How's Everyone Doing in LTL Right Now?

Had a drivers meeting this morning and FXF in the RKI district is down 10% from what we were projected to be at. We are lucky that we have a ground center in town. So we will get somd runs from them coming up here in a couple months.

The general consensus for the last couple of months. Has been that this winter is going to be pretty rough. Get some money in the bank cause you're probably gonna need it around the first of the year.

 

Good idea I agree. We had an unofficial drivers meeting last night, and for a food service company were not really killing it like we should be for school start up. We do have a big account coming on in January, but in the big picture thing it's not going to amount to anything. Gonna have to run lean and mean.

 

2136 miles this week on night transit not awful all things considered it was a rush at the end of the week, but I think some of that was in my own mind. We have a couple Saturday routes going out right now, none that I know of at my yard most of them are out of the big yard in Cleveland, I don't know the business exactly on those routes or why they exist. They haven't made any more runs for us, usually we have an odd ball amount of routes anyhow so if there is one trailer to shuttle up now there are 2 and someone who has a single is now pulling doubles, so that doesn't make much of a difference really and I don't know really any of the details on that anyway.

That's really all I have for now. In a day and some change will be back at it Sunday night comes awful quickly.

 

We finished our next bid at my FxF barn, and I think we must be one of the only ones that isn't all doom and gloom about the future. The added runs were enough to make me eligible for a daytime linehaul bid, but like I expected it's a bid that is garbage in the snowy months. I decided to take an overnight 600 mile meet with an early start time. It's more miles than I wanted and it's high enough in the lane that I won't get cancelled for lack of freight (which I originally wanted to happen), but it's a solid bid with a low chance of weather impacts, so I'm just going to try it out and see how I like it.

 

Man that’s a haul. I don’t think I could take a 600 mile bid run. Every day…. That’s a lot of sitting lol. But I guess zero dock work would be nice too.

 

I was out doing DMV stuff today and I for the heck of it went in and took my HAZMAT test, because it's been so long I didn't know what was on it and wanted to see how I would do.

It was a little bit of Jack @$$ing around, because the law has been changed and if you didn't have HAZMAT before you needed to take some goofy other general knowledge test or something, but I was grandfathered in because I had, had HAZMAT before and I'm adding it again...

Anyhow, it's stupid I failed by 1 question. Made it all the way to the end and flubbed the last question other then that I would have passed. So not a big deal, I'll go back on Tuesday morning and take another crack at it. I didn't totally go in there with intentions of blowing it out of the water per-say I didn't know what to expect. Although I feel kind of bad, because it was at the line. Failed on a stupid question to about placards of all things lol.

I used the HAZMAT practice test tool this website provides in conjunction with the CDL book, and it was actually very helpful, I wouldn't have done nearly as good if I didn't have it. The HAZMAT test on this website isn't everything, but it'll get you really really close with in striking distance it can be a good resource if you are studying for a practice test.

Oh well had one very minor loss today right at the wire, but I'll get it back tomorrow.

 

Alright got my appointment time to be fingerprinted all set to go. Tuesday I'll retake the written HAZMAT test not a big deal only off by 1 so I must have known almost enough. Not the end of the world.

 

Originally it wasn't my plan to take the HAZMAT test today anyhow I was out farting around with my new car. My dad gave me his 2013 Dodge Caravan, I had to sell my 2003 F-150 so I was farting around with eCheck and license plates and title stuff today and got all that done and said heck I'm halfway to the CDL testing facility I'll stop on in there and take the written HAZMAT test see how I do if I pass I pass if I don't I don't not the end of the world.

 

We have questions like that too. There were a few of them where I was like really. The last question I flubbed the answer I gave could have been justified, but the rule is placards must be fixed against contrasting colors. But some of the questions are a little out there and would be more for the carrier then the driver like any of the how long do you need to keep records for fill in the blank.

X hazmat is by far the most pain in the butt endorsement every time you have to renew your license you have to go through this.