Hey Casanova what's the truck situation look like? What is your mentor in and what does it look like you will be in when you go solo? I will be with the Phx terminal and I'm not sure but I think they may be close to new replacements soon, but not sure. Heard anything?
My trainers in a 2012 Cascadia, he's an o/o though. I haven't seen many flatbed company trucks yet to be honest but the ones I have seen have looked really nice. Ive heard Swift is getting more and more new trucks, a lot of replacements coming in the next couple of months but whether they'll be going to dry or flat divisions I don't know. Could be both.
By the way I just read that when training with a mentor it's team...meaning you drive, they sleep then they drive and you sleep. Correct? for 6 weeks? I don't see how it's possible you get to eat?
It's not really based on weeks out with the mentor, it's hours. 200 of them. Then back to your home terminal. The first 50 hours is ran as solo, if your driving he is awake and training, then team for the remaining 150 hours.
You get what they give you. Swift uses 8 speed transmissions and a handful of automatics so far. Only the last 150 hours are team. I'm on pace to finish my entire training in 4 weeks. Maybe less. You'll be able to eat though haha. When you're hungry stop and eat, when you're tired stop and nap. You're in charge of the truck. Only time they'll want you to run hard in training is if somehow they get you on a really hot load that's time sensitive.
Also, policy in flatbed is to stop every 2-3 hours or 150 miles to perform a safety check so you'll always have time to eat and piss or whatever you need. Check your straps/chains/tarps and then eat. Basically make sure your loads not gonna fly off and take out the ####### thinking he can somehow draft behind a flatbed haha.
Sounds like you have had a great mentor, hope I'm as lucky or maybe it's just the bad stories are the only ones you hear about.
Well Kryon just quit Swift because they wouldn't fix his truck steering column that gave way on the highway.
Definitely think it's a lot of the bad apples you hear from when it comes to trash talk. If you think about it Swift takes on something like 3,000 new drivers a year. Some crazy number. A lot of these drivers are people who haven't really done any research on what an OTR driver really is, they're just looking at getting a job. When I went through school, half the students didn't even know that OTR drivers didn't make it home every night. My jaw dropped when I saw that. Starter companies are just gonna get trashed online because they're giving people who don't know any better a chance, a lot of the negative you see is due to their own ignorance. Just my 2 cents. GWS - you seem to be doing research and informing yourself, it might be hard to believe but half the rookies you meet won't have done any of this to prepare themselves. You'll be ahead of the game just because you have an idea of what it is you're getting into.
