Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

There has got to be a better way...

Opened 11-15 trailers... looking for an empty... not counting sealed ones that I walk passed... found three empties... all three are red tagged...

Did I mention the box of hangers that almost fell out on me? Ya, don’t open them doors too far... lol

But seriously... is there a better way?

I haven’t seen empties sitting out by the road the last few times I hit the yard... has that been dropped?

Is there something that we as Drivers can do to tell other Drivers which trailers are empty? Leave the doors open? Some kind of some thing on the trailers? Like a red tag but not... green tags???

Ya, that requires drivers to all do it the same way... just has to be something that can tell us where the empties are on this yard.

 

I made the same suggestion as you about 2.5 years ago "Can we please get some green tags" this was after I check like you 30 trailers! Loosing time on the clock! After a while being exhausted I just gave up! Did I ask dispatch what empty trailers where available before going into the unknown? Yes I did... There answer... "We don't know" go check".
There's been many others also that before us have mentioned this particular situation and we still come back to it again... I just don't understand why?

 

What a wasted morning... at 8am I got my TO for an HP load going to Florida... AWESOME... says it’s on the Yard, BONUS... search the yard twice... nothing... sent in msg on QC... searched again... went to the window... “maybe it’s at Plant #2... so I head there... nothing... our yard jockey said that trailer had not been at Plant #2 all weekend... head back to Yard... search it a fourth time... still nothing...

I call in... “oh, they took you off that load”

LOL

So they give me another TO... “grab an empty and head to...” (refer to story above) ... I can’t find an empty without a red tag... send in QC msg... nothing... call in... I guess it’s easier to modify a TO to go pick up an empty at a Customer than generate a list of empties.

So...
... I head to local customer ...
... only two trailers here...
... and, both are full... LOL

Yup, it’s a Monday...

Stay Safe!!!

 

Well, I guess I’ll give it a go... {shrug}

 

Just pure laziness. Imagine how I feel having to do that multiple times a day.

 

Stuck waiting three hours to get fuel filters changed at love's here in brigham city UT....not making it as far as I hoped to today. All because both WM and RVA shops ignored my write up on the fuel filters needing replaced. Guess Im not supposed to know when they are bad since Im just a driver. I have never mentioned I went through a diesel mechanic program though years ago in fear Id be expected to make repairs for free on my truck, lol! Im a jack of all trades master of none, lol! Glad this is my load to home time in Washington.....

 

Yep. Assuming it's a "drop empty, hook pre-loaded trailer" situation, let the locals do it. They're paid by the hour, so they will earn $10 for 30 minutes of walking around the yard looking for an empty. Whereas neither you nor I will get paid a dime.

I have lost track of the number of times I have spent half an hour walking the entire yard looking for an empty and been unable to find one AND ONLY THEN being told "Okay, just bobtail over". Yes, even for the shipper that comes with the "DO NOT BOBTAIL OVER TO THIS SHIPPER" message. I have been told to bobtail over there, too, when I couldn't find an empty trailer. And you know what? Nothing happened. Nobody gave me stick about it. Not the shipper. Not Abilene. Nobody.

So what I have learned from this is that "hook an empty and take it to the shipper before grabbing your pre-load" is basically a hopeful suggestion, and is not an actual requirement. This is because dispatch doesn't actually know if we have any empties on the yard. As such, I have started to move directly to the "bobtail over" portion of the process without going through the whole "waste 30 minutes of my time looking for a non-existent empty" portion of the process.

If, on the other hand, you need a trailer for a live load, welp, good luck and god bless.

 

What part of Washington, state do you live? About a month ago I stop at the Lincoln truck stop and it was a great place.

 

Too bad they don't just segregate the empties from the loaded trailers.

 

So we can count on the support from the Local Drivers???