Comments By Michael S.

RealDiehl, I can relate to your feelings about it, when I decided to move from Minnesota to Florida, I left a job managing 100 rental properties for my boss of 4 years, with whom we developed a fantastic working relationship built on trust, dedication, and mutual respect of eachother. It was a real difficult decision on both of us.

I meant so you cant see him..duh! lol

While doing in cab trainer was sitting behind me on the bunk, still happened

I've heard that if you can picture in your mind the trainer standing there naked, it helps you relax.

Lol, nah, I've tried that one before with public speaking, didnt work for me! But thank you!

Pretend that you are instructing him/her rather than that they are testing you. I'm confident you'll figure it out. Just have a little faith in yourself.

I like that, might just work, because when I'm paired with another student testing eachother I'm fine, it's just some kind of examiner anxiety!

SERIOUSLY NEED ADVICE! My first issue today with training and testing! When I test on paper or computer I have almost zero test anxiety, but verbally testing in front of someone I freeze up and cant remember things! When I practice the pretrip inspections out loud by myself I nail it everytime, but doing it in front of my trainer not so much. Must get past this before I test in front of the examiner!!!!

I see, makes sense, hadnt heard anything from prime about it, so when the driver told me that, I felt the need to question it.

Excellent, congrats!

Chris wrote:

The Federal mandates came about because of increasing accidents from drivers who were found to be in violation of HOS. A good example was the Wal-Mart Driver who had the accident with Comedian Tracy Morgan in New Jersey back in 2015. I found a CBS News report on Youtube stated the driver had driven from his home in Georgia to a Wal-Mart DC in Delaware before his run started and according to the report, the NTSB stated the Driver was already in violation of HOS by the time he had gotten on the road.

Chris I do not agree with your example supporting the e-logs mandate. Walmart Private Fleet (WMPF) has a sophisticated electronic logging system on all of their trucks that predates the new law by at least 7 years. WMPF is arguably one of the stricter carriers when it comes to driver compliance.

The Walmart driver in question violated the unenforceable law of common sense. Meaning; implied when off-duty you are to have adequate rest before reporting to work. He also lied when asked the question by his dispatcher; “are you physically able to drive?” IMO he wasn’t.

However, he did not violate any HOS law. He was off-duty, not under any dispatch. He chose to drive from a graduation party in Virginia to his Walmart GM DC in Smyrna DE. This falls outside of any HOS law and can be loosely considered a commute. When he reported for duty he started with a fresh 70/14 hour clock. This is no different than an off-duty driver, in their sleeper, gaming all night long and then being dispatched the next morning with a 12 hour day ahead of them. It happens. Short of collaring us with electronic monitors, there is no way to enforce lack of adequate rest for a person who wrongly chooses otherwise. It’s about personal and professional responsibility.

Although I am not condoning his lack of common sense or absolving him from responsibility, there is nothing any e-log system could have legally recorded that would have prevented him from driving. There is absolutely no excuse worthy of what he did. His mistake was catastrophic and had a rippling effect for all of us, especially those of us pulling Walmart branded trailers every day. We became targets for increased enforcement and elevated public scrutiny.

In the end, a driver is both responsible for getting adequate rest and ensuring they are fit to drive when called upon.

Very, very well said and explained G-town

That's awesome man. Love how good so many of my classmates are doing.

I know right, lot of them doing well!

Whoo hoo!

awesome! How's the auto feel?

Awesome, love the auto!