Comments By Pete B.

I am torn because where I live, I'm not sure if i want to make it a home but I know the BS that comes from OTR, but it would allow me to save up money and move in the near future (2-3 years).

You already know that going OTR will help you save money and help you achieve your goal of moving somewhere within the next 2 to 3 years… so go OTR. There is BS in OTR same as there is BS in every other job in every other industry. As far as reaching your goals is concerned, it’s all background noise. Work through the opportunities you encounter driving OTR; it will make you a great problem solver, if nothing else. An added bonus of driving OTR is if you are not sure where you want to settle down, driving the country will help you get a feel of where you’d like to plant your feet. You’ll be exposed to a variety of states, climates, traffic patterns, landscapes… all of which will help you decide where you’d like to call home next. As an aside, if you do decide to go OTR, you should know you are not limited to just Holland. Just about every large carrier that offers OTR positions will hire you no matter where you live.

I did try googling the answer, but but kept coming up with articles that were ads or suggestions for slow cookers… none telling me what size I could get away with. I have an 1800 W inverter/charger pre-installed (factory installed) in this ‘23 Freightliner Cascadia, so will be plugging the slow cooker into the standard type B, 3-prong 120 V socket. I’d like to get a four or 4 1/2 quart slow cooker; this isn’t too big for my set up is it? I once had a smaller 2.5 qt. slow cooker that I plugged into a much smaller 250 W inverter, but want to go a little bigger this time. Your feedback/advice is greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Joleigh, DO NOT enter a truck driving school and pay for a CDL right now… given your history, it’s too much of a risk right now. The litmus test is to apply to companies who have their own CDL school… companies like Prime, Swift, Western Express, TMC, C.R. England, and C.F.I./Heartland… there are others, but these are just a few. If they accept you, you’ll get your CDL and a job; almost always they will pay for your transportation to their schools, and will begin paying you as soon as you enter their schools.

You could continue forward with your private CDL school, but there is no guarantee that after you acquire your CDL, you’ll get hired. There’s a very high likelihood that if a company does hire you right now, considering your history, it will be one of those less-than-reputable, fly-by-night companies, and that’s no way to start your driving career. You may need to suffer the consequences of your decisions of several years ago, accrue a year or two of gainful employment elsewhere, and revisit trucking at that time.

Ball bearings. It’s all ball bearings nowadays.

Lewis, you went to the hospital and had tests run where they found you had had a heart attack, right? I would think that if you had medical records showing where you had a heart attack during the time you were driving, your company could not hold you responsible for a preventable accident. Tell me you have the medical records showing the heart attack… either way I doubt it’s an event you’ll lose your job over. If you drove into the median, I’m guessing you simply needed a tow back onto pavement. Definitely not a career-ender. Best of luck to you, and I hope you’re taking steps to never having another heart attack again. Thank goodness that the result of having a heart attack while driving was you simply ending up in the median; could have been a lot worse.

Good afternoon; I don’t have knowledge of Western Express, but I do have knowledge of lease-to-purchase programs, so I am going to share some opinions based on your post. Yes, you can walk away from a lease program, but I guarantee you there will be a fee you will owe by breaking the lease contract early. Usually, it’s in the neighborhood of $5k. And as far as their legal department will be concerned, there will be no justifiable reason to let you out of the lease without penalty. There have been plenty of drivers coming to this forum, looking for loopholes to get out of their leases, but always with zero success. So there’s that.

You mentioned you began driving because you needed a little extra money… That really is not the mindset for a highly successful lease operator. That is in no way a slight to you; I am definitely not insinuating that you cannot be a highly successful lease operator, it’s just that you don’t sound very hungry. There are many costs associated with leasing a truck… Fuel, insurance for the truck, insurance for you, repairing cosmetic damages to the truck that are not covered under warranty, tires, oil changes, and the biggest, nastiest expense of them all: taxes. All of these things can really eat into your profits, which is why we recommend not becoming a lease operator, but working as a company driver. Someone who is only interested in making a little extra money as a lease operator will likely just break even or not make any extra money at all. To succeed as a lease operator you must be hungry, willing to drive the wheels off your truck, take as few days off as you possibly can.

I would definitely continue working there as a company driver for at least a year, then reevaluate your needs. The time with your trainer will soon be over. Best of luck to you, driver.

Hi Maximilian, welcome to the forum. Unfortunately there’s no cut ‘n dry answer to your question; companies have raised their standards with regard to what they find in their background checks, but something that occurred 10 years ago, it’s really hard to say. *Two really important things of note here:

1. On any application you fill out for any trucking company, include the charge… if you were to leave it off the application and it showed up in your background check, which it will, that will definitely end your trucking career before it even got started.

2. Strongly consider applying to a company that features their own company-sponsored CDL school. What you don’t want to do is attend a private CDL school, obtain your CDL, then find out that no one will hire you, and you’ve essentially tossed money (and time) to the wind getting a CDL you can’t use. Use this link for information on company-sponsored CDL schools: company-sponsored CDL schools.

The best way to answer your question is to go ahead and begin applying… No harm there in trying. Best of luck to you; I hope you don’t lose your job, but if you do and trucking is Plan B, I hope you get here.

Hi James, excellent job there calling the police to help you out of a jam, and getting out of it safely. The internet is replete with photos and videos of drivers exercising poor judgement, making bad decisions and destroying or damaging property and thus careers, rather than surveying the landscape and making a level-headed call to correct their situation safely. You’re going to have a wonderful career in trucking. 👍

The title of your post begins “Really need help,” and ends with “driver cannot find work,” yet you mentioned that Swift will hire you while putting you through their in-house CDL program… forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but if you “really need help” and want to become a truck driver, I think you should quit the shenanigans and take the job with Swift. They are an excellent company, have first-class training, well-maintained equipment, and are simply some of the best drivers I frequently encounter on the road. You could do A LOT worse.

There are fifteen topics on the first "page". Just now I would consider nine of them job related. So over half are job related.

I've been here for a while, and and I figure most of my posts are job related - either in getting a job, driving safely (which means keeping your job) and occasionally about eating Oreos while driving.

Errol, is there a specific variety of Oreos that you prefer? Regular, or Double Stuff, or one of the flavors? Would you agree that the amount of filling, including the Double Stuff, has diminished significantly compared to 30 years ago? I quit buying Oreos a long time ago because I felt I was getting mostly cookie and not much filling. Back in the day I would take two Double Stuff, remove a cookie from each, and then stack them, making it a Quadruple Stuff. Which is probably why I have soooo many fillings in my teeth! (Think Jaws from the Roger Moore 007 era).