Can I get some advice please???

When I pulled reefers, Pepsi and Coke furnished us lots of drivers & the reason they left Pepsi & Coke was because they all had bad backs. Same with car haulers; when I pulled tankers, most of the drivers at the terminal were ex car haulers with bad backs. Doesn't matter how many beautiful muscles you have, if your back is bad, it doesn't mean much.

A friend of mine works in management at Coke & he told me that the biggest problem he has with drivers are injured backs. How many beverage drivers do you see with gray hair? None probably, they don't last that long.

 

Pepsi Co.
It is a good job, at a good company, with chance for advancement. And you're young enough to handle the hard work while you work your way to the top through seniority.

If you go over-the-road (in ANY capacity), you are just a driver until you are not one any more.

 

The thing about the CTL job is they're going put him through safety training and then he'll have a specialized trait. Unlike the Pepsi gig were he'll just go back to dry van which pretty much anybody can do.

To me that's what its all about, your sepperating your self away from the pack. There's nothing like specialized traits. Your always busy not sitting around truck stops waiting on loads, becouse they're fewer of you doing what you doing. There's lots of good that goes in beyond that other than just making money.

And job security as well, it's not like they can just replace you with any body, it's not like just anyone can come in and do it at a flip of a coin.

Your young, you don't want to #### up your back early on, take the tanking job you can always go back to van latter.

Mr. Speed.

 

I would agree. Driving is the easy part.

Hurst

 

My dad drove for Pepsi for a while when I was a kid. I never saw him. He left early in the morning before I got up and got home after I was in bed. Not a good choice if you have a family or social life IMO

 

Planning your day a little in advance helps to take some of the unknown out of the equation. Being out on the road with no knowledge of what is out there is very hard. If you have a laptop to use and internet aircard, I use www.findfuelstops.com to locate truckstops a lot of times for my husband, it will put a marker on your route for each of them. Just remember though if you have the inquiry pull up all truckstops, some of them are just for fuel only with no parking. Open up the fuelstop you are interested in a separate window and on the bottom of the page will be things close to the area, sometimes it helps to pinpoint a rest area or weigh station, Walmart (call before you park there though and make sure it is one that is easy in and out. You can zoom in on their map and look around.

There are a lot more truckstops now than there were 6 yrs ago, but still sometimes that is still not a help if you are late getting to one in the evening. In a pinch he has had to pay at a TA to make sure he had a spot at night, the reservation can be made over the phone if need be, their number there is 855-847-7275.

Breaks you can set your cell phone for about 4 hrs out and when it goes off you can start watching for a rest area or truckstop to pull off at. Or you can figure 240miles out, use google maps to place a marker after you use findfuelstops, and go from there. Husband prefers rest areas vs truckstops unless he needs fuel or is running low on his drinks.

Most generally company drivers have routes assigned by the route solution, these routes are a lot of times not on main interstate roads. Some are good, but a lot have more redlights and slower areas. Fuel is assigned by the company unless it is an emergency and you are running low on fuel. Trucks may use more fuel than they figured due to load weight and windy conditions, and hills and mountains. In winter esp do not go down less than 1/4 tank left, you never know when you might end up having to wait out storm or icy conditions, IN this past winter was bad.