Trans Am Still

Wow. I make a comment and the thread stops.

 

Does the continuous swapping of trailers really hurt the driver(s)?

The way I am looking at it is that the driver who turns his or her trailer over to another driver gets a lot of relief from the deadlines of getting that particular load to a shipper, (especially if the load is running late).

It becomes the responsibility of the 2nd. driver who relived the 1st. driver of his or her trailer. The 1st. driver then gets his or 10 hour break, then takes the trailer of the 2nd. driver to the destination it is supposed to go to.

God bless every American and their families! God bless the U.S.A.!

 

Depends on the driver your swapping with.Did they do a good ppretrip, and most importantly, did they care enough to have any problems found fixed.

After about the 5th or 6th bad trailer I got, that I lost time on getting it fixed, I started refusing any swaps until the other driver got it fixed.

TA has or had, a really crappy trailer program, and did a lousy job of trailer training.

Yes, they had no problem with getting it fixed, but they have to know about 1st. Not going to list all the problems here.

 

Ok, I'll bite.

You've got 800 miles left on a 1 stop load. You've worked your hours to be coming off your 10 at about the time you get the green light at the receiver. You get swapped for a load with 200 total miles left on it and 4 stops that will not final until the day after the day you would have originally finalled out and been ready for a new load with a fresh clock.

Or you have a load you just started and had to take a break. You have some time on this load, figured you stop somewhere and get caught up on laundry or whatever since you've been running swaps and haven't had time. Get swapped for a load that you have to hump to drop as soon as your 10 is up.

Or you run 80 miles to a shipper, get live loaded and as you're scaling out you get a swap call. You're trading your 1200 mile load for one with 100 miles left on it. You wait at the swap location for hours on the other driver, killing the hours you could have been running and getting miles. Then you run it and drop it, so now you're again waiting on a new load.

See where it's going here? A few swaps here and there aren't bad, but back to back to back gets annoying. Not to mention any time you've spent trip planning is just wasted.

What's the point of setting for an on-time if you're just going to get swapped because you're in the hot swap zone and some other driver only drove 6 hours the day before and is running behind? Or another driver sees you sitting, they are on a load they don't really like and decide to call in and see where yours is going and if they can just take it (might happen, might not, no idea... but the chance is there). It also open up the chance that a driver will run 1100 miles off a load and want swapped for another load to avoid downtime, so they screw off, roll in somewhere out of hours and the load needs rescued.

Put a load on driver #1 and expect them to get it from point A to point B without the help of driver #2 once they accept it.

But I guess you're right... you get out of the deadline of your current load and get a deadline on another load that's probably running behind

 

This sounds like a VULTURE situation.
Driver "A" with the disliked or bad load, wants to take the good load from driver "B", while driver "A" sticks driver "B" with the bad load.
Driver "A" doesn't seem to care that driver "B" may have worked very hard to earn the good load that he was driving.

God bless every American and their families! God bless the U.S.A.!

 

This also sounds like a VULTURE situation.
Driver "A" worked his tail off to get that 1200 mile load, only to have to hand it over to driver "B", who did not work for it at all. In the mean time, driver "A" who now has a 100 mile load, just got swindled out of 1100 miles, plus receiving additional waiting time for nothing.

God bless every American and their families! God bless the U.S.A.!

 

I leased so I never swapped if I didn't want to. Also got paid extra for saving a trip. I don't really understand how some drivers screw up a trip plan.

 

Yes I was wondering about any info that can be given about ta I'm new to driving had my cdl about a year got it while I was a employee of the city I live in it was really a just in case cdl the city has you get I had never driven anything on that scale before so I decided why not put it to use I finished a course in Dallas a week ago an now headed to orientation on the 8th so like I said just looking for tips or advice thanks in advance I have been reading post for a couple hours everyone seems very helpful

 

I just hope to have a better experience than I did at the school I went to in Dallas. Like I stated I had never been in a truck that size with a fifty three ft trailer let alone double clutched or driven a ten speed. I was yelled at for not making a turn five minutes into my first day driving an shifting because the trainer lost track of time. I was called stupid when I didn't know how to shift my first day. Then when I asked about double clutching the instructor after class told me to call my father if he ever raced hr would know I was shocked I'm 32 my dad died when I was seven an I thought I'm paying two grand for this. But despite all that I worked hard an by Friday I passed the road eval in downtown Dallas rush hour with a 92 so I was happy to progress an I did it alone so now I hope there is a more helping drivers here. I am green but I want to learn an better my skills an knowledge

 

My advice is don't lease. They will make it look real good but you have a lot to learn. This is not an easy job. The instructors sound terrible where you were but it is only a peak at this industry. Take your time and ask questions. Better to be thought of as a fool for a few minutes than be proven one for a lifetime. Good luck