Stay away from ROEHL!!

You tell me what I was doing. I mean, are you speaking as an experienced Roehl driver or are you simply cross examining? I know the pinheads in the office can muse all day long about spending our 10 hour breaks at one of our fuel stops, I've also discovered I'm not the only driver who has found that often isn't feasible. I take it you aren't a Roehl driver?

 

I pulled into this staging area in Salem, VA. What a mess! Stupid design to a crowed parking area, guys had to get out and help each other park. I commented about it to one of the guys working there saying there would be damage to trucks just because of the way the parking lot was set up. 'Oh', he told me, 'more than that, some student driver got killed, rolled between a trailer backing up and the parked trailer next to it.' You just see it there, you're forced to drive into a snake pit, accidents waiting to happen.

Long ago I concluded the main requirement to be one of the architects designing parking lots for Pilot is mental retardation.

Suits guess at what trucking really is, sometimes they guess better than others.

 

A man that enjoys what he does never spends a day at work.

 

What does it matter if I was ever a Roehl driver or not? Someones ability to understand the HOS rules doesn't depend on whos name is on the side of the door.

 

You can be an office worker who took classes on HOS and work as a company safety expert in logging. That doesn't mean you know anything about getting an early morning jump on New Jersery so you can get to the GW before traffic really gets heavy and your transit time increases by a factor of 10. Likely, you aren't getting a free shower wherever you decide to launch out of. The same kind of scenario can be made for a million other reasons you won't be taking your break at a fuel stop.

 

You only worked over the road for 12 days and expected a week off and now you're quitting? This is a serious question because I don't understand why anyone would only work that short period of time and then quit.

Also, you don't earn 7 days off after 12 days on the road. No trucking company has that schedule. If you're on the 14/7 fleet, (and I was in the past) then you get 7 days after 14. But if you're on national and you're only out 12 days, you only get 3. That's the schedule and its all spelled out in black and white.

Now as to not getting any time for a shower, that is what you're 10 hour break is for. If you can't eat a meal, grab a shower and get some sleep on your 10 hour break, then maybe you aren't cut out for OTR anymore. Don't get me wrong because I don't mean to insult you but that's trucking.

 

I don't mind to insult someone so allow me, I suppose I am one of the roehl cheerleaders you speak of. With that observation made if you look back at my first posts or knew me before I was even on here, you would see that preacherman and I have never planned on staying with roehl forever because we are buisnessmen. I still enjoy driving here and admit that in my short life the past 2.5 years have been the best by far.

Now on to the part that everyone else is too nice to say. Suck it up, that's trucking if you do not like it and are only looking for negative things then don't expect positive results. You complain about only running 436 miles per day, that is a legitimate complaint that could be fixed by simply getting to know your fm and working with them. As far as getting paid to load or unload, nowhere on this forum or in the drg does it say that you will be paid just because you are in a dock. Pay starts after you have been at a customer more than 2 hours, and you only get it if you arrived and sent ur arrive call on time, send in the proper macro for detention, and put in and out times on your bol. If you did these things correctly then it is simply an oversight in payroll and one phone call would fix that as well.

You claim that you only run 400 or so miles per day, so that tells me you should be working no more than 8 hours per day. That leaves you 16 hours somewhere throughout your day to get by a shower. When I was a company driver I always had more than enough time to make my runs. Mainly because roehl plans you at 50mph avg. I do understand your frustration, or at least I'm trying to, but it sounds to me like if everything dosnt automatically go your way, you don't give a darn to try and fix it yourself.

I'm sure the know it all guys are going to slam me for this post but it is what it is. It's otr trucking, not dedicated, nothing is guaranteed here, ya gotta put forth 100% of everything you have, because if you don't they will let you leave and try to find a driver that will. Quite frankly if I had a driver and they called me with these so called problems I would probably laugh at them. Especially if they had done nothing to try to help me resolve the issues. And please don't try to tell us you have because you have barely been here long enough to make 2 paychecks and you say that your going to Gary to turn in your equipment. I understand what you mean about this lifestyle being fun, because every time I split a gear I feel like a kid in a candy store. I run with my buddies sometimes and make the best of it. Maby in your case trucking in general just isn't fun anymore. Or your idea of fun is running illegal until you get empty then being lazy for a few days. If so that's not the way we run here, its solid steady work every day and you can be lazy during hometime.

I hope I haven't came across as a complete butthole. Because honestly I don't want to, but if I did then so be it, shouldn't have asked HAHA

 

Also make sure you sent in the detention macro before your empty or loaded call. That is another no no

 

I didn't actually quit. I had spoken with a higher up Thanksgiving, I was just turning in my truck to get off my fm's board. I just felt things were too messy and if it was going to work I needed a fresh start. The fm gave me an option coming from her boss, stay out the rest of the two weeks and go national or turn in your locks, too. She said running national would be more of the same only I'd get less home time. I'm turning in the locks.

My rotation day was to be a Wednesday, we got news of the hair follicle test on Friday. I got into the rotation two days late. With orientation I had been gone from the house 16 days.

Maybe, like Grinder, I'm not cut out for it anymore. Strategically, as in the case of early morning traffic, he sleeps at the shipper or consignee if he can. That's what I did at Sam's Club, I wasn't allowed to move the truck if I wanted to. I didn't pay out of my own pocket for a shower at the Indian truck stop, but I didn't expect I'd be forced to drive past 10 fuel stops the next day due to time constraints. What I really don't understand is why one driver is explaining this to another driver as if somehow magically it all works out for some people and each one of us isn't dealing with the realities of varying delivery times, traffic demands, parking demands...When I delivered in Salem and was due to pick up in Salem, the Arbys there with truck parking wouldn't allow me to bathe in their kitchen...

 

But you don't work there anymore right?