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

Thanks for the info.
Years ago I watched a documentary on Canada and the fellow said that prescription medication and dental treatment was a lot cheaper than in the U.S.
Of course I don't believe all I see or hear but I like to ask others with experience to really find out.

 

Sitting at the dock here in Indy going on 4hrs,redlight but no movement.

Gotta drop this empty in New Castle,than head to Columbus,to pu a load to drop at the Wytheville yard.

 

I keep meaning to check how much is actually taken from my account when I use my debit card up there, but I always forget.

Haven't been up there since before the summer. When my son rode with me this past summer, I told 'em they couldn't send me to Canada while he was in the truck since he didn't have a passport. I assume they made a little notation in my file that they've forgotten to remove, because I haven't been back since. And I'm one of the guys that doesn't mind going to Canada. Was beginning to wonder if maybe we just weren't going to Canada anymore.

 

I think the current exchange rate is:
US$1.00 to CA$1.33
So they should take out less from your bank account than you purchased up there.

And yes, medicine is cheaper up there... combination of a few things... 1.) government controls on the Medical Industry... 2.) more negotiating with big pharmaceutical... 3.) they are not the US

Oh, and while medical is cheaper in Canada, it takes 3 months to get in to see your family physician... trade offs... and why so many come south of the boarder for some treatments.

In South Florida, we have billboards in the winter announcing “We Take Canadian Medical”.... for all the French speaking Canadian Geese.

 

Last year I took a load from the Richmond terminal to "Breezewood" for one of our drivers going into Canada he mentioned that one of the most important factors if getting into Canada was the load paperwork if you didn't have all their requirements you would not go in.
Question...
How about the "GPS" direction guidance; did it guide you properly to your consignee?

 

That's the thing about regulations. You go to some other for example like I think it was the Scottish country that I read about; all your medical expenses are paid by the government 100 percent for everyone!

 

Yep. If you read back far enough in this thread, you will find our very own JohnBoy stuck at the border for over 48 hours because of an error in the paperwork.

My Garmin did fine except for a couple of hiccups. There are a couple of spots on the freeway up there that my Garmin insists aren't legal for trucks and it tries to route me around them even though they're perfectly fine. Fortunately, I have learned to spot what it looks like when my Garmin does that, and I cheerfully ignored it.

There's one road up there that's a toll road that my Garmin will also cheerfully route me down. That's a no-no because our Best Pass thingy doesn't work in Canada, and I got (well, Abilene got) a ticket for that once when I was up there. (They made the citation out to Abilene Motor Express. My name wasn't anywhere on it.)

But aside from those two glitches, yep, my Garmin delivered me exactly where I needed to go.

The tricky bit is that the Canadian hours of service aren't the same as the American hours of service. They can drive longer in a day than we can, so there have been a few times where I've rolled up to the Canadian border about to hit 00:00 on my 11-hour clock and then gotten an extra 2 hours of drive time as soon as I switched to the Canadian clock. So that can be handy.

On the other hand, Canada hours of service requires that drivers MUST stop for 24 hours after 14 days of driving. So if it's been longer than 14 days since your last reset, you'll be out of hours the minute you switch to the Canadian clock.

When that happened to me, I was told that I could legally drive on American hours up there. That sounded fishy to me, and I have since found that it is not true. If you are driving a truck on Canadian roads, they (not surprisingly) expect you to follow Canadian HOS, just like Canadian drivers are expected to follow US HOS when they're down here. Nonetheless, I accepted their story because the alternative was to sit at the border for 24 hours and be a day late with my load. If safety wants to send me a QC message telling me I can drive on American HOS while I'm in Canada (and they did), I'll be happy to make a copy of it and drive on and then present the copy along with the ticket in the (admittedly very unlikely) chance that I should get a ticket for doing so.

 

Very interesting! So I imagine that if our "Best pass" doesn't work up there the "E-Z Pass" will not either? It will be good to have some cash handy?

 

The only Canadian toll road you're likely to run into driving an Abilene truck is 407 in Toronto. 407 is electronic tag only, so cash won't do you any good.

Just stay off of 407 and you'll be fine.

 

10-4.
Thanks for the info.