Profile For Banks

That's some crazy stuff you LTL guys are talking about. My dispatcher always sees my hours. He will occasionally call and ask me something like this, "I see you have been bumping up against your 70 each day this week. Can you manage to get this load going to Vermont there by Wednesday?"

He's always aware of how I'm managing my time.

Every company operates differently, but universally, companies care about following regulations and safety. If you tell your dispatcher "I won't be able to get to Vermont by Wednesday" they're not going to say "we don't care about HOS, just get there".

Clocked in one day at 9am. Got drafted 30min later to do a run with a via.

Got to the via, swapped trailers and continued to my destination. While enroute, my truck broke down. Finally got to my destination at 2200 hours.

Trailers weren't ready. Finally at 2230 the dispatch at this center hands me my paperwork. The paperwork indicated that the run was about 4.5 hours long. So I was expected to arrive 18 hours after I had started my day.

I told the center dispatch I couldn't do it. There was no way I would have time. They could have cared less. They shrugged their shoulders and it was "deal with it".

So I called our Central Dispatch and told them what was going on. At first Central said, "Well go as far as you can and then call if you think you won't make it."

What??

I said, "Look, I CAN'T WORK 18 HOURS!!" Why send me on my run WHEN WE BOTH KNOW I WON'T MAKE IT??!!"

They finally relented and put me in a hotel for the night.

That's surprising. That's never been my experience with central dispatch. I've dealt with that with dispatchers in buildings when I say I can't do something, but then I just step outside and call Central and they make the necessary changes.

I have some horror stories.... I'm convinced that if I can get to where I am today, anybody can. When I first started, I had days where it would take me 2 hours (no exaggeration) to hook a set. Now, I'm hooked up in 10 minutes or less. I was so bad, that dispatchers were reaching out to my driver development instructor to see if I needed more training. I missed every gate and I was always late.

Take your time and be safe. The rest will come with experience.

Banks says:

The dispatchers don't seem to care at all about HOS

It's not their job to. That's your job.

HOS is both the driver's and the company's job. The company has a Compliance Office that double checks driver logs. Why? The FMCSA can audit driver logs and fine both the driver (smallish fine) and the company (largish fine) for violations.

Proof? Banks finishes with

I've never heard of a dispatcher telling someone that's out of hours to run.

Because dispatchers know your hours. That ELD on the truck passes your hours up to the office, so all the people concerned know your time.

That's not the case at FedEx. Dispatchers do not keep track of drivers hours, drivers do. If I can't get to where I need to be in time, it's my responsibility to let them know that and they may or may not look into it. If I go over my hours there will be disciplinary actions against me, not my dispatcher.

Upper management doesn't like to introduce themselves. 

I try to avoid management. I'm not there to make friends and the less we know each other, the better it is. However if you want to meet them, walk up and introduce yourself. For the most part, people hate small talk and COVID makes some people weird.

The dispatchers don't seem to care at all about HOS. 

It's not their job to. That's your job. If you don't have the hours to get to where you need to be, let them know that. Keeping track of my hours is a PITA and my schedule is pretty set. I can imagine trying to keep track of multiple drivers running at different hours and treating their clocks differently. 1 guy might burn his 70 hours in 5 days, while another runs on recaps. I've never heard of a dispatcher telling someone that's out of hours to run.

So far for the first month and a half of the year I've driven 14,900ish miles.

They have the work and it seems like your able to do it.... I'm not sure what the problem here is. Take advantage and make your money.

The dispatchers seem to be making good on their promise that If I give them 3 weeks they'll give me 3 days. 

You're running, making money and getting the home time you expected. Sounds like a good company to me.

I almost exclusively hook doubles at an angle. The only time I don't do it is if there's somebody hooked up next to the trailer I'm backing into. The reason I do it is because it makes it easier for me to line up to the tires and I can see exactly where my trailer is going. Sometimes I have older trailers with walls that are pushed out so I can't see anything. Other times, I just don't have the space to straight back and it would take to long to make the necessary corrections to get straight with my tail.

