Comments By Unholychaos

Schneider may only have 1 week road training, but at least the trainer is in the passenger seat the entire time, not sleeping in the bunk while the trainee drives unattended.

First 50 hrs of the student driving for Swifts mentoring is the same deal.

So essentially 5 days worth of solo driving then team? Other than the teaming aspect, what does the trainee actually learn from teaming that they can't learn without the trainer there? Legitimate question btw.

Judging by how dark it is, I'm assuming the driver was thinking itd be full so, instead of circling the lot, they decided to be lazy and just park creatively so he doesn't have to walk too far to get to that double cheeseburger calling their name.

Schneider may only have 1 week road training, but at least the trainer is in the passenger seat the entire time, not sleeping in the bunk while the trainee drives unattended.

marked off where my driveway needs to go so TDOT can approve the location and issue my driveway permit.

I assume this is for parking your truck at home? Do all states require a DOT inspection/permit for a driveway if the intention is to park a truck? Because we were thinking about the same thing down the line; extending our driveway back so I don't have to park my bobtail on the curb.

Been driving for about 20mo now and I still consider myself a s****y backer. Some days are good, other days are just God awful, like it's my first day on the job again! To be honest, I tend to avoid crowded truck stops if there's not 2 adjacent spots or a straight back; I get overly nervous about that truck on the blindside.

Take a lesson from me: Don't be afraid of the blindside, GOAL as many times as you need, ask for eyes on the ground. If you're tired and your brain feels fuzzy, probably a good idea to hit the rest area or the wide open mom n pop down the road if you don't need a chain truck stop (free shower, fuel, etc).

Sounds pretty rough there in Lower Alabama, Dave.

Does LA stand for Lower Alabama, Lower Arkansas, Louisiana, or Los Angeles?

And it has been greatly debated if "unladen" means bobtail as in not pulling anything including the trailer. others say unladen means not pulling freight. i asked 2 DOT cops and got 2 different answers.

Diver Driver mentioned the unladen wording has changed, but i never looked it up

any info on that guys?

Schneider company drivers are unable to use line 5 "Personal Conveyance."

Independent Contractors (our version of owner operators) can only use line 5 IF they are bobtail and do not have an assigned load.

Neither can use split sleeper.

Those damn P+G loads and those damn MO scale houses. I was in a similar situation back in October. Picked up P+G in Kansas City, KS (pain to find), heavy as hell, felt fine pulling from a complete stop. Just like you, I was in a hurry; I only had about 1h to spare to get to our terminal in Edwardsville IL, considering St Louis rush hour, so I said, "it's Saturday, scales will be closed." NOPE!!! Got pulled in about 5m or so after I passed an area with a TA and Petro, both had scales. 1,500lbs heavy on tandems, about $150 ticket, officer claimed I wouldn't get any points.

Lesson learned: 5-10m to scale your load is WAAAAAAAAAAY worth it if you're heavy. And as G-Town put it, a helluva lot cheaper than an overweight ticket.

(Still made it on time without running out of hours (wasn't even worth it!!!!))

Squeezing every bit of clock out of the day. If I don't necessarily NEED a pilot/flying J for a shower in the morning, I'll opt for the mom n pop another 30m down the road. Easier parking, usually quieter, and it's 30m I don't have to drive the next day, leaving that much more time on my 14. Also, getting to your fuel stop the night before and fueling up while simultaneously logging your pretrip. This was going to be important for me last week as I was running VERY tight on my 70; had barely enough time to make it home after delivering the current load. Yeah it may have only been a difference of 10-15m, but when you're cutting it that close, every second counts.

What excessive idling will cause issues with is the emissions systems

I've noticed that more during the winter season when you pretty much have to idle to not freeze your fuel. Wake up in the morning with a check engine light, diagnostics saying a problem with the emissions systems. But my issue was also related to something about the EGR valve(?)