Profile For Grinch

Nope not getting dumber.. You my friend are getting smarter and more observant because you care. We all go through this. When you first started you didn’t notice it as much because you were overwhelmed learning to not be that guy… now that you have good habits, you will notice the bad habits in others more.

Alejandro. What Old school said. Period.!!!!! I am a flatbed trainer. I had this exact conversation about productivity and sitting with 2 of my adopted rookie drivers this past week. You have to be willing to… To be willing to learn. To Be productive. To be dependable. To be efficient. To be ready for what next load is. To communicate.

Name on the door doesn’t matter. It’s what you make of it. I drive for Swift. I hear all the jokes. We swift “flatbeds” also get a lot of compliments from other drivers for not being like the average swift rookie dryvan driver. I currently have a former western express flatbed driver that is with us now, I adopted him and he calls me about every other day, he was there at WE for about 15 months to prove himself to the industry with his checkered past. In the past 3 months I have helped him go from about 1800 miles a week to 3000-3200 miles a week.

Merry Christmas Brett.made in to the house Saturday, a day early, a welcome change. Have some family that flew in. And prepping the house for an upcoming renovation project. I’ll be back out after new years to pick up a new flatbed student and get moving. Finished off the year with 127k miles total.

Francis. Flatbedder here.. honestly without seeing any pictures this will be difficult to diagnose for you but I’ll try. Typically when straps are suddenly loose it is because something has moved, wiggled or shifted. Remember belly straps are to provide a secure foundation for the top layers of the load.

Piping typically needs a couple circle wraps to pull them together. Even if bundled pipe..if the bundles aren’t touching they will slowly wiggle together and loosen up your straps

Recently I had a big metal pipe load. 20 inch diameter pipe- 30 ft long pieces. 2 layers 4 pieces on bottom 3 on top. Bottom layer had 2 belly straps to keep that layer in place during loading and unloading. I then used 2 chains hooked together at the front and back of the load to circle wrap the entire load and pull them all together.(4 chains total) The rest of the load was secure 5 more chains over the load. In addition to 2 more straps that were used to hold load in place while I chainedeverything.

Jean I’m a swift flatbed trainer. We are not required to team drive the truck with a student. That decision is left to the trainer to make with the student. The first 50 hours it is mandatory that the truck runs solo with the trainer in the passenger seat. After that it is based on your confidence if and when the truck would run as a team. Most of my fellow trainers in flatbed do what we call super solo. That means you drive your full drive clock, then maybe I pop in the seat for a couple of hours to position us to were we need to be if we got slowed down by accidents or weather for example.

Paul just do flatbed then you have all sorts of legal goodies that you can use to creatively give someone a really bad day and a trip to the ER.😂

Matt I’m reading this thread as I am parked in Pheonix at swift headquarters. I am a flatbed mentor based out of South Carolina. Yes you have seen stories of people waiting weeks… that is very rare and usually because the student is picky on mentor preference ie. Male, non smoker, vegetarian, only likes country music….. Not sure what terminal you did orientation, but they will get you matched up and moving. Sometimes you may hitch a ride with another driver to meet up with your mentor at a different terminal. Have patience. Depending on your mentor and comfort/ confidence level you may not start team driving till later in your time on the truck. I personally hardly ever team drive with my students. My thought pattern is there is always something to learn and you don’t learn if I’m asleep.

Steve , wallet out of pocket that will help. Try sliding your lower seat cushion forward a little, and tilting it back or forward.( your lower seat pad will tilt- not just the seat back) that will help relieve some pressure off the tailbone area. Purple pads are good as well. I just changed over from a kenworth to freightliner. And had to play with it until I got my comfort spot back. I also run my seat a little low so it relieves pressure on my thighs from the front edge of the seat.

I’ve got an alpicool as well smaller than naenae’s mine is a 38 or 40 qt. it sits on the floor behind my drivers seat. I train so bigger in the top bunk doesn’t work for my truck. I put about 2 weeks of stuff in there. I am good with that as usually about every 10-12 days I dip into a Walmart for bread vegetables fruit and such anyway.

Jason welcome to the start of your career at swift. I say that because you can easily make a career if it suits you at swift. I am a swift flatbed mentor and grey haired as well. Ignore what the internet trolls say, a lot of them are holding on to the bad wrap the company had years ago when we were in high school. Focus on you and your goals. Pay attention in the academy. The real learning will be with your mentor on the road after you have passed your cdl test portion. While you are with your mentor ask questions when you don’t understand something and ask them to explain the why we do this and why we do that. I may be out there in Pheonix while you are there if you see a flatbed truck with an American flag on the back and a golden retriever sticking her head out the window that would be me. Good luck and feel free to reach out. I typically try and pop in here every 2-3 days.