Your dolly doesn't have to be at an angle, it can be straight. When you connect the pintle eye and hook, just make sure your steers are straight and everything is lined up and it'll hook. Before backing, I look go under my rear trailer and make sure the kingpin and the fifth wheel are lined up correctly. Then just back up until it hooks and do a tug test to make sure. Then jump out to take a look.

Dispatching, load planning or operations isn't a 9 to 5 a lot of the time. We are so busy they are working like 12+ hour days and coming in on the weekends, plus working from home. All for less money than a lot of drivers make.

At least when I go off duty and head home, I am done I do not have drivers, dock workers and managers asking me stuff on my off time like they do. I always thought I would like to move to a office job at some point but it is way more stressful than I want so I give them 👍 👍 for putting up with it.

That's what I've seen. Start times are 4 AM, 12 pm and 8 PM. They all do 12 hours (sometimes more) and get paid salary so no overtime. Starting is between 60 and 70 a year.

Local driving (going home everyday) almost always goes by seniority. That means the new guy gets the stuff nobody wants. Nobody wants it for a reason. You'd also probably doing a different area everyday because you'd be covering for people that are off for one reason or another.

You can't say it's easier and you can't say it's harder. There are too many variables. Do you have a support system like people you can call that are familiar with the route and stops? Is it NYC or an industrial park built for trucks?

There is no one size fits all answer to this question.

When I lived in Brooklyn, I worked nights. My main goal was to always be home 30 minutes before street cleaning rules expired because if I wasn't, I'd spend hours (literally) looking for a parking spot.

Linehaul pays well. I think NYC may one of the few exceptions to that ruleb of thumb. At 6 AM, every major highway is a parking lot. That OD building is based off of the BQE between the LIE/Triboro bridge (that connects to the George Washington Bridge) and the Williamsburg bridge/downtown Brooklyn. I can guarantee that it's moving at 20 MPH from 6 AM to 9 PM. I've had days where my 100 mile drive from Brooklyn to PA takes 6 hours because of an accident or construction and I take that drive at night.

It can take 45 minutes just to clear the exit ramp at Morgan Ave (exit for ODFL) or Metropolitan AVE (alternate/next exit for ODFL). When I would drive through there I would skip both and take the Wythe Ave Kent Ave exit and drive the extra miles to avoid it, even though I lived 3 blocks away from the Metropolitan AVE.

Generally, I'd recommend letting a company sponsor your training and fulfill your year contract. A year goes by pretty fast. The main reason is that you absolutely have a job upon completion. There's no applications to submit or options to weigh while you let what learned get away from you and your CDL gets stale. You should stick with your first company for at least a year because nobody likes job hoppers, especially those that have no experience. Going through CDL school, there's no guarantee of employment upon completion. You can find yourself 5K or more in the hole with a license you can't use.

And most of these companies that get you licensed in exchange for a year give you the option to buy out your contract for the amount (or less) of what you would pay a school anyway. It's not a situation where you have no out and you're stuck there for a year no matter what.

If you do decide to go through a private school, make sure they provide a 160 hour certificate. You'll need that for most employers.

A quick search shows that there are a lot of jobs in the Charlotte area that pay what you want to be paid and involve the things you want to do.

Don't let people tell you how much jobs in another region pay. How would they know unless they lived there recently?

When I left n New York they all told me the same thing. Jobs in Pennsylvania pay minimum wage, you'll never survive blah blah blah.... Within a year I was making more money here with less expenses. People scared to do things themselves project that on to others. Don't let it be a factor in your decision making.

As for your C Felony, it may be a problem with some places, but it's more than likely that it won't. Transportation companies are more concerned with drug offenses, DUI/DWI and other moving violations.

My suggestion would be hold off on applying for anything until you're in NC. Local trucking jobs move fast. You apply, they talk to you on the phone, bring you in for physical, drug test and road test. They usually have you starting in 2-3 weeks. No point in applying now to say you're just looking into it and we're planning and it depends.

