Profile For Pianoman

I know the self insured carriers don’t directly get effected by this, but talking with my insurance agent he revealed many insurance companies are starting to mandate cameras for clients. Of course the client is free to refuse, however their insurance will get cancelled.

PJ, was your agent talking about cameras in general or inward facing cameras specifically?

I think you most likely dodged a bullet. Reading between the lines it sounds to me like there were two things going on here. The first and most obvious is he clearly wants someone more experienced in trucking who he doesn't have to train from the ground up. I understand where he's coming from on this and I don't think he's wrong at all for wanting that. New drivers really don't have any idea what they're doing and how to be productive and safe at the same time. Experience teaches you to learn the difference between serious and minor issues with the equipment. It also teaches you which rules you can bend and which ones you have to follow to the letter all the time. It takes the better part of a year for you to really start to get a grasp on how things work in the world of trucking. In the meantime, you generally aren't going to be particularly productive or much of an asset to your company. That's just the reality in this industry. It's nothing personal.

The second thing I think might be going on and the reason I think you may have dodged a bullet, is that it's very possible this company is not exactly the best at making sure they're following regulations as best as they can. Lots of companies, especially smaller local companies, cut corners where they can and to some extent expect their drivers to do the same. Very very few of us, if any of us, follow all the regulations out there all the time. It's pretty much impossible. But especially when you're fresh out of school and have no real world experience and are bound to make a few mistakes, it is in your best interest to work somewhere that makes every effort to run legally and above board and will also have the patience to work with your level of inexperience. Working a fast paced job that turns a blind eye when you cut corners or run illegal is definitely not the kind of place to work when you're new and it's a great way to screw up and make some mistakes that might follow you for years and hurt or end your career early. They also tend to be the kind of place that will hang you out to dry if you cut a corner like skipping a pretrip and then have an accident or breakdown that could have been prevented with a proper pretrip.

Of course, the latter is purely speculation about this particular company. I have no idea if this company is above board or not. But I do work in the cement industry as a bulk cement driver (not a mixer driver) and I deliver to batch plants all the time and have an idea what the job is like. Production is everything in the cement industry. When things get busy we're all doing everything we can to maximize our productivity and haul as much as possible as quickly as possible. It's also extremely competitive and drivers and companies will often cut corners just to get that extra load in.

Get your experience in somewhere else and if you still want to come back to this company in a year give it a shot.

I can says that they are Continuously use way over their rated capacity and not 1 person seems to care about the safety of the worker or the damage to the trucks, broken- axle bolts, broken lower trailing arm bushings transmissions etc.

Depends on where you work. I drove them at two different companies and they were properly maintained. If something was out of service we wrote it up and it was downed until it was fixed.

Anyone else wonder why you can't carry over 40000 on drives of a trademark truck, but a shunt truck is required to move trailer with upwards of 45,000lbs on the single drive axle and not 1 person gives a thought?

Again...depends on where you work. I doubt I ever pulled anywhere close to that on the drive axle. I didn't ever pull it over a scale but if tandems don't typically exceed 34000 lbs why would there somehow be around 45000 lbs on the drive axle of the hostler? Of course I realize that hostlers are often pulling trailers with the tandems all the way to the rear which shifts more weight to the drive axle, but hostlers are also much lighter trucks than the full size sleeper trucks that typically pull the trailers once they leave the yard.

Really though, to answer your question...it's being driven at low speeds in a private yard away from other vehicles and the trucks and tires are over-engineered to be able to handle more weight than they're rated for.

It annoys me and distracts me by frustration

I’m so glad you hit on this point. This is my issue with excessive safety equipment on the truck. Once the safety equipment starts getting too intrusive it actually begins to distract the driver. I’m happy my truck doesn’t have anything besides an outward facing camera—no radar, no lane departure sensors and warnings, no inward facing camera (which honestly I wouldn’t mind too much if the company is primarily using it for light coaching as needed).

How are you supposed to adequately focus on the road when you have a device constantly beeping at you and talking to you when you’re not even doing anything wrong? It brings your attention away from the road where you should be looking, to inside the cab and to the dash or the camera. Safety equipment should assist the driver, not create another obstacle the driver has to navigate around just to do their job.

I’m all about being safe but damn if all this “safety” equipment isn’t getting excessive these days.

That's why when I blocked the front sensor off, it eliminated erratic braking and following distance problems etc....I was never called out on it , not knowing if those sensors ever sent a "loss of signal" message. My mentor told me he had drove like this over 2+ years without issues. I just made sure I removed the aluminum plate I used, before turning in my truck. Yes maybe I was a bad boy, but I never followed too close or sped very much out of speed limits, not to brag but I drove sensibly to avoid any problems or wrecks.

