Comments By Garth M.

My truck doesnt have power mirrors and when I blindside back in with a full load and those spread axles are causing the truck to jump up and down so bad I cant see out of the mirrors unless I stop I say come on man or something like that.

I havent driven in the city but had a haul to Long Island a couple weeks ago. I was paid and extra $300 for the trip but I earned it. I have never seen so many aggressive 4 wheelers ever before I couldnt imagine cyclists thrown into that mix.

I moved to a 12 truck company, driving a 2006 pete pulling vans and flatbeds. I told my boss I wasnt a mechanic and left it at that, if I find something in an inspection or something comes up I let him know. So far they fix the defective and out of service stuff, smaller items may take a few weeks, like my airconditioner but thats been a month with only a few trips to Texas and Georgia so far. I miss my old larger company, newer well serviced equipment and better pay and they always managed to get me home on weekends. My new company manages to get me home a few hours before I have to reset, the good part is I live 5 minutes from the yard.

One thing I forgot to mention is my old company used peoplenet the new one uses qualcom. They arent the same thats for sure and the only person who seemes to know how to work it is the girl friend of one of the other drivers. Hopefully I’ll nail it down before I get into a transmit logs situation.

After driving for my first company about 20 months I found a new one in the same town I live in. The move will save me about 6 hrs weekend time and lots of gas money. I can ride my bicycle to the yard. This company is only 10 trucks so quite a bit smaller and not as much maintenance support but they do seem to stay on top of things. The biggest change is they mainly haul to the USA and previously I had only hauled in Canada, mostly in Ontario and a few times to Quebec. I had previously hauled heavy with the truck licensed for 132,000 and am looking forward to now driving half empty lol, the difference being the variety of loads I will now have. So far I have had 2 trips to Wisconson and one to Pennsilvania all with reloads. Getting used to the different speed signs and the location of truck stops has been trying. My Garmin was set to avoid tolls but it would also try to avoid going over the bridges at the border and so I have had some interesting rerouting going on which has cost a few hours to say the least. It was iteresting reading another post on flatbedding here because I just finished a load of well casing, I had hauled square tube and I-beams, coils, slabs, billets and angle iron but that round well casing was as scary as anything. I put more straps and fed belly straps and still it moved, I guess thats why they use stakes. I have never tightend straps as much as this load and stopped as often to check them. On the other hand I also had my first load of insulation board. Stacked to the rafters so throwing straps was a good workout but then what? I never put a twist in them and I think the vibration caused them to compress the material and loosen so I climbed up on top at a stop and repositioned the corners then added some twist. I usually have had a pole to do this with but conveiently left it at home in the garage, its in the truck now. Anyhow looking forward to seeing more of the USA.

Trucking brings out the masochist in me too. Your lucky to have Rainy as a contact, I have found her posts to be excellent and they have really helped keep me on track.

I would say try to drive regional then you would have less variety to have to contend with. As you gain experience dealing with conditions in your area becomes easier and you can roll with the punches so to speak and earn your maximum.

They should be fine, I found that I hated laces so I bought a pair of cowboy boots steel toed and great sole but they gave me a heat rash so I’ll save them for winter. I’d worn out the heels in record fast time which I couldnt figure out with all the walking I do, I had taken them with me on vacation so I could get them repaired and forgot them in the rental car at the airport. My brother picked them up for me but I needed some new ones and since laces were out I was looking at Blundstones but they were expensive and looked like old peoples shoes, luckily the store had a house brand 6” slip on boot for less so thats what Im wearing now. I wish I had thought of that style sooner could have saved a lot of money on those western boots. Comfort and convenience beats vanity.

I was just looking at my last pay stub, I cleared $2084.50 for the previous 2 weeks. I will probably average $900 clear a week over the year by my best guesstimate. This past pay period was the busiest I have ever been, Almost 70hrs elogged in 5 days and if you count the time before logging in and after logging out I am close to 90 hours. I was totally bagged and looked forward to a good payday so believe it or not I was disappointed with the last pay. I must have jumped a tax bracket lol. But looking back at that time It was a good week and I felt the most satisfied with my performance since I started driving. Mileage is a luxury, I find reloads and mutiple drops to be a large portion of my pay so I look at how many hours I’ve put in to determine how things are going and 70 hours in 5 days is common though my elog does’nt show them. I’m going to celebrate my cdl 1st anniversary on June 6, I’ve been with this company since June 12. I am generally satisfied with my career choice and can see my driver abilities improving consistently which keeps me motivated. I wouldn’t be able to make near this money working for an employer as a carpenter and its all about the money right now.

Yeah, I had that figured out. I wanted to get the facts from a Canadian driver from Canada with a Canadian commercial license.

My trailer had 5 axles and was permited for 92,000 cargo, that seems to be what most of our trailers are. I haven’t been doing this long enough to pick up on all the rules so I call the office when ever Im in doubt. Our company has some 6 axle trailers but Im not sure what the max is for them. This load was only the 3rd 90,000 one Ive pulled. Its surprising how much difference every couple thousand pounds make to the handling the higher you go.