STAY AWAY from National Carriers

Rollover I have to agree with all of your points, well said! (even the ! points) )
I hope you don't include us all in the conspiracy plots, unfortunately the driving community has done a great deal to give ourselves a black eye, drug testing was inevitable when it was found out that small companies were giving their divers illegal drugs so they could run over hours, stay awake for hours... well, we all know what went on and please don't tell me it never happened cause we all know it did!

Well, I guess my point would be this, we have helped make ourselves look bad and by worrying about who drug tests what certainly doesn't help our case... If you can't pass the testing then by all means please... please move on to another career, we have enough black marks and don't need any more!

 

For years I have said the following at truck stops around the dinner counter, on the CB and at the yard and shop lounges...

We are our own worst enemies!"

We most definitely are when someone puts a news camera in their face! I cringe every time I see on the news some on the scene report on something trucking!

And yes I do remember how it was even my first job back in 75 when I got out of the Army.

The only experience at "trucking" was what the Army taught me.
I walked into my first driving job and asked for a job. He asked me what experience I had and sat there and looked at me for at least a minute then opened his drawer pulled out a set of keys and told me to follow him.

We walked out to an old International COE that was hooked to a local drop trailer and handed me the keys and gave me a route to follow and then tells me if I make it back in one piece I had the job!

I made it back and back in his office I fill out an application, went and got a physical, came back and he hands me a set of keys, a handful of white pills and 4 log books.

I had to ask him what the log books were for!

I drove for him for 7 years until he dies and his wife didn't want the company and the kids sold everything!

Then drug testing came around which we did have, but it became more prominent and drugs became a monkey on the back if we failed one!

Now. As for conspiracy plots and theorists, They'll be around until the sun eats the planet or whatever puts an end to the insanity!

DNA is going to become someones "mark of the Beast" and social security numbers will end being the sole source of identity! I've read many sci fi books and even some others where something was either tattooed, implanted or copied from the body. The police take a DNA sample from anyone they "think" is a suspect in any crime. Heck I wouldn't doubt if they aren't taking DNA samples from newborns and entering it into some crazy data base.

This thread can become a political thread if this line of posting continues but in order to get rid of drug testing, taxes and anything else anyone wants to bring up, a complete revolution will have to happen! << (is that a proper use for this exclamation point?)

For some reason truckers are now considered "Professionals" but the way the companies are weeding the higher paid older drivers and putting rookies in their seats the "professional" part is fast becoming a wrong terminology. We know that these days back to the 90s everyone had to have some kind of "school" training BUT even after all that we could NOT buy disability insurance. Why? Because no one considered trucking and truckers a "profession" but we darn sure became the most regulated group of workers on the planet with out half of the benefits the average burger flipper or janitor gets.

We have to undergo urinalysis when half of the rest of all workers don't unless the company they work for decides to test them.

I know a lot of smaller companies would just by pass the testing but since it's NOT the trucking companies decision but their insurance company that makes these decisions for them!

Heck, just bump a car with your truck and we all know we'll have to go and donate a cupful of the liquid yellow stuff so we can either be cleared from drug use or it's used to convince us and pave the way for a law suit that now it's not just the companies that will be forking out the million or so dollars for some drivers decision to use an illegal drug or misuse a prescribed one.

I'll agree that we are losing a few "rights" but what many forget it's NOT a Right to drive. It's a "privilege." Yes it is,because it's written in a lot of states drivers manuals (the "F" part) or the one that you got in high school for the learners permit you needed to start your life behind the wheel.

So what "rights" are we really losing when we apply for a job as a "driver?" Not to many except the right to be paid a fair and reasonable wage which we'll never see until some congress critters and POTUS actually looks into how truckers get bent on a daily basics.

As for them having my DNA, Whats the big deal? If you get run over by a truck or your aircraft crashes and your wallet doesn't get found how will they ID you so your family can know where you went? It's not as if they can track you! Yeah if they get RIDF technology down pat that's when I'll start to worry but by then I'll be bed ridden and that would be a waste of "technology!"

The one thing you hear about but not so much is I'll bet that every CT who wrote something in here has a cell phone but we do know they have a computer so the black helicopters know where you are when you log on and when you turn on the cell or swipe a card somewhere. Not to mention when you go to the doctors office and he pulls blood. Where does all that stuff actually wind up?

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IDK how I got here but back to the OPs question.

It doesn't matter what "test" Critter uses for their mandated pre-employment drug test. It's time you stopped with the drugs. Get cleaned up. If you are a pot smoker you'll need to wait for at least 30 days for your system to clean the THC out of your fat cells which is where it binds to. Other drugs go through your withdrawals and clean up but IMHO if you have to ask this question stay away from a truck! Heck stay out of anything that weighs over 50 pounds and can kill someone!

