Beep Beep Roadrunner

Rudely woken up last night to a foul crunching sound. Peak out curtain and see that CREngland trying for a too sharp Uturn in the parking lot wiped out the hood of the USA truck next to me. Backing up a little, I had parked in the end lot of Sapps Denver right in front of a big hole in the ground. Thought about moving somewhere else as this looked to be the turnaround for trucks coming in late at night to discover no parking and over time their trailer tandems dug a hole in the pavement. Well, could have moved but USA truck was coming in to park just then. I hopped out and asked him to park next to me on my starboard side to protect my hood as I already had a lone trailer all iced up (figure it isn't going anywhere) parked on the portside for protection while I go get some dinner and walk Abby.

Had a great walk with Abby through the snow down by the river running next to Sapps there. Plenty of rabbits to go chasing after. She would never catch them due to the leash but we did have fun traipsing all over the deep snow. She got out on the thin ice and went through to the ice cold water at one point, figured time to head back. Poor girl was covered in ice crystals by the time we got back. Brushed her down and dried her off, she actually looks clean and shiny today like she had a good soapy bath.

My route has me going down through Colorado 287 into Oklahoma and Texas, been reading a few posts on here about slick roads and crashes along that way. Was considering just running out east on I70 then I35 south which would add over 200 miles but at sit down breakfast here in Limon guy says things are good now.

 

Down in Houston today and tomorrow, will be picking up a pre-loaded trailer right back to Seattle terminal tomorrow night.

This week 4 years ago I signed the lease agreement with Swift for my truck. It is also one year ago that I attended orientation for Roadrunner. Don't know where I'm going with that lol. Just trippin'.

 

U got out that lease agreement quick

 

OMG it seemed like an eternity over at Swift for 3 years. I wanted to leave so much sooner but I had 2 tickets in 2011 and couple of out of services and things like form and manner mistakes and marker light burned out on my PSP during the later time I was there. Very difficult to get a better job, best chance was to move laterally.

In the year I have been with Roadrunner I have gotten 3 clean inspections plus the year (time) which heals all PSP's.

 

I left swift last July was there for 2 years then they wanted me to ttrain turned that down then they wanted me to lease a truck so I did some investigation on that which was cap so I choose to come to forward air it's ok by I need to make more money.

 

Arizona is having a big enforcement push this weekend. Wanted to write about a few things I have learned over the years.



Got my first ticket in a big truck by crossing a solid white line as I realized I was lined up to take an exit and needed to stay on the big road. Cop was right behind me lit me up and pulled me over. He was a city cop so he didn't do any inspection. Just said I crossed an imaginary island. I replied there was no island there, just a line lol. So right there he got me for admitting crossing the line. Quite the setup I fell for right there.

Next ticket-- was climbing the grade just west of Albuquerque west bound when 2 big trucks passed me up then abruptly jumped in front of me and hit their brakes. I couldn't see around them and was miffed they did that so I jumped out to the fast lane to pass them (temporary loss of my anger management skills there cost me bigtime). As we crested the hill I saw what they had seen, a cone zone narrowing us down to one lane. I looked in my mirrors and saw all kinds of traffic and figured if I hit my brakes I would have a hard time getting back in line plus I would affect traffic 5 miles behind me. Should have taken that chance but I sped up and got ahead of these guys going 67 in the now 55 zone. Busted plus he found a form and manner mistake on my paper logs and popped me for 'Fatigue'.

At this point California sent me a warning letter that I was in danger of losing my CDL for x amount of time- can't remember now. It was also around this time that CSA was coming into full effect. Found out the hard way on that one when PSP report came in listing a crash that was not my fault-- a 4wheeler running next to me on the freeway decided to make a hard right turn into my driver side fuel tank then spun off into the median. Because they were towed it is listed on my PSP as a crash. No indicator of fault- but just makes me look like a terrible driver. Officers see activity on the PSP and will not let up til they find some violation.

Rolling over the weigh station scales, blew a tire. They threw up the red light and came running out like they caught a terrorist red handed on American soil or something and declared me OOS.

Got another bad roadside inspection coming out of Canada, one of the marker lights on the trailer was burned out- looked like rainwater had shorted out the wiring connection- quick jiggle and the light came back on but the officer said it has to work all the time.

Next OOS, was picking up a loaded trailer in Swift's Phoenix yard-- bear in mind all trailer coming into the yard are 121 point inspected and cleared good. My routine was to back under a trailer with my lights and flashers on then hook up air and pigtail, do 1 walk-around and roll out the gate with Elogs On Duty Pretrip. It would kick over to Drive line on its own after 7/10's or a mile so in this way I could be more efficient. What I learned was having the tractor lights on then plugging in the pigtail is OK 99% of the time but 1% of the time it will cause a fuse to blow. In this case it blew the brake lights fuse, which I didn't know because I stupidly did only one walk around which did not include checking the brakes. OK so that cost me $25 fix-it ticket and OOS on my PSP.

