do you O/O's seemed to get more trouble from State Police on stops

Yeah attitude goes along way too.

 

I carry hazmat. They know our stuff is squared away unless there's something obvious

 

They have that one scale in Steele MO and Charleston MO they both suck. But the operator is right be polite and cool your body language would rat you out. If you have your stuff together they’ll cut you a break. But tires will get you if the are bad they will write you up. Washer fluid is a must also even if you have to put soap water in it keep it flowing when they check. License plate clean if it has dirt on it. All lights working and know what you are saying remember they are interviewing you. Small talk but really just trying to see if your impaired or have mental issues. They tend to tell me that they wil not waste my time and do a level 3. Most of the time. And I own a 2000 379 ran paper logs loose leaf and pretty much ran legal. Local and regional moves right at around 500-1500 a day depending on who I deal with I’ve had loads from going 90 miles for 2200. I got a good network of brokers and agents that call me. I’ll help them out and take a load at first time they call or I get one of my buddies to move it for my connect. I almost always can work in freight for my brokers one way or another. So on a whole point of my story is to treat the Dot the same as dealing with your peers if the officer finds a problem just be cool he might cut you a break and not fine you.

 

One of our drivers got harassed in Texas last week because his truck was “too clean”. The DOT man said he must have something to hide.
Probably the same ####### that got me outside of Katy and wrote me for a crooked mud flap on the trailer. Yes... because the bottom edge was not parallel with the ground.

I’ve got to admit, I just don’t give a flying #### anymore. My truck is well maintained, but hasn’t had a bath in a while. And I keep my bag of Doritos on the dash, amongst other ####, when I go through the weigh station.

 

Yeah if you too clean down here in big Tex near Houston and south a clean truck with no load will get you pulled over. I heard that on the news it’s because they think your smuggler druggy

 

When I bought my truck, I leased to a company that kept me local and under 100 air miles.

The first time I crossed the scales, I got pulled in. Clean inspection on me but was told my carrier was near getting shut down with a 95 CSA.

The next week, I was pulled on the highway and told the same thing.

Two weeks later, I was pulled on another highway and told the same thing.

I think if your CSA score is crap, you're going to get pulled. And you better have your ducks in a row.

It only takes 15 or 20 minutes to do a good pre-trip. Just do it and fix whatever is wrong.

Do a big inspection yourself twice a month. If it's your truck, you have no reason not to find all the problems and every reason to find them.

 

The small carrier I am leased to has a rule. We like our CSA score of zero. If you do something to mess it up (preventable) you are gone. Pretty simple.

 

You mud flap outlaws are going to come into compliance.

 

Small guy I was leased to, same thing. Bear was standing on the scale ( HWY 89 / Utah ), asks you got your log book?
I handed it to him, " Ok I'm giving you a level 3, park, and bring in the rest of paper. "

When I went in he handed me back my log, I knew I was good, and he's tapping on his keyboard, I was leaning on the counter and could see his pc screen, and it was blinking a BIG red 93, in this box with the company's info.

I was thinking, I have no clue what that means, but I'm certain it's not good.

 

Depending on how small you are, one driver can screw it up in a hurry. It happened to us... zero to conditional in a couple of weeks. He was fired as soon as it was discovered that he got like three log book tickets in as many days but it was too late. There were other things he did that he never said anything about as well.

It takes a long time to get that satisfactory rating back. And in the mean time, you’ll be drowning in insurance payments.