I Can Never See Any Reason Under The Sun Why Trucks Should Ever Be Overweight.

Todd Holmes,

You seem to want to ask questions about the industry but then either you ignore or don't understand the answers you receive from some of the greatest people that offer their experience and advice to you. Rainy D., Old School and others tell you straight up answers but you continue to drag it out. Maybe it is just you but this career in trucking may not be for you if you can't take constructive criticism.

There are tens of thousands of shippers and receivers, shipping endless amounts of items with countless weights and sizes it would be impossible and highly unrealistic to expect any uniform solution. Infact most shippers have it down to a science and you should have minimal problems. Remember the shipper does not want to have to rework your load anymore than you want them to have to.

PlanB, you are preparing me upstairs in my noggin to deal with stubborn knucklehead shippers and possibly dispatchers who see things their way. I would think one always has to always account for the weight of a fully-fuelled truck. Who the devil customarily drives around on 1/4 tank anyway? Whenever I gas my car up, it gets topped off, period. Fewer fills makes for more saved time and dollar bills.

My fear is all this doubling back from the chicken coops to deal with a couple hundred pounds in question will eat into my time and income-earning potential.

The driver should at least be compensated by the shipper for his time and money for any overloads that have to be reworked. I like to take preventive measures as much as possible. I like to get things right the first time. An ounce of prevention saves tons of money, miles, time and fuel. There, however, seems to be no proven iron-clad preventive measure for this common and troubling overweight issue even in this hi-tech 21st century. It makes trucking still seem so embarrassingly medieval. Having to run a truck back from the weigh station to the shipper to fix an overload also burns fuel and adds to air pollution and traffic congestion. It all seems so inefficient and wasteful to me. It is probably part of the reason my grocery bill seems so expensive. The price of milk and meat and all.

General Patton once said, "I don't like to pay for the same real estate twice." Advancing on the enemy one step forward only to take several steps backward because of a logistics snafu such as a gasoline shortage.

I would think even in trucking TIME is MONEY.

Personally, I don't think you will ever get beyond the stage you are at now. I think you are infatuated at the idea of driving, but will never take the next step. All these questions are just procrastination.

In my career so far, I pulled reefers and dry vans for a total of 1 year and 3 months, before switching to flatbed. That was 158 loads according to our website. In that time, I had to get reworked by a shipper twice, and I can tell you exactly where those places were. On one other load, I had to keep my fuel below 1/2 tank for the duration, in order to avoid being overweight. This caused me to stop a grand total of 1 extra time for fuel.

Being loaded overweight by shippers is not a common occurrence.

I'm not trying to pile on here, but I'm trying to give you advice. You seem to latch on to the smallest inconveniences or errors, and then think that those are the norm for this industry. But that's not the case. You are constantly referencing your military background, and comparing the trucking industry to that and trucks to airplanes. I think that is one of your biggest downfalls right now. You need to focus on learning the industry rather than comparing the industry. That doesn't mean you won't be transferring your knowledge to help you in this industry, but you can't try to directly compare these things.

Focus on learning the industry before you start trying to fix the industry.

Chris offers wisdom beyond his years...

Focus on learning the industry before you start trying to fix the industry.

Todd...basically everyone is advising you the same exact way. To be blunt; “get off your duff and do something constructive and stop pontificating on the trivial.” You are wasting your time...and our’s.

Focus on learning the industry before you start trying to fix the industry.

This is a very important point for any new drivers coming into the industry. Know-it-alls are the first ones put on the bus back home. It's unbelievable how many brand new students show up for training and immediately start nitpicking at every aspect of what's going on. The trainers are no good, the training is done all wrong, the company is no good - they know it all, and yet they've never driven a truck a mile in their lives.

How much a person is going to learn is directly proportional to how many opinions they have of the people and the process. The more you think you know, the less you're going to learn, and the less they'll want you around.

Ask a lot of questions and do a lot of listening. Just understand that there's so much you don't know in the beginning that some things won't make sense to you. Don't sweat it. In time everything will reveal itself.

As far as Todd goes, I think he's asking a ton of good questions that a lot of people would want to know. Without experience his opinions are sometimes pretty far off the mark, but that's what we're here for - to help with that.

Do I think Todd will ever actually pursue a career in trucking? No, I don't think he will. But he asks a lot of good questions that will help a lot of people learn more about the industry, and I'm cool with that.

My concern for Todd is that I believe he said on another thread he is on disability trying to get off?

This alone could prevent his future in trucking and not once do i recall us discussing that.

Todd do you realize the difficulty you may face?

It comes down to the bottom line every time. Maximizing every load is going to be every shippers goal. Some shippers will have scales, and some don't. Some shippers have smart people loading trucks, and some don't. It's always going to come down to the driver to make sure he or she is at legal weight. For over 10+ years I pulled about every trailer ever made, and had 1 overweight ticket. So it can be done.