Good luck with everything.

Fed Ex and UPS you will need your doubles/triples 1st

UPS is even hiring of the street now , at least in So Cal outta Ontario hub I know was for sure

Yeah FedEx freight well require doubles/Triples, hazmat and tanker.

FedEx requires 1 year of experience. No experience necessary if you get hired as Driver Apprentice.

FedEx health insurance

I have to agree with Pack.

The problems you faced weren't doom and gloom. They were the kind of problems you figure out and then they're not problems anymore.

When I first started running, it would take me about 2 hours to get my set hooked. My dispatcher would send people out to check on me because 6 was taking so long. They would send emails to my instructor asking what I was struggling with and to see if I need more training.

Fast forward a little over a year. Yesterday they called me and told me they had a run to New Haven, CT with a via to Hartford, CT then back home to the Poconos. My main concern was beating the snow and any empty/doubles bans that would pop up. According to the forecast, I had 8 hours to get back.

I got to New Haven and I was able to drop my trailers, hook my trailers and do my post/pretrip in just under 30 minutes. It would've been faster, but I'd never been there before and I had to find my trailers. I've been to Hartford before so I dropped and hooked in 20. 430 miles and 3 drops and hooks in a little over 8 hours.

The point to all of this is that nobody comes in killing it on day 1. There's a reason that experience is valued. An experienced driver isn't going to deal with the issues you've dealt with because they learned how to handle them and they're no longer issues.

I'd say hit this linkApply For Paid CDL Training and apply for training.

Your in law can offer to help you out, but the truth is they don't know your history and the insurance company decides if they can hire you or not.

Working for family has a tendency to get real messy real quick. In laws make that even more likely. Avoid the family tension and keep professional and personal separate as much as you can.

Most applications only ask about convictions. If you paid a fine, you got a conviction. The question is, what was it?

Like Jammer said, answer honestly but keep it simple. I've filled out a lot of applications, but I don't recall ever being asked about convictions regarding prostitution so my gut says you'll be ok. Won't know until you apply.

I forgot, when you go for your permit you want to specify that it's a non commercial class a license you're seeking.

Congratulations on the retirement.

My suggestion would be to get your permit. While you're getting permit, get as much info on the road test as you can. My understanding is that it's a different road test from the one we take.

Once you have your permit, find someone with a CDL that can sit next to you while you practice. Then using the information you gathered while getting your permit, practice as much as you can.

Where are you located, old footer?

I've never driven for Swift and before spending some time with G-Town, I shared the "I'll never work there" mentality. Thinking back, I don't know why I thought that way but I did. After a day with G-Town, Swift became a front runner for me. My home life and being OTR didn't mesh, so I went another route (no pun intended).

The truth is, Swift is a company that can offer you a lot of options and a lot of resources. In my opinion, the bigger the company the better off you are. They offer you an opportunity, what you do with it is up to you. They have multiple dedicated accounts and divisions that pay well. Don't get hung up on the starting rate and comparing CPM. This is a long game and the money comes with experience. Prove yourself to be responsible and reliable and you'll make money.

People also say "I don't want to be just a number". The CEO of FedEx doesn't know my name and I don't need him to. I know my dispatchers, managers and advisors and they know me. One day, I blew a tire on my dolly. Getting the tire changed on the interstate wasn't an option so my dolly had to be towed, which means my rear trailer had to be towed. That required an additional tow truck. A wrecker for the trailer and a flatbed for the dolly. Dispatch told me to keep going with the lead because there was a guaranteed shipment on it. I asked the tow truck driver if he was ok just waiting there for the other truck and he said "because of the name on the truck I'll wait. I know they'll pay. A company I never heard of would have to pay upfront or I'd just leave it here because I don't do storage".

I tell this story because it opened my eyes to the benefits of a large company. People gripe about not being known by the owner and I don't understand it. The bigger the better and Swift is as big as it gets.