Originally Posted by BanditsCousin:
That'd be me with my dusty engineering degree!

And, Kc0iv...
and me...
and a few others too. Met one guy that had worked for a chemical company as a chemical engineer for 18 years... They moved to Mexico and he ended up behind the wheel. There are lots of us that have made the switch for one reason or another.

Originally Posted by Mackman:
Some of you guys crack me up on here. If this guy Mike would have came in here saying something like this.

I did my drop and went over to get a loaded trailer. As i did my pre-trip i came across 1 flat tire and one that had a flat spot so bad it had the wire showing. So i said Fu*k it and took it on down the road to the truck stop to get fixed. Well on the way guess what the tire with the wire showing didn't hold up and the re-cap came off and killed the guy on his Harley behind me. I need help.

This would be the super truckers on CAD.

Well i hope they throw the book at you. What are you retarded for moving that trailer like that.

I can hear it now. Anyway mike i more or less agree with you. Don't let some of these posters get you down. You cant win with some of them.

Very true indeed! You know us truck drivers can't have a conversation without a good argument!:thumbsup:

In my case I would have had pulled it after filling the 1 bald tire up to about 80psi ...only 60- 80 because it has less chance of blowing than full pressure ... I would have drove the short distnce at 50mph ,because a 35k lb is not max wt and the remaining good tires should hold up no problem at 50mph for 50 miles ,and the option to slide the tandems to the tail to remove some weight of those tires exists...


But you did the right thing ,because you felt it was not safe based on your perception/knowlede of the situation ,and since you are going to be the responsible party should anything go wrong it's no one elses decision to make ,but yours .

Originally Posted by Kevin0915:
Really? When i get a pre-plan, do i not have the choice to accept it or decline it? I might not get to pick and choose where I want to go, but i can choose where i don't. Granted loads have deadlines, etc. But i know this when i get the preplan. And what i plan to do, is get on my DMs good side. I'll start out for the first month busting my tail for him. When he sees that I want to roll....and earn money, he will almost let me pick where i want to go. If a DM has 10 loads, and 2 drivers he KNOWS will get them there, and 15 others who will puzzyfoot, who do you think he will call on first? and pretty sure he will let them pick which ones they want (logisticly speaking).

Your CDL is nothing more than a contractors license. If you show you are willing to work hard, more doors will open for you. Want to start out being hard to work with, or give the impression that you can't go anywhere without mom and dad holding your hand, then you're going to get the crappy loads....if any at all.

As far as the DOT regs, sure they govern how many hours i can drive, etc. But they dont govern how much i make. I get 70 hours to drive in 8 days. I should be able to drive 3500miles in that time if i have the freight available to move. does the DOT rule of 10 minutes to put out my triangles when you breakdown, limit how much i make? no. Me being broke down on the side of the road will though. Next time i get a paystub, ill look for FICA, state tax, and DOT witholding. ;-)

and the point of my post, was saying my 'office' is the open road.....not some 9 by 9 cubicle cluttered with paperwork, and the need to wear slacks and tie.

Need to refresh the boy wonders memory.......

Originally Posted by Mike Hunt:
LOL buddy do you work in dispatch? Well sir the answer is has been and always will be NO I WILL NOT PULL UNSAFE equipment down the road. End of story. I ain't risk gonna get pulled over by DOT and get a ticket. I ain't gonna leave a gator on the road behind me so some poor 4-wheeler can run it over or swerve and wreck. I'm not gonna get into an emergency situation where I gotta make quick moves with the wheel and who knows what happens back there with two flat tires and tall rolls sitting over them tandems.

I do work in dispatch. I dispatch my own trucks as well as others. I also drive and have done so for many years. I have seen and heard it all. You don't need to do anything that is unsafe. Driving on a flat tire is not necessarily unsafe or dangerous. It is a judgment call. I might have driven to the nearest truck stop rather than waiting for several hours for someone to come out to fix my tire.

Originally Posted by larryh31:
It is never too late to go to college. I am 39 years old and in college with kids half my age. If you are thinking that you can't afford college, you are dead wrong. You can not afford not to go. The days of getting a good factory, construction or other high paying blue collar job in America are pretty much gone forever.

