Diary of a current Swift flatbed driver

This business will make you hard

 

Attitude adjustment from a student??

We'll see about that.....and yes I do have a large chip, get one or get rolled

"Christians repent, for the dog is coming with clean, white teeth!"

 

Go on the road for two weeks and someone throws a bucket of #### at the fan!

As for the refurbished East trailers, I stole one of the first ones from the body show 2 weeks ago and it's still behind my truck. Except for a blown tire first day out (certainly not the trailer's fault) it's been great. Hauled 49,880 lbs of lumber with it and was only 500 lbs over with full fuel. Utah hauled me in to see exactly what had 37,000 lbs on the trailer, gotta love spread axles!

Regarding load securement and how often to check: DEPENDS! Yes, there are legal requirements and it often goes well beyond that. I hauled a load of clay pipe from Phoenix to San Francisco that gave me fits the entire trip. I checked my straps EVERY stop and had to tighten at least one EVERY stop. I currently have 48,000 lbs of lumber onboard that has required minimal scrunity, previous load of iron was scary loose after only 30 miles!

Regarding iron, when they ask you to slide your fifth wheel all the way back (on a short wheelbase tractor) get out and inspect the load BEFORE they drop it on your trailer. I ended up with a 57' 6" steel beam! 44" over the front (cleared my headache rack by less than 4 inches) & 5' 10" over the rear. Problem was the load went to Portland, OR and needed an over length permit, total pain in the ###!

 

I believe the original intent of this thread (jump in and correct me if I'm wrong Tom) was to share Swift flatbed driver experiences.

With that in mind:

Clay pipe load, delivered this in a residential neighborhood on San Francisco


First solo tarp job-80,200 lbs 300 miles from the lumber mill


Ugly steel load

 

Steve, is that a 53 foot flat ?

 

The East trailers are 48' spread axles.

 

That is just a pretty tarp job. Something to be proud of!

 

Why thank you! Was kinda proud of it myself considering it my first attempt at doing it alone. We won't talk about the fact that I opened up one of the tarps backwards on top of the load (fresh from the yard) and had to turn it around while dancing around on top of the load! Won't do that again!

 

LOL...you only do that once and then promptly learn to reroll any tarps you get from another driver or the yard

 

Lost my refurbished East trailer today, dropped it at a shipper for a pre-loaded trailer with a load of steel pipe headed for Woodland, CA.

Also swapped trucks today. Was driving an evil 2008 short wheelbase Columbia (with 422,000 miles on it) that liked to turn itself off at the worst possible times. Now have a 2010 long wheelbase Columbia with only 155,000 miles on it, barely broken it! Already miss the larger cabinets of the 08 truck.