a lightweight truck (unless you are a trainer)

There is a Reed City MI to Murfreesboro TN run and a couple Walmart dedicated accounts but many are in the Northeast or are temporary... Ex during the holidays Busch runs dedicated to supply the upswing in beer sales.

If you don't live near an account, they won't allow it because getting you home would be an issue. Many spots are guarantee pay instead of cpm, so home time out of route would screw you every month...possibly for two weeks if you spread it across wed and Thurs..... Two different pay periods

Teaming with OO...

Pro....

Having a more experienced driver to learn from

Maybe having someone to help you back (some won't get out of bed and figure they are paying you so you need to do it)

Maybe getting more than 4 days home straight

Con... OO is motivated by expenses so wasting fuel to get to a truck stop may cause a lack of restroom breaks or showers

Will probably expect you to stay put two to three months at a time before going home

Never being able to call the shots or park/fuel/shower where you want. Never being able to sleep or drive when you want (they pick the shift they like).

Getting yelled at for too many breaks during a drive shift. Many expect you to take only the 30 min break and often doing it illegally while fueling.

Often you are paid less!!! I was offered $1000 per week to team with an OO.... That is $700 less than I would get as a company team driver. Another OO just offered me $1250 to drive his expedited truck in a team situation... 5000 miles a week. That would be a huge pay cut for me

Most important thing is always take care of you. Jobs come and go.... Ur body doesn't. Good luck

As a trainer I am now buying my students headsets. It makes it much easier for backing practice and I can tell them to goal or watch mirrors etc.