Want to play recruiter?

Henley, how does DOT and State troopers act towards W/S drivers. I don't intend on anything illegal, but getting stopped by one if u r a newbie like myself can be nerve wrecking. Do u get help with unloading r some of the customers difficult at times in general how are attitudes and manners. Does W/S have a pretty gd CSA score? Do u have and should always check ur load if u don't see it go in to make sure u are not over 80k u know the little things that u probably have observed in ur years in this business.I've never been west by land vehicle so people in different sections of this country tend to act a little different to some people more than others. Hope I'm wrong, but just try to answer the best u can. So far ur info to me sounds gd better than the outher threads from the other companys I have prehires from. Man they sound ....wooooo. Complain, complain, b---- and moan.Doing this job is not easy but it pays the bills and the CDLA with a OTR background ,is like a college grad with a Master Degree, my opinion. Be safe

 

Lots of TX and MN stuff

DOT never bothered me, i got the green light 99% of the time. Most customers like to cross there arms and huff and puff while your doing all the work because your "inconveinceing them" If you have a furniture load dont waste your time scaleing it unless your really want, the heavyest load of furniture i've ever heard of was 16,000lbs. you'll be doing plenty of 46,000+lb loads so 16 aint nothin





American Trucker

 

Thanks AT for that. To me that means u guys r doing the right think.See u from NC grew up in Greenville, did alittle college in Durham Partyed at Duke, AT&T,Winston-Salem. Have relatives in ur home twn and through out NC.Again thanks all thats iIneed do now is finish up in T/T school (2 wks to go) De cdl exam I should be in conover and chasing my tail by the end of june.Oh yea the mention 1wks worth of clothes and bedding may-be u could be a little more to the point remembering from when u started.what else would u bring besides extra $ ? Are they gonna give me a truck in conover or in NJ, I live in De not that far from the Sayerville terminal.If ur answer is NJ then may-be I should drive to NC.What is ur recomendation to put in truck APU,Truck GPS simple stuff not expensive. I know they they would install APU if one was'nt in it but I would have to $ for it. Any little thing u can tell me would be helpful. Just want to be comfortable driving and on my 10... Thanks OG

 

Hey Henley, I hear you on the OTR. Makes total sense to deliver those loads with 1 or a few stops in New England. I wasnt thinking from the OTR stand point because I don't think I'm going to have that option from what I was told. However, I've heard from good authority my recruiter may not have been totally correct on some things.

 

Sounds like lots of heavy back hauls huh AT? Beer loads and such? How well do their trucks do pulling hills?

 

I never had any problems with the DOT, and my PrePass almost always lets me bypass the scales, but I keep my truck clean and my dashboard clear. If you do your pretrips, address any issues you find on those pretrips, keep your logbook current, and follow the rules of the road you have nothing at all to be nervous about with the DOT. In my experience, they are not out to get you, and most of the officers I've dealt with have been fair at the very least. Oh, and make sure you keep your permit book up to date--I'd recommend making a point to go through it on the same day every month so it becomes routine. It's really easy to forget about it for a few months and by then you may find out the hard way that some of your permits have expired.

I don't know what W/S's CSA score is, and frankly I don't care. I drive my truck safely, and I do my pretrips, so I know I'm safe.

I can't remember ever seeing a customer acting inconvenienced because I was delivering the freight they ordered, but then again it's not my problem if they feel that way. Actually, a lot of those furniture customers are more inconvenient for us mostly because of the late opening and early closing times, which to me are more of an obstacle than the out-of-the-way locations and tight quarters you often have to fit that 53' trailer in. But to me, the challenge is one reason I think the LTL furniture work is FUN. You almost always have help unloading the furniture, and most of the time you're only responsible for getting the boxes to the tailgate, or getting them set up for someone else to handtruck off your trailer. It's mostly easy work and it pays well, but the LTL will make up less than half of your loads as an OTR driver. Most of the time you'll back to a dock and sit in the truck while a forklift loads or unloads you, and it's the shipping and receiving clerks at those kind of places that will give you the most attitude. Another reason I prefer running furniture is that the people you deal with tend to be nicer than people working in big warehouses. And no lumpers in furniture, either.

Yeah, no need to scale furniture and most of the time carpet loads will be fine, too. But with a little experience you'll easily figure out which loads to scale and which ones you can run with. If you're not sure what you're picking up, or you think it might be heavy, don't show up to get loaded with full fuel tanks. That can sometimes put too much weight on your drive and/or steer axles and make it tougher to get the load to scale legally. And if you have to go back and get the load re-worked or some of it taken off, that's time you don't get paid for even though it's eating up your logbook, and it will certainly take longer than a fuel stop would have after you were loaded.

 

Yeah, you'll pull plenty of beer. Paper, too. Obviously when you're pulling furniture, your backhauls will almost always be heavier than what you ran out of Conover or Myrtle with.

Both my trucks have been '05 Volvos with 450 hp Cummins and they pulled hills just fine. I've always seemed to do better on lots of hills when I was at or near 80k gross than plenty of other trucks that couldn't have had much more weight on than I did. I couldn't tell you what the rear end ratios are, but both trucks have also gotten very good fuel mileage with 10-speed Meritor transmissions. I just got a W/S ballcap in the mail last week because I averaged over 8 mpg for 2011. But both those trucks are among the older ones in the fleet these days and I have no idea how much longer they'll be around. And I can't speak to the pulling power of the Crete and Knight trucks that the company has bought, or of the Penskes leased in Conover, either.

 

Penske don't pull, had one. Crete trucks are gone or almost done with. If you run shortline you have no back hauls. I had a route before SL that ran me from NJ to NC
every week.

 

Got a question, if you can't bring truck home then how ya get home? Like on weekends?

 

you leave your car at the terminal....




American Trucker