Beep Beep Roadrunner

OK so Fresno CA was an 'agent' terminal with Roadrunner. We feed them freight but they don't reload us. However once they did ask me to run a short heavy load up to Livermore CA terminal where I was going anyway for a reload. Guy said he would pay me $200, next week after saw only $150 for the work. So this time I called for a Livermore reload but they said there were still drivers sitting there from earlier in the week. So I deadheaded 100 miles further down to Mira Loma. Discovered an air leak in one of the piggy back brake chambers, quick fix and some calls later get a reload out of the Commerce terminal going to St Paul MN. St Paul called a little while ago and they have a Texas load waiting for me to drop/hook into in the morning.

Been bumping my 70 last few days, today and yesterday ran 70 down to zero at the end of the day. Will be down in Texas Wednesday and probably do a 34 in time for a Friday night reload.

 

Do you just deadhead up to Atlanta? Last time out of Miami I deadheaded and last time out of Orlando I deadheaded up. Time before that though Orlando had a run up to Atl $0.65 plus FSC.

 

OK so where were we-- St Paul to Houston terminal load. Got down there and sat around for a couple days (I don't even keep track any more) waiting for anything outbound. They tell me New Jersey and I agree. Get a call later, not enough freight for NJ but they will put Charlotte NC on the back, is that OK? Yes yes yes, get me loaded already lol.

Found an air leak on the hose leading to the brand new air dryer that was just put on a few days ago and saw this mobile mechanic at the Flying J so had him look at it for me. He starts attacking it and wouldn't you know he cut the hose off too short and had to go out and get a new short section of hose and splice it on. $400 bucks later I was thinking I knew I should have just taken it to the TA for $50 bucks.

So I got a txt that the load was ready Saturday morning. Roll in there and hook up, scale up-- 6000 pounds too heavy on the trailer tandems. Text the guy back for help since everyone went home for the weekend. Several hours later the load is reworked.

Get about an hour out from Charlotte doing my walkaround after coffee break and discover a flat drive tire. I figured valve stem problem because beginning of shift, sticking that tire, the valve stem would leak and I would stick several times til the leak sound went away. Called for help, guy says $160 just to come out and $700 if he brings a tire with him. I say, let me call you back. Got some 2x4's out and drove the inside dual up on them to lift outside tire up and got my air hose out and filled up tire. Tire did not want to fill up due to bead broken. Remembered a trick a tire guy used doing that one time back in my Swift days, he used his spoon bar to pry up on the tire and jiggle it til the bead set. So I grabbed the window sqeegee and pried up and it worked. Pumped up to 100 psi and went 22 miles down the road to the TA-- $49 bucks for a new valve stem.

Getting unloaded now in Jersey,and ran into another RR driver at the truck stop who is based out of NY. Hooked me up with a phone number of a guy who is in charge of planning the northeast. Now in Brooklyn or Queens, (not sure) getting reloaded. Think I will be trying a few loads up here in the northeast as I have been avoiding it for years. When I was at Swift I only did one NYC load and have never been to any of those states north of NY.

 

I believe the lease purchase deal at RR is that including the truck payment and all the insurances that are settlement deducted there is also a $0.12 per mile deduction for maintenance. Once anything goes wrong with your truck you call an 800 number and they authorize repairs and pay for it out of the account set up.

OK so time for an update-- wow getting into Maspeth NY was a stress cookie. Went under a bridge posted at 12'10" and felt my career flash before my eyes. Nothing happened and funny thing was that on the way out of NYC the GPS took me the long way around the boroughs to get back out on GW Bridge. It was $191.40 just to get into and out of New York then tolls all the way to Chicago which I haven't totaled up yet.

Got reloaded in Chicago bound for Houston and bounced back to St Louis/Chicago. Planner wanted to send me back to Houston or Dallas but I didn't want to get down there and sit for 2 days of the holiday. So he got me Portland OR which will have me running over the whole weekend. Can go visit family next week then roll up to the Seattle terminal. Spoke with a planner about my trailer, he was able to track its last location to Sumner WA lol so my plan is to get back under it. The drop and hook thing hasn't been all that great for turn-arounds in terminals. Had a couple trailers with burned out lights which cost me out of pocket and no reimbursement. Last trailer I had picked up a nasty nail and tore up some cords so called the Fleetnet 800 number- got passed around to 4 different departments til someone said the vendor needs to call. Had the vendor call and they said the driver must call. Finally I just told them to put on a used tire then I emailed the reciept requesting reimbursement and the same thing as the lights-- zero response.

In other news, they sent me an email detailing some log violations from June most of which were accounting errors like writing 9.25 hours in the off duty column when the grid showed 9.75. Another one was showing miles driven that day but zero time on Line 3 (personal use)-- they want me to show zero miles in that scenario. Then the piece de resistance, breaking the 11 and 14 hours by driving 10.5 and 10.75 hours past respectively.

I pulled out all the logs in question and some of them were accounted for correctly-- maybe a little sloppy writing made the 9.75 look like 9.25 or something but there were also some genuine form and manner mistakes.

Ran the 11 and 14 logs through DDL and it showed no violations so put together and email and screenshots of DDL and they actually removed my 11 and 14 hour violations from my record back at Safety.

Took truck down to TA and asked them to put all brand new brakes and drums on as the truck just turned over 750,000 miles on the same drums-- the kid technician wanted to argue with me that my brakes are still in good shape. He refused to do any work on my brakes and disappeared. I went and got something to eat because the line was crazy long but when I had a chance I could see the write up, it read that he 'mid-tripped' my truck and everything is OK $56 bucks. Still want to get all new brakes and drums anyway.

 

I have ATBS handle my P+L's, I will have to log in and see how I am doing so far this year.

Well, after passing brakes mid trip inspection down in Baytown TX, get up north here and the tractor ABS light wants to come on. Great that is just perfect timing for Brake Check Week. Brought it into Petro Fargo and the guy found a code but wasn't sure which sensor it was- (I had already checked all the fuses which were good btw) so he went through unplugging and checking, got to one and a chunk of mud came off. Advised and apprised, told him to plug it back in and let me go that might have been it and so far the light is still off. Only $81 bucks. Due now for an oil change, will get it done in Troutdale OR after delivery in Portland. Then have to go shopping for another Honda 2000 generator as mine won't restart. I had bought a Ryobi from Home Depot to replace it but now it won't start either. Think it blew a gasket or maybe blew the whole little engine lol because it leaked all of its oil out all over the floor (I keep it on the floor infront of the pass seat when not in use) then dripped oil all down the side skirts of the truck which is also just exactly what I need right now going into Brake Check Week where they are looking pretty hard at trucks.

 

OK so we had the brakes mid tripped in Baytown TX, no problems there. Get up to Fargo ND for ABS issue and the guy says, just some mud on the plug you're good to go. ABS light came on again and I managed to get past every open scale deep into Montana and stop in Missoula to check and advise ABS. These guys find a blown wheel seal, scored bearing and a bad spindle. So will be here tomorrow til the spindle doctor does this thing, have to order the hub then have everything put back together. I swear every time I have $1 dollar saved, I have to spend $2 dollars on the truck.