Profile For Davy A.

Even Musk has said that we're capped at battery capacity relational to weight utilizing existing materials that we know of on this planet.

ICE powered vehicles continue to become more and more efficient and powerful. Eventually I'd expect electro magnetic propulsion, nitrogen based fuels and bio fuels particularly in regards to freight hauling.

They have been successfully doing continuous production biodesiel using centrifuges for a while now. In the early days of biodeseil, it was only batch made like whiskey. Our existing deisel motors can easily be retrofitted to accept B100 fuel, it's changing the ECU, fuel lines and seals.

The biggest hangup is that the oil and gas producers are vested in their current systems, the coat to switch wouldn't benefit them compared to the cost of extraction and refinement using existingmeans many of which are decades old. So they lobby and buy out to keep it as is.

Without having at least general cities on pick up n destination it's hard to day. But if your route involves going over Snoqualmie, that means Seattle area to south eastern Oregon. That's more than a 6 hour trip. Not sure where you're getting your calculations from. But considering the weather and your comfort/experience level, consider that your more likely to average 40 mph, 6 hours is 240 miles.

In general, without checking specific weather, Snoqualmie is a low elevation pass, it gets a lot of wet heavy snow but it also melts quickly.

I usually don't take 26 because it's tight, has a lot of elevation changes and you make better time going down 97. In either case, you're average speed is going to be much slower than tsking interstates. 97 has a lot of towns, curves and a lot of it is two lane. Conditions change rapidly and US highways get treated after interstates. They don't have a high of priority.

Good that you're trip planning, here's some tools I use.

Where you're hauling to and from?

HOS, on all clocks?

Weight?

Weather on the routes?

Adjust average speed for the above. How many miles based on conditions will you get each day?

Set stop points, break points and ETA?

Try Driveweather app. It's easy to use, it's based off NOAA.

Also Ventuski app, windy app, and SafetravelUSA which houses all 511 apps for road conditions. Also monitor your NOAA all hazards radio constantly to keep updated on changes as they occur.

Once you have an idea of how long it's going to take you, you can give that info to your dispatcher so they can make adjustments.

For the purpose of passing the test, I used the tactic of being wide a bit. Go straight until your shoulder is even with the curb or line of the street you're turning on to.

As an experienced driver as well, I can't stand them. In fact it was one of my criteria foe choosing the company I did. We have very little nanny state equipment and what there is can be turned off. We have no cameras, in or out and I will not work for a company that uses driver facing cams.

The adaptive cruise can be useful, but it's so faulty that it's totally unreliable. The AI algorithms on the rest of it is just plain garbage. The crash mitigation systems actually cause more harm than they prevent. Including the now infamous case against Bendix Wingman and Honda after their systems false deployed full braking, shooting the vehicle into oncoming traffic as a result and killing 4 occupants.

In general companies that use the so called "driver aids" do so to reduce driver pay in the form of a barrier to pay out bonuses. It's a manipulation of their intended purposes, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The audible coaching is downright annoying, a safety hazard, and results in most of us muting our tablets.

If you want safer drivers, pay trainers more, develop a standardized cariculum of training and development of physical motorskills training with objective milestones, pay drivers more and enforce existing laws in regards to understanding English and immigration policies, B1 visas and stem the flow of said drivers from Canada and Mexico on reciprocal licenses.

Knight, and a few others absolutely do not team train. The trainer is in the passenger seat the entire time. After your shift, the trainer may drive a few hours, but generally not.

Their training peroid is 2 to 4 weeks depending on if you take their top gun class. They will take people with an existing cdl but no experience on a case by case basis, but I wouldn't expect it. Depends on how stale your cdl is.

There are no contract companies. But it's recommended to stay at least a year anyway. Knight is a no contract company and you are actually hired BEFORE you attend their CDL school, so you're not as at risk of getting sent home but, they're very picky on hiring. In addition, you get paid while in school but no lodging is covered.

There are lots of trade offs in the industry. Invthe end, most programs are similar in nature for outcomes.

The reason that the phrase "starter company" gets used so much is that there are indeed companies that do specialize in recruiting and training prospective drivers from the ground up. They're great places to start at, they have excellent resources, training skills and equipment and are often more forgiving of the mistakes rookies make.

The trade off is that they pay less. But, it's not really a trade off for the new driver. A rookie has no marketable skills, no performance history and won't be able to really produce safely in volume for about a year or two anyway.

The time to even begin to think of switching or not switching companies is so far down the line that it's totally irrelevant for where you are in things. Concentrate on getting accepted to a company first, then your permit, then your CDL, then make it through training, then make it through your first year accident and incident free.

