Okay newbies... This is a recap of my week... can YOY handle it?

What I'm saying is many new drivers are TRYING this gig because they can get assistance with the schooling part... they would NEVER fork over $5K just to SEE if they like the job... would you?

So they enter the field, stay 6 months, and bail because they find being out 3 weeks is too long away from home (I agree but didn't always). The new guys checkbook isn't $5k short... the government's is $5k short OR some trucking company is the loser. Now the collections departments get involved... I bet they only recover maybe one third of their monies (my guess).

With all this financial aid floating around it's simple to get training and a job.... and easy to skip if it doesn't work out.

When I started out I WANTED to drive... I knocked on every trucking company door in southeastern Wisconsin. Local outfits, big freight carriers, reefer operations, tank lines, everybody. No experience=no job.

To get a job back then you started on the dock with a union carrier, driving a fork truck and hand-bombing freight all day until you 'bid' your way into local driving... most likely a straight job. Maybe you got a little backing experience with the yard jockey moving trailers around. After 5-10 years you finally bid your way into a 'road' job... but were on the 'extra' board working, maybe, 3 days per week filling in for vacations, drivers who were sick or extra runs as they came up. Finally you got enough seniority to have a 'bid' run... and you were set.

My wife worked for Clairmont Transfer a union outfit... she couldn't get me an interview! Her dad worked for Scherer Freight Lines (another Teamster gig)... HE couldn't get me a dock job to start out. I had worked for my wife's uncle at his gas station... he was a former trucker for Mercury Motor Freight (we serviced all their trucks)... I couldn't get a janitor's job there.

There was ONE school in Wisconsin...$1100.00 cash to attend. And no promise you'd ever get a job.

You might get a job if you had some farm driving experience and found a carrier that taught you the ropes on the road... maybe.

OR you started with one of thousands of small time non-union outfits... running produce or running 'wildcat' (no ICC authority... finding freight yourself and hauling anything you could find that fits in the box). Long hours, everything loaded 'on the floor' so you got PLENTY of exercise.

You carried tools to fix your own truck... you read a map to find your destination... you changed your own tires... you were on your own out there. If the carrier didn't get paid YOU didn't get paid... so you were careful with who you dealt with when hauling freight. If you broke something YOU were charged to fix it in many cases...

You had a major investment in your own job... you fought hard to get somewhere in the company... you earned your spot on the driver roster.

I was lucky... I owned an F600 Ford gas job that I used as a race car hauler. Manpower called me and asked me if I thought I could handle a tractor trailer job for two days... OF COURSE I COULD. After teaching MYSELF how to shift, stop and make corners all at the same time (ON THE JOB TRAINING AT IT'S FINEST) I was experienced... or so I thought. It took me months of trying to find a carrier that would give me a chance... I sat on street corners copying down names of trucking companies, looking up their addy's in the phone book and knocking on their doors everyday. There were no recruiters....no one was looking for ME... I had to bust my ### looking for them.

My first full time driving job was at Ristow Trucking in Wales, WI. I answered an ad that read "Truck driver wanted... must have own tools"... I found out real quick about why you needed your own tools. The mechanic who took me out for a test drive asked me if i could drive a 4X4... I thought he meant a Jeep! I jumped into a '62 Freightliner, saw the two shift levers, and thought one was the emergency brake! It was sink or swim... I had ten miles to prove I could handle the equipment or i was down the road... I did well enough that I got the job and 15 minutes later I was on the road to the Schlitz Brewing Co. to pick up my first load...

Today? If you can get financed... either by a trucking company via indentured servitude or with government money... you can TRY being a trucker. If it works out, OK. If not, so what? I'll go back to my fast food job (or whatever you did before). You have little to lose other than time dealing with the credit issues and the bill collectors harassing you.

I'm NOT saying we need to go back 30 or 40 years to the way it used to be... what I'm AM saying is MAKE A FRICKING COMMITMENT to being the best you can be and shut up and learn! Don't sweat the small stuff... I get so sick of hearing new guys complaining about sweaty trainers,they can't drive a Super 10...the truck only goes 62... can my dispatch force me to work 11.1 hours?... I don't like to drive in snow...can I stay in Florida all winter?.... I have a hang nail... boo hoo hoo, boo hoo frickin hoo.

Man up... you are getting a darn near free pass to a job... a job tougher (on a good day) than most anyone has worked in their lives. You will get bent over and ridden' hard by most of these 'starter' companies. Either learn to take it or find someone who will teach you and give you some respect in return... something those big guys forgot how to do long ago.

