I spent 2+ hours helping out a new driver today.
He had gone home after upgrading, and they sent him by Bus to recover a truck.
He had no trailer, and they sent him bobtail to get a broken one at my load location.
The trailer had been there red tagged for 3-4 weeks. Would not get below 24 degrees.
It was showing no codes though. So we got a pre-trip going (after I remembered how to on the old style reefers, and it was low refrigerant, like I had thought.
Also after sitting so long, it had 2 low tires and one flat one. So he had a heck of a day ahead of him, and he was already late for his pickup.

That is just one heck of a mean thing to do to a new driver on his first solo load. Plus he was heading to GA, and they had him routed down thru most of WV, and the biggest hills in TN.
I think he will do ok though. I hooked him up with spare windshield washer fluid and wiper blades before I had to go LOL.
I am now going to have to run my rear off tomorrow, to get to Independence Friday.

For a company that stresses communication so much it is getting to be pretty darn poor lately. I am glad I have a dedicated run. But I too have trailer issues allot. Too many drivers are not getting them fixed when they should. I hate to say this with the lease OPs here, I know it is not you, but I believe quite a bit of the time it is L/O doing it. I know they do not have time to mess with it, they have to make there payments, but I don't have time eather.

The administration is screwed up. But that does not mean the drivers need to screw each other up.

The amount of times we get called into the scales lately, we wouldn't be game to run with a trailer that had anything wrong with it. JJ has had 2 inspections in the last five months.

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The Two J's living in the house Peter bilt.

Well another day down for Wayne. Tomorrow starts the mountain driving. I guess him and his bunkie are gonna go first so they can get out of the truck before the last guy goes. I guess he scares the heck out of them....lol....Today they did city driving and more backing. He ha shis backing down so he is set for that. I am just glad he is doing good. Had to send more money. They say to bring $300 but he has spent more then that for some reason. Hopefully this is all worth it.

Central isn't going to change.

1500 Miles and 5 days is a re-occurring problem with my co-driver and I. Our f/m will never get us drops, although he's trying to play hardball now, so we'll see.

Central isn't going to change. They can replace people with experience with trainees, and while they lose money in accidents, they get subsidies for running the school. They can also talk new drivers into leasing trucks 3 months out, and make money that way. What they have works, for them.

The only thing they're going to change is anything that was easy on us. Idle policy, these new evals, minimum goals, they're all set up to help Central out. Not us. We don't matter.

About grinding gears: when I went through school (not Central) my trainers there had a good way to shift so you don't grind them.

Get your RPM's up to where you need to shift, and then say "Shift into Neutral" as you shift to neutral, and then "shift out of neutral" as you shift into gear. Works great on a 9 speed truck.

For a 10 speed: Do "shift in, Shift out" as you're doing the motions.

Works really well.

Well, I have an end to my lost trailer. Learn from this one folks.

So after pestering my f/m for 2 weeks and not even getting "haven't heard anything yet" I went into the War Room when I made it to SLC. Someone had told me to talk to Mike. So I went to my F/m's boss (F/M was the last person I wanted to see), and he pointed me to my f/m, and told him to talk to Mike, and that the found trailer needed to be resolved.

So f/m shoots an email off, and eventually Mike C wants to talk to me. The trailer's not really lost, it was on an OTRM maintenance list because the place we picked it up at bumped a hinge and the door fell off. So, it wasn't really lost, and they couldn't pay the $750 for the lost trailer, but they'd give me a $125 finder's fee.

I called the place I picked the trailer up from, and they told me they don't keep track of the trailers unless there's a major incident with them, and they never talk to Central. As far as they're concerned, the trailer belongs to the company they get the freight from (someone we haul ltl for) and there's no paper trail showing anything ever happened to that trailer.

Bottom Line: If you find a lost trailer and someone claims it's lost, get it documented over the qualcomm, and cover your bases. And, don't expect to get paid, because they're not going to want to pay you.

I never expected to get paid. The $125, while not the actual amount, at least paid for my Hazmat background check so I can go work for someone else.

Chromedome makes a very good point here. I have posted this before, but I am going to do it again. The little things we can do for each other can make life a LOT easier for all of us:

1. When dropping a trailer, always make sure the tank is over half full. Also, if you must drop a trailer that needs repair, then at the very least let OTRM know about it. What could be a MINOR inconvenience to you could be a MAJOR problem for the next driver.

2. Keep a good flashlight and some hand tools within reach and be willing to use them to help a fellow driver..

3. Our CB Company Channel is Channel 5, use it if you want to offer guidance but don't want to embarrass a driver by broadcasting it on channel 19.

Smadronia, I believe this is even more reason to help each other out.

Smadronia made a lot of good points!!!!!! Central try save money in STUPID ways for instance we did the lease on a new Pete, the QC they put in it was a second hand QC that we pay $22 and some change on every week, when it was installed who ever installed it didn't put the screws in the back, We didn't notice until it got harder and harder to send in Macro's, and finally it stopped working altogether up in Washington so no QC we had to call in all check calls and get directions fuel routing ect major pain in the butt.
JJ had to go to WVC for a 45 day Evaluation as a L/O which could have been done over the phone only he had to sign some paperwork to say he had a 45 day evaluation, totally wasting time and costing money.

They ended up replacing the QC and the lil white dome thingy on the truck so the whole system was replaced with a new one.

JJ will be in PA on Friday a full day and a half before his appointment even with wasting 1/2 day at WVC and having the truck serviced and washed, So that tells me there was to much time on that load, he is hoping to be able to drop the trailer Friday and get a new load outta there so he isn't stuck in PA until Monday waiting on a new load.

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The Two J's living in the house Peter bilt.

We're having the same problem on this current load. Picked up in OR and will deliver in MO Sunday night. I had home time here to go to a high school reunion, and my f/m nearly came unglued when we asked for an extra day (I've had 4 hours sleep most nights). Instead, he gets us a load with 4 days on it for 1900 miles, and with his track record, we're going to deliver it anyway. So, we took some extra time with my grandmother, doing more laundry and refilling the cooler before we head out. H'es going to be chomping at the bit, but why should I hurry here only to wait 2 days there, with my co driver, when we can take an extra half day here and still be there early?