My Expierence at CR England

I can believe when you say you never got any sleep and then the roads that are in terrible shape make it where you really can't get any sleep when you do get to sleep. I can tell when the need for sleep is there and it is time for him to hit the hay, even if it is losing a few hours to do so.

 

I agree with you Dewey on their not having a clue as to what they are driving and the tailgating or drifting over the line and not having a clue where the trailer is at. It must sound like a broken record with all the you can't do this or that like the speeding off ramps or going too slow on a on ramp; but it just seems like they don't pay attention as to what speed they are really going either.

Did you get you another student yet?

 

On one of the Truckers Report newletters it was reported that on the 29th of May a fuel tanker had stopped to deliver his load, didn't say who was driving the trainer or student; but guess they backed up to a gate that had to be opened and the truck was on a downhill incline. They jumped out of the truck and it rolled backward at some point and it ended up pinning the trainer between the gate and the truck. The student moved the truck forward. The trucker died from his injuries, he was 42. Someone reported that the maxi brake? had not been set.


I am sure there will be a lot of pointind fingers on this one.

 

wow some guys have to wait a month to get a company vehicle?
my wife and I might be going to phase 2 today or tomorrow so we will see how fast that goes

 

Since your a team I can take a guess that you will be very lucky and a company truck will just so happen be available for you. Let us know if i was clairvoyant or not.

 

yes it only took 2 minutes for us

 

Hey that is great, it will be a lot less stressful I hope with not having to worry about payments for leasing. Good luck and I hope you have a good time. Be careful though. Do you have a GPS, hope you do.

 

company truck is just temporary for us .... we will be leasing asap

 

no gps for us .... maybe someday we have maps books and internet

 

Too bad about the GPS, one of the truckstops has the Roadmaster for about 375.00, to upgrade you have to buy it later, the more costly one I believe have it already paid for. Even with it you have to be careful in town roads sometimes. It is a real godsend if you can afford to get one. It has most of the major truckstops, except some of the off the wall places CRE can find. It still has a mind of its' own somedays and you have to pay attention to the routes if you want to stay on major highways vs smaller routes. When I went with hubby a few years ago we just had the Garmin Nuvi, which was better than nothing, but it was not truck safe. It did help when going on city streets to stick with the larger roads vs smaller gray.

The computer is great, I use it at home to google the route for him, if nothing distances to stop can be plotted easier than the old fashion way of having to add the distances between cities. Just remember if hauling a heavy load in the mountains it may take more time than what the google map predicts; usually it is right on but that fuel stop or slow movement around cities will need to be added. I also use a website (I hope that can be listed here) it is free, use the usual www. findfuelstop. com, you plug in city Point A to city Point B and it will pull up all the truckstops, one more detailed page will pull-up the rest-areas, Walmarts, etc', even though I would check the Walmart out first before expecting to pull into one for the night, Google it, zoom in and see if it looks like it is one in the prettified parking lots with a lot of trees and islands you can't get around in.[TABLE="width: 66"]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65, width: 88, bgcolor: transparent"][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
I hope if you decide to lease that will go well, it will be a lot easier with you teaming together at least; you won't have to worry about having a second seat or student to help.

Oh and if in the Chicago, anywhere near Chicago suburgs, you might want to do some research on the low bridges and if the roads are restricted, just like some New York areas; there maybe only one road in and out. Also watch Lexington, KY, and Charlotte, NC (it has a very low bridge 13' 0" in town off exit 11a) I guess you can say the town is split in half. If I ran across something like this I taped a note on the page of the map for that state so it wouldn't be forgotten 15 loads down the way. If you have washable markers and the slick paged maps it is great to mark your route with them also, esp in the dreaded state of NJ (we always said we were doing penance when the rotation sent him there).

Did anyone tell you in school to also right down the main info off the qualcomm such as the dispatch #, places and addresses, delivery dates and time, temp, wt, pcs, and the route numbers given. Qualcomm's even with England sometimes have snafu's where they don't work and you are out in the cold if you don't have the info written down.

Good luck, break a leg.