Profile For Steve_HBG

Whats a CHEP ?

CHEP is a "Commonwealth Handling Equipment Pool" company that manufactures and supplies through either rental or lease agreements pallets for the retail supply chains, like Walmart, Target, U.S. Foods, Sysco, and McLane, to name a few.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHEP

As for scaling the load, I'd like to know each company's policy for scaling a load (i.e., is there a certain weight a load needs to reach before it becomes a requirement for the driver to scale it?).

This case interests me, because it could change the way Trucking Companies advertise in the future.

I read the Plaintiffs' "Third Amended Complaint," (http://www.crenglandclassaction.com/case_documents/Third_Amended_Complaint.pdf), and I found the language found in Clause 8 on page 4 (extending to the top of page 5) particularly helpful for me to identify exactly why the Plaintiffs' sued in the first place and why CR England may not be able defend itself...

In a classic bait and switch fraud beginning with the Drivers’ recruitment into ENGLAND truck driving school and afterwards, the Defendants subject the Drivers to a variety of fraudulent acts and manipulative techniques to convince them to purchase the Driving Opportunity instead of seeking the “guaranteed job” that Defendants offered and advertised. When prospective Drivers resisted purchasing the Driving Opportunity and insisted on remaining as an ENGLAND employee as promised in many documents and places, including without limitation the Student Training Agreement signed by each enrollee (including the Plaintiffs), Defendants ultimately told them either that they must purchase the Driving Opportunity for at least six months before they will be considered for employment or that they must wait an indefinite period for a truck to become available. Because of Defendants’ conduct, the vast majority of all persons completing Defendants’ truck driving school purchased the Driving Opportunity, consistent with Defendants’ never-disclosed but deliberately established and internally-promoted [the] goal of having at least 65% of the graduates of the driving schools purchase the Driving Opportunity.

Being the shrewd business model that is, CR England "recruited" drivers who thought they would have a "guaranteed" job at the end of their training, with costs ranging from $1,995 in cash to $2,995 in credit. Then, when those drivers finished their training, CR England told them they had a job if they purchased a driving opportunity.

Seems innocent enough to me, but not to those who relied on CR England's promotion of a guaranteed job only to find out they were the victims of a serious bait and switch program.

The law is what the law is, regardless of how "unfair" it may seem to some drivers.

As for myself, I am responsible for properly planning my trips to prevent poor performance and tickets. So, should I get a ticket for being overweight from a law enforcement officer in Erie, Colorado, I would have only myself to blame for said ticket.

I don't agree with the amount of the overweight ticket, but I do endorse the issuance of said tickets, simply because they are just and the drivers who either got them or will get them didn't exercise prior planning properly.

As drivers, we are responsible for planning and, for the most part, routing our own trips, right?

Daniel from California has an interesting (to me) account of successfully leasing with Prime and leaving that arrangement to happily pulling dual tankers.

As for me personally, every time I think about leasing, I simply think about the pain associated with walking without shoes on broken glass: I can't do it, but some people can...

Prime has cool video tutorials on our phone app for stuff like that.

Several present and past Swift Drivers have posted some cool videos on YouTube, as well. Additionally, Swift provides its drivers access to Swift University AND the "Shop" personnel who are available to answer any questions drivers may have about Swift's refrigerated trailers.

I wish I knew the name of Prime's "competitors."

No more than 11 hours of driving in a 24 hr period.

When I was driving OTR, I would begin my day at 12:00 midnight, drive until 6:00AM (six hours), sleep and relax until 4:00PM (10 hours), then drive until midnight before I would take another ten hour break. Doing that gave me 14 hours of driving time, and it was logged legally through QualComm...

So, I am not sure where the "no more than 11 hours of driving in a 24 hr period" rule can be found...

In my humble opinion, the quality of the training Dan E receives is based solely on the quality of the trainer... regardless of whether a Company is considered "good" or "bad."

Good luck to you, Dan E. I hope you find what you seek in this industry.

My company has a mixture of Peterbilts and Freightliners that drivers use as daycabs on the LTL runs. On those LTL runs, some drivers have 520 mile assignments with little or no downtime at the shippers and receivers while other drivers have 200 to 300 mile assignments with extreme amounts of downtime at both the shippers and at the receivers who use a Just In Time Inventory System.

So, I guess the answer to your questions depends on either equipment, miles, or both.

Patience is always your friend, and 61MPH is a wonderfully stress-free speed on the interstates at times.

From someone with only eight months of solo OTR experience, try to avoid running on recaps, because your "Available Time" and your "Driving Time" decrease simultaneously when the "Total Available Time" reaches 11 hours or less. Plus, the three hours available between 14 and 11 is gone, meaning every time one stops for the mandatory 30 minute break and "other" business, the "Time Available to Work" continues its countdown and there's nothing we can do to stop it.

Here is a real life example to help explain my statement.

I had an assignment to drive 555 miles from a shipper in South Bend, IN to a receiver in Harrisburg, PA. I had 9.5 hours TOTAL left on my clock to begin my day at the Shipper's dock. After a five minute loading and pre-trip exercise, I had nine hours and 25 minutes left to drive. However, I had to take a 30 minute break somewhere in next seven hours and 55 minutes, leaving me with only eight hours and 55 minutes to drive 555 miles. I average 61 miles per hour. So, I could only drive 543.9 miles that day (legally), leaving me 11.1 miles short of my destination, save for one major problem: I needed to stop once or twice for other affairs.

In the end, I would up falling 30 miles short of my destination that day, and I had to start my next day a bit earlier than necessary. Plus, I was still running on recaps, so my TOTAL TIME AVAILABLE TO WORK kept ticking away while I was unloading and, then, reloading the next day.

That's why I prefer one of two alternatives: (1) Average 8.75 hours of work every day, and never run out of hours or (2) run as hard as possible to use up the 70 as quickly as possible and take a 34 hour reset.

Good luck out there, and Stay Safe!

It's snowing in the PNW already.