Central Refrigerated Truck Stop II

you dont get the 10, you get .01/mi every quarter instead.

 

So there I was, docked in door 247... This happens a lot too. You're in the same town as a load someone dropped for whatever reason. After your appt at nine tonight can you get a washout, go pick it up and deliver it by 8? Yes, I know it can be done. But if I get out of this door late or get kicked onto the drive line going back to the staging area, I'll end up splitting eight for a lousy 18 mile run. Why? So weekend dispatch has one less problem. We should get some kind of reward once we've done this multiple times, because the three to seven dollars we get paid for it isn't really worth the hassle.

 

I agree with you frost. I don't know how many times I have been a nice guy and "helped" central out only to get screwed in the end. For example I am on a dh from yakima to Stockton and get a call "we need a repower" I pick up a load on my route so no more miles, and it turns out to be 44k lbs forcing me to run on 1/2 a tank which makes me get fuel in ca at 20¢more per gallon. Then the driver whom was so smart as to accept the load never scalled it and it was all out of wack so I had to spend $12 in cat scale fees, then not knowing the san francisco area too well I get hit with a $25 bridge toll. So between the fuel, scale, and toll I'm out about $40-50 and only got an additional 12 miles plus the dh to Stockton. And to top it off was late getting to the reciver and made to wait all night. There are many more stories I could tell. Many trailers w/o dot insp, or that have problems. Yes it would be easer just to grab that other mt but I like to help out. I picked up an mt that the dot was 11months expired!!! How does this happen. Central needs to start rewarding their good drivers or punishing the bad or everyone (with out strong work ethic) will stop doing the little things or move on to another company.
Sorry rant over.

 

i got screwed like that a few times. i used to get q comm messages at night from wally wanting me to repower a load i was near. every time i did it f'd me on the load i was already on. after doing it twice my dm told me never to repower another load unless i got with him first. if he was off do not do it the kraft fleet only moved kraft product period. after a couple more requests to help out and me declining them the requests stoped.

 

Thanks for the explanation 6pak. Sounds like for a company driver, Central may not be the best possible choice when it comes to cooling and auxiliary power considerations. More for me to consider.

 

We all want to live comfortably, but trucking is camping in a sub jail-cell sized box. If comfort is your first concern, trucking is going to be a rough occupation. When I was a company driver I never once went over 30% idle for the week, so I never paid for fuel. I had a colman electric cooler to keep some provisions cold, and if I wanted a hot meal it was in a TS. (mostly ate sammiches)

Everyone has different priorities, but for me driver satisfaction was #1, and there are a lot of satisfied central drivers here, and not a lot of dissatisfied ones. You cant say that about a lot of starter companies. Miles, money, and respect. If I can get those three things I'm a happy guy, and I've been mostly happy here.

Best of luck in your search, not all companies fit all personalities, and therefore there is no one best place to start.

 

As a company driver I also never went over my 30%. I also don't sleep with a bunch of blankets and complain about it being too hot. I had a student who slept in a sweat suit and a mummy bag. By regulating your dress you can keep comfortable without needing to idle. I also have a 12v fan that made the heat barable.
As far as power I have a 2000w inverter now but had a 300w power drive inverter that powered my crock pot, driving down the road smelling your dinner cooking is great. And it also powered my laptop.
I, besides being vegetarian am not too picky on my food so I'm not above eating cold soup or chile out of the can. The colman 12v cooler works great, infact it's more reliabke than the fridge installed on my truck (I have had to have it replaced 3 times, needless to say I don't trust it enough to put anything besides soda in. The cooler can take a gallon of milk and still have room to spare. The cooler also makes a great seat and step to gelp getting in the top bunk. Also onceI had to put coolant in one of the trailers and it made a nice step stool to help me reach.

 

Anybody know how many points on a rewards card one of those coolers runs?

 

~14,000. or $90 at walmart