No experience but getting Authority

The crimping tool and cable installs was my high school business when I worked at Radio Shack (also installed phone jacks and TV ant.).

Sold, installed and maintained key sytems and small PBX's. But I am sure my techs had crimping tools.

 

+1 of getting a trailer or getting set-up with someone like JBH. They are paying well for what it is. Much better than most of these clowns that lease onto carriers. And don't think they care about experience.

 

Hang in there tdanielsen. I'm surprised you haven't already got a new BFF at JBH blowing up your email and phone about how great their power only program is. I'm sure everyone on this board with authority can forward you an email sent within the past week if you want to explore that. Might be something to get you over the hump if you're not ready to run out and buy a trailer right away.

 

On a separate note, I've also been somewhat absent from internet forums as I've been pretty busy as well. A few things of note lately.

First we had kind of a difficult July and I finally got focused enough to figure it out. We had a long weekend in Houston middle of the month due to some a/c service on the truck and of course the holiday weekend. Those two events were hiding something else. Looking back, I noticed there was another factor in play: we had gotten into a sort of comfortable lane with a couple of loads that were just always there. However, the reloads were were getting less favorable. Bottom line: I had gotten lazy about watching the market. I made some adjustments and we're now on track to pass our total for July by middle of next week. An expensive lesson in keeping my #### eye on the ball.

So now that we got the rig back to being a money maker, we dodged another bullet this week. With frozen freight on board, the drive clutch for the main blower on the reefer took a crap and destroyed the driven shaft on the blower wheel when it did. The good news/bad news was that it didn't go boom or anything and was still cooling the box, just not enough. The temp was just starting to creep up when my son made one of two stops at 0-dark-thirty and got 80% of the cargo off the truck with clean bills. Temp was coming back down when he shut the doors and he figured it had gone up due to high outside temps and the unload time. When he woke up from his break about noon the next day the reefer didn't sound right. Checking it out, the temp was running way too high. The next stroke of luck was being 15 minutes away from a Carrier dealer during business hours. He got in there asap and they had it back in service in under 2 hours. A temp check showed the remaining cargo still below freezing and the box temp came right down to negative numbers in a hurry. He was able to continue to make the final stop without any issues and pick up the next load I'd already booked, on time. From the customer's perspective it was like a day in Vegas - it never happened. $1300+ emergency service was a heck of a lot cheaper than paying a huge cargo claim and having to dispose of it, not to mention our business relationship with the customer. I'm not sure of the forum policy on this, but I'm going to give a huge thumbs up to Kile Truck Refrigeration in Nashville. They definitely saved our bacon on this run. I called the service manager and thanked him personally. Turns out he was the one that did the work. I hope I made his day too, being the one customer that didn't call to complain about something LOL.

Finally, on a more positive note, my son was motoring through Kentucky yesterday, minding his own #### business, when the State Police pulled him over for a random inspection. You may remember a few pages back we had some logbook violations that resulted in a move to electronic logs. I'm still working through some details on the office side, but he's been logging on his laptop for the past few weeks. KSP didn't even look at the truck and did a level 3. Paperwork was on point and the e-logs were reviewed without issue. The phrase on the report I just got made my day: "No violations were discovered."

 

Red, is he using DDL? Only decent one I have found but always looking for something better.

 

I went with Eclipse. The features that sold me were:

1. Simple transition for the driver. The Eclipse interface is an electronic version of the paper logbooks, and even has practically the same appearance. Virtually no change in the effort or method to use versus a paper logbook. It will automatically count up the recap hours so he doesn't have to turn pages and do math. The only thing he needs to do is leave his laptop in sleep mode while driving so he won't have to wait for a boot-up to just do an update. Or show them off to The Man. He prints out the paper copies the day after so he has them on the truck in case the computer dies or gets gone somehow, or if The Man wants to see paper. Above all, I don't want to put any additional paperwork on the driver, nor do I want to hear him whining about it either.

2. Back-end processing and certified receipt for an additional cost. For about $30 a month (that's for two driver accounts, his and mine) Eclipse collects the completed logs and processes them overnight. As an individual o/o you really wouldn't need this as you can print the paper out and sign it in the truck. What I get is peace of mind with a 3rd party verification that logs are submitted properly and on time. They produce reports so I can review for HOS compliance. Of course, violations would only be noted if the driver is stupid enough to click through all the warnings when preparing the daily report with bad stuff in it. Neither of us have to remember to keep track of old log pages or worry about scanning/emailing them if he's out more than 2 weeks. After he's done with a page, he applies his digital signature and clicks on send and then prints it out. It goes to Eclipse and I can download it at my convenience. They keep six months online, and I can keep them local on the laptop or office server as long as I want.

