Profile For Davy A.

So sorry to hear this. Her encouragement and kind words helped so many of us. Heartbreaking.

The intermittent loads and lack of consistency, lack of pre plans is very typical of OTR at large carriers. You can find that you're doing everything right in what we say, being safe, productive and reliable, on time and communicating well yet there's only so much work to go around.

Even experienced drivers have been struggling to keep the miles coming in at large carriers in many sectors.

In addition to the lack of freight, most of the large carriers are also reducing the amount they pay in labor and ancillary costs as much as possible in response to the market shift that occurred. I'm not condoning the practice, just acknowledging the conditions. It's industry wide, the larger the carriers, the more prevalent it is.

Some solutions might be seeing if they offer a dedicated account or niche accounts. These generally carry more consistent miles. Another avenue that I used at Knight was to take loads in regions that others didn't want to and find strategies to make it work. IE, doing a lot of loads in Socal, but running them at night. Taking loads across 80 in Wyoming for months at a time, running mountains in the winter. I found that the majority of the time the roads were bare and dry, and I could always get extra miles by routing around errant storms while making myself of value to the planners.

I'd recommend sitting down and really strategizing on how you can maximize your value and get the most miles you can, but also realize that it's a battle and many corporations are moving towards an approach of handing loads out not based on driver quality as much but rather which truck was in the area first. There's not a whole lot one can do to combat it except have strong fundamentals and be willing to take the loads without complaint.

There also comes a time when your present company perhaps doesn't check enough of your boxes for what you need. If that happens, and you have maximized your realistic earning potential there, than it may be time for you to research other companies. I stayed with my first company for 3 years. I formed some great relationships in the industry and learned much. When they no longer were a fit to my plans, I changed to a company that aligned to my goals after a lot of careful consideration. The patience and careful research paid off well.

I personally wouldn't recommend changing companies right now given the surplus of drivers and lack of freight. Also, a year of experience at least, seems to be the benchmark for opening doors. In many cases even two.

No matter what route you take, the fundamentals of being a top tier driver need to be first and foremost. Safe, productive, reliable and easy to work with. I understand your frustration and the confusion too of doing everything well yet not getting enough miles.

I'm guessing it's the smell of the def burning. "I love the smell of Urea in morning"

Stinks to high hell. In more ways than one. I generally try to park next a Toyota prius or Tesla with tons of liberal bumper stickers plastered on them as my way of saying thanks for the environmental bull fertilizer we now have to live with.

If Werner really hated you, you would have been terminated.

I've never done a dollar account, but I've had plenty of off the wall crazy tight backing in all three of those trucks.

The difference in turning radius is pretty negligible in all three. The KW has the longest nose swing, which gets a lot of people into trouble. Meaning as your backing, the nose of the truck sticks further out and takes a slightly larger radius to complete. It's manageable if your fundamentals are solid. IE Goal, know your surroundings, and be cognizant of the front of your tractor. It's a common belief that the turning radius is longer, but it's actually not.

When backing, the tandems to kingpin relationship determine the arc, so it's all about the same. I've had some places that were damn near impossible to get it in, but still did just fine. I'm on my 3rd KW t680, this one has a deer guard on it, still doable. Also, the ride quality, functionality and reliability of the KW are supreme, even at high miles, provided it's the Cummins X15 with Eaton endurant/rears drive train. The Paccar power plants gernade north of 400k frequently.

The intertrashinals I've ran at 400k have been absolutely miserable, but the window is handy for blindside, they back just like any other truck. The rest of the driving experience is a cross between terrifyingly sloppy steering and horrible transmission/engine manners with dismal reliability and functionality. You couldn't pay me enough to drive one. Oh yeah, and the chair resembles a medieval torture device.

These are subjective opinions of course. I'm also tall and thin, so the T680 works well for me. Can't stress enough that a great driver can drive a poor quality truck well, but a bad driver can't drive a great truck well.

Sorry to hear. Definitely about adherence to the pattern or system.

Out of distraction, I've yet to drip a trailer, but I've pulled out with the lines connected twice. Once recently. Got away lucky. The previous time, I bought and replaced the pigtail myself, was pretty embarrassed.

It's funny, I remember seeing this thread and thinking that I would post in it if I successfully made trucking into a career. Time went on and I forgot about it.

I was primarily in construction for most of my life, started as a labor/apprentice framing when I was 15. I framed, roofed, siding, general construction while learning my way up. I ended up doing large scale water and fire damage restoration, moving from a lead carpenter to bags on super, to project manager to director of operations. We did large commercial and residential losses, many of which made the news frequently. I had peroids of time where I always had my own business going. I burned out on the restoration industry and owned/operated an interior trim, stair railing and door company for the remainder of my years in construction.

I've played music professionally, had a couple of record deals that went south due to young musicians doing things that we do. I still play music and record.

I raced motorcycles for decades, taught but not enough to consider it a profession. I raced enduros and dirt, desert racing as a kid. I road raced for many years, was sponsored but never made any money at it. I still have an AMA number, and our club eventually moved to AMA racing. While it sounds impressive, it's just club racing, and with age comes the cage. I will be hitting tracks again, but in a car this time around. I stayed relatively injury free, but have lost a few friends to the tarmac gods in the sky.

I taught skiing professionally for 10 years as will. I'm PSIA certified. I also coached and taught adaptive. I still ski, although it's nice to be able to do it without having to dive into the technical side of it, it never leaves you once you teach at a professional level. I was filmed for some commercials at some of the resorts I taught at. I also was an on site rep for various manufacturers at that time until finally staying with Elan skis, which I still ski on today.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and family as well

We get 6 paid holidays per year. I'm taking Thanksgiving off, headed over to try and finalize purchasing a house in TX n OK. I asked long in advance if they needed me on the holiday. Haven't decided in Christmas yet, depends on getting the house. Probably do cancun for new years

That is erroneous information. Certain benzodiasopens such as Valium, Zanax and other anti depressants are screened for, almost all carriers test higher than DOT, its the minimum screen. Failing a test, be it the carriers or DOT will have catastrophic concequences for your ability to get into this industry.

Take care of the underlying conditions, medications are used to treat symptoms. Insomnia in its own right is enough to seriously hamper attempting this career.

Man, I'm sorry to hear that Bob.

Brett, were as busy as can be. I ended up with a day of layover waiting for a load, but that was due to a mix up in the office between regular and after hours. The only thing that limits my miles is taking time off. I'm out 12, in for 2 but lately I've done 3 weeks out and taken 3 or 4. If I do have a light week due to weather or other factors, my DM and I will push hard the next week so it averages 3k a week. I've managed to best my personal record a couple times, pulling 4200 miles in a week.