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

Yep... that was the man!!!

I liked him as a trainer... and in general... I thought for sure I was going to get a chewing for missing the turn and taking a Truck in places it wasn’t supposed to be... but nope... just let me work the problem that I created for myself and complimented me on not doing any damage in the process.

 

Well... I HAD a nice 600 mile run today for Pickup tomorrow and then another 600 mile drive to the drop after...

BUT... now I have to rescue a BH load heading back South... so after driving three hours, I’m waiting for three hours for it to arrive... then drive another three hour back to where I came from....

So, I am still in good hands, but ya, best plans change... lol

I’m still not sure why this load needs rescued... Driver is an hour short to get there tonight but I’m thinking he would still have time to take a Ten and drive the hour in the morning... but maybe my math ain’t working right today.

 

My only dilemma is the trainers for these companies. I want to make sure I get someone willing to help me learn. May, Swift, WE, SNI, etc. I guess it doesn't really matter which because the trainers will probably be the same in all of them. At least Swift and SNI Urine/hair test I guess but which one has better trainers.. guess that doesn't matter since they're all megas.

I plan to do just 6 months - 1 year anyway just want to make sure I go with a company that won't ding my DAC or whatever it is I keep reading about. I'm looking closely at Western if anything because they will let me park the truck at home. May, Swift, SNI won't because they have a terminal nearby.

 

New system automatically works. You don't gotta do squat. Little graphic pops up on your QC screen providing instructions on whether to enter or bypass the upcoming weigh station. There will be a colored circle next to the graphic. Press the colored circle on the QC screen to dismiss the graphic.

If the BestPass tells you to do X and the new system tells you to do Y, ignore the BestPass and do whatever the new system says. So far that hasn't happened to me, and both units have been in agreement. But there's always a first time...

 

After my windy adventures getting to Phoenix, I got assigned a deadhead to the Lineage/WalMart DC down the road from Colton. And while I was trucking that direction, I got another load assignment: Drop my empty at Lineage, bobtail up to Bakersfield, and rescue a driver and his trailer. Although my assignment was to bring both the driver and the trailer back down to Colton so he could get into another truck, I was instructed to keep the trailer and ferry it back across the country to Richmond.

The tricky bit, of course, was that there was no way short of putting wings and a jet engine on my truck that I was going to make on-time delivery. Delivery was scheduled for 7:30am Tuesday. And under the absolute best-case scenario, where I drove as efficiently as possible and was in the seat and doing a pre-trip as soon as my reset clock hit 10:00, the load would get there Wednesday evening sometime. And I happen to know that this particular receiver stops taking deliveries at 3 or 4pm, so even if I pushed myself to the limit and drove overnight in an increasingly sleep-deprived state to get there Wednesday evening, I still wouldn't actually be able to deliver it until Thursday morning anyways.

And that was before I got to Bakersfield and couldn't hook up to the other driver's trailer.

Dunno what was wrong with the other guy's truck, but the truck repair shop he was at told him to drop his trailer across the street on the dirt shoulder of the road. And by the time I got there, the trailer had sunk two inches into the ground. Even with the landing gear at full extension and my air bags deflated, I couldn't get up under the trailer. So we had to call breakdown and have them send a tow truck to winch it out.

I speculated that maybe the truck repair place told drivers to drop their trailers in this soft dirt on purpose so they could make more money on tow/winch calls. Joke was on them, though, because they are not one of our "preferred vendors", so breakdown called someone else. The someone else they called was literally a quarter mile down the road. I could see their shop in my side-view mirror.

Took 'em an hour to get there.

Eventually, though, we got hooked up and made our way back to Colton. The other driver had to log in and take a turn driving my truck because the wait for the tow truck pushed me into my 14. I drove about an hour and a half, stopped in Castaic (oy!) and he drove the rest of the way.

Next day (Sunday) I called dispatch. Told 'em there was no way I would be able to make on-time delivery. (I'd already sent a QC message to that effect, but I like to follow up those QC messages with a phone call.) Told 'em if they wanted the load to arrive on time, they would need to rescue it with a team.

Next day (Monday) I called my DM. Left him voice mail. By this point there was no way even a team op would make on-time delivery, but they could still make delivery on Tuesday before the place stopped taking deliveries.

Apparently they've rescheduled the delivery or they just figure they'll eat the late fee or maybe they don't actually have a scheduled appointment and the receiver is FCFS and none of this matters anyways. Regardless, nobody's called me and no QC messages have arisen to inform me of an upcoming load rescue. And it's 36 hours overdue already, so.

I've been driving on recap. Only had 7 hours of drive time yesterday, only 9 the day before. Had almost my full 11 today, though (which I drove), and will have almost my full 11 tomorrow as well. Currently in Baxter, TN. Will have to get up in the small hours of the morning to get to the receiver before they close for the day, but I should make it.

 

The BestPass transponder is still useful for all the other toll systems that aren't EZPass, like SunPass in Florida and whatever it is you use to drive I-44 from Tulsa to the Missouri state line. My impression is that DriveWyze is strictly for weigh stations and nothing else. So hopefully we won't be getting rid of those BestPass transponders anytime soon. I like being able to use the toll roads in FL.

 

We did this conversion a year ago. You will eventually get all read lights on the prepass when it is deactivated but the expass for tolls will function as normal.
We eventually got new transponders from bestpass about half the size with out the prepass function on it, just rolls.

 

Great person!
Always calm and smiling.
He and his wife invited me to go out and eat at an Indian restaurant and we had just a great time talking and joking. My last trip with him was Brooklyn, N.Y.

 

Got switched to WM, I like it so far since Im getting stacked or preplanned before I empty out the load Im on. Makes it easier knowing where Im going next and can just go there after empty instead of going to sit somewhere first. Hope it stays like this....

 

Had a two stop this morning in Radford then Dublin. Got to the place in Radford and told me to back into dock 4. I line up to start backing in and a local shuttle driver swoops in behind me and steals my dock.....