Comments By Taxman

Is it something where you end up getting punished on miles/loads if you don't eventually lease?

That would seem suicidal from the employer's point of view, parking their own expensive trucks while handing loads off to Lease/Operators.

My worries would be the opposite: If I'm an O/O or L/O with a carrier that has its own employee driven fleet, will they keep the best paying loads for their own trucks?

This might not be a good year to go from drawing a nice steady paycheck to taking a share in the profits and expenses:

http://www.truckinginfo.com/channel/fleet-management/news/story/2017/04/earnings-watch-swift-and-covenant-profits-plummet-more-than-80.aspx?ref=rel-trending

Old School - I assumed Jeffrey P and Larry K were at the same point in the process, completed a 160 hour school, hold a CLP, failed the skills test twice, will qualify for a CDL-A as soon as they pass the skills test, the difference being that Larry has a school standing behind him and a carrier wanting to put him in TNT when he finishes earning his CDL. My question was: "Would Jeffrey improve his position by seeking testing on his own to obtain his CDL?" If that didn't get through, I must have worded it terribly the first time.

Rainy - I see what you mean about the training certificate. If a driver applies for work with a freshly minted CDL, says he went to school for four weeks to get it, but doesn't have the certificate, does that mean his next employer will not put him in TNT without putting him through the 160 hours again?

Question for the forum: Is it valuable to be able to tell an employer "I went to Roehl's school and have my CDL, but Roehl didn't hire me and I need to finish my training", as opposed to "Roehl trained me in the classroom, but I haven't passed my driving skills test"?

Question for Jeffrey: Are you reasonably certain that you're ready to pass your skills testing, and can you afford to pay a third party examiner for it? One of the examiners listed in my county is a rent-a-truck outfit, and they advertise that they'll rent you the truck and trailer for testing if you can't furnish them, is that commonly available?

Line 5 (off-duty driving) 'Personal Conveyance' has very specific criteria that must be met before it can be used.

3) Intent to Return - You must intend to the location where you began off duty driving.

5) Reasonable Distance - You are only allowed to travel about an hour. Rule of thumb is you are limited to the distance you can travel to a location, get 8 hours of rest and return to the origin.

For whatever reason, Prime says you must be on duty driving when going home. I was bobtailing home and was not under a load or available for dispatch. Used line 5 since I met all the criteria it seems. Im about 10 minutes from hone when the Qualcomm starts saying I used up all my off duty driving time. My 70 was also gone so the Qualcomm was saying I'm violating the hos rules. Received a message from logs a few days later saying going home must be on duty driving.

Did you meet all the criteria in Patrick's post, including #3 and #5?

And THAT was just the packing up and playing Tetris with the rental car! Oh man, I dread the unpacking.... LOL

Note to self: if moving a stuffed sleeper into a rental, rent a minivan.

Does this forum auto-post messages after a few minutes? I left this browser tab open while I looked for a link to the milk truck incident, and when I came back my message was already posted.

BTW, here's the only article I could find about the tanker hitting the tractor. It was a bad scene, pieces of John Deere everywhere. Deputies at the crash site told Tirrell's brother that he should have had a slow moving vehicle sign. He told them the sign was brand new, dug it out of the rubble and shoved it in their faces. Milk truck driver went to trial, but I don't remember the exact charge or the sentence. http://www.wilx.com/home/headlines/7277886.html

Having a cyclist roll up on my right while I'm looking at the red light waiting to make a right turn, and parking under my mirror.

We've had two sensational trucking fatalities in my area in the last 20 years, the first one involved a semi knocking a fifteen year old girl off her bike with the trailer and rolling his tandems over her in a right turn. Our county prosecutor didn't go after him criminally, and her family was hopping mad about that. I do not know how this one happened, maybe she rolled up on him at a red light, maybe he was trying to pass her before he slowed down to turn. I can remember listening to her stepdad complain about it and thinking it was her fault but I don't remember why, I just know that as a cyclist I never would have been where she was. Now that I know a little bit about trucking, I'm thinking that if you turn right and roll your tandems over a human without seeing her, you should have been checking that mirror. The other famous fatality was clearly 100% on the trucker, milk tanker rear-ended a farm tractor pulling a wagon with a slow moving vehicle sign in broad daylight on a straight road.

14 driver points total? (4+2+4+4)

Failure to secure the air hose is 2 points, right? And the three 4 point problems were all the result of the hose securing spring breaking, except maybe the ABS light?

Taxman, I've got the same machine and love it. Do you know of any apps available for an android phone. Basically I'd just like to be able to email myself my stats and then be able to print them out.

Thanks, JJ

No, I don't. I use Sleepyhead on my PC, write protect the CPAP's data card and stick it in the computer.

https://sleepyhead.jedimark.net/

Do you want more data than Resmed's MyAir displays? If not, can you go to MyAir via your phone's web browser and copy/paste the stats?