[markt1993]

I am 28 years old and have been driving straight trucks since I was 17. Almost all my driving was local. I was working for a very small moving company, only one truck. If we went out of state we used Ryder or Penske trucks so that the company would have another truck for locals while I was gone. Never used logs or anything. best part about rental trucks, is that you always get waved through the scales.
Well I quit that job and went to Pepsi. I got my class A CDL there and drove the goose neck route trucks. I drove the 53' on weekends for extra money. Well I did that for 2 years.
Now I am back at moving. I work for another small company, i own my truck, just a straight truck. I like the small company because they treat you better.
Well now for the good part. My truck's GVW is 33,000lbs. The company wanted me to handle getting all my paper work together, I said no problem. I had no idea what I was doing. I called the insurance company, they got me covered and told me to get my IFTA sticker and a DOT number and I was good to go.
I did that, and took of to IN from SC. Well I was stopped in IN and told to park and come in. my 1st mistake was that my log book was filled out but I had no previous 7 days. So I had to sit for 12 hours. My other mistake was no IRP. So I had to buy temp permits for all the states I was going through.
Well I got all that worked out. I came home and 1st thing I did was start doing a daily log, and got my IRP.
Next time out was to Denver, CO. I got to Denver with no problems, getting back was a different story. As soon as I left out of Denver towards KS I was stopped at the scales. Guess what I had no SSR. Well $20.00 and I was on the road again. I had figured on getting by the rest of the way home because it was around 6:00PM and Friday. So I thought the KS scales would most likely be closed and no others would be open because of the weekend. I was wrong. KS was open, and they don't sell SSR for $20.00.
I had to give the the Reg. out of my truck to be able to go back to Burlingtington, CO to get a room. Well as most of you know you can't get a SSR over night esp on the weekend. I stayed in a motel till Monday then it got worse.
I had changed Ins. companies, the company the i ended sent the letter to the DOT saying that i had stopped my coverage, but the new Ins. company didn't send the letter saying I was covered by them. I had been shut down and didn't even know it. It's a really bad feeling.
I ended up paying a Mexican $150.00 to drive me to Denver to fly back home, it took 2 weeks to get it all straight. Then had to drive the company's Ford Focus all the way back to get the truck. Good news is i had room to put the car in the truck.
Moral of the story is it may be better to hire a company to get your stuff right before you guess that it's right. I have no regrets though, I know tons about the trucking permits and what you need to have. It's a good feeling now to go through the scales and not care if they stop me or not, unless I'm overweight of course.
And also don't be afraid to as your Motor Carrier Services questions. I do most of my drive local, had a lot of questions about the log book. Asked them and they faxed me a driver time sheet. Very easy, One sheet for each month I write down what time I come on duty, what time off duty, total driving time, total time on duty and that's it. I always use it unless over 150 miles, then all you have to do is on the day you go over on miles write "see log" do one page in the log book, and staple it to the time sheet. Much better than waiting for a out of state trip and then try to catch up on your previous 7 days.
I know this was long but thought it may help a new person