Profile For Dan R.

Perhaps because you know as well as I do that isn't enforced while this one will be, and will be able to be enforced by any police officer not just ones trained in motor carrier enforcement if it turns out it does, in fact, apply to us.

Why am I thinking a law that came into effect eight days ago is new? Because it came into effect eight days ago.

If you're actually confused as to why its a good idea to talk about a new law that may or may not apply to us and will be strictly enforced up to and including jail time just because there's a federal law on the books that is effectively not enforced, I don't know what to tell you.

For those unaware, Oregon recently enacted a new distracted driving law that bars use of any devices not permanently mounted in a vehicle. Prior there was a major loophole in the cell phone rules where in order for it to be a violation the officer must see another violation taking place to make the stop, and the cell phone violation must involve two way communication with another person(so, basically, you could legally check your bank balance, but if you send a text crying about your balance you'd be in violation...). You are allowed one touch to an electronic device for the purposes of things like changing a song.

Depending on the articles you read, truck drivers may be exempt. I would not be so sure, having read the law. Not being a lawyer who knows, but from what I saw the only exception for us is the use of CB's(both mobile and portable units). It may well be that to get clarification on that will take it going to court a few times, but as it stands: don't touch devices. GPS, qualcom, dash cam, phone(obviously), or anything not permanently mounted(as in with glue or screws, NOT suction cups or magnets). May even be a good idea to just turn off as many of these as possible as one police department has already been quoted that reasonable suspicion to make a stop on this law is seeing the electronic glow of a screen.

Washington has a very similar law recently put on the books, but that one DOES have a clear exception for truck drivers.

Article on Oregon law

Text of the new Oregon law

May have sounded like I'm against this, but I'm definitely not. I think some clarification is needed on some things, but anything that stops people from getting distracted(and this WILL, eventually, as multiple violations can turn it into a misdemeanor crime and even potential jail time) is a wonderful thing. Just wanted to give a heads up as I know I'm not the only one that, despite not holding my phone and texting all day, I will occasionally do more than a 'single touch use' of a device. I'm not proud of that, and hopefully this helps me break myself of that.

Digging up an old post here, but with relevance. I had this same thing happen to me yesterday, kept rolling so we'll see if I have a ticket to fight with their photo enforcement. It's my home state, so I'll be there to fight it if need be.

But the funny one happened a few weeks ago. Same basic thing, red light. I see the closed sign... until I get about 100ft from it, and I see it switch to open. Doh! I swear, if it weren't for the fact that I know about their photo enforcement, I'd have just pretended I never saw the change...

[continued] Your first six months: To start with, one thing that sets England apart from most other companies is that you don't pay for school. Nothing upfront, nothing taken out of your check, no reimbursement. If you fulfill your contract(mine was 8 month, I hear they're doing 10 month ones now), you never have to pay a penny for the school.

School with England is ten days long. The first three days is classroom stuff, the second three days are driving on the road(shifting course, cornering, mountain driving, one day each). The third three days is backing, with the tenth day being additional practice as needed and testing. During this time you'll be put in a 'hotel' of some kind. They aren't five star, and frankly the one in Salt Lake sucks(8 person dorm rooms), but for free school and getting into a great career, I find it to be an acceptable hell to go through.

At the end of your ten days you're put with a trainer on a truck. They are constantly changing the length of time required here, but it tends to work out to about three weeks. During this time you'll be evaluated, given instruction, as well as get routed through your home state to take your paper test and get your Class A. You are forbidden from going home during this period, however.

After you finish whatever amount of time they want from you in that portion of training that week, you'll get routed to one of our terminals where you'll go through a day long upgrade class and test. On successful completion you become a Phase II driver and get placed with a Phase II Lead driver, and the two of you drive as a team for about a month(a set number of miles/hours, but this they change frequently too). This is your first opportunity to take home time. This is also the most ridiculous period in England employment, teaming up two drivers with a combined experience of less than six months. It was originally designed to help out lease operators when they were pushing leases a lot and having a lot of people default. Now it just seems like a terrible program.

After you finish up your time on that truck, you go back and upgrade again(nearly identical class and test), and upon successful completion of that you are given your own truck and your own second seat Phase II driver. This portion lasts until six months from hire or you get brought onto one of the regional or dedicated accounts. If you aren't brought onto regional or a dedicated account you can choose to either become a trainer or a Phase II Advanced Lead.

I'm happy with England. There are aspects of other companies that are certainly better, but so long as you get those wheels moving you can have a great(and yes, well paying) career with England.

Little late to the party here, but I'm a current CR England driver. Here's some details on the things Brett mentioned, as well as some details on what you can expect from before school to going solo. Keep in mind, they do change things and some of this is a year old, but it should still be fairly accurate.

