Diary of a current Swift flatbed driver

This is a G R E A T thread. Just read all of it in its' entirity. Considering a return to the industry and Swift is on my short list. Would be great if some other Swift FB drivers keep this thread alive.

 

Hay dieselgrl did you start in Flatbed or Van I talk to a Van driver he suggested I start in the Van and change over to FLATBED not sure how that would work.

 

Way back in the day (lol) I started my career pulling dry vans. It's actually beneficial to you to start there, because your flatbed mentor doesn't have enough time in 240 hours to teach you how to drive, how to live out here, the industry, AND how to tie down a selection of the loads you'll see on a regular basis out here. If I get back into training myself, I'll personally only take "van conversion" students .... those that learned to drive with training walls and now all I need to teach you is how to exist with an open deck trailer without hurting yourself or someone around you.

 

What I've got on the back right now: one piece to a power pole and all of the "arms" that attach to it. Note to self, the driver with the step deck gets the screwy load out of this place... the 48' flats all got two to three pieces of the power pole and that was it! First time in my career though the shipper pulled the product out of the mud, and then INSISTED on power washing it before I started to secure it. Mind you, it's no tarp and has been raining the entire way....

 

I pulled double flats 25yrs ago. Great in the summer-Rain and snow a bummer!

 

Thanks dieselgrl I will do that maybe will meet up some time in the future.

 

I'm live in Jax too, starting school on 3/12. Whats an average,"day in the life" for a swift driver out of ocala(if you dont mind me asking).

 

It wont be flatbed out of Ocala, you'd do best posting with the van drivers.

 

This is interesting. I started driving in 1992 with Swift. Went through their school in Phoenix (free at the time) and then started on a flatbed with them. My first truck had a 330 Cummins and was a 40inch flattop Freightliner governed at 57mph. I found out how to bypass the governer by putting a wire on the light switch and running it to the transmission. Turn on the headlights and the truck would run 65 or so. My boss knew what I was doing and didn't say anything because I ran 3000+ miles a week. A crew of us did this. One month I ran almost 18,000 miles and several had 16,000. Most of what you say is dead-on as to my experience over the 2 or so years I ran with them. Tons of miles, odd loads and much different stuff, DM was flatbedder and actually ran the flatbed yard in Phoenix so I never had to argue about anything, he got what I was saying right away. Funny to see things havn't changed much over the years.

 

I hauled a ton of that veneer out of Long Beach for Swift.