Anyone run 11 Western out of Fontana?

Miles per week - about 2k on average, 2.5k if you really brown nose

LOH - short and getting shorter, under 500 for sure

Home time - You can be home every week if you don't run further then Phoenix, Vegas, or North Cal. If you get out of that area hope you took pictures of your love ones with you because you WILL forget what they look like.

Respect - None, your an ##### in a seat till you get fed up and quit, they'll have another one lined up to take your place before the cushion gets cold.

 

I don't run out of Fontana so this may not really help you. Miles per week I have seen around 2500. My average haul is 529 miles. I usually stay out 3-4 weeks at a time and then take 4 or so days off. Respect is good from your own dispatchers and from some of the people at HQ (payroll, etc.) I have found the shop personnel to be unfriendly at best in most cases.

Just try and be upfront with your expectations and whatnot and hopefully you will be able to get along with your DM and work out an arrangement that is mutually beneficial. Some people might accuse me of being naive but it has worked for me so far. Again your experiences can vary widely between terminals and people.

 

The best mechanics that I've encountered were in the Portland yard. The Phoenix mechanics could use a personality adjustment, and the shop foreman in Carlisle has a rotten attitude. The mechanics in Carlisle were pretty decent though.

I literally get run into the ground, and still get assigned loads over 1,000 miles whenever I have less than 10 hours remaining on my 70 hour clock. Dispatch has the info as far as how many hours I gain back at midnight, but that info isn't available to the driver via a qualcom macro. I don't pay attention to my miles that much, and didn't realize that I've already run over 3,000 miles in a week. My mind operates too fast, so everyday seems like I'm not really working that much (11 hours of driving is too easy at my young age).

The shortest that I've stayed out was 4 weeks, and the longest was 2 and a half months. I was pretty shocked when they gave me 6 days off, but there are some companies that forbid it *coughwernerandheartlandexpresscough*

Since Fontana is part of the Southern California division, you will probably run up and down I5 and Hwy 99 alot. If you don't mind staying out for a while, ask to be sent east.

 

It sounds like you have the right attitude. I think one of the problems with this industry is that a lot of people get themselves sort of "forced" into it, either by not being able to find anything else employment-wise in their area, or by falling into a financial pitfall (paying a bunch for a company-sponsored school, buying into a bad lease/purchase program) and then they become very easy to take advantage of since the companies know they have nowhere else to go. Or they are afraid of being canned since there's such a high availability of drivers out there ready to take their place, and they don't want to ruffle anyone's feathers.