From Company driver to L/P

Hello all,

I am starting this thread on my husband experience starting today as someone switching from company driver to a l/p driver. Reason why is he wanted his own truck. Reason he is leaving old company is new policies being enacted.
Who am I, the person who pays the bills. The one that ran All the numbers to make sure it would not put us in a hole. I have ran my own business many years ago so I know what some of the in and outs are for accounting success.
Who my husband is, he did motor pool in the armed forces in the 90s. For past 10 years he has been with same company and last 5 as a driver OTR both team and single. The company he is leaving is a mega. We are on our way home so I will tell all this weekend after he turns in notice.
Right now he is doing 6 weeks company before doing l/p. I'm in the truck as a rider. One of many reasons we chose the new company. Another was size. It is not a mega and they are way more family type than the mega now. One more reason was they have a pet policy too.
As I said I will get into more detail when we get home. I am typing this on my tablet while hubby is driving. Not easy.

 

Well typing on bad road like i69 in ky is not eazy. We are on 25e now. Hubby is really loving the truck for it has all its power unlike other company that cut it off in half. LOL We just blew by other company truck on a hill on i69 without dropping speed of 63.

 

OK as promised here is details.

Mega company is/was Old Dominion freight line. This is the company he just left after 10 and a half years. He started as dock worker, did some jockeying, was one of the top loaders and in 08 went threw their school to drive. Yes, I know this is one of the most sought after driving companies that most drivers dream of getting a job at but ..... It is Not what it used to be.

Heads up all if you use any type of tobacco don't bother applying to them. If you are over weight or have thick neck don't eithet. New rules in forced No tobacco of any type and they bought into the Cpap machines. They are making most go threw sleep tests and putting them on machines if they need it or not. No joke we have seen it happen many times. Last one was hubby driving partner. So with the no smoking ruling coming into effect hubby again asked me to search. This ruling is from owner and ceo who is a Vegan.

Hubby chews and has since a teen. He grew up on a real family farm. So is a no one telling me how to run my life sort of person. I am sure many can relate. BTW don't look in our closet either if you are against owning guns. LOL Remember we do own a small farm here where we live. It is not the family farm, that was sold off by grandparents kids.

While OD was good to us, these new rulings were just too much. For my hubby OD got too big. Way to many drivers, which were making things harder as harder. They started treating people like robots. Now hubby is a good driver, just got his 5 year safty bonus. Always had loads most priority because he drove and didn't hang out in truck stops. Most of the time he came in under time by hours. Most weeks on team he was getting 7000 miles. Single was mostly 3000. He was home every week unless he chose to be out for two.

But they grew and grew and are still growing. They are banking on WRC going under. All trucks are new but single axle trucks. Pay is good but miles getting less as it is harder to get loads from there being too many drivers. If you not on a schedule (company goes by senority,) you have a real hard time getting off for holiday and once back in getting back out is even harder yet. OK these are all reasons why he left.

Now for the past couple of years he has had the urge to look into get this own truck if he planned on sticking with trucking. Now since we the farm it was first to look into expanding it since mother and brother are here. That didn't happen so this was second dream. Owning his own older truck that he could run and work on. Remember he was in motor pool in the service.

To be continued