Good night from...

A nice little artifact from Plus 1 ... It gives you your time based on the paid miles, neither taking account for the actual distance if you used the shortest route, the traffic situation on the street or the towns of the shortest route or in your case, as a company driver, the actual route your are directed to drive that is considered the safest/most economical for Swift.

 

Lapine, OR

woke up to my phone going off with a preplan with a load going to Toledo, I declined and stated I am supposed to get home and I really need to asap, they sent another preplan and when I saw the text it said from hermiston, or to somewhere in Texas and I was like hell no!
then several messages came through and they got me tcalled in mira loma on the 5th at 9:30am, its a nice light 7k chip load from Shearers farms, they make the "great value" brand for Walmart.

 

Oh I forgot to mention I got shot down for the target dedicated, the manager said he cant take me right now.

Anyone know if the rite aid is driver unload? im trying to open options for multiple dedicated routes, might talk to someone about the walmart one in Mira Loma too, was told not long ago they needed people.

 

Rite Aid out of Lancaster CA is 2-5 stops and driver unload using a pallet jack with a life gate. The manager is John Rogers. Hope this helps

 

Load I have now is tcalling in New Boston MI, not due for delivery til 091413 up in Ontario Canada. So Mac 30 is only kicking back, PTA Set Before Delivery. Only other load offer was to deliver another load up into Toronto tomorrow. Been slow rolling this load at 9.1 miles per gallon, but was prepared to engage warp 9 if they preplanned me. That hasn't happened so just 250 miles to go will be tcalling tonight and bounce out to Monroe TA for a shower and good big fat sit down breakie in the AM. It's all good, Wed and Thurs are my 'weekend' as it were.

 

I know.
It can suck.

And to top it off the system always wants to run my tanks dry before letting me fuel.
Today I had to get a new route to a close enough fuel stop, as there were none on my current route.

I sent in a Mac22 with an ETA of 1000 - 2 hours late - based on my GPS ETA.
I got a message back that said I had the hours to make delivery on time.
Well, I have to take a 10 in that time.
My GPS gave an ETA of 2230 when I shut down tonight near Ft. Wayne, IN at 1915, and I have 200 miles to go.
Most of it is on US30, so plenty of towns to slow me down between here and Gary.
And then Chicago area traffic getting into Romeoville.

 

At the Orleans in Las Vegas. On my way to West Valley City, UT with a load of MT soda cans.

When I left the terminal yesterday freight looks BLEAK, so I figured I'd get a text if they tried to plan me on anything. WRONG!!!

Got back to my truck this morning to find FOUR PrePlans, 3 which had been taken off of me. I declined the 4th due to no delivery appointment. 3 minutes later I got another PP (for the MT can load) which I took.

At 10:55 am my phone exploded with ALL of the text that I never received. I'm guessing Swift had a glitch in their system. Oh Well! For once I cannot blame it on the keyboard pounding monkeys.

 

sitting on the street in Mira Loma waiting for my wife to get here so I can unload the truck and turn it in then go home for a few days, wont be back until tuesday so my following weeks check will be a little small since I only had the 1026 mile run I just tcalled since Wednesday but last week was decent so this coming check wont be too bad, will just budget for the following week. Im sure when I come back they will have me run a local load then stack me with something, seems to be that way every single time but that would be fine since it will get onto that small check.

I am going to submit my truck to the shop so we will see if I get this truck back or a different one since the check engine light comes on when im pulling a heavier load up hills and a couple days ago the truck actually shut down on me climbing the hill and I had to hurry and pull over to the side, started it up and it shook pretty bad then shut it down and waited a few minutes and started it again then finished up the hill and delivered my load 50 miles from where it happened. Man talk about hard to turn these big trucks without power steering, went and saw my Dl (matt) and he did a random inspection on my truck and mentioned he was also going to try and get me a better truck when I return, I like this truck so it better be a newer one or another international, I do not want that crap small volvo thats for sure.

also took care of my log class while I was in Fontana so now I have nothing pending that needs done.

 

Checked with New Boston shop, warranty is good for 1 year. My batteries are 2 years old now. I asked them about handing me 4 batts and I go out and put them in myself, they say no go on that, they want the old batts. Backing the truck up a little, earlier in the day I saw a guy jumping his reefer off his truck batteries, went to talk to him a little, he said he buys his truck batts at Napa for about $80 bucks each. They come with a 3 year warranty that beats Swift's 1 year warranty and comes in mega cheaper than T/A's $130 per battery price. Plus I can score a core charge or maybe sell them to a recycler.

OK I took care of the 1 on 1 log class, turns out it was for a off duty driving violation from a different day than I thought it was. He explained to me that often times I may not think I am under dispatch, (you know those times where you are hunting for an empty) you indeed are under a deadhead order. We talked about many other scenarios and situations which was very helpful and productive for me. Oh and another thing he cleared up was it is OK to drop a loaded trailer at a terminal en route and bobtail out off duty driving which my safety guy had said was not allowed.

Woke up with 14 hours to play with for the next 2 days, was going to take the day off but they offered a shorty hazmat JIT load over to Grand Rapids area so scooped on it. Went to pretrip the trailer and brakes were paper thin and cracked on 1 set. Opposite side was thick linings. I know it is Swift policy when doing brakes, they do both sides of the axle so I took it to the shop for a 2nd opinion, they had me drop it around back. Sent mac 22 and bobtailed out off duty driving. For my purposes this kinda works out in my favor hours wise, sets me up for delivery Friday morning and available first thing for the next load with plenty of hours to run the next 6 days.

Forgot to mention, when I was on the way to the terminal I was being paced by a gray sedan for what I thought was an inordinate amount of time and distance. Then he got up beside me and stayed there for a pause before moving on down the road. I could see he had suction mounted cams all over his windshield and rear passenger window and well as rear window. I think this was one of the IMDS dudes. Hope he caught me doing good

 

I've done this a couple times and I was CERTAIN it was legal. Glad to know that SOMEBODY at Swift can read the regs AND has a brain.