AIT to Swift my adventure begins!

This thread will be about my next step in a new Career in Truck Driving. I attended AIT Trucking school and have my Orientation scheduled for Monday August 8th at Swift in Phoenix. I look forward to sharing my thoughts and adventures will all of you. I hope I get a great Mentor/Trainer and can hardly wait to get started!

 

Okay I survived the paperwork nightmare for Day one. Talk about being walked through something. Guess they want to get it right the first time. They bought us Arby's for lunch, but some were stuck on the paperwork so the rest of us had to wait. At any ate by the time we got to eat it was cold.

Had a drug screen in am, since my physical was just a few weeks back they accepted that with no problem and I didn't have to do another.

I am hoping to get a female mentor, but looking at the forms we had to sign today, it doesn't look as promising as my recruiter lead me to believe. Guess I will have to wait and see.

There were 38 I believe in our class this morning. It was hard to tell since they were floating in and out with physicals and drug screen and road testing.

I left swift and went down to check the commercial DMV about my hazmat stuff. They had it there electronically since the 27th of July. No snail mail at my house yet regarding that, so they added it to my licence there on the spot. Glad to have that part out of the way. Now just waiting for my passport card to arrive and I will be good to go.

Tomorrow is suppose to be log books, DOT and who knows what else, so I will close this for now. More info to follow! Be safe out there drivers!

 

Day 2 of Orientation went pretty good. We covered a lot of policy and procedures, sexual harassment, High Value loads, etc.... I am suppose to read this entire Drivers Manual and sign a paper stating that I did. Made a pretty good dent in it, but no way to finish it all tonight.

Tomorrow they are going to have the mentors come in sometime and meet us. I will also receive my drivers code. According to Jack I will be leaving on the next truck heading out of Phoenix tomorrow.

Well need to make sure I got my stuff packed and need to log out and load this. Will post as I can and have the time. Wish me luck!

 

On Day 3, I got coded and got my mentor. We had a load going to Vernon, Ca that they double booked then took away. Spent the night at the Swift yard in Phoenix and got another preplan the next morning to Grand Prairie, Tx. We picked up a live load in Phoenix and headed out. Guess they don't like the new drivers to drive out of Phoenix, so my mentor drove to Casa Grande rest stop then I got to drive. Made it to El Paso yard and spent the night. The mosquitoes were terrible, and mentor got eaten up. They are all around the fueling station.

Next Morning Friday we headed towards Grand Prairie. Morning weather was awesome, but then we ran into some rain. Around Cisco, Tx we hit some hard rain and construction. The warning signs for the single lane were to close to the zone and the rain obscured them, all of the sudden there were brake lights and I had to stand on the brakes to stop the truck. I like the ABS brakes the trailer stayed pretty straight, unfortunately the rig behind me wasn't so lucky and he jack knifed, almost hitting us. We pulled to the side to make sure he was okay and noticed that our brakes weren't charging. The Governor wasn't working correctly. We got it to finally build up pressure and resumed our journey. About 5 miles down the road we ran into a horrific thunderstorm, all the 4 wheeler's were pulling off the the side of the road, but barely getting out of the travel lanes. We limped down the highway for 20 miles at 10 mph. You couldn't see more than 20 feet in front of you. It was really scary, what a way to spend my 2nd day on the road. The air pressure in the system wasn't replenishing like it should and I had to be careful not to get on the brakes unless absolutely necessary. We finally made it to the Petro in Weatherford, Tx and put it into the shop there. I had 30 minutes left on my 11 hr when we put it into the shop. 3 hours later they told us they couldn't repair it and it needed to go to the dealership. So we backed it out and slept there for the night. Next morning my mentor drove to the location and we dropped the trailer, then bob tailed to the dealership and put it into the shop. They said it would be 2 to 4 days, so now I am in a motel down the street from the freight-liner dealership off the 820 in Ft Worth. We have a pre-plan going to Georgia if they get the air brakes fixed.
Needless to say it had been an adventure.
More to come!