Comments By Johnny Boy

Congratulations! Just enduring training can quite often be no small feat. You did it, now you can move on and enjoy your new career. Take it slow and try your best to not hit anything. I wish you the best!

Training is indeed, very rough. At least for me. I've thought about walking out quite often haha.

My guess would be cleaning a fuel spill or cargo spill, or perhaps having to treat somebody for injuries at the crash site (to get them stable enough for transport to a hospital). Could be somebody stuck in a vehicle, or just so many vehicles tangled up its taking a while to get it pulled apart.

I've been in this trainers truck for nearly a month now but it is over today. 3 weeks of truck school and 180 hours of driving with somebody that..... I don't like (to put it simply). But it will all be worth it. I will be driving for real money (not the pennies Covenant throws at you while in training) in the truck with my stepdad as a team making more money than I thought would be possible in my first year.

I have come to this website for its resources and practice tests and forum questions/answers (many I didn't need to post about because I found a thread relevant to my question) time and time again. I don't know how I would have done it without this website.. Just want to say thanks to the creators/moderators of this site. It's an invaluable resource to anybody with a question that involves trucking and the challenges that come with it.

I'm done being cliché now.

Ah, only blind-side parking. That's a good one. How do people do that, anyway? Do you just use the blind spot mirror?

I mostly do it on prayer and faith. LOL ! I honestly don't know but for some reason I'm actually sometimes better at it than sight side. LOL

JJ

I was wondering about those blindside slants myself, why the hell do they angle them that way?

I'm pretty new but I have just taken the truck to the left side of the parking lot "road" and backed into the slanted spots on the sight side.

Hometime* 7 days of the week*

One thing about Covenant that I do like, if you are teamed up with somebody and you both have hazmat. As long as you are available for a load (meaning not on homesite, they don't count a 34 against you) for all 8 days of the week they have a guaranteed minimum. 850 if you've been driving less then a year, 1000 if you are over a year. So if I am ready to be dispatched from the house and they live me sitting for a long time, I wI'll at least get something.

Covenant has been known to reassign your truck if you are at home longer than 7 days, or just because they want to trade your truck in to freightliner and get a new one.

1. Why do you need to be home for a week? Most home breaks are 4 days, give or take, and happen about once every 4-6 weeks.

2. That happened to me. I was happy with my KW T680, they told me to bring it in - it had been sold. OK, but I left with a Freightliner with what I consider the smallest sleeper area short of a Lightweight. Bo hoo. Then I kept driving, only a bit cramped in the back.

I took 8 days off in July because my sister was having a baby. it was a bit unpredictable as to when though. they were planning to induce it about 2 days before I got home then decided to wait 1 more week, so that was 5 days of home time, then it took like 20 hours for the baby to be born from time it was induced, and me and my mother (passenger with me) wanted to visit with baby so 2 more days and then it wasn't till next day that they had a load for me (sister lives in rural area, well compared to the big cities, so not as much freight nearby). So 8 days total.

Just giving you a good reason, since you asked.

Ah, that is a good point. I am fortunate enough to be living near a city with "some" freight (maybe?) Coming out of it. Not a huge city. Lexington, KY is the nearby city. When they had me go home to test for hazmat and tanker it only took them 2-3 hours (after i got my endorsements) to get me and my trainer a load out of there. Here's hoping that luck will continue!

I have kids at home and I would like to be home longer than 3-4 days when I do get home. I am new to the career so I don't know what will work best. I do plan on being OTR for 3-5 years before I work local though.

Covenant has been known to reassign your truck if you are at home longer than 7 days, or just because they want to trade your truck in to freightliner and get a new one.

1. Why do you need to be home for a week? Most home breaks are 4 days, give or take, and happen about once every 4-6 weeks.

2. That happened to me. I was happy with my KW T680, they told me to bring it in - it had been sold. OK, but I left with a Freightliner with what I consider the smallest sleeper area short of a Lightweight. Bo hoo. Then I kept driving, only a bit cramped in the back.

Wow. There is a lot to think about. Thank you all for the info. I was hoping it would be simple as Covenant has been known to reassign your truck if you are at home longer than 7 days, or just because they want to trade your truck in to freightliner and get a new one. The shop will install an inverter to the battery for us, but they limit it to either 1000 or 1500 watts. It's too expensive to eat at truck stops all the damn time, so I'm trying to find a way to eat and cook out of the truck.

Awesome, thank you for the insight.