Class starting 25 Oct 11

Sat in the Friday safety meeting, complete with my free breakfast. During the normal droning the sales guy starts talking about detention. Good information, as some shippers and receivers are now trying to get out of paying because the appointment time is not on the bill of lading. This is a new requirement now, writing your appointment time on the BOL. There is a new stamp that will be available soon that will have a place to write in the APPT time. I would recommend that you write "APPT: #### on ##MO####" above or below your stamp.

Since the subject of detention came up I asked the most innocent question about the subject: How can we check on detention when we are waiting for it? Pretty good question, as alot of drivers have no idea how to followup on detention. You should be checking your detention monthly during your reconciliation process. Keep track of the trip packets that should pay and which ones said "pays when trip pays" as you should see the detention pay the following week or two. (no more than that) Detention that pays when the customer pays might take up to 3 months. Another question is "who do we talk to about detention?" and that would be your Fleet Manager (FM) or your payroll associate. You can do this through the QC or Email with the trip numbers, or in person. The phone should be the last resort.

This seemed to garner me alot of eye contact from the big guy... Mr Low himself. During his closing speech he touched on detention and made eye contact with me.... alot.... Of course I met his eye contact with a nod and a smile. Now I am a little curious about this guy.....

 

A few days ago I had the chance to drive through some really bad weather in idaho. A few things to consider when you are driving in snow and ice.

1. SLOW DOWN ! ! ! don't care if the super truckers are flying by you, drive the truck to your abilities. The load and equipment is worth more than your so called pride.
2. Make sure that your equipment is in good working order. If you havn't done a thorough pre-trip, you are setting yourself up for failure. DRAIN YOUR AIR TANKS!!! Freezing airlines will be the end of you....
3. CAN YOU SEE??? Clean your windows and mirrors.... ALOT... make sure that you have an extra gallon of washer fluid on the truck.
4. WARM UP THE ENGINE...... nothing like losing a turbo in the snowstorm.
5. Use low RPM's to keep the drives from slipping.
6. Slow and steady movements will keep you from slipping.
*** YOU ARE THE CAPTAIN OF YOUR TRUCK*** Shut it down if you feel unsafe......

 

interesting information from my former trainer with a serious MPG problem. He's been dogging lower and lower and has been getting only 6mpg the past few weeks. He ran into an honest freightliner rep that fingered his problem... a barometric pressure sensor that controls the fuel flow for the engine. The box was filled with water and definitely non-functional. It is a problem that FL knows about, but "encourages" dealers and mechanics not to look for it right now, as their supply of these boxes is low, and the trucks can still run with them malfunctioning. If anyone has a Freightliner Cascadia '11 or newer, keep this in mind if your mileage has taken a dive.

 

Just to let you guys know, I have had a new driver I trained through the winter drive my truck for 2 weeks while I stayed here for an extended family time. She did an awesome job, and made me a little over $1000 for both weeks solo, after her pay of $0.36 per mile. I think I go really lucky with the loads. This is also the first time my truck ran without me knowing every little detail of the operation. This brings me to a new conundrum with my future business plans. How will I gather the info from 5 trucks running without overburdening the drivers with BS. This was a very valuable 2 weeks, because now I know that I can instill the abilities to drive my trucks into a good candidate and also trust someone to drive for me.

 

Going to Canada! Fun times on the QEw and the 401. Picked up a load near Grand Rapids MI (Eggo Waffles) going to Vaughan Ontario (Toronto Suburb). When you do go to Canada there are procedures that you MUST follow. I will not write them here, as they change and I would rather send everyone to work with the Border Crossing department. If you follow their directions to a T the ride will be smooth. If you have time, check out the Husky truck stop, or the 5th Wheel truck stop. They are true old fashion places.

 

Regression is a common event that happens during training, developing or changing habits, and education. This event usually presents itself after a trainee shows proficiency in a skill (such as shifting, or paying attention to signs) then out of the blue starts making mistakes, or just can't do the task correctly anymore. Everyone that is going through training will have some form of regression on a task, or on multiple tasks (he knew how to do it, then all of the sudden couldn't do it). The earlier the regression, the quicker that task is "permanently" learned. (ride a bike much?)

My student went all the way until the night before testing, then regressed to the point he could not doubleclutch or shift. We cancelled the next day, retrained him on shifting and double clutching. He passed Sunday.

 

There are two things that come to mind. (and sorry I hadn't seen this post before)
1. The QC and ECM are not always properly calibrated and can be up to 20% off with their calculations. You have to put pencil to paper and keep track over one to three months to see where you really are.
2. If you really want to get those tanks totally full, and you have an airbag dump valve, you can dump the airbags, setting the back of the truck down and getting that last 10-20 gallons into the tank. Just remember that if that fuel expands in the heat it is going to come back out of that tank somewhere............

PS- you can go to the system tab on the QC and look at the VDS tab. Down at the bottom are little buttons that you can click on. Click on the second one (the one that looks like a little spreadsheet) and go down the list. This is where you can see all of the ECM inputs and their values. Look for the barometric pressure entry.