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

Yep, some of these “drivers” would rather sit at a shop 6 hours waiting to have a mud flap or headlight replaced. Instead of carrying a few simple tools to get the job done yourself and keep rolling.

 

I have the exact same attitude, though, and I'm still here.

We work for the largest trucking company in the world. They're not my friends and they're not my family. They're making billions of dollars annually in revenue. They don't need me working for them for free to save them money.

 

I’m old school like John Boy. I work for a private fleet and even though I get paid hourly for every second I’m on duty I will do minor repairs myself and not wait for a mirror fogger to show up.

 

Did he get paid hourly to wait the 6.5 hours?

I would say even if he did, he probably lost money sitting around instead of turning miles after 15 min of free work changing a fuse.

 

When I had my own truck and drove an assigned tractor, I always carried some basic tools with me. Now, doing a relay, going out with one truck and swapping the whole rig at the relay point and coming back with a completely different tractor and trailer, the only tools I carry now are a hammer, pliers and screwdriver.

During the years, I have worked for a few companies that told the drivers up front, "we didn't hire you to fix anything, do not attempt to repair the equipment, we will get help to you, leave our equipment alone".

 

Pepsi in Columbia, MD is taking their sweet time today. Took 'em two hours to give me a dock, and that was an hour ago. I've only felt the truck shake three times.

 

Been running pretty good since I came out Monday,now I've hit a layover load,gonna be another short week,pm scheduled for Friday,than need to be home for Saturday.

 

Surely the only person who is losing out is you as you are not on the road earning?

 

Well, that might not be exactly true. As once upon a time, sitting over on U.S. 60 in WV, broke down, running a team operation for a union company, I was "moaning and groaning", the man I was teaming with, came across and said, "sitting here on the side of the road, we are making more money than we can running, stop your crying".