Stevens Transport aviary

I would not head to Little rock until i knew where I was going, and I would do it later in the morning at the earliest.

I handle meat loads by getting to the meat plant quickly, dropping my trailer, grabbing a hotel room, and getting me a good day off, and a reset. Then I am re energized, and can run hard. those desk jockies don't understand that.

Now if I had 12 hour coming back, I would not do a reset. I would roll the next morning.

I wrote the missing truck off to a disgruntled driver, that is trying to stick it to stevens.

glad to hear that you have seen your trainer trying to get you what you need. Now dispatch and DM's see you as a cheap log book, moving freight across this great country, and making them look good. They don't care about what you need. Get the training Department involved too.

I pissed my DM off today, but she lied to me, telling me the other truck for this repower was in Avondale, and that their break was up. that is an 8 hour drive, so I gave them 10 to get here. At 9 hours after talking to her, they were 5 hours away. would mean an over night run for me after being up all day. I refused, and told her she had just wasted a full day. She is trying to blame me for the missed repower, but she NEVER sent the hard repower across the QC, so I knew she was hiding something.

I am finishing up my 34 hour reset here at the yucky TA in Alburquerque, and head to Liberal in the am. Have my load assignment now. Load DLD's on Friday Morning, going to LA metro, 4 drops.

It is now time for a new DM

 

Remember when risking food poisoning, make sure the food is really spicy. That way it still tastes good on the way up.

 

TleaHeart, so you got the s*** end of this babysitter fleet too huh? i was on kelly's fleet also, and he kept me moving pretty good too in those last couple of weeks (to the tune of 3300+ weeks the last 3) i got dropped on marks fleet and i think he is still learning how to use me.

As for the dispatchers having their head where the sun doesnt shine i dont know. for some reason, ever now and again, things will be going along just fine (at least to guys like us) and someone will decide "we gotta change stuff" and it will totaly f things up for a couple of months. then things will smooth out just in time for them to do it again, and it doesnt help that i think someone up stairs is raising *ahem* for some percieved problem or another

knew b wanabee, if you need time to do stuff after you get unloaded, when you do your e-call where it say's predicted time of availability push it out to the time you need and they arent supposed to dispatch you till that time


welp that's enough of a disjointed wall of text from me this time later yall

 

So night dispatch finally got my load assignment last night around 2000. Go to Little Rock and pickup a trailer full of frozen waffles headed to Canada. I can't go into Canada (I was a bad boy at one point in my life :/ ). So I call in to remind them of this and I get the standard "We just need the load picked up and rolling ASAP. We'll get someone to take it into Canada."

So I got loaded this AM about an hour ago. I'm at the Petro at exit 164 taking my break. The load doesn't deliver until Monday, and I need some sleep.

It's gonna be fun trying to get off this load so I'm not stuck babysitting it in Detroit over the weekend. Wish me luck!

 

G1 Day 1: I received my assignment from the dispatch window at the yard. A load of beverages headed from Fort Worth to Los Lunas, NM. There is a problem with the load before I even pull out of the yard. The original pickup time was at 0700 and I was given the load at 1600.....typical.

I make it to Ft Worth and check in at the desk. I give my pickup number and he told me which dock to back up to. He also told me that since I was "late" it would be a while to get loaded. It was just before midnite before I was loaded. Since I was out of hours and could not legally leave the property I was able to camp out there until I had a fresh 14.

I left there and went to the Big D truck stop to scale it out. 75k gvw and I am good to go. Next was the Pilot in Fort Worth for fuel and I was off and running. I stopped in Wichita Falls and Amarillo for a break. My DM wanted me to make it to Santa Rosa, however, I had to stop in Tucumcari because I was out of hours for the day.

So here I sit in the TA in Albuquerque waiting on a repower I was given going to California. I guess the person who is going to repower me does not have any hours and will take this load the 45 minutes down the road to Los Lunas.

If I were to say that my first few days on the truck by myself went perfectly I would be telling a big fat lie. Lets just say a few wrong turns were made, however, I was able to safely turn around and get on my way.

For my first fillup I went 616 miles and used 92 gallons for an mpg of 6.67. This was loaded with 41k of freight pulling one of the new trailers running at 61 mph. Since the weather is nice I am keeping my idling to a minimum.

For this run to CA I am going to lower the speed to 58 and see what happens.

 

Glad to see you got your own truck! GReat Job!

 

What kind of miles are you Stevens drivers getting?

 

Got out of class yesterday, was on a plane by 7am for Indy via DC, was on the trk with my trainer by 2pm, we are just south of Erie Pa with a dlvry in Buffalo tomorrow...

 

I finally hooked up with my repower going to CA. Originally, the other driver was supposed to deliver the load to Los Lunas, however, he never showed up. At 1615 I received a phone call telling me to just go ahead and deliver. The appointment time was for 1700. My arrival time; 1658.

I finish unloading and head to the nearby walmart with a whole list of supplies for the truck, the first being a case of water. Nearly $100 later I now have food, water, a small cooler, and a small inverter to run my computer.

I get back to the TA expecting the repower to be there. I don't know what directions he was given but he went to the Flying J instead. Since I was right up against my 14 I stayed the night at the TA and took care of the repower in the morning. Just before the repower I discover coolant leaking from the filter. Called road rescue and they had the truck put in the shop. An hour later I am out and ready to go again.

I finished up my day today at the Pilot in Avondale. I believe I am about seven hours out from San Diego.

My hours of service are going to be a factor on this load. By the time I am done running tommorow I will be at 64 of my 70 hours. The deliveries on Monday start at 0600 and the final delivery is at 1400. This includes a 120 mile drive. I did a repower request letting them know my HOS situation. I got a reply asking if I could at least get it there. I'll contact the meatpatch in the morning and see what they have to say.

 

Well, time to update things.
Some of you know I've been around this game a lot of years. For the past 20, I've had a sweet gig driving for a private company on a dedicated run from San Diego to Seattle and back. Long story short, company closed and I had to go looking.
I went to Stevens back in December. Never posted that.
Figured I'd check it out myself.
I like the place.
Everything I've seen has been very professional. The people have been very good to me, the freight is consistant (averaged a bit over 2800 miles per week), the equipment is good. I've got no complaints.
I've read all the boards, talked to a lot of you drivers over the last few months (both Stevens and other companies). I can't say this place is perfect for everyone. I can say it's good for me. There was some reticense on my part and wanted to check it out myself. That's why I didn't post this information before now.
No, I'm not some company stooge. It's just I've been driving since the early 70's and trucking is trucking. No place is perfect.
Just thought I'd let the cat out of the bag.
For you drivers out there with Steven's wondering, I'm Max, the guy with the silver goatee and hair to match. Just in case you remember.