Good night from...

Here at the Planeview T/S just south of Oshkosh. Picked up my load a day early. I did not realize that actuall date was the 30th, but KC said that they were not that busy and loaded it today. Now have until Monday to get to Nogales. Still fighting this flu so just decided to shut down here and rest. I have 5 days to get it there, all of 1800 miles.

Topped off the fuel tanks today with Premium Diesel for $4.12/gal, forgetting that it is only $3.92/gal. Many places up here in Wisconsin, well their #2 fuel, it is not winterized, so they say. Also KW told me a little while ago, in this weather, they recommend burning it when up here.

 

shipper took about 3 hrs to load me. went to scale it and its 3000 lbs over on trailer tandems. now i'm back here to get it reworked. think they just need to stack the back 2 palletts up too the front stacks.

 

picked up at the general electric in mira loma, ca on the 24th was suppose to deliver in charlotte, north Carolina yesterday but got stuck on a hill in moody, Alabama. currently shut down in Tallapoosa, Georgia since last night

 

I haven't been encouraged to run illegal either. Just saying the planners seem to encourage it by their ridiculous plans where you need to do multiple 8/2 splits in a row, who is going to believe a driver is going to be 100 percent honestly in the sleeper 8 solid hours for two or more 8/2 splits in a row without cheating like getting out of the truck for a few minutes which is running illegal logs as would have been required looking at Moostek's two plans there. .

Looks like y'all are stuck with me for a little longer. There has been delays in my new carrier lining up drug tests and truck inspection as well as getting me plates/decals and permits in a timely fashion which would have put me over 4 weeks off minimum before orientation. Just faxing them over 18 pages of stuff the other day, I followed up with a call the next morning, they hadn't even gotten the paperwork off the fax machine yet. These kind of delays cost a whole day each time. They promised to call me back before end of business yesterday and didn't, no phone call from them so called at 10AM got the machine called at 1300 finally got me a drug test place and moved out orientation to the next week, no way no thanks. Try again next month.

 

Scottie, sometimes that greener grass on the other side of the fence is astroturf.

 

From Missoula, Montana Town Pump Flying J...

Anyone else having any issues with getting a different delivery time on the dispatch from the preplan?

Got a p.p. last night for delivery at 0800 on 1/31. Accepted it then got the dispatch with a delivery time of 0200. Told Phoenix about it. Spoke to another driver today and he said same thing happened to him. Once he accepted the p.p. the load got dispatched and was immediately late. Wondering if they are having computer issues with this lately. Guy answering the phone in Phoenix said another driver had the same issue as well. Weird.

Heading back across 90 and down 25 to Denver...

 

Well, I don't do split's - period. So they are not even a thought when I am planning a load.

 

After preplan is accepted when the actual load assignment comes in the automated "Plus One" system will calculate what it thinks you can make for delivery, based on your actual PTA. This happens all the time. When it does I then enter the original delivery time when I do a Loaded Call (Mac-2) and the system will generate an automated "You entered a late delivery time, send a Mac-22"....

.... at that point I reply to that automated message and note the time I entered was per the original accepted preplan. I might even follow up with a phone call, but every time I'm told I'm good with the time I entered. The Plus One program is basically designed to give us a goal to shoot for in order to get one more load delivered per week. Don't worry about those time changes unless you have an anal DM, in which case really make sure you have QC messages documenting your accepted times on the original load offers, etc.

Also, again please note that the original load offers are often automatically generated with times that are tighter than they have to be in many cases. I used to reject a high percentage of load offers, but not anymore. Now I simply call the DM if the load times don't look right and ask what is the "window" for pickup or delivery. Usually it is far more generous. This is technically called "fudge factor" in the manufacturing and shipping industry, give a tighter time to your vendor and hope with delays they are on time....

 

I think in 9 months running solo, training, and team I've done a split twice... no three times. Sometimes they are necessary, but none of them were part of the original trip plan, they were due to "stuff" happening or wanting to conserve a meager balance on my 70 and run a metro area at night to avoid traffic.

 

Maybe u don't really want to go?........