Idaho State Police emphasis patrols
 

I just got an email tonight from my Driving instructor in Lewiston. He sent me a link to an article that he is quoted in regarding the emphasis patrols in the Lewiston area.

http://www.klewtv.com/news/local/51434457.html

congrats on passing and good luck in the real world. I take my test 7/29, so hopefully I'll see ya'll on the road very soon

First day of orientation, Sumner WA
 

Today was day 1 of a 2 day orientation. We have 10 students in our class, and 2 of us attended Swift's Academy. The other 8 students took a DOT Physical, and had to complete a driving test.

Since we attended Swift's Academy, Dave and I only needed to take the drug test today. We had to spend the entire day sitting in the drivers lounge while the other students did their stuff.

Basically today was a bog waste of time for Dave and I. We should have a better day tomorrow because the schedule is showing a lot of different terminal associates that will come in and give us an introduction.

If all goes as planned, we will have our driver codes on Wednesday afternoon. Waiting for a mentor may take a little bit longer!

Yeah...it took me a FULL WEEK from the END of orientation to actually get on a mentor's truck. Then THAT only lasted two weeks before i was off his truck and waiting a day for my next mentor.

Be sure you get what you ask for. If you want a non-smoking male, thats what you get. They tried to stick me with a smoker, and i for one didn't want to go to bed or sleep in a bed that smelled like the butt end of an ashtray.

i'm gonna be near the sumner terminal within a couple of days. i might walk over there from the rip-off shell to get myself a (free) shower. who knows if i'll see ya sitting in the lounge looking bored off your ass. :rofl:

Probably! The lazy a** orientation facilitator decided it was too hot to submit anyone for a driver code today, so she is waiting till the morning to start that process. The Drivers Services manager can't do anything till we get that code, so he thinks we may get on a truck Friday if we are lucky!

I figure they told me to be ready to go after orientation, so I am staying in the hotel till i get on a truck. I will be hanging around and making my presence known so he can get me on a truck as soon as possible.

Swift Orientation Day 2 Sumner WA
 

Today was the final day of orientation. We had a few different people from the terminal that came in and gave a small presentation. Most of the day was a bunch of useless information and a quick tour of the shop.

The terminal manager did come in for about an hour and gave a great talk on macro 10 and how important it is to get it accurate. He also spoke about fueling and fueling directions.
He spent about 20 minutes talking about DCI, and how Swift would save $16,000 a day if every driver cut there idle time by one hour. He did say that the Sumner terminal is at an 18% DCI, and the company is well above 25%.

He had some real neat calculations to show how many miles it takes to pay for an accident involving broken hinges on a trailer. Pretty neat insight, if his figures are correct. He used a profit margin of $0.13cpm, which is an old number and he said that it is currently more like .03cpm. With a minor incident of $500 damage, it would take over 3600 miles to pay for the damages. It was cool to see this on paper and putting a number to the damages.

Our class was released at 2:30, and the lazy facilitator said she won't submit anyone for a driver code till Thursday morning because it was too hot today. So now we all have to wait till at least Friday till we even have a chance to get on our mentors truck!

So some of us will be sitting around the terminal thursday just to make sure we don't get forgotten.

Don't the Knight drivers get to shower at the Gordon terminal anymore??

Yeah I spent a good part of Tuesday in that lounge, and saw they do have what seems like a good amount of decent showers. When we toured the shop today at about 11:45am, there were about 15 drivers just chillin in that lounge. From what I saw in the shop, I bet most of their trucks were waiting on service. The yard was just packed with tractors in line for some kind of service.