Millis OTR journal

Haven't been here in a while - hope everyone's doing well. I left Millis a while back to take a local gig here in Charlotte, but I saw something today that made me think of this old forum. I passed by some place off Statesville Rd. here in Charlotte that was filled up with older Millis trailers (all ones before the big eagle head on the sides). At first glance you would have thought it was a new terminal. Looked it up on maps, and it's someplace called Milestone trailer leasing, yet every one I could see was old Millis trailers.

On another note, I actually saw my old truck a couple weeks ago on I85 going the other way. Anyways, you all take care out there!

 

We have been getting rid of a lot trailers, just not seeing any new ones.

 

Don’t know if it’s slow everywhere, but it’s definitely slow in Atlanta for us. Probably at a minimum 50 of us Millis, heartland, smith, cfi drivers here at Heartland waiting for loads.

 

3 years of training and up until today my former trainees were all accident free. Streak was ruined by over confidence, poor planning, not paying attention, not adjusting to the situation, and last but not least not watching the mirrors.

No one was hurt other than the drivers pride, and wallet.

Got to be a horrible feeling calling into safety telling them you need a wrecker.

 

I parked next to my old Millis truck one day, but didn't get to talk with the driver. I wonder if they ever fixed the Qualcomm problem?

I've been busy out here in the Midwest. Things slowed down some during the holidays but the truck stops and rest areas are back to being crowded again.

 

Glad no one was hurt. Sadly that puts you out of commission also. They couldn't wait to crash once the weather was nicer? I guess that's why they are called accidents.

 

It was avoidable. Cascading poor decisions led to the incident. Poor trip planning, not paying attention and missing exit. Not stopping to reevaluate the route, just hitting recalculate on GPS, getting rushed on a turn and not looking at mirrors.
$12.50 a week I don’t worry about cause it’s not in my control. Feel bad for him cause it’s cost him thousands.

 

That's one thing i certainly observed. Driving a semi is like being an intermediate chess player. If you're not planning 3 moves ahead, well.. you're not going to stay intermediate long. Worse then are all of the nanny alarms and technology that lull you into a false sense of security and not having the real world experience to deal with crap when it turns south.

GPS navigation limitations are greatly amplified the faster you travel. Google software engineers are the best in the world and certainly better than Qualcomm who can't even develop hardware that wont overheat considering its going to be inside a vehicle. You can't solely rely on any of it and i think the challenge from trainer/trainee perspective would be whats the workaround?

My thought on this would be trip planning the night before. Yes you could sit down with a map and do it old school and nothing wrong with teaching that method. Good luck the younger your trainees become! Is there a way to set your destination and then display a turn by turn that you cold then transfer to another medium? Personally i would use a small dry erase illuminated whiteboard as opposed to the grease pencil window bs others suggested.

I'm currently dealing with physics in relation to how much speed/surge i can compensate for at the apex of a gravel driveway. Trying to get accustomed to using the least amount of inertia possible knowing that all this rain is going to freeze and barring an out, which some of these farms don't have, driving skill or lack thereof might be the deciding factor in me being able to accomplish the mission.

 

No substitute for common sense.. you can use all the tools you want GPS , Google maps etc. but if the person using them doesn’t have a lick of common sense nothings going to change… The GPS etc. is a tool that should be utilized with all other resources with the common sense, but some unfortunately do not go that route

 

I keep looking for mine so I can get on the radio and inform them that I've had sex in that truck. Haven't seen it yet, though. But if you're currently in 1823, now you know.