Starting school, forgive me if this has been asked!

You will find home time biting in your money munching away on it.

Stay out. You are young. Home once every 6 to 8 weeks is bettter. You would have build up at least several weeks savings by then.

 

You plan your day according to appointment times.
Boston to Las Vegas; for example; plan your trip based on the appointment time to deliver in Las Vegas and do you want to knock out a 10 hr. break before or after delivery, etc.
Many variables, but you'll learn trip planning fast and time management fast. After a couple of years, you trip plan in your head without giving it much thought vs. stressing with a pencil & paper.
Doesn't matter when you drive as long as you make the appointment.

 

The ones Iisted are set up right for driver comfort. The websites have what is provided for the drivers, such as refrigerator, television, APU, satellite radio, etc.
The APU is an Auxillary Power Unit that provides electrical power when the engine is shut off. This can be used for cooking, refrigerator, television, computer, heat, air conditioning,etc. Some drivers carry a crock pot so a meal can be cooking while they're driving down the highway. When it's meal time, you have a nice hot meal prepared plus whatever is in the refrigerator.
Some drivers carry the crock pot and a George Foreman Grill and this saves a ton of money of food costs plus you cook healthy meals.

 

Back to trip planning so you can visit some sites. For example, you're dispatched from Boston to Las Vegas and by the Rand McNally Motor Carriers Atlas, it's 2729 miles. You know your appointment time in Las Vegas. What I do is an average of how many hours driving time that takes. I do my planning at 55 mph. Some drivers do more & some do less, but I do 55 mph and it works out pretty good for a guestimate! It comes out to 49 3/4 hours driving time. So work with that plus meals, breaks, fueling, etc and get a good idea as to how much free time you may have to goof off.
The 55 mph average is just for rough planning purposes. Your average will probably be more, but I use the 55 mph to account for traffic backups, rain storm, etc. that may slow me down.

 

Let me know if you check out Freymiller or Calex. Maybe we can compare notes because we both live in the Northeast.

 

whoa hold on there... let's see.

Inverters are per company permission. If they say ok, you buy it your money and you have it installed by dealer on your cash. But if you burn that truck down, then you pay.

You schedule according to appointment of customer anywhere in the USA.. if I loaded in YAKIMA Washington for Onions going to Boston Market in Chelsea downtown on the east coast it's going to be 5 days driving day and night to the max. It's 3000 plus miles and you will need all of your hours to do it. They allow you 70 hours every 8 days, day and night. 10 hours at a time before sleep and get up and get going for another 10. Day or night is irrevelant.

I detect a little wishful thinking in your 9 to 5. Forget that. Lose that thinking. That's not trucking. You drive at night, you drive by day storm snow, ice tornado hail hurricane whatever. That customer is waiting for you to get there with a appointment YOU CANNOT BE LATE not even 10 minutes. Mountains? That's trucking. Flat land? Can do that too. Too many hills in Ohio? Suck it up, bigger hills coming in PA.

See where Im going with this?

Your schedule in trucking is a little more harder to explain for me.

Let's say Little Rock there you are. It's noon you are fixing to have lunch at the Petro here in Galloway. Your satellite beeps telling you to go to Memphis NOW be there by 2PM to load for Chicago 6 am tomorrow morning.

You get a box from the waitress now, pay the bill and get out of there back onto the highway for Memphis. It's 200 plus miles and you are already late for pickup. Chances are you have eaten your lunch at 1 PM walked to your truck and there is your load message from dispatch for memphis at 2PM... ERK..... call dispatch explain why you aint moving. (If you are smart, you do not call dispatch.... YET...)

Get to memphis, make the necessary boot licking profouse ego massaging apologies to gain entry into the gaurd shack, repeat the same to the angry dock worker waiting on you all this time.. it's almost 4 PM. Time to load #### it.... Chicago's waiting. (No dinner tonight....)

Load in 4 hours. Out of there at 8PM. 650 miles to chicago 1/3 tanks of fuel, pack of smokes and whatever snacks left under your bunk and blessed inverter. 8PM to 6AM will just be enough time to do this trip.

Wait a minute logs say you are maybe out of hours... check again.... gotta go.

Stressed yet?

he he he....

 

Rule number one - the company can take the best care of its trucks but one driver can ruin a truck no matter how well it is taken care of.