Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

For what its worth Amherst NY, suburb of buffalo, doesnt exist in pc miler, notified payroll, hopin they get it right the first go round.

After dropping hp, reloaded nearby and rolled to wytheville at 71k. Wasnt gonna make it in 1 trip, so ended up stopping early bc im not familiar with i79, the truck stops looked small and not many, and used to i95 where parking goes from bad to nonexistant in the evening.

Grabbed a northern va load off the yard and stopped about 100 miles from drop. Got dispatch to plan me something after that, so grabbing some kitty litter and rollin to pa.

In other news wifey has cdl learners and med card in hand and has completed 2 days of cdl school. Been here just over a year now, thoughts to come......

 

So its been a year since i left police work and came here to drive trucks. I can honestly say for me and my wife it was the right choice.

Prior to joining here i read this entire thread and i have to say that while this year has gone better overall than expected, my experience hasnt been surprising to me if that makes sense.

Equipment is great. Well maintained trucks and trailers and when there are issues its usually another driver who left the problem.

Lotsa freight amd miles have been there and i dont worry about them. Yes some weeks are slow, but some weeks i dont think i could really drive any more miles. Will post numbers once have a year in the northeast.

There have only been a few, maybe 10 to 15, times that i have been delayed for hours and hours, and they werent really in abilenes control. Most were shippers recievers problems. Most of the time i got some money for my troubles. Im not including a couple hour delay due to unrealistic appt workins. Thats part of irregular route common carrier trucking as they say.

Hometime has been great. Im not home for long periods of time, but its rare that i go more than 3 or 4 days out the house. I also live just down from the yard. The way im run helps too. Take load from richmond north, unload, reload, drop on yard or at local customer. Wash rinse repeat. Mostly live loads and unloads up north, a few drop hooks on the return pickup trips

The other big thing i like is abilenes overall hands off approach. Get ur load, deliver it, do it again. The lack of communication we gripe about is part of having a lean operations staff that allows for more investmemt im equipment and owners profits (which are important too)

When it comes to the cameras, qualcomms, elogs, and speed limiters yes they can have their frustrations and issues. However in todays overly litigious society where the trucker is guilty until proven innocent these things help protect professional drivers and help abilene deal with unprofessional ones.

Theres this idea central to a lawsuit im following called negligent retention. The idea being keeping a bad employee when you did, or should have known, they were bad. These tools help limit that risk i think.

In keeping with the hands off be a professional idea, no one calls me when i dont drive 11 hours a shift, sit more than 30 minutes, take more than 10 hrs in the truck or at home. As long as the load delivers on time, or asap if its late before i get it. I also love how no one calls me from dispatch or safety when some creativity is used to complete the mission. I try to keep that to a minimum as much as possible. I set my camera off daily in this springride mack in the northest. No calls, no signatures. And there have been a few that i triggered.

Overall i really like it here and can honestly say i dont plan on working for any other van reefer common carriers.

 

@460/580 yer a usin them big city words on folk!
Seriously though, glad things are going well for you and when your wife comes on board, you'll get to see everywhere BUT the NE together. Not that you may not end up in there a time or three.

 

6 hrs and counting here at boars head in Charlotte.Picked up at Groveport 400 mile trip,consider me disgusted.

 

Am I the only one who gets disappointed whenever the signs say "blasting zone" but nobody is doing any blasting?

 

I'm always blasting tunes if that counts.

 

I'm with you on not leaving to work for another carrier doing the same general freight cargo.

 

I jinxed myself:

 

I hooked to reefer at the Richmond yard that had a Cat scale ticket amongst the paperwork showing that it was 400lbs overgross. I ran it across the yard scale in case the scale ticket was prior to the load being reworked and it came up 900lbs overgross with the tandems at 39k.

It had been loaded at Sandston, weighed, then brought to the yard. Did the driver that dropped it think it would lose weight sitting on our yard?.