The start of my first year with Swift.

So, Swift is really pushing for folks to get on the Canadian fleet. They say there is a lot of freight going north and they need folks willing to drive in Canada. With that said here I sit in Great Falls, MT without a load and no hope of a load over the weekend. I T called the load I had here because it wasn't due until June 2nd and I was told the Canadians don't work on weekends. I no more then pulled into the drop yard when another driver pulls up and asks if my load is going to Rocky View. I drop the trailer, hand him the paperwork and off he goes. It's the only load going north all weekend.

 

And now the saga continues.

After deadheading to Lewiston to get my windshield fixed I got a load going to Las Vegas. I picked up the load and went to the terminal for fuel. When I got back in my seatbelt alarm would not go off. I tried everything I could think off, including beating on it until my hand was bruised. Still....ding, ding, ding. At the terminal Swift told me to call Onroad and Onroad told me to talk to Swift. No mechanics until Monday. I went back out and buckled in. This time it shut off. I quickly headed out.

I made it to Boise and spent the night at the house. I do my pretrip and don't find anything wrong. All the lights were working..this is important for later. When I cross the scales outside of Boise I get selected for an inspection. I got a fix it ticket because my break lines to the trailer were touching and the break lines under the trailer had an electrical wire zip tied to one of them. The ticket also included a marker light on the trailer that was out. hmmmmm

I replaced the light and still nothing. Onroad had me take the truck to the Boss Shop in Jerome Idaho. They fixed the trailer light and said it was a bad ground. They shortened up my break lines and got them separated and rerouted the wire under the trailer.

According to Swift, if I had only two violations on the ticket, I would have not gotten any points. Since there were three I was assessed three points on the company safety rating. What BS is this???? Even if you can say I could have predicted the bad ground on the light, Swift is the one who set up the wiring on the trailer and all of their trailers are set up with a wife zip tied to the break line. The other break lines were two long because Swift set them up that way. I had the truck in the shop the day before and the mechanic went over everything to make sure it passed. As I told my DM, it's time to write a letter. It will take me two weeks to word it just right.

Good luck this week on the inspections.