Pulling hazmat for Swift

I didn't know Swift had a hazmat team.

 

^^^^ Maybe it's TT recovery?~?

 

That could be.

 

I started at Swift, my second solo load was hazmat. Loaded in Compton CA. Looking back I just shake my head. Though I had the endorsement and passed all the written tests 100% somehow it didn't compute to real iife like stopping at railroad crossings or not pumping fuel into both tanks at the same time placarded. Plus I was only getting $0.25 a mile while Swift was probably getting $3 bucks a mile for it.

Overall the endorsement should help keep you moving in bad areas where other drivers without it will still be sitting. Many times you might be the only driver within 500 miles to take the load so they will be desperate, might be able to squeeze an extra $50 bucks out of them.

On the other side of the coin, I had to pick up a hazmat tcall load at the terminal, discovered the brakes were paper thin on my pretrip, trailer went to shop for 24 hours and they would not take the load off me because I was the only hazmat driver around. So I got to waste a day of production on a 224 mile run.

Other bad things is being pulled into every weigh station and possibly inspected. Make sure the placards are correct, the paperwork is correct and load is secure front to back, side to side top to bottom. I had an officer crawl deep inside the trailer and claim a pallet wasn't secure, put out of service plus load securement violation..

 

The only time I've been pulled over on the highway for an inspection was when I was running a HM load.

To add to what Scottie said, a HM load only pays an additional $25. Not worth in my book.

I dropped that endorsement when I moved my CDL to MN.

 

I had 5 hazmat loads in 3 years. I dropped my endorsement years ago and it hasn't hurt me at all. For what I remember it was really annoying and didn't pay enough to be worth doing.

 

Last week, a hazmat load got me out of a dead zone. I left before others who had been there 2-3 days longer than me.

That's the real value of a hazmat endorsement.

 

Sittin' at the Peetro in Florence, SC.

Just came off of a 2200 mile run from Montana. Pickup window on the preplan was a couple of days long, ending at 1300 tomorrow. Original plan was to pick up this evening, crawl out the gate and take my 10. Nope; fuel stop was 15 miles out of route, and had to wait in line on top of that. Went off duty at the stop sign on the I-95 off ramp with 0:00 left on my clock, 15 miles from the shipper.

No problem; I have lots of time. Checking the actual dispatch showed the pickup window closed TODAY at 1730 (discovered this at 1800; had no time to get it anyway). Plus-1? Hope so. Otherwise, I'm sending a Mac-22 for a closed shipper. Receiver is simply going to have to wait.

With any luck, there will be some place near the shipper where I can get a nice, strong drink while I wait for 24 hours.. And I'm not a drinker...