Re-Thinking Team Driving

If I can give you some advise that was given to me when I started driving is its best for a new person to go solo cause you can learn alot more from your mistakes then depending on having someone to fix them.Other people can agree or disagree on that but when it was told to me I didnt think to much of it till I started driving solo.

But all so you have to take into account when teaming with someone that is just starting out all so can you trust the person to sleep behind them?Because really your life is in each others hands when the other is sleeping.

 

After 3yrs flatbedding with maverick i decided to go to usx since their tunnel hill terminal is 6 miles from my house in dalton.

i have been with them 2.5 weeks. So far so good.its also my first time with a team. In 2 weeks we did dallas, laredo, charlotte, jersey city, seattle, los angeles and back in dallas again.

there was 70 in my class as well. And yes they really did say driver-tec beeps if u go 20+ miles out of route. But older drivers say it doesnt. Its a scare tactic to follow routing.

also, unlike maverick we can NOT fuel at any pilot/j..... We get our assignments that list the propet fuel stop. We have a poster here at the irving tx terminal explaining why.... Not all pilots/j charge same. Fuel changes 4-11cents per store. So they find us a deal. Heres an example im trying to remember.

for chattanooga to LA.
fuel pilot i-24 ex 80 (fill)
fuel flying j i-40 north little rock (50gallons)
fuel flying j checotah ok (fill)
fuel steves citgo in albequerque (150 gallons)

typically we fill. But if we NEED to fuel somewhere else (i wont pull into little rock pilot at rush hour) we just call or send a message. We get new fueling locations within minutes.

they do try to scare you so you follow the rules. But as long as you know what youre doing and dont do things to cost them money, they will leave u alone.

i know im new to usx but im loving it and im loving teams and seeing all the places i didnt while solo

 

This is a point well taken. However, in the context of finishing orientation and teaming after your training period, you'd think that anybody that is an obviously dangerous driver would be discovered by then, and dealt with. Also, I'd be making the most during orientation (both in-class and out of class) to observe classmates' driving skills and also to consider if I thought we could be compatible as team drivers.

It is said that insurance companies have some input on the hiring polices (such as driver qualifications, etc.) at some of these trucking companies. You'd think if there were obvious problems with teaming new drivers, the practice would be stopped. On the contrary, teaming could be good for new drivers by building confidence and having a second set of eyes present to analyze situations that come up.

Please tell how you got paired up with your team mate. Was it your choice? Or another method? What about the others in your orientation class? How did they generally get teamed up?

 

Hornswoggled yes you are right there may be times where a eyes are good but my thinking is cause it happend to me its best to try to fix a problem your self then have to rely on someone to help you fix the problem.

But for me I got so use to being the one driving my truck I am at the point where I can not sleep if my truck is moving.Trust me I tried with my father and he has been driving for over 15 years.

But it all depends on the driver some people cant drive solo and some people can not drive teams.But I wish him the best of luck with what ever he desides to do with his career.

 

You and a driver friend can join together as a team.

you can meet someone at orientation and team up (if u live close)

on the website theres a "find me a partner" page. But generally all they use is "are you a smoker" and your location.

i got teamed with mine because i spent 3yrs with maverick and they are all automatics. And usx is 70% automatic. But all they had for me was a 2012 international. So i took a rental car from chattanooga to our irving/dallas terminal to get my truck. But i was nervous about a 10speed. So about 4hrs after i got here, i received an email from a recruiter. "Hey ricky. I was wondering if you were interested in a team. We have a guy here. Hes 25. Non smoker. Lives 1hr 10min from you. He has 1.5yrs experiemce. And he just started here today. If you team, you will get a 2015 freightliner cascadia AUTOMATIC with 26miles. All u gotta do is drive that 10speed u got in dallas and come back to chattanooga to swap. Here is his number if you want to talk to him first and then let me know".

so i basically taught myself a 10speed by bobtailing from dallas to laredo, and then loaded from laredo to chattanooga.

id rank my confidence at 5/10 now with a standard. Only killed it 4 times in 1,800 miles and had to do 4 regens cause of excess heat.

but basically i woulda teamed up with charles manson if it woulda got me an automatic.

you can always turn down a partner. And go solo any time. But so far this guys okay.

 

Also, it looks like you can find a co driver on here too.

or put a flyer on the billboard wall at work.

or even on the usx facebook page.

 

Off topic, but this is why didn't want to start in an automatic my first year, gets it so you won't want or be able to drive anything else in later jobs.

 

Yea. I was scared of standards. So i chose maverick only because they are 100% automatic. But i also felt trapped there because of it. Not many places only have autos.



i prefer automatics and love it. But i feel sooo much more confident in standards since they let me bobtail 450mi from dallas to laredo (tx has tons of access roads so i was able to hop on and off to practice downshifting. A 7hr drive ended up 9hrs cause of that,)

and the 1,300 or so from laredo to chattanooga got me confident of pulling a box trailer as opposed toflatbed.

i recommend not going straight to autos.

 

RickySomething, They do tell you at orientation that you can't go out of route but that's not true. We go out of route all the time and nothing happens. Just like you said....its a scare tactic.

We can fuel at any Pilot/Flying J. Just gotta call the Fuel Dept and tell them which one you want. The only ones they wont approve are the dealer owned ones that offer no discount. They allow us to fuel at Loves, TA and Petros but for those generally you gotta call it in.

 

Ya. For our new jersey to seattle load, they let us fuel at 2 tiny mom and pop stores. They want you to use their sele toons cause they save 4-11cents per gallon. But if you need fuel, they wont argue