Damn man. I promise you I abhor the emergency braking and front sensors in these trucks. I have been fortunate enough to have no forward facing radar now for a few years and I definitely don't miss it. That said, you are so lucky you never got into an accident with the front radar covered. You would probably be in prison right now if you had gotten into an accident and gotten caught with that covered. To newer drivers reading this, please please please do not do this. If you hate the front radar that much, just do what I did and find a company that doesn't run it in their trucks.

Not picking on you Stevo, love ya man. I just can't read this and say nothing because it can have some very bad consequences for the driver.

I got 2 months experience as reefer driver going to 3 months looking for companies that hire people for a tanker jobs otr or regional or tanker/hazmat so can get my foot into that career

I'd recommend getting into dry bulk tanker if you're interested in tanker this early in your career. In dry bulk you pull and operate a pneumatic tanker and transport products like cement and sand. There is also food grade dry bulk. It's nice because you get many of the perks of pulling a tanker without all the added risk that comes with liquid tanker since dry bulk doesn't surge like liquid tanker does. Another added benefit of dry bulk is there tend to be quite a few local or regional jobs in that segment of trucking.

I agree with the others. I'd avoid liquid tanker (esp. hazmat liquid tanker) this early in your career.

It's totally possible and many of us do it. It also involves many nights away from home and lots and lots of hours. A typical trucker's week consists of 60-70 hours of work (on the clock). A typical OTR trucker doesn't have a set schedule either. It's not uncommon for a driver's schedule to completely flip flop multiple times per week. By the time you factor in the unpredictability of the schedule, the work load, the extra time typically spent doing work related activities off the clock, the time away from home, the stress from dealing with traffic and adverse weather conditions, the physical impact of spending so much time sitting, and other things not listed here...it's not hard to see why it's possible to make $1500-2000 a week even with relatively little experience. In my opinion, if it didn't offer the potential to make a decent wage, most drivers would quit. In fact, most drivers DO quit because it doesn't take long in the seat to realize this career isn't worth it for the money alone long term. If you don't enjoy the job itself you'll experience burnout very quickly.

Trucking pays what it does out of necessity

Of course I’m wondering what it pays low to high

Anywhere from 60-90k plus. Many drivers are able to pull six figures OTR but if you’re new to OTR I would aim for 80s to 90s considering you already have driving experience. 60-65 cpm is pretty standard pay these days.

what the lifestyle is like

Lonely, long drives, lots of hurry up and wait, beautiful scenery, plenty of time to listen to podcasts and music, frustrating days where nothing works and you make next to nothing, great days where you hammer down 700+ miles, etc.

Personally I don’t like OTR because the long drives are boring to me and I miss home too much. Many people love the peace and solitude. Everyone is different.

You drivers that live on the road, what do you put for your home address? Because I’m concerned if I used a P.O. Box would it affect my background check for Hazmat?

You can totally use a PO Box (I did when I sold my house and went OTR) but you still need a physical address for your license and plenty of other things. Use a friend or family member’s address as a permanent address and get a PO Box as your mailing address. If that’s not an option you can get a mailbox with UPS (I think other companies offer this option too)—it’s just like a PO Box but it technically counts as a physical address.

If I may, here’s some unsolicited advice on looking for jobs and going from local to OTR:

- do not make the mistake of simply looking for highest possible cpm. Look at the entire pay package and try to find out what the annual pay is going to look like. There are many variables in OTR and cpm isn’t everything. I always ask the recruiters what the average annual pay is. I also look for what company is going to have consistent miles. Lower cpm and higher miles generally equates to higher annual pay than higher cpm and lower miles.

- keep your eye on the prize. Do not let yourself get discouraged with a few low paychecks or the feeling you aren’t being compensated fairly because you sat in a dock unpaid for several hours or sat for a couple days without pay. That is unfortunately par for the course with OTR. Mentally, it is very difficult to go from being local where you are paid for every second and/or activity, to OTR where there are a lot of activities that are “included” in your mileage pay. I’m not here to discuss if it’s ethical or not, but I still say if you want to be successful OTR, remember why you did it in the first place. The only thing that matters financially is what you bring home annually and how much you’re saving on overhead. Don’t miss the forest for the trees.

Best of luck sir. I’m sure you’ll do fantastic.

That's amazing Kearsey! Congrats and great job putting in the work!!

Different strokes for different folks.

I love local. It can be a grind for sure, but I'd take local over otr any day of the week. I get so bored with the long endless drives on the same flat interstates every day that I find myself WANTING to distract myself while driving.

Doing local, the grind and the hustle keeps my mind occupied more and I tend to just get into the groove. I do better with less time to think and keeping my hands and mind occupied doing the job. I also like being able to be home more often even though I don't get much time each evening. Being able to see my gf and my dog every day makes the grind more worth it for me.