Profile For Roanpony

I'm governed at 65 MPH right now and would love an extra 3MPH, or better yet 6MPH myself.

That's just great...why not 80?

And herein lies the problem...there is never enough. You get 65, you want 70, etc., etc.. Front tires all have a speed rating...do you know what it is? It's in raised lettering on the sidewall.

For each additional MPH, the stopping distance is exponentially increased and requires an equal amount of increased following distance. There is also a much greater tendency to mix-in with faster traffic, bunching up with other vehicles. Risk of an accident increases.

Of everyone rocking this thread; only Brett, Old School and I have cautioned about this, Brett was emphatic, accused of ingesting too much caffiene as a result. Ridiculous. Not one of you has reconciled or acknowledged this fundamental fact of physics. Ignorance is not bliss,...it's just ignorance.

Be happy about this all you want... That's cool, but also be smart.

I'm out.

80 MPH would exceed the speed limit in the areas I drive. I believe I'd be happy with 70 MPH. Just enough so I could reasonably quickly finish a pass with the thousands of mega company trucks that are choked down to 62-65 MPH. I believe the tire speed rating is 75 MPH, but I think proper air pressure is a greater factor than MPH. I'm aware of the increased stopping distance with increased speed. No problem accounting for it. Your observations of bunched up traffic are apparently different than mine, though. I actually see the 62-65 MPH trucks bunching up traffic. I seem to always be tied up with them. Once the left lane opens up, the faster trucks leave me in their wake and appear to cover alot more ground while I'm stuck in the pack. Just because some of us would appreciate the opportunity to put a few more miles on in a shorter time doesn't mean we haven't considered the physics involved, nor does it mean that you, Brett, or Old School are necessarily right 100% of the time. I know several truckers who have millions of safe miles under their belt, many of them at speeds greater than 70 MPH.

I'm only gonna comment one more time on this. I look at it for the cumulative effect. If I can gain time on a load by being able to go faster for even a few hours total out of a day, I can potentially get to my drop and hook early. Then I can potentially get to the next one early, and so on and so forth. Potentially.

Of course, being a guy that runs hard every single week, constantly pushing up to my 70 and taking a 34 weekly, and averaging 3200 miles a week, I can use any extra minute I can get. Lord knows on these last couple of 3600 mile weeks I could have used an extra minute or two a few times.

So yes, if I can get a few extra mph and get to deliveries and pickups a few minutes earlier, I can potentially get an extra load or two over the course of a month and potentially make a little more money. It cannot be that difficult to understand my position.

I'm with you, Chris. A few extra MPH available certainly can't hurt. I can definitely see times when the little bit of extra ground you cover over the course of 11 hours of driving will make the difference between reaching a consignee or sleeping overnight short of your destination and finishing your trip in the morning. If you, then, have to wait to get unloaded you are off the clock, something top producers are always trying to do to increase their earning potential. When you are empty you can start with a brand new clock. If you had to stop prior to reaching your destination, your clock is burning up while you are waiting to be unloaded. I can easily see the opportunity for getting an extra load or two a month. I'm not having any difficulty understanding your happiness with a little loosening of your governor at all. I'm governed at 65 MPH right now and would love an extra 3MPH, or better yet 6MPH myself.

For my own small part, I don't blame you for not seeing the appeal of sitting for hours waiting to get loaded or unloaded. That's one of the reasons I prefer flatbed. Not that I don't occasionally have to sit for a while and wait, but warehouses are notorious for it. If driving is really what you want to do, there are other forms of trucking where long waits aren't as common. No matter what, though... trucking isn't an easy way to make a living and I can quite understand why the turnover rate seems so high.

That must be quite a horseback riding instruction program your girlfriend has if you need a truck that requires a CDL to support it. Most, even upper end equine programs, in my area don't have trucks that require a CDL and they can move alot of horses. Does she already have the truck and trailer your going to be driving? If so, it might be easier to find a licensed CDL holder in your area that would work with you while you practice to take the test than to find someone who will let you drive theirs. The insurance is another issue. Other than that your only likely opportunity is to take and evening/weekend course through a community college.

Tarping is the toughest thing about flatbed work. Lumber tarps are pretty heavy and get pretty dirty. You have to work in all weather conditions so you sweat a lot in hot weather, freeze in cold weather, get soaked in the rain, etc. I like flatbed work and wouldn't want to do any other sort of trucking.

