Comments By Truckin Along With Kearsey

I am glad he is okay. Thank god. This was a preventable that caused a minimum of $300,000 which is what roll overs cost. That light with that wind, he should have been parked. I was there. The only thing that would make sense to me would be that he doesnt normally drive west. And most companies had drivers parked that day either by the driver or closed roads. It will make it hard to argue with them.

I recommend you and your husband immediately stop using whatever weather apps you are, because they are inaccurate. What i used was NE511, Google, NE511 twitter, and National Weather Channel. NWS got rid of their app years ago, although I loved it.

It just so happens that i picked up a load and was heading east that day on I-80. I stopped due to whiteout snow at about 0100 at exit 68 Little America. Laramie to Cheyenne were closed. At 0800 i headed out. I made it to Elk Mountain, black ice the whole way. By this time, I-80 in both directions was closed from Sydney to Kearney NE due to black ice and accidents. I was pondering where I would shut down. NE 511 reported having 5 multi vehicle pile ups and over 29 stranded cars on their X formerly twitter feed.

They closed more and more throughout the day. Pretty much Big Springs to Lexington. Then they extended Sydney to Lexington. Until finally it was the WY state line to Lexington. They didnt even open the road until about 0900 Tues.

I am the blue dot on the WY/NE border. As you can see from the screen shots below.... as of 16:23 on Monday, the western half of I80 and US 30 were closed. I can prove that. But it had been closed at different parts all day. He had to know that he was heading into a bad situation. And the blue map is the wind app. Why do i have these screenshots? Cause I send them to my students to tell them to park it and be aware.

The darker the blue, the higher the wind. I was hauling 44,000 pounds. I got pushed "a bit". With 35,000... he was probably wiggling a lot. And notice i was on the edge of the dark blue. He was smack dab in the middle. It doesnt surprise me he got nailed after an overpass. We are taught that. The bridge blocks the wind then BOOM! You said he was going full speed then slowed quickly. That didn't help either. And what is full speed in his truck? I was going 50mph most of the time and slowed a but when needed.

This is from the afternoon, but it had been closed all morning. He must have known he was headed towards it. Roads conditions don't just miraculously stop at the exact spot predicted. You need to use judgement.

This alert had been on for most of the day also.

The storm was so bad, with low temps and black ice that even KS closed I70 to the western part of the state.

This is WY shut down I -80 "due to events in Nebraska".

Maxwell said:

hell I'd be lucky to find myself doing 3,500 to start just to ensure I'm easing into it and not rushing or being unsafe.

3500 miles a week for a solo is not going to happen. Not in this economy. Not in governed trucks. What i said before was to try to point out the unrealistic expectations new drivers have. And you have them. Clear your mind from expectations and just go with the flow and be flexible. Blood tests could be done anywhere, then get u home for the doctor visit.

I don't want to know what your condition is.. not our business. But are you sure you can get a DOT medical card? Be aware that certain meds may be banned by some companies and accepted by others

I would just go home for the blood tests and do the tele med thing for the results

You must have Prime Inc confused with Amazon Prime. Prime Inc has awesome trucks and trailers. We just talked about how we even have custom decals themes like transformers and datr wars... at cost of course. Amazon Prime is a lot of owner ops.with older equipment.

If you read what i said about turning the truck in... you would see i said it isnt possible every home time. It takes a lot of time and man power to clean and reassign trucks. But for instance.. my mom died. So i took a month off and traded my truck in.

When it comes to your medicine... are u saying u need a doctor visit or u need to go home or what? Prime has a doctors office in the terminal. And most companies have a mail room u can get things shipped to u. I am not trying to get personal... but why fo u need 2 weeks off for meds? The company legally has to get u home for a doctor. But not 2 weeks.

Honestly... u are trying to make plans in an industry you know nothing about. 3 months OTR is exhausting... even for experienced drivers. I know people who came in here saying "me and my wife are going to run 7000 miles a week doing all drop and hook, and im gonna get my CDl by 9/15, finish training by 11/15 then be running with my wife by 11/16. Didnt happened. No where near it.

Cause the ATA represents the megas.

Have a group of resources for drivers. Honestly prime does most of the things i can think of. Discount programs to doctors, prescriptions, hotels, mental health zoom calls... nutritionists... physical fitness, rental cars.

Maybe some kind of parking pass... think... 50% of walmarts dont allow parking. 70% of mom.and pops went out of business during covid. Find mom and pops who are willing to let our members park. Diners, hotels, sell a monthly parking pass to our members, then the business give a discount to our members and allow them to park. The businesses make money.. we make money. Drivers save by not paying TA $20 a night to park.

Grocery stores. Lots of smaller grocery stores can't compete with walmart. Even if they can price wise, the brand sells.

I'm stuck on the parking cause i sucked at backing so badly that i paid $60 per week to park in the easy spots.

Now you are sounding like a consulting firm. And definitely not a non profit. The companies that could afford consulting would be the megas... and many already have driver advisory boards, like Prime does, to give input and feedback. And those people know the company's procedures. Although... many already have firms conduct surveys... but i never heard of a company doing in house interviews at terminals. We have reps from various vendors come to prime all the time. So perhaps offer a brainstorming session with their own drivers. Have a model of questions to ask.

It couldn't be like a hiring agency, because the background checks have to be done within 30 days of a start date. So it couldn't be like "hey... stop paying for recruting money, background checks, ads and MATS tables... we got the people here." You could charge the companies a monthly fee for membership to advertise on our site. Broken down by division. Some kind of statistics with what drivers want and need... be a resource for them.

But hell yeah, i would go to washington and the first thing i would do is make AOC cry.

Lobbyists get paid by a client who wants something. Think NRA memberships... FOP memeberships.. that means the money comes from the truckers. Unless you lobby for clients such as truck makers, trucking companies themselves. Prime has its own inhouse counsel and lobbying board. I am sure most do.

