Comments By Viking

Started my career over 2 years ago at England. Still here. Still accident free. Making great money and home every weekend. Oh yea.. and I'm Solo.

Training is what you make of it. Sure the trainer you get is random. Doesn't mean your stuck with a bad one. If something doesn't click speak up, you only hinder yourself by not speaking up. They want you to succeed.

Don't believe the terminal rats. These companies didn't get to be as big as they are and around as long as they have been by screwing over their top performing drivers.

I don't mind starting from ground zero. My first year goal is something over 50K. I'm excited to see the gross pay numbers you all posted. I understand that you're probably busting your butts to do that well. I'm too new to know if that means you've got great driver managers or dispatchers behind your success, or you've managed to stay out of traffic jams. I'd ask what constitutes 'skill' in the job, but it's probably too many things to list.

I'm currently looking at paid training options in addition to two driving schools in the Atlanta area. This site (and forum) have been very useful. With the COVID slowdown, do you think it's likely that LTL shippers or big companies will offer "free" training? I'm going to make some calls on Monday.

Great driver managers / dispatchers aren't the reason for their success. Those drivers have proven time and again that they are productive, flexible and get the job done correctly everytime. They have earned the dispatchers trust. In trucking it almost always boils back down to you. You are the reason you are successful or not.

As for LTL companies providing free training right now? I doubt it.

From all accounts I've seen LTL is one of the freight types that's struggling right now. Pay cuts and furloughs.

Green horn here. I'm 5 months into my driving career. I'm both lucky and unlucky to have landed a local gig. Hear me out, please. I've been a heavy equipment operator for 5 years. I moved states for the same career, and my company was stoked to learn that I got my CDL before I moved. After I showed them I could operate, in our downtime they put me with a trainer for a few weeks. High blood pressure whilst training, but a really great teacher! Fast forward to today, I'm driving a lowboy! -Pulling oversized and 90k-132k permitted loads. It's great! I absolutely love it!! I get my experience, I go home every night, and I'm put in some really dumb situations. (Backing skills are SO necessary!!) Go, new guy, right?! Well, for one, my job title isn't driver, it's operator. So, that's my priority. On rain days or when they send everyone home, I still get to haul, so I'm very grateful for that! However, 5 months in I have maybe 3-4000 miles under my belt. It's going to take me so much longer to get my experience this way! Also, I'm beginning to learn that (after window shopping a couple regional jobs) they require OTR experience. **In my opinion, once I get my miles (30 years later at this rate), driving these loads local is helping me more than cruising down Sesame Street at 63mph and 79,000lbs. I'm constantly in tight spaces, having to back in off roads, playing the block traffic game so I have enough room to make that right turn... I know this experience is helping me more, but heavy haul isn't the only thing I want in my future. Say I'm 5 years in and I find a sweet regional gig... Will I have enough miles under my belt to be considered experienced? Will they even look at me because I never went OTR?

Experience isn't just handling the truck in tight places or going down "seasme street"

A successful experienced driver knows how to properly trip plan, manage their HOS, manage their sleep schedule (flipping from days to nights and back as needed) and get the job done every time safe and on time.

You may learn to drive the wheels off that truck and not hit anything, but did you learn all the other things you need to be a successful regional/OTR driver?

I'm not a driver yet so I could be wrong but I believe those just followed Turtle over from Prime...

If I had to guess, maybe some of the garden center products?

I just grab my pillow and sleep the other way on the mattress that night.

Another note why do yard dogs leave them so high? Seems every drop and hook they have them sky high. They have to crank that many more times too a bit easier for them to do but why? Anyone know?

Yard dogs don't touch the landing gear.

Possible explanations include,

previous driver cranked it too high when dropping.

Or my favorite, the uneven yard. How many drop yards have you been in that are completely level and flat the whole way through? How many are just dirt lots? I tend to find more of the latter.

3 times in the past 2 years I've gotten a trailer that were found to have no working trailer brakes. I found this out during pre trip by slowly taking off in 2nd and than gently pulling on the trailer brake. So how would I catch that major issue without it? Thus far I've never had a truck without one.

Correct me if I'm wrong here.

In order for the service brakes to not be working on the trailer they would have to be so far out of adjustment that the shoes no longer make contact when applied.

Right?

And part of a proper and through pretrip involves checking the adjustment of your slack adjusters?

Right?

So.. the answer to your question would be... Doing a proper and through pretrip.

I'm with CR England, not Crete however we have a "no idle" policy.

Our trucks do NOT have APUs and will shut off after a few mins UNLESS it is OVER 73 degrees or UNDER 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

Therefore in the summer we idle, in the winter we have the bunk heater. Only in the spring/fall does it really suck when it's not quite hot enough to idle but still uncomfortably warm in the truck.

When it is 73 outside, it probably 90 inside, even hotter in the top bunk.

Most definitely.

My trainer and I have been driving the east coast mostly and we have barely heard anything on the cb. I was wondering if anyone used them still and how that would work with the hands free laws. Can some please?

I never leave the east coast and I hear chatter literally every day, no matter what time I'm running. Some days its quiet other days the radio almost never shuts up lol.

Is your trainer using the built in cb antenna? They usually don't work as well range wise as an external one. Especially in a cascadia.

As for hand free laws? Have yet to hear of a trucker being ticketed for using a cb.