No tickets in over 3 years now- 3 clean roadside inspections in the last year all help to lower my 'score'. Haven't had any blowouts in a couple years, check and maintain proper tire pressures at all times. Gotta say it helps to run the same trailer day in and day out especially when it has LED lights all around. Big problem I was having with Swift trailers with the old lights for some reason- 4 way flashers would 'railroad' it was described to me by the DOT inspector at Banning scale. I don't have that problem with the LED lighted trailers.

Anyway, I was just thinking how on my way from Seattle to Houston, I had just missed the big snow storm in Colorado coming south, hit a little snow around Rhome TX then less and less as we went south on I45. Now gonna be running the same route in reverse- wondering if the snow will be done and gone on the way back up--

 

Still in Houston area resting for my load out to Portland/Seattle tonight. Will have a fresh 70 and looking at Google maps looks like I can shoot straight up I45-I35-I80W instead of going up through 287 TX,OK,Co,Wy to I80. Says 1 hour longer but may actually be faster than slowing down through all those small towns. I like to run 60 miles an hour and that 287 two lane road stacks up a lot of truckers behind me bellyaching about my speed.

There is a nice mall down the road and took a chance to go to the movies leaving my truck parked in the mall lot and see American Sniper! Texas is really a truck friendly place. This theatre was state of the art with sound and screen and seating. All the seats are faux leather electric recliners with foot lift/rest. I could feel the sound rather than just hear it all around me, the seats and floor vibrated at times with the rumbling thunderous soundtrack.

 

I went to see American Sniper while at the Dallas Terminal. The recliners at the theater are state of the art. I always wonder about taking those WA loads. It seems like I will lose more on the fuel side. I'm not sure because I haven't ran it yet but what is your thought?

Also, what do you think about the loads coming out of TN that suppose to $3 a mile. Have you looked into that yet?

 

I am hearing lots of freight going into Seattle area not a whole lot coming back out consistently. I usually see a lot of RR O/O bobtails parked around back waiting for loads out of SEA. Something that might make it better is the news that the west coast ports have gone back to work full steam.

Only reason I took this load to Houston from Seattle was because there was nothing else happening that Friday night. She said they would try again on Monday. Then got the call back that they had this load preloaded in a RR trailer blocked and braced off. I found out why at the customer, some high dollar stuff in there. Anyway they found me a load directly back to Seattle with a different RR trailer now which is fine, will have to call her again on Monday to see if she can preload my Xtralease trailer before I get there. I don't worry about the fuel consumption any more, it is what it is. I'm getting more value out of running T2T rather than irregular route crap. I make my own schedule pretty much and check in just once a day. The run down to Houston from SEA, I forgot to reset my odometer so when we got there it showed a little over 6000 miles at 7.6 mpgs and 7% idle rate. Nice easy relaxing Sunday drive type trip down there. Got my 34 hour break now lol I see they want me to cover 2400 miles in 4 days now going back. Lots of slick roads through Dallas and the TX/OK border, posting a couple videos of some Texas boys who towed me up a little incline I got stuck on.

Haven't heard anything about $3 bucks a mile freight out of NSH, if I had I would be all over it lol. I recall on RR facebook page last year they used to have some load offerings like that but they don't post that stuff anymore.

OK here are a couple videos of some Texas cowboys helping a poor stuck trucker. What happened was the CB was chattering about the NB side all blocked up from a super single equipped semi which couldn't get up the little incline. So I got off the couple exits beforehand and took the access road. What I couldn't have known was that it curled around under the freeway up ahead and was going to have to go halfway back again and get back on and suffer the backup. But I got stuck trying to climb a little bunny hill covered with a couple inches of thick ice. Almost slid backwards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8wfonOweU8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnxs8msV2ug

 

On the $3 mile load you want to get with Mike Arbram RR agent and he will inform you of the loads. From what I hear, its plenty freight moving towards Washington and other places as well. I figure, they must really need these loads push if they have to go up from a buck to $3 per mile. If you need any info I can forward you the email they have been sending me over and over for the past week. Don't want to put to much info out here, i.e. number.

I wouldn't mind taking those loads but can't because some guy hit my truck while backing while I was in the truck stop. I guess he didn't want to G.O.A.L and now I'm spending down time until the damages gets repaired. The good thing is, around five drivers got his information even though he left. I made the report and contact his company and notified the insurance company we have. Hope this goes smoothly.