I stayed with my first company for 3 years and still regularly talk with my old terminal manager and some of corporate there, I'm personally friends with many of my old DMs there as well. Never burn bridges.

We have a saying as musicians: It's not what you play that matters, it's what you don't play.

Similarly, the most important part about winter driving is not driving. Since that's the focus, the tools for learning when not to drive are abundant, it's weather forecasting and trip planning.

Planning your route around storms both geographicly and time wise is going to be a much more useful strategy. It's looking outside the box. Most new drivers think very linear, I must learn the skills to drive through this weather.

Those skills will come in time, a little bit at a time. An iced over DC parking lot, a little bit of highway with snow on it, a little but of windy areas, they come with experience over the course of your driving.

But learning the weather patterns and translating radar and forecasting models you can do from day one. The only 100 percent proven policy is not to be on the road in inclement weather.

Certain areas of the country have usual patterns to the weather, it's very predictable, such as Wyoming on 80 and 25, windy during the day, calmer at night except during winter time storms accompanied by quick moving low pressure systems. Or Donner on 80, heavy snow years, the most I've ever had to wait was a day. Western ranges don't typically get as cold, so the snow has hogher moisture content. It's much more like mud, melts quickly but is super greasy.

Colorado mountains get tacky frequently, but they can be erratic, especially if there's inversions happening. Again, I've seldom had to wait more than a day or two.

There's several threads on here about weather forecasting apps, I have my own system of data analytics I use to make my decisions on a run, it just takes a few moments now and it ensures success.

OTR encompasses a wide range of things, but assuming reefer and or dry van general freight, which is the most common, there are similarities and differences.

On one hand, there are long routes mainly interstate, but there are also a lot of shorter runs and regional type positions that are still labeled as OTR.

My company, as did the previous one, will generally keep me in regions for a week or two at a time, most of my runs are only a day or two long, usually 500 to 1000 miles at most. I will also follow somewhat of a route or pattern depending on when and where I take home time at. My freight is very predictable though because mist of it is contract with customers we've had for many years.

As was said, most otr is paid piecework, by the mile, but it's not the only determination in what you make. Some things to consider are how many miles you have access to in the form of completed jobs each week, terminals and drop lots, this is huge in metro areas that are scarce on parking and empties, ancillary pay meaning breakdown, layover and detention. Benefits and bonus structures make a huge difference too.

Managing your clocks is quite different. The main focus will shift to preserving your 70 hour, so any time you can legally be in off duty or sleeper during your daily duties yet ballanced out with recaps for the next week becomes paramount. It's one of the biggest factors in limiting how much money you can generate. You learn to strategize and think differently.

For example, you may find yourself running on recaps quite a bit, effectively limiting you to about 500 miles a day.

You have an 800 mile load on Monday, delivers Tuesday. The next load is a live load on Weds AM near your Tuesday delivery. In this case, you call the weds shipper, and find out that you can load any weekday before noon. So that you don't loose half of Tuesday, you drive almost a full clock on Monday, leaving you 150 miles to the delivery Tues, use split berth, deliver Tues early am, go over and get loaded a day early on Weds shipper, and kill off the short part of your split while in the dock. You'll have to spread the extra hours you spend on Mon out on your 70 later in the week by working a couple 7.5s but not so short that you screw yourself out of recaps the next week.

It's a lot to think about, but you're totally in control of how much money you make. Efficiency is a must.

OTR can be a very rewarding experience with a very dynamic and changing environment. I personally enjoy the self reliance of it, the control I have and never going to the same place all the time. I too get bored with repeat routes. I also enjoy the scenery and I spend well over half my time on the US highways and state highways, so I get to see a lot of America that most people don't. Doing interstate only is a grind.

I'm just not a local driver. After having worked construction for so long, I have no desire for doing physical labor.

The traffic drives me nuts, and having done local, I found that at the end of the day, I couldn't stand to even see the inside of truck. It also seems to involve the same early rising mindset that construction has.

In short, it's the very antithesis of why I got into trucking: Call my own shots, work whatever schedule I choose as long as the work gets done on time and correctly, minimal or no office supervision, the freedom of driving down the road away from the hustle and bustle of people and cities.

The thing I love about trucking, especially OTR is that in the end it's really only your performance that matters. If it's safe and on time, you win.

So much about so many other things in life is about weather you followed procedures correctly or filled out your form correctly. My company cares that I'm safe, productive on time or early and flexible. How I get those results is completely up to me.

I've turned down more than a few dedicated and local. Just can't stand it.

Congratulations! Quite an accomplish. Congrats on the weight loss, a battle well fought and won. You look stunning.