Running with JCT, Part Deux

If you drop a trailer at the drop yard running continuous and you know that the battery is bad but you don't care because it's running continuous leaving a time bomb for the next driver for when he turns that reefer off he can never get it back on again....

Just know from the deepest depths of my soul you can go #### yourself...

If there's evidence that you jumped it to get it started and then just left it like that... That should be an imediate final warning or freaking lease termination...which in this case there's fresh gouge marks on uncovered terminals on the battery...

Piece of #### lazy drivers...

 

It sucks when lazy drivers dont care. I have found alot of non team players here in the 4 months I have been here.

 

I know how you feel. A couple of weeks ago someone dropped a loaded trailer in Fort Worth. I go hook to it only to find it won't start. Turned out to have a bad starter. The driver that dropped it was still there and I asked them about it. They knew it was having issues and still loaded it anyway. In Tolleson of all places. There's a shop right there. They would just stop and tap the starter whenever it wouldn't start. I wanted so badly to yank them out of their truck. Ended up being half hour late to both stops after having W&B come out and fix it.

 

Refused three repowers because of issues with trailer a solo was trying to pass onto us. Well, two anyway and the third was attitude of the other driver. One of the trailer issues was a reefer set on sentry that was throwing codes and would not start. The driver acted as if this was news to him. Other trailer issue was that the trailer had a blowout! Again, driver acted as if they didn't know, maybe they didn't.
Third was a guy that thought we were there to serve his schedule. He couldn't understand why we would stop for a shower and breakfast when we were scheduled to swap with him. I told dispatch it would be best for all if we didn't meet, they agreed.
I always carefully inspect equipment during swaps as we've been screwed before by drivers looking to pass on trailers with issues to us. I also always pre trip reefers on empties we pick up, we've seen empties that wouldn't even start!

 

Picked up a load in Vernon California last night headed to Dallas. Love it so far they keep me moving and my log book smoking lol. After my first load I had to come off the truck for ten days. I fainted in a truck stop in Oregon and after a trip to the ER and reported back to JCT I was told I couldn’t drive until I checked with my doctor. Sooo I had to fly from Portland back to Georgia and see my doctor. I was sick for about a week prior to me passing out. I got diagnosed with bronchitis and got medication for it. Was given the ok to go back to driving since he couldn’t connect my sickness with passing out. Flew back to Portland and back out to my truck and been out running since. Did 3100 miles in my first week back after I was sick.

 

You did the right thing, but I think it cost you unnecessary money to fly all the way across the country and back by telling the whole truth. That is unless you felt it was worth it for your health, then the value of doing that to see your own doctor is very much worth it.

What I'm getting at is try not to tell them too much, just take a few days off locally where ever your truck is and get fixed up and let them know when you are ready to get back to work.

Unfortunately none of us can predict when we are going to be sick, most recently I got food poisoning and spent about 30 hours in the bunk minus bathroom trips-- all under a dispatched load which really screwed up my week and hurts the customer. But definitely if I were under no load I would just push out my PTA and get better with time off and/or go to local clinic. I'm glad you are doing well, hope to see you out here on the road!

 

Fortunately I had a family member they had plenty of sky Miles to use so I was able to not have to pay out-of-pocket each way which was over $1000 by the way. I’m glad I made that decision to go home and get checked out. Because I had seen a doctor in Idaho when I had to get the load relayed I got some medicine while I was in Idaho some made me feel better but the other made me feel worse. So I’m Glad I flew home.

 

Glad you a better now.

 

Interesting thing about my empty miles on this one. I emptied out in San Francisco. I drove down and dropped trailer in Turlock yard. Then did some personal running around for a day then return for my empty trailer but it wasn't there. They had dispatched me on 205 empty miles. So I picked up a different trailer and told them to fix my dispatch and when they did, they canceled the original dispatch and they cut my empty miles dispatch by 93 miles saying the place I am picking the trailer up is now the starting off point. I argued that my empty call was San Francisco, pay me from there and we went back and forth for several messages but they finally got my original dispatched 205 empty miles restored.