If it were me doing the driving and all the thinking too as an o/o, I'd probably have gone with DDL due to some of the expanded features and lesser value of the back-end processing. DDL is clearly targeted to the o/o where Eclipse is really aimed more at the driver/carrier scenario.

Also, I wasn't particularly impressed with DDL as it looks like it hasn't been updated much since Windows 98. With that I'm speaking only of the program interface itself and not the capability or functionality if that makes sense. DDL has most certainly got the HOS calculations and requirements updated with changes. I'm guessing they wrote it in an early version of VB and don't want (or need) to drop the coin on a new version or re-write for a different platform. But hey, 1000's of truckers are using it and happy so it's probably just a minor nitpick on my part.

My only complaint with Eclipse is getting all the backend extras to work right has been a booger. They assume you understand how their systems integrate and don't really describe it well at all. I'm pretty technically apt and I wasn't getting it. I've kept hammering their support team to get it right and we're almost there. Part of the trouble has been that I've had too much going on to just sit through it start to finish. Now that my son is completely cut over to e-logs, the urgency has stepped up along with a reduction in my patience LOL. The whole system was clearly created by someone who either is very technical and drove a truck once, or is really a system for big carriers that has been scaled/adapted to small carrier and o/o use.

 

I must say, RedForeman, that you are certainly having your trials just starting out. I don't remember when I have had anyone talk about so many things that have happened in such a short period of time. But, you have also gotten some breaks with your preparedness. Your son seems to be getting on a first name basis with the DOT in several states. At least he passed this one with flying colors. They sure do seem to like your son. Getting a few good inspections under your belt should help your safety score. That can be important in getting more high dollar freight.

 

I can't believe these things are all that extraordinary. I believe that many just don't want to re-live the bad stuff or post up about their bad decisions, and a lot doesn't make it to these pages. That's unfortunate as it tends to encourage wishful thinking for those that are making a real attempt to understand the risks involved in being a carrier by reading these posts.

Case in point - the reefer breakdown. I know there's a lot of guys pulling reefers and I only found one single thread on here where an o/o described a really bad freight claim scenario. Really? Just one? Not too many drivers that flip the switch on and dial in a temp setting really think about how they'd pay for and dispose of that 44,000 lbs of rejected cargo, much less how to be prepared to avoid such a thing.

in that example post I did find, 20/20 hindsight revealed that he had probably gotten a hot load of produce and the shipper used their temp tattler data against his lack of CYA. He really hadn't done anything wrong and his reefer had not malfunctioned. If I recall, his only mistake was not pulp testing the cargo with a $5 pocket thermometer when it went on.

I got more value from that one thread than I did reading 20 more about the usual stuff. I'm really glad that guy had the balls to post up his story, how it ended up for him, and how he could have avoided it.

 

I have never pulled a reefer, but have hauled some produce. We used to pull onions out of California during season when we were mostly running the left coast. I did haul a load of water melons out of south Florida on a dry van once. The load was going to Jessup, MD. It paid well. When I got a few hours from delivery I called the consignee to give him an idea of when I would arrive. He told me that he didn't have any room for the melons and it would be a week before he could unload me. This was in the middle of summer and it was HOT!! I knew those water melons would not last a week on a dry van. I called the broker and he told me to keep rolling. He found someone near Atlantic City to take them. It was a little further and I made more money on the run. I found out that it is a game that produce people like to play. The consignee wanted me to haul his produce on a regular basis, but my experience with the market in Jessup made me nervous. Onions are not nearly as sensitive to heat. As long as they have air and don't get wet you should not have a claim.

I think that it is important to tell those who are new about what can happen. I have posted about several things that have happened to me over the years. There have been others who have posted about things that have happened. I suppose that some might not want to talk about some of the bad things that have happened to them.

 

Just installed eclipse. When I first found DDL, Eclipse only did auditing and was talking about software. But they would not approve their log sheet for DDL and company I was with used Eclipse (and had finacial stake in the company).

I like how easy it is. Much simplier than DDL. But then it seems DDL let's me track more. Or at least from what I see. I will watch the training tonight before bed and run this for the next couple weeks.

Thanks, may make this a requirerment as I add drivers.