Congratulation! Just five more weeks and you will be wishing you had stayed at home. :D Just kidding, your first day you are dispatched in your truck will be the scariest few minutes of your life. You will be thinking, what did I get myself into?, then your training will kick in and you will be good to go. Remember, a positive attitude will make or break you. Good luck.

I spoke with my trainer today. He said he has one rule in his truck... to have as much fun as possible while getting the job done. I can live with that

I spoke with my trainer today. He said he has one rule in his truck... to have as much fun as possible while getting the job done. I can live with that

Sorry - posted twice

This was the first week of the Peterbilt Dedicated Account. It didn't get off to a good start for me. I had a load on Monday which delivered to Laredo on Tue. Monday was a Mexican holiday, so no frames crossed. So we didn't have loads for delivery on Wed. Myself and another dedicated driver had to run short runs that would get us back to Laredo for Wed. morning. Wed. we got our loads about mid day for delivery on Thur. morning.

We are learning that PB is a very picky account. If we deliver 15 minutes late, TMC is fined $250,000.00, yes, $250K. Each incidence. The frames can't have dust on them, nor footprints. When they arrive at the yard from Mexico, we have to untarp them, wipe all the dust off, photograph the load and retarp, without leaving footprints on the load.

We are trying to figure out how not to walk on the load or at least not to leave footprints. If we walk on the load in our boots, we will leave footprints. The Laredo yard is very dusty. We can take our boots off, which is dangerous, we can use the Clean Room Booties, lay plastic or I'm going to tell them to build a tarping device that can be used with a forklift. We use one of these in GP, Sweetwater. It will speed up the tarping process, also.

Since the load has to clear Customs coming from Mexico, we never know when the load will be ready. It really doesn't matter when it is ready, we still have to make our appointment times the next morning. Even if it clears Customs at midnight. That would be impossible, because it is an eight hour drive Laredo to Denton, but you get the point.

Yesterday, Friday, I had to wait until after close of business before they crossed. There was no hurry because it delivers on Mon. I took my time talking to other TMC drivers stuck at Laredo and went to eat with a friend stationed ther with the Border Patrol. I didn't get home until Sat. No big deal anymore, I'm home almost every day with very few exceptions.

I disagree with this statement. I can and do find the shortest route using my GPS. I use the Garmin 660 and once you learn how to use all its features you can quickly find the shortest or best routes. One of its disadvantages is that you can select only one waypoint. To find the shortest route may require multiple waypoints. It takes a little more effort on your part, but select your route using the closest waypoint, once you reach it, recompute your route using the second waypoint and so on. I can always find the route that TMC uses to compute our miles. I can't do anything about the short miles, (yes, I can, but my lips are sealed.)

Bill Davis Racing - Michael Annett
 

Well, the boy won the ARCA Remax Race for Bill Davis Racing with Pilot sponsorship. He drove quite a good race!

The TMC crew should be proud! And since he drives for a non-TMC team now, the TMC Tarp pay jokes will no-longer be of interest.

He is a good driver, should see him in the Grand National and Cup series before too long.

gold... sent you a pm. thanks for your help.

Not sure were this thread started, but I have to agree with TL! Depending on the system, you may have to find the tweaks to make it work for your application. I used Delorme, it took some playing with, but I figured out how to take out the non-truck friendly routes, and make it work for me. My OOR was always less than 4%, and many runs, especially in the southern part of the country, and Texas, I came in with negatives. I grew up on country roads, so routing thru Grandma's house, as the rock haulers put it, was a great diversion from the interstates. Trips from Utah to Texas or points Southeast.

TomTom's will never work for trucks! So for stand alone systems go with Garmin. For PC based, if you can afford PC Miler - excellent. If not, go with Delorme and learn how to tweak it.

Ditto on that $0.77 per mile freight. Several factors causing that. First Carlen Transport recently decided that loading trucks was more important that hauling a load profitably, so they are taking anything now, not just $1.25 per mile and up. Second there is less demand for building supplies right now, and with Maine producing lumber and only lumber for flatbed freight and nobody buying lumber there are a lot more trucks than loads. Third with the heavy snowfall up here some of the logging operations are shut down, leaving owner operators who usually haul logs or chips to haul OTR freight for the winter.


I actually had one load that ended up at less than $0.50 per mile to the truck when you counted going 100 miles the wrong direction home and then back.