Cash on the road and who pays for what?

Unless your wife back home is ####### someone else while your gone and you come home to find out that she spent 1000's to get the std medication she needed while you were gone.

 

I would just have to hope she never does, I trust her completely and we are close, my ex wife on the other hand I could not trust half the time

 

$25 for tolls.

this is 2013. not 2005.

going rate from chicago to new york city is $400. the PA turnpike is $125, $18 to go 1/2 mile east bound in san francisco.

you need your checkbook and some credit cards for tolls these days. and with pathetic driver wages. better hope everything is paid for the next time you need a toll. cuz some companies don't have toll transponders. and some will be a P I T A to get reimbursed.

 

I apologize, I probably shouldn't have said that but its true, I always worry about it too with my own wife. I've got it threw my head now just to think she is ####### someone else now. That way I don't have to worry about it. Tell her to get the ####### boyfriend out I'm coming home type thing. lmao....

Its tuff being away for 3 weeks to 6 weeks at a time. Usually women will go off and get some within the first ####### week your gone. Its pretty ####### sad.

 

I never wash my truck at truck washes. If you're going through OK or any of the states with Pikepass, carry at least $60 at all times plus living expense money. Your best bet is to get an electric cooler and shop at Walmart for food. An occasional takeout dinner is fine also.

Sent from my HTC ONE courtesy of Tapatalk.

 

well its too bad that after that, no amount of money will get rid of what that "sweet company" gave you....

 

Carry a debit card for transactions. Get cash back at grocery stores or Walmart or such for them unexpected things. I would keep a couple hundred tucked away and not in your wallet. I kept a safe in my closet. Mainly because I'm a poker player and sometimes had a lot of cash on me. Companies offer cash advances which are payroll deducted. Many truckers use Comdata to fuel. The card has two sides. One side is for fuel and company expenses and the other side is available for your personal use including your paycheck. But you don't want that as you pay a lot of fees. Have your own bank account. Almost everything can be done online.

Tickets you usually have 30 days to pay. Many can be paid online or you can get a money order and send it in. Some companies will pay a fine for you and deduct it out of your paycheck.

You don't be late plain and simple. The only few times you are late better be a reason other than your own fault like weather. If you have a bad track record you won't last long. A good driver takes pride in on time delivery. Get in the habit of showing up a minimum of 1 hour early which is about the norm in the industry. I've seen about everything when it comes to drivers. It's plain and simple, first comes your job and you are out here to work. If you have free time than you can play. You don't mix the two.

There are regulations that your company can't coerce you into running illegal. Some will try. How you handle it is up to you. With computers today you are tracked and rated as a driver in three different agencies. If you want to be a career driver you protect your good record. You can have good habits or bad habits. I suggest you learn the good and avoid the bad.

If a company retaliates against you for not running illegal you are protected by OSHA. Though they might of fired you OSHA will fine the crap out of them and you will probably be reinstated with back pay if you want to go that route. At least you are still hireable versus getting caught running illegal. Enough times getting caught the company will probably fire you anyway and your record trashed.

You have sliding axles on your trailer to shift the weight from trailer to the drivers and vise versa. You have a sliding fifth wheel on most tractors to shift more weight back and forth on your steer tires. If you know your stuff you won't slide the fifth wheel but on a rare occasion.

If you are over gross you have the shipper remove the excess. Most are pretty good about knowing their own product and what they can load and how to load. When you get a truck you go weigh empty and know what you can haul.
When you have heavy pallets and less than 26 pallets you learn how to stretch your pallets out to balance your load. Again a good warehouseman knows how to do this too. But you need to learn. It's not that hard. There will be times you tell them how you want it loaded. Whenever stretching pallets always start out with a single to compensate for the nose weight of the trailer.

Your other less desirable choices are... are the coops closed? Do I have an alternative route? Versus going back to the shipper and spending another two hours getting fixed? The name of the game is CYA! Most overweight tickets are in the companies name and that's one violation that won't hit your personal record. Depending where you work the company might say run it and they'll pay the fine. Or you might picked up a sealed load that weighed out but the load shifted because it wasn't secure. Something like that the company would pay. There are so many variables to cover them all. Always base your decisions on protecting you and not someone else.

It depends who you work for. On average most companies will pay for one truck wash a month. Some none, some more. A clean truck creates less drag and reflects a company that takes care of their equipment. A truck wash will keep your truck somewhat decent looking for a couple weeks before the road grime and bugs become more noticeable. Owner operators seem to wash their trucks more often to the duct tape truck that never washes. He might use the windshield squeegee on the fuel island.

Blue Beacon (Streakin' Beacon) is the biggest truck wash chain. Here is their price list.

http://www.bluebeacon.com/FleetPrograms/BlueBeaconWashPrices/default.aspx

Most tolls are toll states are in the north from IL to NJ to ME and KS and OK. More states are adding tolls as revenue. Tolls vary greatly from $3 to $200-300 to run from IL to the north east. You either work for a company that pays tolls or ones that don't pay and they want you to dodge them. That's one reason freight to the north east pays a little more. That's another reason many drivers don't want to run the northeast.

Stuff like oil changes which a mechanic does is usually done at your company shop. Repairs on the road in a shop are either on a company account or you pay with a company paid Comcheck or such. Small things that you fix like lightbulbs you usually pay, get a PO# and get reimbursed on your next paycheck.

The lumper game.... the company will issue you a Comcheck code or other pay service and you write them a check. On your payroll you might see the money come out and credited back to you. That's just their accounting methods. Then your company will bill back the shipper for the lumper cost. The shipper adds the extra cost into the customers shipping fees. The customer passes the cost on to the consumer. It's nothing but money going in a circle and you pay for it at the store. The real winners are the lumpers that charge astronomical prices at some places.

It depends what you were hauling. Usually around the $75-85 range.

I broke down once in Dallas and was towed 1 mile to a shop. It cost $600. It varies greatly by where and whom and how far. It can go in the thousands. Many times a companies are at the mercy of them if they are the only one around. I remember a story of a driver parking his truck at a shopping center on home time. The owner of the shopping center had the truck towed. It cost the company $5000 to get the truck back.

I always kept a logging chain on my truck to help drivers in them simple situations. Especially in winter. Though a company will pay for it, it can look bad on you.
One place I lived I parked in the yard and got stuck on flat ground. The tiny hump had my frame twisted just enough I couldn't get traction, even locked in. I called a friend of mine down the road and he brought his dump truck over and gave me a tug.

On the road never get off a shoulder. You can sink quick.

Wow $40! You must be ugly if you pay that much!

I'm sure it's changed now but I-90 use to be like $87 the whole way across. We had to dodge it and run I-84/I-88.

Wow are they that high now? GW was $40 last time I crossed it, 2009?

I kept a screwgun on the truck. They come in handy drilling out rivets or removing screws. If I didn't lose the flap I would drill new holes either by shifting the flap or flipping it over. If I lost it or didn't feel like fooling with it I would hit a shop.

 

My company gives us a $200 cash float. We use what we need, submit the receipts, and they issue us a cheque every two weeks. I have never gone over the $200 yet, while running east or west.

 

In the 90's $25.00 would not cover tolls in NE. I was making 2 trips a week from Atlanta to NJ, lowest I spent was $250.00 for the week.