Home time: This varies based on what you're doing. You do not get home time during school or training, which last a combined one month. When you upgrade to Phase II you are in the national division which allows for home time once per month at a rate of one day earned for every week on the road. This rate is similar to what most of the jobs in the company offer, with the difference coming in how frequently you can go on home time. For instance, I earn a day per week as well, but I'm able to take it every two weeks as a Western Region driver. Local drivers, obviously, get home every night (with some rare exceptions).

Pay and benefits: During training you're paid $15/hour for drive time, $10/hour for on-duty not driving. When you upgrade to Phase II you get changed to mileage pay at 14 cents per mile team pay(so for every mile the truck rolls you get 14 cents, not just what you yourself drive). When you upgrade to Phase II Lead you get bumped up to 16 cents per mile, and Phase II Advanced Leads get 18 cents per mile.

That's the crappy part, but it gets better from there. At just over a year in I'm on a sliding scale ranging with an average pay of 36 cents per mile. One thing I really like is that I'm also getting about $15/hour, and get paid either for mileage or hourly, whichever is higher. So I know that whether I'm doing 600 miles per day or take 14 hours to go ten miles but am working my butt off, I'm going to get paid decent.

They offer full insurance at what I consider an affordable rate, though as a disclaimer I don't have much experience in this so I might be getting bilked.

Types of freight: England is primarily a refrigerated freight company, so a lot of produce and dairy. But the great thing about a refrigerated trailer is that when the refer is off, it's just a fancy dry van. As such we haul everything that doesn't require an endorsement or strapping(with the exception of a couple small fleets, like our PODS fleet and we do have one hazmat tanker fleet of like five trucks out east).

Regions of the country: We run all contiguous 48. No Canada or Mexico. I hear they do have a prank trip in the system that some DM's hand out from time to time as a joke with a load to Hawaii, but fortunately it'll get pulled off your truck before pick-up as our trucks don't float all that well.

Future opportunities and other divisions: The main ones we have are national, regional, and dedicated. National is exclusively teams and trainers, driving all 48. Regional covers an area of several states. Dedicated varies significantly, from local routes to national routes but for a single customer rather than several. We have several specialty fleets as well such as PODS, which gives a taste of flatbedding, relief and recovery which supplements dedicated accounts and also recovers stranded trucks(one of the only driver positions where you can fly around the country), school instructor, yard dog... Perhaps not quite as varied as a company like Swift or Prime, but still quite a few options.

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Let's see how well I know my area... I'm going to guess either Rice Hill or Roseburg is where you stopped? Out by Briggs Junction would probably be about that far too, but if you're there you're gonna have a bad time as 84 is closed between you and Portland.

Or it could be Washington, I guess. As an Oregonian, we try to pretend it doesn't exist.

A lot of the work history and background issues come more from the insurance company than the trucking company, so finding one that self insures can help quite a bit. For instance, CR England self ensures and has no problem bringing people on with unemployment or unverifiable employment in that time, they just want it all filled out and showing that you weren't sitting on the couch all day.

Having recently been on the phone about this with Knight, I can tell you they want to see verifiable employment for at least two of the last three years. They indicated that two of the last three is fairly standard.

The best part of training is that it ends. I'll echo what the others have said in saying that training is usually the absolute worst experience in this career you will have. Shoving two strangers into a space smaller than some jail cells and hoping they get along for weeks at a time is asking a lot, getting a trainer to do a good job training can sometimes be asking a lot(especially if they're O/O as I agree it appears yours is). A lot of companies are pushing trainer recruitment, as they desperately need more, but unfortunately that gets more than just the special folks that can see things they've done a thousand times and realize they need to actually explain it, and instead gets a large number of people that look at it as just a pay bump.

If you're paying attention to what they're doing, you're going to pick things up whether you feel like you are or not. The vast majority of the learning happens right before, during, or right after the truck stops(customers, fuel, logging, etc), so be sure to pay attention during those times as most anyone can take a truck down a freeway without problems, picking up some of the truck-specific nuances along the way on their own.

But like I said, just keep in mind it does end. You almost certainly have picked up more than you feel like you have. You can do this, and the reward at the end is well worth the hell of training.

I don't have one. Kind of wish I did. Over the weekend I needed to talk to the weekend dispatch(emphasis on need... they don't get the pleasure of hearing from me unless I really, really need something) only to hear that I was 45th in line with an 'estimated wait time of...'(their program wasn't smart enough to compute a wait time). And all of you folks are sitting there with a hold music bypass button!

Not only that, but you can be sure your entire logbook is going to be gone over with a fine toothed comb(for both drivers), and probably get a full inspection. If you went to bed just out of service with a single huge ticket, I'd be surprised. Some of the stuff they can ticket for might be a bit nit-picky, but you can be sure that if it's something that is exceptionally dangerous like driving on someone elses clock, they're going to make it as painful of a wake-up call as possible.