Heading For Little Rock! Maverick

Jim, You got Graylin? As is Graylin Banks up in Gary?

He's a d---- good fm. I had him the whole time I was at Maverick and hope to get back on his board. Good guy in my opinion.

Hate that you tore up the new truck, but of course glad that it wasn't anything more than cosmetic damage. No collateral damage.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Enjoy it!

 

I take it that you live somewhere around Mansfield or Ashland ?

 

The Fort Smith mill will be running friday for anyone who decides to truck all week and wait to eat turkey until Saturday

 

Has anyone here taken or retaken the abilities test lately?

I've been off since the end of October with arthroscopic knee surgery. I'm exercising my knee everyday and going to Physical Therapy a few days a week. I'm trying to jump through all the hoops so I can get back to work, hopefully Nov. 28. Has anything changed with the test since I last took it in March? According to the paperwork I have Lonoke Physical Therapy are the ones giving the abilities test now. Since I live in Vilonia maybe I can get my PT here in Vilonia to call them to see what I need to work on most. The only thing that may get me is the deep knee squats. I can get down but I'm not sure if far enough yet....but close.

 

thank you thank you thank you FINALLY someone that has listened!!!. Like you said, speed is only one of the factors involved in good vs bad mpg

For any drivers out there that simply look at the dash display and the spedometer and then tell everyone.. . ."I get better fuel milage at 65 than i do when i go slower" your only taking speed into consideration. What load were you hauling? how tall was it? tarped or not tarped? 4900lbs or 49000 lbs, were you on fairly level ground or were you over the mountains and thru the woods to grandmother's house? was it raining, was it snowing, were you bumper to bumper in rush hour. was it all interstate or were you playing stop and go on a hwy full of traffic lights which way was the wind blowing head wind? tail wind? cross wind? head cross wind? its getting colder out side was the outside air temperature below 41 degrees? did you bother to check your air pressure in your tires on the tractor or do you simply rely on what the WABCO thingamajiggie says on the dashboard? do you drive the truck in manual or automatic? do you idle your truck at night or not? how many times do you start and stop your truck in the morning while your doing your pretrip inspection or any time for that matter because its idled so long it turns itself off?

Take for instance, my swap from springfield, mo to georgetown, ky with a stop at madison to get 4 more winches put on the trailer. Untarped load of greybar loaded 2 in front/ 3 in back. air temperature in the am was 45 degrees winds out of the southwest15-20mph, sunny, i'm driving east on i-44. 57mph but feathering the pedal so as not to lose the momentum gained going down a hill when facing the next uphill, dashboard is showing 8.25 when i get to madison. 3 hours later, when they replaced both steer tires and one drive tire, air temp has dropped to 34 degrees, tailwind is gone, trailer has been serviced and also had 2 new tires put on it and i hit a 3 mile backup at mt vernon due to construction that takes over an hour to get through. By the time I parked for the night, the dashboard display was 7.25.

So as i hear drivers say ALL THE TIME. . . "I was getting 8.25 then my truck went in for service, (trailer in this case) and now i'm only getting 7.2"

For those of us old enough to remember Paul Harvey. . .". . . and now, the rest of the story" comes to mind

The company goal for MPG is 6.7 so as long as you're over that, great! you're doing what the company asks you too. Your fleet manager is not all over you to bring your fuel milage up and your not on probation about to be terminated if improvement in MPG is not shown. That's when Maverick will give you the phone number of someone who knows how to consistantly get good MPG. Should it be my number and you do bother to call, the first ? i'm gonna ask you is ,"do you want to keep your job" if yes, then i will begin to offer my advice. If my suggestions are met with, "well i gotta do this or I cant stand doing that or if they want me to drive in manual well give me a stick" I'll introduce them to my friend CLICK and end the phone call. Time is money gentlemen and i dont have the time to try to help someone that is not willing to change.

One of my favorite t-shirts of all time had a figure of a cave man followed by a series of dashes to a figure of a modern day man. underneath the two figures were the following words: "Adapt or Die"

 

if you put the truck in neutral and set the tractor brake, eobr will change you to on duty. Like you said, change it to off duty and do what you gotta do