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

Yeah I'm not really looking forward to it lol.

 

Dispatch was just so sure you’d go on up and rescue that load. Me personally, I know my limitations. If I was given the load she was on, I probably would have declined it due to the weather. BUT—-I also know how to route myself around weather (if at all possible) as well. That being said, she might have been told to run with it and they would swap her out somewhere along the line. Dispatch is notoriously famous for that as well.

 

They made their bed and now they gotta lay on it. I would've refused too cuz it isn't fair to properly trip plan and then get asked to rescue someone else that didn't plan properly. Planners all should have at least 15 yrs driving experience themselves so they know what things are like out here and can plan accordingly. They really need to teach new drivers and hammer home proper trip planning which includes checking weather and road conditions where they are going and look at alternate routes too. Most of them just punch in an address on the GPS and fly by the seat of their pants. I always run that Fife load across 74-80-84-82-90-18-5 that way, nobody ever complains I do it that way, chain laws either route to deal with. I say that 10k fine or whatever it is now is on the planners for giving that load to a rookie. At least that Fife load got some weight on it and she isn't feather weight.

 

JB all the technology these drivers need is in the palm of their hands. The older hands remember when we didn’t have cell phones, we relied on TVs in the drivers lounges, and fellow drivers warning us about weather conditions on the CB.

 

They did that to me with a Reno load once when I had hometime coming up. I got as far as San Jon and told 'em I wasn't going any further west (because that was as far as I could go and still get back to Richmond for hometime with the hours I had). Told 'em that I would be turning back around and heading back to Richmond the following morning, and if the loaded trailer I was hauling was still attached to my truck at that time, it would be coming back to Richmond with me.

They found someone to swap with me.

 

That method has been working for me for almost six years now!

 

Thats ridiculous. Glad you stood your ground.

 

And a road map, it amazes me the number of drivers that can’t read a map

 

Most days it will. I can say most days it’s what I do. But always have to be prepared to dig a bit deeper into the info available to us.

Can’t say trip planning was really covered in my training trucks. What I remember is something about “you can normally plan on 600 miles a day”