Schneider training March 15th, Carlisle PA

Well crap, lol...IVE never scaled! I trained with a guy that had no access to scales, and while there are some on my route, I dont need to scale because I haul hardly any weight.
The macros were confusing as well...got confused with all of the umpteen macs you needed to send in each day while working with a load.

 

I run dedicated at the Great Pumpkin. Heres the scoop: I dunno. lol.

Seriously it depends on what you would be doing. They have runs that are regional like JC Penny where you are sent all over to varous JCP stores dropping off trailers, picking other ones up...etc. They also have the Dollar General (or one of those dollar chains) accounts where you drive to various DG stores.

Some dedicated accounts have you running to the same stores as if you had your own route, others have you going this there and everywhere.

The difference is that with the dedicated accounts, you know what you are hauling, you run to certain stores and such and are home daily / weekly. The trade-off is that you make less than the regular OTR driver...but then again you are home daily too.

I run a route, meaning its the same stops daily. In my case, my route takes up about 1/3 of a trailer, the rest is for another two routes along the way. The trailer leaves its dock, makes its way via team up to me, I continue on making my stops, and then I give another driver his load. My day is 9.5 hours if I dont fuel, 10 if I do. Im home daily unless weather intervenes and I have two days off a week.

What I haul doesnt weigh hardly much at all. It all depends on what the customer orders. One time, I got the trailer and looked inside and thought they sent the wrong trailer as there was only five feet of freight up by the nose and half of it was mine. Another day, I got a trailer with just two things inside of it for two deliveries in a town about 1.5 hours away. Went there and back...took about 3.5 hours all together, btu got a full days pay.

What I do is a rare gig, in that many people would die for this job. Not everyone, lol. While I dont get as much pay as a regular OTR driver...its comparable. In the end, i probably make a few thousand less a year, but Im home daily with two days off. Plus, Im only driving for about 7-8 hours a day.

 

ZIGGYSTYLES.

Thanks for the info. So you can pretty much start your day nearly
the same time each day?

Thanks again.

 

In my particular situation, I do for the most part. My load is brought to me so I just sleep / wait until they give me a call when they are x miles away...then I meet and swap trailers. It can vary when I start depending on how much freight they have to deliver on the way up here as well as the weather. They start at pretty much the same time each night as...as soon as their trailer is loaded, they get rolling.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that for the CDL test, they will probably ask you to do the pre trip on just a few things instead of the whole shebang. IE...mine told me to do one on the engine area...the tires (i think)...and in cab pretrip along with the pump down.
Also...Schneider is known for teaching a very thorough pre trip to its students. We basically are trained rather specifically it seems...so they might just cut you off and tell you to skip to another part.

Plus, dont forget all that stuff either. Its easy to skip the pretrip and all that when you are on the road, but they check up on you. I dont know what other companies do for their graduates...but I had a 90 day evaluation...got a qualcomm message from my dock asking where I would be at a certain location....I told them and sure enough, one of the safety guys they have showed up (which was weird...he was 500 miles from his office). Of course, he caught me at the end of my run and I didn't have to deliver to my last stop...so he basically was with me for about 40 miles total. ALong with the evaluation, we also went over fuel economy and new strategies to save fuel.
Also, they have spring and winter training where you get trained on additional stuff (this applies to all their drivers as far as I Know)...and you use your truck so I imagine they will ask you to do various inspections and such. Mine is in the beginning of May.