Leaving Sun. 17th for school in TX for Swift. I am an old guy that wants out of retail. I worked for myself until 2009 and went to work for a very good company to work for, but new rules from corporate said no more overtime. Managed stores for two companies since that time and I am tired of all the responsibility, no authority, and every other email having the word termination in them. Over the last 30 years I have seen the role of manager change from an important position to one that has become of little importance. Almost everything is controlled by the home office. I have friends that drive and one that owns a small trucking company and they said I was what many of the companies are looking for. No criminal history and a squeaky clean driving record. I picked Swift for no particular reason and the recruiter has worked with me about my start date so I can get my world and family in order. I ride long distance on a motorcycle so being alone in a cab by myself wont be a problem. Also because of my work I have not been able to see this great country. I know it may not be good as it sounds but getting paid to travel sounds like a good idea. I would like any advice anyone is willing to give to a 50+ yr. old rookie.
Get familiar with HOS rules, 11/14/70/10/34 rule for your trip planning. 11 hr drive time, 14 hr window time, 10 off-duty/sleeper berth, 70 hrs drive time, 34 hr reset. Anytime you go on-duty or drive it starts your 14 hrs untill they are up; you start onduty or drv at 6am u now have 11 hrs to drive with in a 14 hr window, which would be 8pm. if you drive you start using your 14 as well as your 11. one example of your 70 hr rule would be 11 hrs driving 10 hrs off (10 hr off-duty, sleeper berth rule), start driving again 11 hrs then 10 off, start driving again 11 hrs then 10 off, start driving again 11 hrs then 10 off, start driving again 11 hrs then 10 off, start driving again 11 hrs. At this point you have driven 66 hours of your 70 hours; you now have 4 hours left untill your 70 is up, which then you will have to do a 34 hour reset, which then u will get 70 hrs again (I haven't made this example with roll over hours in mind). In this example you started monday at 12 am (drove 66 of your 70) by Friday at 8 pm you had 66 hrs. 14 hour rule example would be u drive to a shipper (1 hr drive time), u spend 1 hr getting your load (1 hr on-duty time), u then drive 9 hrs (drive time) to the reciever, u spend 1 hr (on-duty time) getting unloaded, now u drive half hr to truck stop. So you used up 10 1/2 hrs of driving time and 12 1/2 hrs of your 14. Change up the example, say you spent 5 hours at the shipper instead of 1 hr, so 1 hr drive time plus 5 hrs on-duty time = 6 hrs, 6 - 14 = 8 hrs, u now can only drive 8hrs even though u haven't drove 11 hrs because your 14 window is up. I can give an example of roll over hrs if interested.
Can Swift get you to certain parts/states/cities of the country if you coordinate it through dispatch? Thank you.
yes for Hometime only you can set ur Hometime for any zip code you like but don't exspect them to just send u there u get what u get for preplans no options unless u run a comfort zone which can also limit ur miles as well, but if you wanna be in the East no problem tons of freight there PA VA WV GA OH NY IN oh and of course Chicagoland we have tons of freight going there, I never run much out west I tend to make better money running East. Good luck to ya
Comfort zones is East of Mississippi and West and the Great Lakes MI OH IL IN WI might be more cant remember and if u can pass to get a passport you can go to Canada and think u get $50 more per load when you go there
Thank you. I live in Washington state and I would love to see family in Tennessee more often than I already do.
I was under the impression that comfort zones were no more and the only one that had left was the "Great Lakes" region. Has that changed back?
yes they still have the comfort zones. im originally from California but moved to Georgia, I was gonna move back to cali but was told I would only run the western 12. why would I wanna do that??? what I don't get is if you aren't married or with your girlfriend why would you wanna team??? its still the same pay
