Stevens Transport Aviary . . cont'

Yeah the more I think about it your right Emulsified.. Its doable to get it myself but I feel it would streamline things a bit to just go to school that way there are no questions to answer along the way. Insurance is the last word on everything, its the same with towing.. I actually screwed myself pretty bad years ago when i got like 3 tickets in a year and lost a good towing job. I was still able to find work and am currently employed with a newer company just because of all the experience I have on as a driver...Believe it or not there is a lot more to towing then what you see on the side of the road lol.. But this guy has taken care of me I have been driving for him for 3 years now and have not been on insurance.. Ya know a guy trusts you when he will let you drive a 100k dollar piece of equipment without insurance.. And I just had a ferrari on the bed the other day. lol. But anyways the school i'm looking into locally is called United truck driving school.. they are here in Temecula. And then if everything you guys are telling me about Stevens is accurate then, Stevens driving school will be my plan B. As far as I can tell Stevens is a good school..the training is long then other places but I have not heard to much negative stuff about it...except the accomodations are horrible... to bad i dont have any single exs in Texas..LOL

 

All my exes live in Texas. No, really!
Speaking of Texas...west is large, empty, windy and dusty. And flat. Im less than 300 miles from delivery, the yard and home. Unfortunately my delivery is 11pm, the yard probably 2am and home sometime around noon tomorrow if i get lucky.

 

You know what is twice as much fun as waiting on a meat load? That's right waiting on two of them LOL. Love the multi picks.

On a side note, a trailer has seemingly adopted me, or maybe it and my truck are developing feelings for each other, but I can not get rid of it. I picked it up loaded on 10/1... I still have it, that in itself is not that unusual, bit I have dropped out at three meat plants and each time I got it back loaded.

 

well at least you know the last driver didn't leave you with three bald tires, a broken brake chamber and missing registration.

 

Wait you got that one too???
My personal favorite was 9813, 6 tires and a hub. But I named 9476 bessie since she always required a stern talking to and a bit of rocking to close her doors. I saw 10014 which i just dropped in cali pass me in el paso this morning

 

I did have to get up and repair the chute after my first drop. It was hanging pretty bad on the left side. Had to put in three mollies to get it up there, but its still holding.

 

You guys ever haul avocados? I had to take a second job for awhile at one point, and I ended up working at one of the local avocado packing plants as a forklift operator. I spent my days loading trucks basically going from the giant freezer to the dock and then loading trucks up.. I remember every truck driver wanted their trailer loaded differently but most of the time it was 1 pallet at the front then 2 to one side then 1 and then 2s all the way back switching sides. and then turning the last two pallets at the end to lock them. Now that I think about it those must have been some heavy loads for the drivers cause that was a hell of a lot of pallets loaded top to bottom and all the way to the doors. lol. Random thought I know but it came to my mind when KMac mentioned having to repair the chutes.. I had no idea what those were at first but when I looked it up I remembered my first day at that job I was loading a trailer and for some reason even with the trailer ramps this trailer was really low so there was a slight ledge coming off the dock into the trailer and I somehow managed to catch one of those chutes and rip it with the fork lift. LOL. Met a lot of cool truckers doing that job.. picky sons of ####### lol... used to stand there and watch me load..

 

just think how different it will feel to be on the other side of the loading now lol... at least now you will know why they get so picky

 

You will also have a leg up on the other newbies when they ask you how you want it loaded.

It is an important thing to know. The weight distribution on a 48' spread axle is going to be different than a 53. I remember a multpick load that the gross was fine on, bit just plain heavy in the ### end no matter what we did, so In left the tandems at the 40' mark to be Cali legal, but then went up through the desert to get to 40 and avoid any scales. I stopped at Needles and slid the tandems back a few holes so I was legal the rest of the way.

With your experience on the other end of it, you should have that part figured out in no time.

 

Lol no that was quite a few years ago so I have learned a lot since then about the regulations and scaling all of that. As a tow truck driver the CHP scales are no stranger to me. Im looking forward to seeing it all as a truck driver though.. I love meeting new people and seeing new places. Even though Im sure it has gotten to be routine and boring for alot of you guys.