Comments By Tom W.

Cannot help you with a company that will not test you, but you should wait a little longer. Even if you get by at orientation there will likely be a lot of random tests especially in your first year.

Wait until the next opportunity comes around for you to smoke, if you are able to pass up the weed then you will know that you will be able to keep clean after you are driving a truck.

Just depends on your instructor. I remember when training one of the students messed up so bad driving that the drive shaft fell off. There was not any yelling or screaming. The instructor just picked it up off the ground and got the student into another truck.

It is definitely a good feeling. Knowing that you just drove and successfully unloaded your first trailer full of everything all by yourself.

Wish I could still get that feeling.

Take the hazmat job. The amount of class A job credit you have right now is about the same as you will have even years after driving with a class B truck.

The companies that want class A experience usually require at least a year, so it will not be any different then than it is now. The couple weeks driving experience is the same as no recent experience at all.

Go ahead and take that job, do not worry about what a class B truck will look like on your record, $17 an hour is even better than some class A jobs pay. The hours are exactly what you are looking for. That milk job will still be available to you I am certain for years to come.

My company went from 62 to 66 back in september. Almost every week I drive i-30 dallas to little rock and back.

Probably have not gotten much in the way of extra deliveries overall yet but just last Tuesday I was able to make it back to the Dallas terminal with four minutes left on my clock. If it was not for the speed boost I would have had to spend the night at a truckstop as opposed to being able to go home for the night.

My driver side window can be forced down from the outside. Locked myself out a few times now too so I never am going to bother getting that window repaired.

Sounds like you located one of Werner's lost trailers maybe. My own company has a long list of trailers that they lost track of and offer cash rewards to drivers that see and report them.

I am thinking any local situation. If you are restricted to only your drive time, then a local person who spends lots of time waiting at shipper and receivers or even those that offload themselves, could end up working incredibly long days. They weren't driving, so..... many hourly people stay on duty for loading and unloading. 12hrs of on duty wouldn't effect an OTR guy. You would still more or less 11 hrs worth of driving. 15 min pre/post trip, 15 min at a shipper/receiver, 15 mins for fuel. Still 11 hrs worth of driving. I am thinking of things from a safety standpoint. There needs to be someway to monitor/protect those local (hourly) drivers.

Monitor/protect?

If a driver cannot protect himself then he needs to do some other line of work. We are trying to get away from big brother protecting us.

Coughing, wheezing, and hacking up yellow phlegm?Those are some serious cigarettes you got there. As you get some more experience driving you will probably get used to it and should not have such a strong reaction.

There will be times that you will have to drive a truck that previously was driven by a smoker and it takes forever for the smell to go away. Hundreds of trucks will be idling at every truck stop you pull into. There will be cars and trucks on the highway spewing out black stinking smoke on the highways you drive everyday.

Your experience kind of shows that it is the smokers that are the truly strong.

What is even better than passing the inspection is never getting one.

The easiest thing to do to avoid getting pulled aside while going through the weigh stations is simply keep the dashboard spotless. No food, paperwork, or trash.

A lot of companies offer things like $25 for a clean inception, but honestly I would pay $25 myself to not be inspected.