Comments By Cold War Surplus

CRST's trucks aren't allowed on I-70 west of Denver. You get a nastygram on the Qualcomm telling you to get off of I-70 even if you're just taking I-15 over I-70!

I took a gig driving for an auto auction house before going to CDL school. I would drive the vehicles from the dealerships to the auction house and then to their new owners after the auction. There were also two CDL drivers who drove car haulers there. I asked them a lot of questions about driving while I was there. I remember three things they told me:

1. Car haulers are very low with minimal ground clearance. You have to be very careful or you can get stuck on railroad tracks, curbs or anything that isn't flat, level road.

2. Car dealers pack their lots with cars so there's usually no room to drive your truck onto the lot to load/unload. Most of the time you'll be unloading on the center lane of the road in front of the dealership as cars whiz by on either side of you.

3. You're responsible to all damage to the vehicles. Fair enough, but if a salesperson or lot attendant at the dealership has a fender bender after you've delivered the car in perfect condition they don't always do the right thing. Given the choice between admitting a mistake and possibly losing their job or claiming, "It came that way off the truck" many will have no problem blaming the driver. To protect yourself you MUST take pictures of every car you deliver on all sides.

Hasn't been getting much coverage, but truckers in Brazil have been on strike for the last week over the price of diesel. It hasn't taken long for things to go off the rails:

8 airports closed (no fuel), 64 million chickens killed (no feed), empty store shelves, 12+ hours in line to buy gas

The government is trying to hold things together with the military and the police. A scary example of what can happen if we don't go to work every day.

CRST actually uses several schools to train drivers. The two main schools are located at their terminals in Riverside, CA and Cedar Rapids, IA. You're closer to the school in Cedar Rapids so you will go there UNLESS you are a veteran of the armed forced. CRST (and Stevens Transport) sends veterans to Careers World Wide in Keenesburg, CO for an accelerated training program. CRST also uses several feeder schools throughout the southern states. These drivers go through orientation at the CRST terminal in Oklahoma City, OK. My answers will vary slightly from millionmiler24's because I attended the school in Keenesburg.

CLP testing occurs before dawn on Wednesday. Your entire class will load up into a van, drive to the DMV office in Denver and wait in the parking lot for the DMV to open at 8. The DMV employees know you're coming - a new class shows up at that office every Wednesday.

Week 1 your class will split up into trucks with usually 4-5 students in a truck. You will rotate with one student driving the truck forward and back in a straight line and the others sitting in the sleeper berth watching and waiting for their turn.

Week 2 is a lot like week 1 only now you drive the truck forward into a road parallel to the one it started out at, then back into the new lane, then pull forward into the first lane and back to your starting position.

Week 3 you will work on alley backing in the morning and after lunch you will take the truck out on the road with an instructor. You'll take it on the freeways and stop in small towns and rest areas.

CWW is still using trucks with manual transmissions.

If you don't make it through on your first attempt they will work with you and give you every opportunity to improve. You basically get a dedicated truck and instructor to work with you to get you test ready.

CRST doesn't have APU's. You will get power from an inverter and optimized idle. You may purchase an inverter at your own expense (1,500 watts max). You can buy one at the truck stop using your points. It must be installed by a CRST tech at a terminal. There is a small fee for this but once you have paid the fee once you can have inverters installed or removed as many times as you want for no additional charge.

Your inverter will draw power from the battery while the truck is parked. When the battery gets low the the optimized idle will start the truck automatically and recharge the battery then shut the truck off.

For my tv needs I depend on a combination of Philo and T-mobile. Philo offers 37 channels for $16/mo. AMC, IFC, History and Discovery are included and have everything I need.

My iPad is 4G capable. With the 6gb/mo. data plan and my veterans discount I can connect to TMO for $21.25/mo. While 4G data is capped at 6gb/mo. streaming video doesn't count against the cap. All the Youtube and Philo I can watch even if I've already used up my 6gb. Sweet deal.

Self-driving trucks are not going to have any impact on trucking for a very long time.

