Profile For Pete B.

Hi Francis, I too work for Schneider, so I’ll share a little advice, which likely applies to the other megas as well…to your point of calling in and waiting on hold for 34+ mins, the fastest way to reach anyone, whether it’s during normal business hours or after hours, is to send in a freeform message from your tablet. Calling in is just going to put you in a queue behind a bunch of other callers, who all have very serious reasons for their calling in (that’s sarcasm), and your leader’s time will vary from a few minutes to who-knows-when before he/she can get to you. Sending in a message will accomplish the same task, but with no wait, which is to let Schneider know you are running late and why, and adds the benefit of putting a timestamp on it, so your butt is covered, which is the main reason you’re contacting Schneider anyway… to cya.

You are discouraged from contacting the customer directly because historically speaking, most of the time when drivers do contact the consignee, it’s to ask if they can deliver early. Enough customers have complained about that that Schneider’s blanket policy is simply, Do Not Call The Customer. Can you call the customer? Of course. But when you do, be your most humble and appreciative self that you can be. The primary reason I’ll contact the consignee is to inquire about overnight parking. Sometimes I get lucky and the conversation does take a turn to delivering early, but that’s never the obvious intent of my call. Phone numbers provided with the shipments are sometimes nonexistent or outdated. This is where Google Maps is your friend. You can pull the customer up on Google Maps, and sometimes you will find a phone number listed there.

Finding yourself in a situation where you’re going to be late making a delivery, is not a good reason to contact the customer. Unless you have a good relationship with a receiver… someone you’ve delivered to previously and have built a rapport with… or you’re on a dedicated account and you go there frequently… send the message in to Schneider and let Schneider handle it. You’ve done your job in letting your employer know you’ll be late and why… now let them handle dealing with the customer.

Lastly, you mentioned grabbing a shower before heading out to the customer… I am sure you realize it now, but that wasn’t a wise move. You’ve got to manage your time better. Work that shower in during your 10 hour break, or after the delivery. When you’re on a load, you have one job: make the delivery safely, legally, and on time. If the appointment time is a set time, try and get there 30 minutes early. That’s acceptable. If it’s a delivery window, try to get there as soon as that window opens. I hope this has been informative.

Best of luck moving forward, stay safe my friend!

Hi Robert, First off, I commend you on holding yourself accountable for your accident; many drivers post their accident stories on here, blaming everything under the sun except the one thing responsible: themselves. Your boss is right; countless new drivers have minor incidents and every company that hires new drivers is well aware of this. This being your first accident, expect a slap on the wrist and in some instances a safety video or two you might have to watch. Sounds like in your case you’re not even going to get the videos. Yes, this will show up on your record, and will remain there for three years. That won’t be a problem for you unless you decide to leave this company to drive for another. For the remainder of your driving career, anytime you fill out an application you must list this accident on the application, even if it’s the only accident you’re involved in and 20 years have passed.

I do have a question for you, though. Do you have mirrors on your fenders? If you do, and you’ve got the regular mirror with fish eye mirror mounted outside both doors, you really have should seen the other driver… The only true blind spot is the space directly behind your trailer, where no mirror can capture what’s directly behind you. Maybe you need to adjust your mirrors. Next time you’re driving, fix your eyes on a car behind you, do this for both sides of your semi. Follow it from a point behind you until it passes you and you can see it in front of you without using your mirrors. The entire time it should be visible in either your fender mirror or your side mirrors.

Other than that, take care, don’t let this incident rattle you, I know you’ll do fine. Sounds like you’ve got a real nice boss who I’m sure appreciated your holding yourself accountable for the accident. Good job; drive safe.

Thanks for the advice Old School, I really really appreciate it! Sorry it took me long so long to get back to this, but you know… trucking. I went with the 4.5 qt. model… I’d like to be able to cook a week’s worth of meals at one time. Of course you’ll get an invite! I’d be honored to have you over to my “house” for dinner! :)

I am torn because where I live, I'm not sure if i want to make it a home but I know the BS that comes from OTR, but it would allow me to save up money and move in the near future (2-3 years).

You already know that going OTR will help you save money and help you achieve your goal of moving somewhere within the next 2 to 3 years… so go OTR. There is BS in OTR same as there is BS in every other job in every other industry. As far as reaching your goals is concerned, it’s all background noise. Work through the opportunities you encounter driving OTR; it will make you a great problem solver, if nothing else. An added bonus of driving OTR is if you are not sure where you want to settle down, driving the country will help you get a feel of where you’d like to plant your feet. You’ll be exposed to a variety of states, climates, traffic patterns, landscapes… all of which will help you decide where you’d like to call home next. As an aside, if you do decide to go OTR, you should know you are not limited to just Holland. Just about every large carrier that offers OTR positions will hire you no matter where you live.