Conventional wisdom is you'll have to go through a training program with one of the mega carriers. I was able to re-obtain my CDL after about 25 years away from driving, and then get a job with a smaller company (about 100 trucks and 30 owner/operators). With a CDL and stable work history, chances are good you could get a job with a large carrier if you don't mind the training. If, like me, you can't feature yourself spending 5 weeks in a truck with someone you don't know, go talk to the companies in your area. Not all, necessarily. require your experience to be recent. If you are able to pass a road test you might be able to get back on the road without a big company training program or large outlay of cash.

Regulations get pretty confusing with those types of trucks and will depend on what weight your truck/trailer are registered, the type of operation you are involved in and what state you are operating in, if you are not doing interstate. If your registered GVW, or GCVW is 10000 lbs. or more, and I'm assuming it is, you have to, at a minimum, have a DOT number. For instance, if you are growing plants and taking them somewhere to plant them, like a landscaping business, you would need a DOT number. The DOT number is a fairly simple deal and doesn't cost anything. If someone is paying you to transport their plants, you are acting as a motor carrier and you need an MC number. That requires an application fee, insurance requirements, BOC-3 filings, etc.

Regarding your original question... "When do I have to go across scales" ... I believe the correct answer is whenever they are open. If I were you, I'd check out the FMCSA website https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/registration . From what I'm envisioning, the DOT might have some fun at your expense if you get caught.

Start early, drive 10.75h, end early. Best way to do it. You can drive as long as you are physically able to get to a truck stop 600+m away and have miles of space to safely back into a very wide spot without even coming close to another truck. 10h break, do it again the next day. Using this method, with properly timed loads, I pulled 3800 miles within my 70h clock legally on elogs.

I don't even remember the last time I've had to back in between 2 trucks at a truck stop; there's always an empty lot with plenty of straight back opportunities available using this method.

Is there always a truck stop right there when you've finished your 10.75 hours of driving? Do you ever get slowed down by traffic congestion, road construction, etc. that keeps you from accomplishing as much as you'd hoped to in your 10 hour shift? Do you ever get held up at a shipper or receiver for several hours while your clock burns and get screwed out of half of your shift? You sound, to me, like the bureaucrats that come up with the regulations we have to live with. It sounds nice and easy to just drive 10.75 hours and go to sleep, but it doesn't work that way, at least for me. I like to find a truck stop so I can fuel, eat, shower & sleep on my break, then get up and get a cup of coffee for the road when I start another day. Of course, since my company uses TA/Petros to fuel, I have to find one of those if I hope to do everything I want to do on my break. I rarely find one when I've finished 10.75 hours. With elogs I'll either have to cut my driving time short, or violate my clock to make the next available truckstop. Either that or just pull over where ever I happen to be when my clock runs out, feel like crap for not taking a shower, not sleeping good, etc. How would we ever manage without the federal government managing our lives for us?

They then told us to never back 90 degrees with a loaded trailer because there is a good chance your freight will tip, so I guess the 90 is for deadhead only.

That is quite a bizarre statement for them to make and it's totally not true. I'm not even sure why they would say that. I mean, think about it - that would mean you can't pull forward around a 90 degree bend either. How the heck would you ever get anywhere? And if a load tipped that easily, it would tip in the wind, it would tip on hard braking or steering maneuvers, etc.

You might want to get some clarification on what they were talking about. Maybe they worded it wrong and it came out with the wrong meaning or something. But there isn't anything you can do on flat ground when backing that is going to pose a risk to tipping the load.

Was checking out this old thread while researching TMC and was curious about the comment about not turning a flatbed 90 degrees when it is loaded. Originally, I thought, like Brett, that is didn't make sense but found this video on youtube ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHBBhxyciD4 ) that explains it. Now it makes better sense. When the trailer is turned 90 degrees to the truck, the fifth wheel is able to tilt toward the side of the trailer. That, combined with the fact that a flatbed has some flex that box type trailers don't, can cause a flatbed to shift sideways and tip the trailer. I suspect it's possible with a box trailer as well, but not as likely. In any case, food for thought for all of us when backing or turning in tight spaces while loaded.

Not sure what your instructors at your school have done to help you with your backing skills, but there are other things you can try to help you get it figured out. If there's something I'm not sure how to do, I check out youtube. Concerning backing skills, there are numerous videos with various ideas to put it in the box. I recently took my CDL test after a 25 year hiatus from truck driving. I have backed up alot of different kinds of smaller trailers over the years so I'm familiar with backing concepts, but had never parallel parked a tractor trailer and wasn't sure how I would go about it. Watched some youtube videos and found some ideas that worked for me. I suspect if I went to a school and tried to do it their way, it might have been a struggle. Different people find different ways to accomplish the same thing.