If you need money to pay for school, there are plenty of loans, grants, scholarships and work study programs available.

FastWeb : Scholarships, Financial Aid, Student Loans and Colleges

well folks, thats what i did.

on march 17th 2009 i parked my truck, turned in my keys and my fuel card and went back to school.

on october 2010 i will be graduate with an AS degree in respiratory care ( lung nurse )

i do miss driving a truck. when i loved it, i loved it. but i was too lonley out there all the time.

i will be keeping my CDL just in case someone lets me joyride their bigtruck someday.

Thanks for the good times,
Mike

p.s. if you smoke, quit now or i will be seeing you in the future.

Originally Posted by GMAN:
I do work in dispatch. I dispatch my own trucks as well as others. I also drive and have done so for many years. I have seen and heard it all. You don't need to do anything that is unsafe. Driving on a flat tire is not necessarily unsafe or dangerous. It is a judgment call. I might have driven to the nearest truck stop rather than waiting for several hours for someone to come out to fix my tire.

Providing it's not a steer tire or a super-single. I've driven 30 miles to a garage to get a tire replaced on my trailer, and I've sat for 3+ hours to get a steer tire replaced. Also sat for 5 hours because valve stems broke from ice and both duals went flat.

But, if I have one dual that is flat, I will NOT run the same speed as I do when I have all good tires.

Originally Posted by all18wheels:
well folks, thats what i did.

on march 17th 2009 i parked my truck, turned in my keys and my fuel card and went back to school.

on october 2010 i will be graduate with an AS degree in respiratory care ( lung nurse )

i do miss driving a truck. when i loved it, i loved it. but i was too lonley out there all the time.

i will be keeping my CDL just in case someone lets me joyride their bigtruck someday.

Thanks for the good times,
Mike

p.s. if you smoke, quit now or i will be seeing you in the future.

Only reason I complain about this route so much was due to running away from it in the beginning.
Now that I don't have much of a choice anymore, I'm researching different states and smaller towns with colleges that offer these medical vocation programs.

To me, all the California schools are nothing more than a trend-fest full of people with their eyes on big-city ambitions.

Originally Posted by all18wheels:
well folks, thats what i did.

on march 17th 2009 i parked my truck, turned in my keys and my fuel card and went back to school.

on october 2010 i will be graduate with an AS degree in respiratory care ( lung nurse )

i do miss driving a truck. when i loved it, i loved it. but i was too lonley out there all the time.

i will be keeping my CDL just in case someone lets me joyride their bigtruck someday.

Thanks for the good times,
Mike

p.s. if you smoke, quit now or i will be seeing you in the future.

Good luck, son. I advise folks all the time to stay away from trucking and get themselves into school. Anybody can drive a truck but getting educated puts you above the pack. And the medical field, you just can't beat it. My daughter is an RN and she makes $75,000 per year. She's working on her masters degree and hopes to be a nurse manager one day. That's over $100,000. You'll never see those kinds of wages in trucking even with living in the damn truck all year.

Good speed and God bless!

Originally Posted by tombestonebilly:
Good luck, son. I advise folks all the time to stay away from trucking and get themselves into school. Anybody can drive a truck but getting educated puts you above the pack. And the medical field, you just can't beat it. My daughter is an RN and she makes $75,000 per year. She's working on her masters degree and hopes to be a nurse manager one day. That's over $100,000. You'll never see those kinds of wages in trucking even with living in the damn truck all year.

Good speed and God bless!

I've been going to school off and on for the past eight years, I've either hit the right mixture of instructor/class-size/testing-type, or got completely screwed over by the semester-offerings.

As it is right now, I've somewhat accepted that school is a good thing, but only if you go there to learn.
What I hate are all these high-school kids coming straight in to make lives miserable for everyone else by carrying over their high-school mentality.

If anything, I suggest they take a year, or two off before venturing onto a pay-campus.
Let them get all the sugar and excitement out of their system.