Profile For Kevin H.

While we are talking about Schneider, I would appreciate if someone could tell me WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE between their OTR and regional?

I worked for Schneider a few years ago but don't anymore, so things may have changed. But the difference used to be that regional will keep you closer to home because they expect to get you home more often. I don't know why they both say home every other week, but I would guess that if you were OTR they would expect that you'd normally be out longer than that. I think the trade off might be that you could get longer trips and more miles per week with Otr.

I wouldn't pay too much attention to the list of states, when you get going you'll go wherever the loads take you. But I did look at the job descriptions for your arwa and noticed that regional specifically says you won't have to go to the northeast, so that's a difference.

If your experience is similar to mine, then you shouldn't worry too much about choosing between regional or OTR because it probably won't be a problem to change your mind even after you start driving.

Hope this helps. Good Luck.

Ha ha, so basically, both. I was just curious. Anyway, you can think what you want about how tough I am, but I can defend my points and I don't need to hide behind what Brett wrote.

Sorry for the digression everyone. Carry on.

I think Tractor Man's post has a bit of a "you're an idiot" tone to it, and I *am* sensitive to that.

OH Please Kurt! SMH

"SMH" because you disagree, or because you don't think that matters?

Never mind, I shouldn't have bothered posting. I should have known I'd just get a lecture instead of a discussion.

Feeling sensitive today are we? He wasn't lecturing you in the least. He was just answering your question and carrying on a respectable conversation.

As my dad used to say, toughen up buttercup.

Well, maybe 'lecture' is the wrong word, but I think Tractor Man's post has a bit of a "you're an idiot" tone to it, and I *am* sensitive to that. (And as contrast, your response doesn't have that tone). But I think maybe he didn't get exactly what my question was, and I guess that's my fault for not being clear. I don't think it's a matter of not being tough enough, but sometimes it just doesn't seem worth the trouble to argue my point. Then I wish I hadn't bothered posting at all because if I don't keep responding it looks like I'm admitting my post was stupid.

Having said that, I think Tractor Man's second post might have the answer. It could be the spokesman was thinking that probably the brakes failed because the driver didn't use a low gear to safely descend the hill. At the beginning of that youtube video there's a sign warning trucks that they aren't at the bottom of the hill yet, maybe he ignored that or didn't notice it.

Why would that be? Maybe he was coming down the hill too fast or something?

Because 8 or 10 people are dead!?

4, actually. But yeah, people getting killed is a requirement for a homicide charge, but it doesn't explain why it's the driver's fault no matter what failed.

The driver is responsible for the mechanical soundness and safety of hie equipment. Have you ever seen the signs at the top of a big downgrade? "BRAKE CHECK AREA AHEAD. ALL TRUCKS MUST STOP". That sign isn't there to keep the sign company in business. Do you heed that sign? I do, and am blown away by the number of trucks that just go blowing by as I am checking things out. Also, if he was in the proper gear at the top of the hill, with a properly operating engine brake, he would not have blown by those cars at that high rate of speed. Pure negligence at the very least on the drivers part.

Maybe, but you don't know what the failure was, and don't know whether or not he checked his brakes at the top. Surely a driver is only responsible for mechanical problems that could have been found while doing the required inspections. So I'm wondering how the police spokesman is so sure unless he has more information than is being released.

Never mind, I shouldn't have bothered posting. I should have known I'd just get a lecture instead of a discussion.

Article on cnn.com says that the driver said his brakes failed (as someone mentioned above). The thing that interests me from the article is this:

When asked whether there were any mechanical issues with the truck, [Lakewood Police agent] Countryman said it is something his department is looking into, but he believes even if there were a mechanical issue, vehicular manslaughter charges would still stick.

Why would that be? Maybe he was coming down the hill too fast or something?

I think you said in another thread that you got it checked out, but it sounds like you need it checked again. It's ridiculous to have to spend an hour getting it to release. Also if it's not working right it could be dangerous.

I notice that twice it released right away after waiting some time. That makes me wonder if it could somehow be air pressure related. Does the air pressure hold when you're parked? Maybe you could try pumping the brakes to reduce the air pressure before pulling the releae. It's a long shot, don't know why air pressure would have anything to do with it except that it does have an air release button, but it's a thought.

A couple things that I found out the hard way: you can have unlimited data on your phone plan but sometimes the hotspot data is limited, and it's easy to use a good chunk just watching youtube videos for a few hours. Also, if you have a windows laptop, go to the network settings for that connection and set it to 'metered'. Doing that will limit tbe amount of updating it does over that connection. Unfortunately, last I knew it was impossible to completely stop windows 10 from doing some updates whenever it wanted.

I haven't been there for a couple years, but yeah, they have parking and a bathroom for drivers. They have drive-up check in so you can sit in your truck if there's a line, and they usually have empties.

When I was going there south on 146, my gps was telling me to turn right off the exit, but you have to turn left to get to the truck entrance. But if you're coming from Conn. I guess you'd be going north on 146, then it looks like you do turn right.

My truck did not have any AC power.

I should probably have said that it wasn't so much that the truck batteries wouldn't run the cpap all night. Sometimes they wouldn't last all night without running the cpap, like if I tried to cook something after I stopped, or if I forgot to turn the headlights off for a couple hours after stopping. I know my truck had 4 batteries wired in parallel, which seems like a lot of power even if they aren't "deep discharge" batteries like you'd ideally want to use to run things with an inverter. So I kind of suspected that the actual problem was that one or more of the batteries wasn't working 100%, but they didn't want to replace them as long as the truck continued to start. But I could be wrong, I don't know.

Anyway, I think if a truck is having problems with power lasting all night, it might make sense to have a battery dedicated to the cpap. I know at Schneider they monitored usage and if you missed more than 3 nights out of 10 you couldn't drive until you caught up, so it was important to be able to use it.