One problem with this... is you have to go from."top tier drivers" running it to "former drivers". Drivers don't like that. Sorry. One reason that WIT isn't popular with a lot of women, there are too many former drivers or non drivers calling the shots. You need non drivers with corporate expertise to navigate certain aspects and details. They feel as though they are a part of the industry... but drivers think.."witch you have never backed a truck...or havent in a decade." So rival groups like "real women of trucking" or "women in motion" spring up.

Hello and welcome! Both NaeNae and I drive for Prime. We have almost 1500 women which makes up about 18% of our fleet... double the national average.

We have an annual woman's gala... awards.. a facebook support group and a "female driver liaison" to help with all the struggles women may have. If you watch my video below... i map out the greatness of prime for women. We even have a doctors office in the terminal that will give pap smears and write sctipts for mammograms. A chiropractor and sooo much more. The gala videos have interviews of women prime drivers, the safety director and the owner of Prime himself.

No! You will not room with a man. You will be asked if u will accept a male/female, smoker/vaper/non smoker trainer.

If you werent nervous, it would mean you are stupid. Nervous is good. It means you respect the difficulty this may be. Not because of your sex but because moving a 75 foot long vehicle is difficult at first.

I even have a Discord group for my students.... some have 5 years someare still in team training. But they all feel supported.

If someone touches you they WILL be fired. Period.

This first video is particularly inspiring because this woman went to a local school for 5 months and still couldnt back. I put her through my course and the video is her exam day reaction. It is so excuting to see it. One of my students did a cartwheel on the pad when she passed.

If you look though my youtube channel, i have videos of our amazing terminals that even have spas! You can get a massage and a facial after a steam shower. I will never leave this company. I am spoiled. My email is truckingalongfun@gmail.com. i can answer all of your questions in a phone call.

Angela on ExaM DAY

CDL Exam Videos!

Team Training interviews

Prime Promotes Women

"We were once called the Knights of the highway"

This is strange to me cause i never heard this until i came OTR and only by truckers. Where I come from, truckers were thought of as dirty, blue collar, chain smoking, uneducated damn near criminals. Probably thanks to the outlaw images of Bandit & BJ and the Bear. It was the last thing you wanted your kid to be. The images in my head as a child were of traveling perverts who gave rides for sex. Or sleazy women who made more money having sex than they did driving. Hitchhikers disappearing in the 70s were often linked to the truckers who gave them rides, later to be found dead. Sorry... but this is honest. Those ideas are still in a lot of people's minds.

There needs to be a professionalism if we are going to combat those images. And though the influx of women and modernized truck stops soften the image a bit... we have a long way to go. I despise the youtube women who climb into their trucks in mini skirts and heels just for views. I habe shown the occasional cleavage, but i don't rely on sexuality to get my point across as some of these women do.

Many of the trucking organziations around dont even involve truckers. But that is due to the drivers not having time to do both the organization and the driving job. I barely have time for Youtube anymore.

A lobbying group? Who can influence state & federal laws, as well as trucking companies and truck manufacturers?

How would we verify employment and "top tier"? Legally, employers can only say certain things about an employee. If including owner ops.. how would you verify their abilities since they only report to themselves. Every driver in the country thinks they are the best. What would be member benefits?

I am intrigued. But who would listen? And having 250,000 drivers and calling them the best of the best. Sounds like a dues paying organization. Unless you want it as a 501c3 which is an enormous amount of time.

What "training" would be better than what companies already do on the equipment which they drive?

Personally, i would tackle one issue at a time. But most of what we want would be what other organziations request.

#1. Parking-- make it illegal to close rest areas and weigh station to parking. Close the buildings if need be, but not the parking. Also make it a law that every industrial park needs some sort of parking area. Fees can be paid by the volume of trucks at each facility.

Have town hall type of meetings in each state with truckers and invite congressmen, senators as well as state reps. Show dash cams of the ramps and ramps of trucks parked illegally. Show closed rest areas. In both NE and NY... i kid you not.. every east bound rest area was closed recently. In winter. Unacceptable. Show how much $ they would save in police man power not having to ticket or write up accidents caused by illlegal parking or fatigue.

Stroke the egos of the politicians. Give them free publicity with fake awards for helping truckers. Push for some sort of tax break to allow truck parking at businesses. Push the urgency for rest and the wasted time finding a spot. Time that could have been used for transport.

We would have to get serious about the podcasts, interviews, and marketing. This is something I would LOVE to do.... wish i had time. The minifleet i am driving for promises i can come off the road for an in house job with them within the next year or two. So i could probablyget time by then. I have great equipment and editing knowledge.

Perhaps interview various companies and see what training programs work and what do not. Analyze them all. Then come up with a program that utilizes all of it. I did something similar after my first year. 5 of my friends and i sat down and wrote what our trainers didnt tell us... and tips we discovered. Then i complied it for my students. Perhaps do paid speaking engagements at local CDL schools? Or recruiting for the organization. A hint at what is waiting for a great driver.

Absolutely wrong. As you earn your respect, you grow in power. Companies want to make good drivers happy and keep them. By changing companies, you constantly have to keep starting from the bottom and proving yourself all over again. However, when you stay at one company and make yourself known with amazing peformance, more and more perks get handed to you.

Example... i make 19cpm more plus bonuses than someone just coming into prime. Why? Without trying to sound arrogant.. i am THAT good and thry know it.

The owner and vice president of my mega carrier know me by name and sight and approach me at events. Make tge company look good and get everything you want.

Heres a nugget for you... some owner ops are such because no one else will hire them. I know several drivers who had to buy their own trucks and run under their own authority because all they didnwas argue with dispatch or hop from company to company.