It was all ready in the 14th hole Mike... I might of said wrong but what i meant was, if i was to put weight on my drives i would still be 600 to 800 pounds over on both axles except on the steers.. now let me ask this, how am i suppose to know i can get away with this or not?? only scale house i know how to dodge is the one in Virginia on I81 in Winchester, am i suppose to run with it and if i get caught i get caught?? I just don't want to fork out a few hundred bucks for this..

and XXE69, naw, the man in the mirror isn't the problem, i'm sure of that.. I've put up with so much here and i cont. to maintain that better days are around the corner, but man i just can't do this no more.. if your happy thats great.. I know every job is not perfect, hell the best job i ever had (and if i didn't want to drive truck so bad i still be working there) even had its very bad days, but i still loved it, i'm willing to put up with things because i know nothing is perfect but i'm tired of going thru these miscommunications that ends up costing me time and money.. To much of it, for as much as i'm giving up, i'm tired of this mess..

Sounds like a decent run. It's pretty crappy what happened with the over weight but unless you run into issues like that all the time why would you quit? Unless you have something better lined up shrug it off and move on. Crap happens, learn from it and make sure they don't do it to you next time.

If you want to get away from the Mega carriers, that is great, a small outfit is much better in many ways, just make sure you find one before you put that notice in! But you will find that driving for a small company is much much different!

Now in a lot of ways this depends on the size of the smaller company, if it is 50+ power unit fleet, more then likely they will probably have some basic procedures in place like a mega carrier, and it won't be much different, with the exception that the company will probably actually get to know you!

Now if you go with a really small fleet like I drive for, say less then 10 trucks, you will run much like an owner op. You will have to be careful with everything you do, sure you won't have the safety man or a dispatcher up your ass 24/7, but if you breakdown you don't have a nice toll free number to call to get roadside out there right away, and it is highly probable that the company simply cannot afford it anyway, or will be slow to respond. You won't have a safety man keeping an eagle eye on you, so you need to make sure you are doing everything right. More then often your dispatch would simply be someone looking at load boards, and giving you the brokers number to get the details, no nice little QC message with load details, so you will need to handle brokers directly, which isn't hard but adds an extra step. Keeping an eye on fuel will be much more important to you too.

Just my observations from working for an O/O leased onto a 5 truck fleet.

I love it, I would never go back to a mega carrier, but it is harder work, you will have more paperwork, and more responsibility, and if you DO screw something up, you don't have a nice company terminal within a days driving distance to get it taken care of, and if you truck breaks down to where you cannot use it without major repairs, there is no yard full of unused trucks to change into.

Just my opinions :)

Deep breath buddy - in through the nose - out through the mouth...

I understand your frustration. I'm still doing my (soon to be) old career (computer consulting/support) and if this lady (who is married to the guy that's kept FOOD on my table this year) calls me ONE MORE TIME today, without being able to ACCURATELY DESCRIBE the issues she's calling me about - I'm gonna tell her where to STICK these computers and go on WELFARE while I'm in trucking school.

In through the nose - out through the mouth - need to take my own advice. I guess, if these types of things frustrate you beyond your ability to cope, and realizing that these kind of events are going to happen once in awhile (but hopefully NOT EVERY LOAD) - then it may be time to GET OUT. Otherwise - chalk it up to a bad -f'in day - get over it - and move on...

Rick

You jusdt got some sound advice from more than a few capable people Hawk! Take some time to settle down. You will be ok.

Hawk, you know VA like I do, they will pop you for the smallest amount even if it's only an axle overweight. You did right in not wanting to run it due to that. I got an over axle for only being 100 lbs over on the drives while I was still 4 tons under my gross. Total ticket was $78. VA is serious about any overweight even if your still under your gross. The total fine for the actual infraction was only $2, a penny for each pound. They may have upped that fine since then, this was 2 years ago. The other $76 was $50 in court costs and $16 in state and local taxes.

As for the rest of it that snowballed on you, I'd agree with the one's who said you should have stayed put at the T/S until Big Orange got it straightened out. You knew you weren't legal on an axle weight, could no way get it legal and you had a scale ticket to prove it. You had done your job at that point, let Big Orange do the rest. They may have had a contact there that they could have called up and got it taken care of instead of some moron who doesn't know any better at the front desk.

Good luck with the future bud.

First thing first, i appreciate all the sound advice..

But things ended up getting better as the day went on i guess but unbelievably after the pallets got re worked/re arranged the truck was still over weight, now it was over weight on both the drives and the trailer..Hell even the poor fella from Western Express his truck was Over Gross by 500 pounds!! so finally someone came to their senses at Schneider and told me go ahead and run with it and if i get popped they will pay the ticket.. Luckly i took the long way, 78 to 81, down to 522 (to dodge the va scale) and jumped on 66 and got on 17.. Very luckily the scale in PA was closed and i trucked on by..

Even tho i have lost money this week i'm just going to chill out i guess, i'm going to end up getting 3 nights at home coming up and i guess to relax...

Also let me ask someone this, do u think this truck not having a sliding 5th wheel had anything to do with this load?? i know if i had a sliding 5th wheel i could of moved the weight to my steers and everything would of been good i guess...but the so smart dispatcher guess i had a condo or truck with an sliding 5th wheel...

Also anyone been to the Loves at Exit 23 on 78?? what a cluster F(%# that is!!

I got off the exit last week to stop in there to get a coke and they were backed out into the street, so I got right back on and continued. Probably won't try that stop again.

I dont think having a sliding 5th would have helped. it would have gotten more weight on the steers but you werent over on the drives, and you would have had to slide the trailer axles back another 8-10 holes to get the weight you were over on the trailer onto the drives.

I don;t understand why shippers can't fathom this (and they likely CAN - but just don't give a rats patoot). X Pallet has y numbers of cases at z lbs per case X x Y x Z + weight of wooden pallet = weight per pallet loaded (W). Truck can handle a gross load of - T, so T/W= number of loaded pallets. Like they DON'T KNOW how many you can handle? I suspect palletized cases of bottled water are single stacked only. I mean - unless you've got a ton or so of "powdered contraband" in a false floor - it's NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.

Based on the original load numbers - IF you could have slid the 5th wheel to put another 1,500 lbs on the steers (and that's a BIG IF - depending on the dynamics of the load) that would give you another 2,570 you could have shifted onto the drives by sliding the tandems BACK. With 36,380 on the original weight - that's about 8-10 holes you would have had to slide - probably maxing your slides and giving you a rig that would likely run over EVERY OTHER CURB you came across today.

You probably could have gotten your axle gross's close to "in the ballpark" by sliding your rears all the way back - but the few hundred lbs afforded by a sliding 5th, would probably had allowed you to shift enough to get drive/trailers within spec.

Ever wight your tractor to see what it's gross is - along with an unloaded trailer? Probably worth a scale ticket out of pocket, so you can tell at at glance by looking at the BOL, whether or not you're going to need a trip back to the shipper after scaling - or not.

Thanks again, for the LEARNING EXPERIENCE. That's just ONE MORE THING I'll be cognizant of - BEFORE I even graduate school and it the road myself...

Rick