Comments By Deb R.

I miss having running water available whenever I want it.

I drove OTR 4 years for a company who's yard was 3 hours from my house. On my home time, I dropped the trailer at a lot a mile from my house, then bobtailed into my own driveway. If my truck needed service, I sat around the yard while it got done. It worked out, I did not know any different.

The benefits of living near a terminal are few. One is you have a guaranteed & truly secure place to park your truck. If your tractor guess into the shop for a few days, you easily get to go home and that doesn't count towards Home Time. That's about it.

Turns out those were actually big things for me! Now I drive OTR for a company that is 6 miles from my house, and I LOVE it. I did not realize how much I worried about that darn trailer until I did not have to anymore. It will not be my (unpaid) job to dig it out of the snow and clear off the roof after a blizzard. No more wasted time sitting around for routine servicing; that used to totally drive me crazy, now I can just go home! If I need to talk to someone in the office, I have the option of doing it face to face, which is sometimes way better than using the phone.

I would not advise terminal location to be a deal breaker in picking a company, but it would tip the scales for me if choosing between two options.

I have been solo OTR for almost 5 years. Most times, women drivers I see are half of a team; when I do see another solo lady, it feels like we are part of a club. I restrict my out-of-truck time after dark, depending on location. I travel with a dog, so that makes me feel safer and the company is nice, but a dog is a fair piece of extra work. I have only seen a “night worker” one time, and no one has ever mistaken me for one, but I am 61 years old, so that may be a factor, ha ha! I just do my job, and gender has not been an issue for me. Occassionally you can play it in your favor though, by asking the office gals where the driver’s bathroom is, and they may say “oh, honey, you don’t want to use that nasty bathroom, come around here and use ours” and believe me, it is always soooo much better!

I just started hauling produce last week, and wondered the same thing about weights being "off". As it was explained to me, using watermelons as an example, the shipper has x number of melons per box, but the melons have varying moisture content, thus never the same weight. So I was instructed to ALWAYS scale.

I've been on here for more than 5 years, just don't post much in the "ladies" section. I just started with a different company last week, so I'm on a learning curve again!

I did a 10 week course at a Technical College, and it was excellent. I preferred being able to apply at different companies once I had the CDL; not being locked into one company gave me more options. I also found a company that had tuition reimbursement.

What does a dispatcher look like? Ha ha, I have had the same one for 4 years and had no idea until someone showed me a FB photo a few weeks ago. It's weird to not actually know the person you have to work with every day, we have never met.

I had a yard driver approach me and say “you must be new, I can see you are way oversteering”, that actaully helped me a lot - just relax, and don’t crank the wheel so hard. I also went to WalMart and got some small orange cones from the sports section, and set them out for visuals. It’s better when you get on your own and don’t have a trainer watching. Take as much time as you need. Rushing always seems to end badly.

I’ve been to the caves in Missouri, lucky me, my load was a drop and hook all set to go in the trailer lot outside. So I dropped my empty, then bobtailed into the caves to see what it’s like in there. Really something, and would likely be anxiety producing if a person were claustrophobic, and no doubt a challenge with a 53’ trailer! No cell service, that’s for sure. Then I got back outside, hooked to my load, and off I went.

Four years with Wolding, only had one time that I was in a spot where they required a TWIC, or pay an escort vehicle $50. Wolding reimbursed me the $50. That was in Philly shipyards.