Profile For Smith J.

They're offering both P&D and wild boards. From the sounds of things I'd rather run the wild board. I don't want to run locally, and I was told I would make more money on the linehaul than p&d. So you still had 4 weeks of training even though you went to truck driving school and already had your cdl?

Stay at linehaul offices is better then the rout rotations.

Matt has heard:

They wanted to go to Schneider simply because they said they'd put us in a hotel.

You can't get the OTR experience starting in hotels. I can't believe any trucking company will spend $100 +/- night for your training.

My mentor set a rule: when he closes the sleeper curtain, act like he's not there - I'm on my own except for emergencies.

So not to worry about "that other guy" or privacy. I was satisfied with how it all worked out.

Also you may hear that Swift is a crappy company - they screw their drivers, etc. They didn't get to be one of the largest trucking companies by doing that.

Another thing: you mentioned an auto restriction. Again, not to worry. There's a recent topic here taking about auto vs manual. The big companies jumped on to auto shift as soon as it was practical. It saves then money and is actually safer.

I completely agree with everything you said. Some other people in my class had the "ew, sharing a cab with someone?!" mentality. I have no problem with it, and I may even consider team driving at some point if the money is right. To be fair, one of those classmates was a younger lady and may have thought that she would have to share living quarters with a man. The rest were grown men, though, and some of them didn’t seem like the types who would last in this industry very long.

I also found it strange that they’d foot the expense for a hotel, etc., but I’m pretty sure that’s what they told us. It seems like a waste of money for someone who may very well leave your company within the next 6-12 months. But back to your point: that really isn’t OTR driving, so I wouldn’t be getting OTR training.

I agree with you about Swift, too. A company that size is obviously going to have incidents just based on pure odds and statistics. Someone in my class even looked up their safety score online and found that it was pretty much the same as any other mega carrier. Towards the end of our final days in class, our teacher would show some YouTube trucking videos just for fun. We saw quite a few that seemed to purely bash Swift and its drivers. I thought it seemed unfair. If they were that unsafe of a company, I don’t imagine they’d still be in business and thriving. Like you said, "They didn't get to be one of the largest trucking companies by doing that."

I’m happy to hear about the auto restriction, and that’s what I’ve gathered from snooping around online. I also looked up CDL jobs on Indeed around my area, and out of the first 105 ads shown, I could only find about eight that were manual-only. On top of that, a few of those eight jobs didn’t even pay all that well. You’d think that knowing and driving manual would net you some more cash, but that doesn’t always seem to be the case. Most truckers seem to agree that manual is on its way out, except for a few niche roles where it is an advantage. The parent of one of my classmates is a driver and apparently hauls double tankers in an automatic. All I know is, it sure felt safer for me when I took my road exam in the automatic instead of the manual.

Thanks for all your help.

I second your opinion

So, according to Google and a 74% of all cargo and Highjacking happen in Californa.

So, today in driving class, this topic came up, and no one seems to know the answer, so I will ask it here.

Legally, what can a truck driver do if someone is attempting to hijack his cargo or truck?

I called the California Highway Patrol, but they were unhelpful and ultimately did not have an answer. I also called the three California law firms, which also did not have a clear answer as to what a truck driver may or must do or are allowed to do to protect themselves, their truck, and/or the cargo they are hauling. The one clear answer I did receive, was then legally any property being hauled by the truck driver is lawfully considered the truck drivers property, thus they would have a responsibility to protect that property.

Now, if> the United States Constitution still had merit or power behind it, I would say that an individual would have the constitutional legal authority to protect themselves or their property from imminent danger to one's life, or property. Yet, in this nation of greed, the Constitution has little merit unless you are rich. Especially in California, where there is a 95% conviction rate before you see a judge or lawyer and a 99.9999% conviction rate after you meet with the public defender or lawyer or into the courtroom.

So I ask again: If someone attempts to hijack a semi-truck while it is going down the road, stopped, etc., what is the truck driver allowed to do to protect themselves?

Is your life worth risking over a load of TVs? Beer? Auto parts? If not, what cargo would be?

I think anyone can smell the danger if it the danger is high no one should risk the life as everyone has a family that will suffer if anything happens. If you have life you can bear any loss.