Comments By Greg M.

Have you created an account with the Delaware DMV and looked at your account online? Delaware sounds like my state of Ohio where you can go online and self certify. If your license still shows as a CDL just select a category that does not require a medical. That will keep your cdl intact basically indefinitely. At any point if you want to start driving again just get a physical and submit it to the DMV.

I had an interesting experience a few months ago.

I had delivered in Cambridge, Ohio in the morning and dispatch told me to head west on I70 to Columbus for my back haul to Cincinnati. I decided to stop at the large rest area just east of Columbus. As I rounded the bend to enter the truck parking area I see that Ohio is having a full scale DOT blitz. There were numerous white DOT inspection SUVs, State Patrol vehicles and several Road Service venders working on trucks.

I figured slow rolling back to the highway would surely draw attention so I decided that my best plan of attack was to exude confidence. I picked a parking spot right in front of the building, got out, said “Good morning“ to one of the parked State Patrol officers and walked on into the building. Came back to my truck got myself settled and leisurely exited without drawing any attention.

Entering my 6th year as a second career driver I have only had 1 DOT interaction. During the last day of Blitz Week in 2018 I was pulled over by Indiana DOT in Indianapolis and given a Level 3 inspection. Reason for the stop was 58 in a 55. No ticket but Ryder has a zero tolerance speeding policy so I got a “stern talking to” by my manager and a RAB for Risk Associated Behavior. A friend of mine was in the office at the time an said: “ Don’t worry about it. I have a stack of those an inch thick and they still have me train drivers”

Boat and RV storage is a great idea if it is a secure location. You may also look into renting to trucking companies as a drop lot. Check out industrial areas nearby and see if you notice a lot of equipment for different companies. Reach out to them to see if they have a need. Also contact the shipping/receiving departments for nearby companies.

I work for a small company in Ohio and we have rented drop spots all over the state. We only have a few spots at each but they seem to pretty well used.

I am a little confused. It sounds like you are currently running an ELD? Are your trips normally outside a 150 mile radius? If so the exemption does not apply. You would just log the way you always do. Doing otherwise would leave gaps in your HOS as well as generating unidentified driver records on the ELD.

The purpose of the exemption is to allow companies/drivers who rarely operate outside the 150 mile radius to operate without logging, except when they exceed the 150 mile radius. It is not to allow a driver who normally operates under HOS logging requirements to take a day off from logging.

I apologize if I am mis reading the situation.

For a regular office printer you will need to have an inverter.

Had an experience last week that reminded me of this discussion.

Wednesday morning I delivered in Mansfield, Ohio for our dedicated customer. Once empty I received a dispatch to pickup a load in Marion, Ohio for delivery in Northern Kentucky just across the river from Cincinnati. I have an Ohio only medical card so I was told that I would be dropping the load at our terminal in Cincinnati and another driver would take it to the final.

I was pretty sure this was a broker load because neither the shipper or receiver sounded familiar. Our backhauls are a mixture of customer and brokerage freight, we have a small brokerage division that finds loads for us.

Once I get loaded I take a look at the paperwork I see that there are very detailed delivery instructions. Had to schedule delivery 24 hours in advance via email, receiver can only receive 2 deliveries a day etc. I have no idea if dispatch has this information so I took a picture of the paperwork and texted it to my dispatcher just saying: "FYI Not sure if you guys are aware of this."

Once I drop my load at the yard I do not have a new dispatch so I go into the Dispatch office to say hi and see what's next. As I'm talking to my dispatcher one of the other guys in the office who handles the scheduling of brokered loads comes over and thanks me for sending in the text. They had planed to have another driver grab it soon after I arrived at the yard. Once they saw my text and emailed they found out that the earliest they could deliver was Friday morning. He said I saved them a wasted trip and also said that not many other drivers would have noticed the potential issue.

A couple weeks ago I delivered a load of Wing Seasoning, some sort of spice mixture I believe. 18 pallets weighing right at 40K. Each pallet had, I'm guessing, 10 lb bags of the stuff all plastic wrapped. When they were done they came up and said that they were rejecting 4 of them "because of bugs". Not quite sure how they determined that the other 14 were good.

Dispatch had me take them to one of our drop lots. Next day I was back there and the trailer was already gone. No idea where they ended up.

Ann: Has FAB already started scaling back operations? I just left PCA in Newark and their drop lot appeared to have 15-20 fewer trailers than normal. There were still FAB trailers there but the overall number seemed reduced. Not complaining, that place can be a real pain when full. I was almost overwhelmed deciding where to drop my loaded trailer today.

Victor: Another place to try would be the various 3rd party logistics companies like Ryder, Penske, Black Horse etc. I went through company paid training but ended up not staying with the company. So I had a cdl but little recent experience. After a few months with a small local company I was hired by Ryder in something called their Driver Development Program. It was for cdl holders with 0-1 year experience. Spent 6 weeks with a trainer local then went solo.

These are typically local or out and back jobs. You see them advertising on the job sites like indeed. Normally involves a couple of interviews and maybe a test drive just to see where your skills are.

Availability depends upon what accounts in your area need but I was very happy with how it worked out for me.

Once I posted that I thought it might be misinterpreted. I do very detailed pre/post and mid trip inspections. Just this week I found a loose exhaust clamp and a burnt out marker light, both since corrected. I was refering to logging into ELDs, waiting for 30 min breaks to expire, planing my day around breaks etc.

Greg M wrote:

Just jump in the truck and go.

Pretrip? Is this done while you are moving? Or not at all?