CRETE - A Year in Review

OH MY GOD DON'T EVER GO TO GRAPHIC PACKING IN KALAMAZOO WITH A REEFER IF YOU HAVE AN INTERNATIONAL.

DON'T. EVER. DO. IT.

I'm finally home. Should have been home yesterday, but that got nixed quick when what should have been an easy peasy day turned into over-gross fiasco extraordinaire.

Now, logically, someone comes to you saying "hey I picked up earlier and I'm over gross" the first thing in your mind should be "okay, we'll go ahead and take a pallet off."

But not to these guys. No, I went to them saying I was over gross, and they just shifted the weight around, leaving everything on the trailer. After scaling the second time to find that I was over gross (by 120lbs less, all the weight disappeared from the steer axle, guess what that means? Fuel burn.) dispatch told me to get the axles as close as I could, making sure the drives were no more than 400 over, and run it, so that's what I did. I lucked out and all the scales were closed. Finally got to Ottawa for T-call with...45 minutes left on my 14. 90 miles home. Yeah, I'd need to be able to do 120 to pull that off, so with much dismay, I spent the night in Ottawa and came home this morning.

With the amount of time I spent on that ######## yesterday...I could've probably gone from Kalamazoo to Timbuktu and back a couple times.

OY.

 

If you have one of the battery pack trucks...and you were less than 400 lbs over gross, you're legal in most states due to the apu weight exemption laws, not all, but most. I use to have a list from the OOIDA web site that listed which allow by law, which have laws pending, and which flat out won't allow any extra. I'm not sure where it is, I probably left it in the other truck when I rushed to clean it out.

 

Ha ha that place is always a joke. You lucky you got out the same day. I spent nights in that lot out front because they were waiting on product.

 

I'm finishing up one of the best weeks in 6 mos. After I delivered my penny blanks to Aurora, I had thought they were going to put me on another penny bin return run, but instead, I was sent to the Ft. Collins 3-ring circus known as Budweiser. Their trailer drop lot is a life size version of one of those slide-tile puzzles. There is 1 empty parking space, you drop your empty there, then others have to wait until you pull your loaded trailer out so they can drop their empty in it's place. The fly in the ointment...if you have to go sit in line for a bob-tail weight. It must have taken me an hour and a half to do a drop/hook there. But I got out of there headed for Seneca, KS. I'll end up with 3500 miles this week. Add that to the 2000 mile week I had last week, and it averages out to 2750. I managed to make it to Lincoln(yes, I'm going to KS, but not via Omaha Mr. Daniels)

On the bright side...I still saw frozen precipitation...yesterday afternoon sitting in Aurora a thunderstorm rolled through and I had about 5 or 10 minutes of pea sized hail.

 

I've always wondered if these places are just guesstimating on the weight. The last week I carried two of those charcoal loads out of Oregon into California. The qualcomm gave all kinds of warnings about not going in with more than a quarter tank or being over gross. The bills even said over 45K each time. But my gross was under 78K both times (with 3/4 fuel) so something doesn't add up, plus I have a lot of stuff, tools, and different nick-nacks in the truck.

 

I've always wondered if these places are just guesstimating on the weight. The last week I carried two of those charcoal loads out of Oregon into California. The qualcomm gave all kinds of warnings about not going in with more than a quarter tank or being over gross. The bills even said over 45K product each time. But my gross was under 78K both times (with 3/4 fuel) so something doesn't add up, plus I have a lot of stuff, tools, and different nick-nacks in the truck.Here's that 400 lb exemption list: OOIDA - http://goo.gl/oqkr2

 

I agree. I've picked up loads that say 45,000 and I'm in the 78's then the next load says 44,000 and I'm almost over gross. There is a link off of Cretes website that sends you to OOIDA's weight exemption page. I had condensed it down to a 1/3 sheet page so I didn't have to worry about needing it when my smart phone dies...but I lost the list...I think I'd lose my head if it wasn't hooked on.

 

In Crete's infant wisdom(yes, I spelled it that way on purpose), I got up this morning in Lincoln, showered, went in and got a hot breakfast, then got ready to leave. Checked my oil...I was down a gallon(1st time this truck needed oil in the 1st 15k after a service), added oil, went out, kicked the tires and lit the fires to go deliver in northern KS....as I went to leave, I get a message...."bring your truck to bay 27, we need to replace the battery on the q/comm". Now, far be-it for me to complain when a shop wants to work on my truck, but they wait until I'm leaving? And, a problem that has been there since I had the truck, including 4 days in the shop in Marietta....AAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG!!! Unhook, pull up to the door, they open it, I pull in...then they go on freekin break.ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH x2!!!!! Then once I get done I roll, and get into a backup in the Middle of Nowhere, KS because they decided to repave...I guess all the other major highways in KS are done and smooth, let's do the back roads now. I get to the receiver, he makes quick work of the unload(so far the only thing that has gone right today), I empty out and wait....and wait...and wait. Offered a load within an hour of the end of my 14 at a slow loading customer in Topeka.

 

Ok, for those who might be offended or annoyed by my seemingly endless rants....you may want to skip this post.

The only thing that Crete is trying to force me into is a load that doesn't pickup until almost the end of my 14 at a customer that is notorious for slow loading. And they claim that this is all they have. Excuse me...all you have? Didn't we just get a message earlier this week begging for trainers? What the flying flip do we need trainee's for if we don't have enough freight to keep our current drivers busy. When I said that this week would probably be my good week for the month, I was being sarcastically humorous. If anyone reading this is thinking about coming here, be prepared for 9000 mile months, and all the b.s. you can physically handle. I would avoid this place unless you're doing worse where you are.

 

I do 10k months as a local driver and home every night