Sorry for rambling on...

(The preceding was a statement of the writer and NOT of website management. Any similarity between the preceding statements and that of website management was purely coincidental. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming)

 

You are so right about the regulations... but we had 'ICC regulations' when I started, too.

To sum it up...99% of the companies operating today didn't exist back before the Motor Carrier Deregulation Act of 1980.

Every regulated commodity (not produce or grains and a few other products) required a piece of paper issued by the Interstate Commerce Commission stating the carrier had the 'authority' to haul that product... for instance... carrier A had the 'rights' to haul blue widgets from Chicago to Toledo along US Hwy 6 and US Hwy 20. But it couldn't haul red widgets... carrier B had those rights... so there was little competition.

Carriers couldn't get together directly to set rates... that would be illegal. BUT they COULD belong to a 'rate bureau' that was comprised of motor carriers who sat down and essentially agreed to not step on each others toes and allowed the rate bureau to set favorable rates.

While opponents of industry deregulation have decried the decline of real wages since deregulation (correctly I must add), i don't believe the nation could have ever expanded it's economy to such a great extent if we did not deregulate the industry. WE have goten much more efficient in moving freight since 1980... and will continue to do so.

Back to the 'old days'... a cop or scale master could stop you to 'check your papers'... you were required to carry copies of every authority your company had for every item on board your trailer. If the officer didn't find the right piece of paper the driver was fined for 'operating without proper ICC authority'.

I was a wildcatter for several years during the 1970's and had that problem many times. The solution was to run the back roads and avoid trouble as much as possible. I still do today... I don't need the hassle of of some cop-in-diapers writing me up because he wants to make a name for himself with his superiors.

I think run a pretty good operation.... I haven't had a speeding ticket in a commercial vehicle since 1979 (although I had 25 (!) in 1974 during the first year of our famous "55 MPH National Speed Limit"). I keep my truck up to snuff on safety stuff and run close to the speed limit.

Years ago we also had "JP" courts where the cop would bring you in front of a justice of the peace and he'd judge you guilty or not guilty on the spot.... many guys got the shaft by these kangaroo courts until they were outlawed.

Our government is stealing our country right from under our noses... I fear my grandkids and great grandkids won't be able to enjoy the limited freedoms we still have left today.

There's a bill in the senate introduced by Frank Lautenburg (NJ) and Patty Murray (WA) that would require all freight in this country to be co-ordinated by a new federal agency in order to minimize green house gasses... Red China we are right behind you...

 

You're welcome... I trying to let you folks know that it's not all roses out here... at times it's a piece of cake. other times you have to dig deep to make it work.

In my early years I unloaded cow udders, on the floor, un-boxed and bloody, at the Kal Kan pet food plant in Cleveland (as a matter of fact it was my first reefer load)... we routinely hauled chicken guts in boxes without tops to mink food ranches in WI and MN... after a few minutes they would start to defrost and you were covered in chicken guts after an hour or so... hand unloads.

How about backing into a little place on the Louisiana bayou and having to use a pitchfork to load Spanish Moss (the stuff that hangs on trees) into your trailer by yourself? Or unloading raw, salted cow hides after they have been infested with maggots (Long Beach pier).

A few years ago I had a load of cotton seed on a walking floor trailer... it was supposed to be self-unloading but the trailer had corrugated sides and the seed wouldn't unload....so I had to strap myself to a cable inside the trailer and use a pitchfork to unload it myself... the first 6 feet or so I was working right above a 4X8 foot pit where a blower was chewing up the seed and spiting it out into a 150' tall silo... no OSHA protection... just me, my belt and chunk of 1/4' cable... took four hours in 90F temps for me to finish.

Any of the old timers on this board will have similar stories... it ain't easy.

 

So THIS week was a piece of cake... loaded Tuesday AM for Fort Wayne and delivered at midnite.... 400 miles in 14 hours even gave me time for a nap.

Reloaded Tuesday (after getting washed out) in Frankfort, IN and delivered Wednesday morning in Brooklyn Park, MN.

Freight was non-existant so I bounced home and called it a week. So much for every week being a 3000k mile grind... but that means a short paycheck next week. I WAS offered a $2700.00 run to Camp Hill, PA.... I don't do much east coast stuff these days so I respectfully declined the load offer.

Soooo I load Sunday AM and deliver in Jeffersonville, IN 11 AM on Monday.... hope to stay busy. This economy isn't out of the woods by any means.