Profile For B Y

I've found that in my experience I'd rather talk to "old timers" rather than younger folks any day. I was just in Dennys for brunch and had an older driver on one side of me and a driver about my age on the other. Both wanted to talk. I spent 90% of my time talking to the older driver as the younger guy wanted to talk politics more than anything. The older guy talked about his kids and grandkids and the differences between when he was coming up and how things are now. He was not politically correct and was a fun guy to listen to. Even got on the phone to a grandson so he could introduce him to the cute single waitress serving us.

I don't have the answer as to how to have patience with other drivers but i know you do have to have patience or being a trucker isn't going to be the right job for you. I could tell you several things about other drivers that tick me off on a daily basis but the bottom line is you have to learn patience and realize not everyone is a good driver. You have to learn to take a deep breath and brush things off. Being patient doesn't come naturally for everyone (myself included). And it's not just passenger vehicle drivers that test you, other truckers will test your patience as well.

We have forced loads and can't refuse them. The load times are within my 14 hour window but the shippers/receivers sometimes take long times to load and unload me. I looked at the violations earlier and most were fuel times not matching. I assume this means my "on duty...fueling" times don't actually match the time shown on pump receipts. I was taught by my trainer to pull into a fuel island and log "on duty...fueling" for approx 5 minutes then log "off duty or sleeper berth" the rest of the time regardless of how long it actually takes to finish fueling. He also said he prefers to pull in behind someone that is already fueling and log "on duty...fueling" until they are done then he goes to "sleeper berth" the entire time he actually fuels. I've been doing that as that's how i was taught. I guess i will start logging "on duty...fueling" for the entire time I'm actually fueling so everything matches up. Other than the fact that i am a new driver and may be being tracked more closely because of that, i wonder why he wouldn't be talked to about this. Oh well, I'll not concern with him and do what i have to do for myself.

18 months should be a sufficient amount of time to learn before becoming a trainer. My trainer did tell me though that if you're doing it for the money it may not be a good idea. He makes an extra $30/day or $210/week when with a student. However, his miles tend to go down while training a student too resulting in breaking even with what he made driving solo. Breaking even on top of not having the privacy or space in the truck he has when solo has made him reconsider his decision and after he is done training his current student he is giving up being a trainer. Unless your company is paying you a considerable amount to train, it should be something you have a passion for before you decide to get into it. You should be passionate about it regardless but you get what I'm saying.

I got a message on the quallcom today saying i had accumulated 100 service failure/safety points this month. Some instances i know of for sure are 1) i had to repower a guy who had run out of drive time. By the time i got to him after traffic delays and hooked up, fueled up the truck and reefer and weighed everything i ran out of my 14 ten mins prior to arriving at delivery. If he'd fueled the trailer and weighed/adjusted trailer axles if necessary i would've probably been alright. 2) i arrived at consignee in Chicago on time but as i was being unloaded my 14 ran out and they do not allow nor do they have room to allow overnight parking. My fm told me to go to a safe haven location 12.7 miles away but during rush hour traffic it took me 1.5 hours to get there. 3) i was travelling through a smallish city during lunch hour and hit the brakes a little hard to stop at a yellow light causing a critical event to be sent out. There are several places i stop at with plenty of time left on my clocks only to have them load/unload me hours beyond my appt time causing me to have to creep slowly to a spot i can park at to rest for 10 hrs. The whole time I'm creeping along I'm getting hos violation warnings. 9 times out of 10 i am at least 1.5 hours ahead of my scheduled appt times. I'm not a whiner i am just looking for ideas how to avoid these issues from happening.

Gotcha. Yes i do log all hours driving to shop, wash facility, etc.

We were told when it comes to truck in the shop (I'm assuming that is included in your truck repair comment Rainy) that we should log out of the system so no drive time done by the shop employees during repair, testing, etc are counted against your hours. As far as truck washes i always log a few minutes on duty with wash in the remarks but then log off duty for the duration. I've waited an hour in line to have a trailer wash out and i don't want that time counted against my 70. And technically I'm not doing the work...i am literally off duty while they wash it.

I'm not necessarily saying you should go to blows with someone like that but, by all means, confront them and ask why they act like such a ******. I had a guy honking, making gestures with his hands, etc while I was trying to back in a space one day and after I was done i asked him why he felt compelled to act like such a d@ck and he quickly denied doing it and acted like we were best friends. Don't let them get away with it without letting them know you don't appreciate it. Especially if others are around to witness their behavior and cowardice when you confront them. It's always fun to watch some jerk tuck his tail in front of others.

There are cool truckers out there and some inconsiderate drivers as well. I don't care if I get any help backing or not. If I can't get it in I'll try a different spot if possible. Otherwise, they can wait until I get it done if they don't want to offer advice. The ones that bother me are usually at truck stops. Parking on the fuel island and walking away, pulling up to the yellow line after getting fuel and walking away for extended periods of time and the worst I've seen was a guy park his rig at the exit of the CAT scale and walk away leaving others to have to back off the scale. That gug deserved to be smacked around IMO.

IMO anyone who kills another while texting or driving while intoxicated deserves an automatic murder charge.