If you REALLY REALLY want to become a trucker and need to jump right in to a job then do as I suggested earlier! Shave it all off and wait for it to get "nubby" and cut it again and while doing that either buy one of those stupid pee test cleanse packs or drink several jars of Kosher dill pickle juice and eat all the pickles but do this several days before the test!

OR just say away because if you are one that just has to be high this really isn't the job for you. You can't kill a family in their car doing the burger jiggle or in a shop somewhere or as a cowboy!

Lets put it as simply as possible.

You have an accident in a CMV and hurt, maim or kill someone or just drive off the road doing considerable damage to truck and some kind of personal property and that pee test you MUST take comes up positive for a controlled substance (why do they call it a controlled substance when they can't freaking control it when it's a complete criminal enterprise and the gooberment can't stop it?) shows you were under the influence as if you just walked out of a bar drunk your arse is way up that smelly creek with out any means of propulsion?

OK Rant finished! I have way to much time on my hands being freaking disabled. I just try to be honest and as blunt as I can and as one of my TTR friends puts it, I don't sugar coat anything as it's useless to do so!

 

Rollover, one word.... ASTOUNDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (xtra ! for the heck of it!!!) Some day I would love to have a cup of coffee with you, I could not have said that better myself. In 35 years I have been offered and refused more white pills then I care to remember, but only 4 logbooks??? Must have been a slow week!!
Keep up the good work.

 

Next time you come through Springfield, MO let me know as I NEVER turn down free coffee!

As for the log books those were the last in the box! It took me several months to figure out how to color in them! In fact I still have the old logbook case from the Old Orange Ball 76.

My first 7 years all I did was the Smokey Mountains. I drove all through North Ga. TN, NC, SC and into VA but only in those hard to get to mountain areas! So learning how to color while reading the directions in the cover and an old copy of the FMCSA I found in the truck was a challenge! I did get to go to FL a couple of times when the driver for that route got sick or went on vacation but it was always on 2 lane curvy roads! I remember when the "Dragons Tail" was legal to drive on the same as 441, 19 when it was a 2 lane out of Johnson city or most of the roads around Berkly which you're lucky if you can pull a pup around there or 250 or 219 just to name a few!

Want to really learn how to drive on your own? Hit the Smokey Mountains because the Rockies just don't hold a candle to a lot of the roads in the south!

I think those little white pills he gave me went out the window. Yes, I did take a few over the first years but I only did a tooth pick that first time. That was a terrible 3 days! Those things were wicked! Yes, even pot but I got so stupidly paranoid that I gave it up also! It' was a learn from my mistakes lesson. The white pills were pretty much a waste on my routes as almost every place I delivered and picked up at were only day operations so I never had that drive for 10 hours and hope I made the place on time!

LTL just wasn't a good excuse to have to stay awake on.

 

Wouldn't bother me one bit to take a hair follicle test for I have nothing to hide.

 

Not sure how to copy and paste and don't want to quote all of Roll over's post/s. (is that proper use of a slash mark?? )

Regarding wrecks and pee tests. Ain't going to happen. Going to draw blood instead. Least Kansas does and the only choice you have in that is refusal and that ain't good either. Thats personal experience and the wreck wasn't even my fault.

I too would like to meet you Rollover and I do go thru Springfield. Will PM you the next time I go that way.

 

123456 said:

We all need to learn how to read and understand the safety rateing site.
Everything that "exceeds the FMCSA intervention threshold" on National Carriers report, is DRIVER related. The company supplies the truck (which is 'bellow' the threshold), the DRIVER is required to inspect it, and run their log books etc... properly, and stay out of trouble.

Click on Unsafe Driving Fatigued Driving (Hours-of-Service) Driver Fitness to the left of the numberd ratinr (those links in blue don't work, use the site link directley).
All of it, the drivers responsibility. The only thing the company is at fault in, is hiring dumb ##### that can't keep their ducks in a row.

http://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/sms/ type in 69310 in the US Dot# window on the top right.

 

Just Found out that JBS Loaned them 195mil. I heard the govt would not let JBS buy them but apperently they can loan them $$ and if they don't make the payments it will be aquired by them. I have tell ya what I hear is that JBS has lots of $$$ they own pilgrims pride and they are on the hunt for more companies.

 

Hmmmm....one way to acquire it.

 

Why didn't the OP do this FIRST? He gave the advice.....but didn't take it. REMARKABLE!