I did try googling the answer, but but kept coming up with articles that were ads or suggestions for slow cookers… none telling me what size I could get away with. I have an 1800 W inverter/charger pre-installed (factory installed) in this ‘23 Freightliner Cascadia, so will be plugging the slow cooker into the standard type B, 3-prong 120 V socket. I’d like to get a four or 4 1/2 quart slow cooker; this isn’t too big for my set up is it? I once had a smaller 2.5 qt. slow cooker that I plugged into a much smaller 250 W inverter, but want to go a little bigger this time. Your feedback/advice is greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Joleigh, DO NOT enter a truck driving school and pay for a CDL right now… given your history, it’s too much of a risk right now. The litmus test is to apply to companies who have their own CDL school… companies like Prime, Swift, Western Express, TMC, C.R. England, and C.F.I./Heartland… there are others, but these are just a few. If they accept you, you’ll get your CDL and a job; almost always they will pay for your transportation to their schools, and will begin paying you as soon as you enter their schools.

You could continue forward with your private CDL school, but there is no guarantee that after you acquire your CDL, you’ll get hired. There’s a very high likelihood that if a company does hire you right now, considering your history, it will be one of those less-than-reputable, fly-by-night companies, and that’s no way to start your driving career. You may need to suffer the consequences of your decisions of several years ago, accrue a year or two of gainful employment elsewhere, and revisit trucking at that time.

Ball bearings. It’s all ball bearings nowadays.

Lewis, you went to the hospital and had tests run where they found you had had a heart attack, right? I would think that if you had medical records showing where you had a heart attack during the time you were driving, your company could not hold you responsible for a preventable accident. Tell me you have the medical records showing the heart attack… either way I doubt it’s an event you’ll lose your job over. If you drove into the median, I’m guessing you simply needed a tow back onto pavement. Definitely not a career-ender. Best of luck to you, and I hope you’re taking steps to never having another heart attack again. Thank goodness that the result of having a heart attack while driving was you simply ending up in the median; could have been a lot worse.

Good afternoon; I don’t have knowledge of Western Express, but I do have knowledge of lease-to-purchase programs, so I am going to share some opinions based on your post. Yes, you can walk away from a lease program, but I guarantee you there will be a fee you will owe by breaking the lease contract early. Usually, it’s in the neighborhood of $5k. And as far as their legal department will be concerned, there will be no justifiable reason to let you out of the lease without penalty. There have been plenty of drivers coming to this forum, looking for loopholes to get out of their leases, but always with zero success. So there’s that.

You mentioned you began driving because you needed a little extra money… That really is not the mindset for a highly successful lease operator. That is in no way a slight to you; I am definitely not insinuating that you cannot be a highly successful lease operator, it’s just that you don’t sound very hungry. There are many costs associated with leasing a truck… Fuel, insurance for the truck, insurance for you, repairing cosmetic damages to the truck that are not covered under warranty, tires, oil changes, and the biggest, nastiest expense of them all: taxes. All of these things can really eat into your profits, which is why we recommend not becoming a lease operator, but working as a company driver. Someone who is only interested in making a little extra money as a lease operator will likely just break even or not make any extra money at all. To succeed as a lease operator you must be hungry, willing to drive the wheels off your truck, take as few days off as you possibly can.

I would definitely continue working there as a company driver for at least a year, then reevaluate your needs. The time with your trainer will soon be over. Best of luck to you, driver.

Hi Maximilian, welcome to the forum. Unfortunately there’s no cut ‘n dry answer to your question; companies have raised their standards with regard to what they find in their background checks, but something that occurred 10 years ago, it’s really hard to say. *Two really important things of note here:

1. On any application you fill out for any trucking company, include the charge… if you were to leave it off the application and it showed up in your background check, which it will, that will definitely end your trucking career before it even got started.

2. Strongly consider applying to a company that features their own company-sponsored CDL school. What you don’t want to do is attend a private CDL school, obtain your CDL, then find out that no one will hire you, and you’ve essentially tossed money (and time) to the wind getting a CDL you can’t use. Use this link for information on company-sponsored CDL schools: company-sponsored CDL schools.

The best way to answer your question is to go ahead and begin applying… No harm there in trying. Best of luck to you; I hope you don’t lose your job, but if you do and trucking is Plan B, I hope you get here.