At Covenant Transport, SAFETY should be first but few are listening

Dispatch and planners just want the load picked up, they get their on-time pickup and don't give a crap about the next step after that. In their minds you have the load on a trailer, job done. They knew you could get to the shipper and that's all they care about. Take it as far as you can, park it, call safety with the reason why and go to bed. Find the closest truck stop to the shipper and call it done. Protect your CDL, your record and lively hood.
Good luck, lessons for the future.

 

Wait, ladies and gentlemen, Some where in his posts he asked about re route and going through Reno.. Am I right??
This for safe passage.. Did you all happen to see where he calls home??????

 

I run out of Sumner all the time. Few weeks back saw that Snoqualmie was shut down so ran south on the 5 to 84 east and back up to 90 from there to St Paul.

If I were a company driver, and a team at that I would just do the same thing and not say a word tothe company. I can quantitatify 200 miles out of route time/distance, but sitting/waiting for a road to open up is an unknown and unproductive.

 

As a former covenant driver. Your issue started when you tried to keep the load on time. I drove many winters with them. Stay on route, use the shut down for weather macro as needed and any saftey concerns must be handled thru the Qualcomm for the record. Phone calls are subject to interpretation. I left covenant for prime lease for more control and better pay. Covenant is a good starter company but it's only a step in the rung to full owner

 

Yes, you cant reroute yourself on a load that is not time sensitive and using someone elses fuel. I agree with the previous poster on using the Macros to your advantage.

I have been driving for many years in Alaska but wanted to go OTR and knew what my limitations were and all the when and where questions we need to think about condition wise. COMPANIES dispatchers are like asking a common sense question at DMV they dont all think like us after the Government job turned them into a zombie. I keep my comfort zone to about 35-40 if I cant go that fast safe I used the Macro for weather delay or whatever they called it. Less than 35 you arent going anywhere but the point is you have record through the Macro. Dispatcher sees it checks weather in area and emails reciever. They could care less and as long as its not a common occurrnce it goes unnoticed. I rarely and I mean rarely ever spoke to my dispatchers and was always pre-loaded and busy.

 

" Pre - loaded and busy "
... And having one foot on the throttle and other foot stuffed up the dispatcher's & @#

 

Why didnt you just park it somewhere and wait it out once pass opens up.
Of course call dispatch and let them know beforehand.

 

As with all the other you should have simply just parked it. Trying to go 600 miles out of route likely meant that the company ended up paying for the privilege of pulling the load factoring in fuel and extra driver pay. Another thing is trying to make this about safety when it's about you simply wanting to run wherever you want. Makes me believe you really are not set up to be in the industry as a company driver as you have trouble following direction. I'd suggest going the o/o route so you can do what you want, but then we will be hearing back about how you can't make bills because you are spending too much on fuel.

-Steven

 

Never had anything like that happen in the year I worked for em. They would send a mandatory shutdown if the weather got bad.