ESTES Express (5 Year Review)

I could, but they would want that truck back eventually. Since it's not assigned to me, I couldn't keep it long term. I would rather get a better truck assigned to me from the start. This truck has a check engine light on, Abs, traction control light on, no pre pass and the turbo makes a belt squeal sound when it starts spooling.

 

Ugh I thought they’d gotten rid of most of those. I passed one in Macon Georgia a few weeks ago. He was crawling up a small incline. You’ll hate life with that thing, you’ll find out about hills you didn’t know existed.

 

Had an interesting and sporadic week this week. It was rather odd.

day 1 Raleigh to Richmond to Altoona 432 miles

day 2 Altoona to WEst Middlesex to Norristown to Pine Brook 632 miles

day 3 Pine Brook to Norristown to Pine Brook to Jersey City to Lakewood to Harrisburg 486 miles

day 4 Harrisburg to Charlotte to Wilson North Carolina 707 miles

day 5 Wilson To Richmond to Norfolk to Richmond to Raleigh 499 miles.

2756 miles in 5 days snd 3 of which I didn’t even get 500.

 

Reset button when it changes you to driving

 

Do you think Big Brother still knows? We used to pull that trick at Frito Lay when I was there years ago. One day my boss said to me “Mr. ____ I see that you only drove 9hrs and 53 minutes, but your truck was in motion 10 hrs and 30 minutes”. I said I have no idea how that happened. It was 10 hours of drive time allowed at that time. If you stopped the tractor completely you could hit the on duty button and it didn’t kick in to drive for 2 miles. I did several 653 mile days in a 65 mph tractor until our little conversation. I liked the hotel and may have been sweet on the bartender and I needed the 653 to get to see her!

 

It was a Saturday night - Sunday morning, very light traffic, absolutely no holdups. Light loads. I had 10 minutes left on my 11. Yeah the ol 4 mile on duty trick definitely doesn’t work anymore. That really took the wind out of my sails. I did 706 paid a few weeks ago, Greensboro to Allentown to Harrisburg to Scranton but cut some miles off by taking an alternate route into Allentown, had 6 minutes left on the 11. This was on a Saturday night Sunday morning as well. My previous record was 696 on a glider kit, Tampa to Atl to Nashville, had 12 minutes left somehow.

 

Ours were set to 4ish miles before the lastest mandate. It saved me many many times. This new system will let me stay on duty only if I’m going less than 5mph but what can you do with that ? They’ve really made it tough to get out of a bind anymore, and it really sucks with a daycab.

 

Well, my truck problem is solved. I have just been assigned a new twin screw freightliner. @KaoMinerva gotta love the west coast and all the new trucks.