I beg to differ. The fear, uncertainty and doubt created by all the hype IS having an impact - young people are ruling out driving careers as a viable option because they perceive it as a dead-end. " Oh noes! Why invest three weeks of my life to get a CDL when the trucks are just going to drive themselves?" This combined with retiring baby boomers is shrinking the pool of available drivers at a time when demand for drivers is at an all-time high. Look for massive signing bonuses, higher cpm rates and improved benefits to continue for the foreseeable future.

I have two predictions for you:

1. You'll be getting more phone calls asking you to stay. 2. A set of "golden handcuffs" are coming your way - a bonus provided by an employer to discourage an employee from taking employment elsewhere. They give the cash up-front to stay for a given period. Laws vary by state, but most of the time if you leave early you have to pay back a pro-rated percentage of the bonus.

First the bad news - without a 160-hour training certificate your options will be very slim as others have already stated. That said, there's nothing stopping you from taking the CDL class at your local community college after you have your CDL to clear that hurdle. Yeah, it's about $2-3K to go that route but you should easily earn that back in your first year. The college won't have a problem taking your money and the insurance companies don't care that you got it after you got your CDL as long as you have it.

Now the good part. Every year from Oct thru Jan parcel carriers are SLAMMED covering Santa's back. UPS, FedEx, USPS, OnTrac, etc. hire THOUSANDS of seasonal drivers just to cover the surge. Since most drivers drive year-round there isn't a lot of interest in these positions so they have lower hiring standards than they would for their year-round drivers.

You don't mention what part of the country you're from so I can't tailor my recommendations to your region but some other ideas are driving the harvest to market/canning plant for farms in the Fall, delivering heating oil in the northern states in the Winter or Driving busloads of skiers to the slopes.

I suspect a lot of it has to do with the fact that the large mega-carriers are run more efficiently, have lower operating costs and are able to haul loads profitably at a much lower cpm rate. You are their competition. Instead of adapting to the changing times they've chosen to fight tooth and nail to keep the profession as it was instead of moving forward. Instead of trying to compete effectively they've chosen to blame the competition for low freight rates and make spurious accusations about their safety records. Don't worry about it - these dinosaurs will disappear soon enough.

You're probably going to take the company that will hire you. Every region is different in linehaul but these jobs pay well and LTL carriers usually don't struggle as much as OTR carriers to find drivers. I've heard stories of trainees being offered linehaul positions right out of school in the Northeast. In the Northwest there's a regional LTL carrier (Penninsula Truck Lines) that wants five years of verified OTR experience before they'll consider you. Consider my remarks as applicable to the Northwest market, but other markets aren't that different.

The big advantage with the union carriers is the insurance. Usually, it's thrown in at no charge to you beyond paying union dues. Unions were exempted from Obamacare so you can still get a, "Cadillac plan". The big hitch is the wages. Yellow/YRC/New Penn/Holland/Reddaway starting pay is on the low end of the scale (51.56 cpm/$20.83/hr. to start) and then there's the 15% giveback - they deduct 15% of your earnings back! UPS wages are o.k., but they tend to starve out new drivers giving them 1 or 2 runs a week. Compare Yellow's starting wage with SAIA (64 cpm w/2 years exp.), Old Dominion (68 cpm), Estes (68 cpm).

As an entry-level linehaul driver you'll be working the extra board (sometimes called the system). A typical linehaul terminal will have 12-15 drivers on bid runs and those drivers will have 3 or 4 weeks of vacation time each so 36-60 weeks where they will need someone to fill in for them. Bid driver sick days and extra freight during the busy season will fill out your runs. Seniority comes into play when bidding on a regular run. After you've worked the extra board for a year or two you will probably have enough seniority to get a bid run. Seniority also comes into play for weekend work.

Traditionally, P&D drivers get promoted into linehaul but their wives usually veto this in favor of having them home at night. The big problem you're going to face is external competition. If a terminal has one opening and another driver with a clean record and 5 years of experience applies you won't get called back. If that other driver doesn't apply you will get the job.

Pulling doubles and triples isn't the hard part - wrestling with the dollies to hitch your set is the hard part. It can be extra difficult if you're doing it in an uneven, gravel lot. The driving part isn't that much different than pulling a single 53' dry van. Doubles and triples have fewer accidents than singles. Parking can be a challenge since 84' of trailers takes up a lot more room than a single and backing up isn't an option.