Profile For Bobcat_Bob

Not only does it mess up your day, but it messes up the hours of the other driver too

It affected 4 drivers, obviously myself, the guy who had to pick me up, and since I couldn't make my meet today, my meet guy and the other guy he goes and meets in Pennsylvania.

Plus, the trailer that had the flat had guaranteed freight which was late. So the customers will get all their money back on whatever it was they shipped.

My meet guy ran something over on the road and had a hole in the tire when he got to me. Which is ironic because 3 weeks ago the roles were reversed. But I figured no big deal, I'm parked 200 feet from the Loves tire bay shouldn't take too long.

I called our breakdown department at 4:30, they got it assigned to the Loves who's lot im parked in within like 10 minutes. I checked in with the Loves, he said he has 1 in the bay and 2 infront of me so it will be like 2 or 3 hours. Annoying for sure, but I get breakdown pay from the time I called into the time I'm on the road. 3 hours later I checked back in, they told me 2 more people in front of me. It will be another 2 hours. At this point I knew I'd probably have to get a hotel, but OD pays for it so not a huge deal.

At 9:30 Loves tells me they close at 11 pm and will not be able to get to me tonight, come back in the morning.... I told him I'm in a day cab, i can't just sleep in the lot, you guys told me 2 or 3 hours 6 hours ago. He just shrugged and said they were busy.

I called our breakdown department back told them and they sent out a T/A eta 2 hours. At this point I was cutting it close on even making it back to Indy which is a tad over an hour away and would probably have to be picked up, so i called our dispatchers and got them working on that.

Mean while it starts storming and the tech from T/A calls and asks how the weather is. I told him it's raining and windy but nothing crazy, he said he might have to turn around. You can guess where this is going, he called back a few minutes later and said due to tornado warning and lightning he has to turn around.

Indy sent a driver out to rescue me, he got there at 1 am. So we both just sat in a day cab and waited

Finally the weather cleared and T/A was back enroute, eta was 6 minutes finally 20+ minutes later he showed up. He started looking over the tire and was like "they sent me with the wrong one" all OD equipment uses 11 R 22.5 someone at TA told him to get a 295 22.5. So he offered to install it anyway so we can make it back to Indy, the Indy drivers obviously, and smartly didn't want to drive on the wrong size tire. So the guy had to drove back his shop and get the correct one.

Finally gets back around 3:30 and finished a tad after 4. By the time we got back to Indy and I made it to the hotel it was 6 am et.

Most companies will want a year, and it is recommended to stick with your first company for a year anyway.

JB Hunt has some jobs that only require 3-6 months. Might be worth looking into.

Congratulations, and good luck!

I personally run a Cobra 29LX on a stock Freightliner antenna i get about 3-5 miles ahead and about 1 mile behind.

That is the about the range for our P&D drivers, so I do not think it is as unrealistic as others here impy.

so just wondering will it be hard to get in trucking with 2 wrecks in 3 yrs, 1 i believe was July 27,2021 and the other Jan 2022

It can definitely make things difficult. What kind of wrecks are we talking about?

The auto braking has never once activated for something it need to. It has always been for, vehicles on a ramp, shadows, road signs, bridges, or some other nonsense.

I've had the same experience as Dave with the lane departure. It picks up sealer, worn asphalt, shadows, water or cracks. Nothing like having that buzzing when I'm in the middle of the lane.

I also agree with Davy, it is a way for some companies to dangle a carrot in front of drivers for a "bonus".

But drivers are our own worst enemies, when it comes to saftey. Tailgating is a huge problem imo, I've seen many owner operators a few feet off the bumper of a car or truck. I'm surprised more insurance companies do not require dash cams to fight this problem.

My assigned truck made it back after a month from Indy. Used it yesterday for first time and it still isn't right. The On Guard (I hate that system) is showing errors, cruise and eng brake are not working, so I left it at the shop again.

And seeing all the billboards out there for lawyers that handle accidents with big rigs

Funny you mentioned this, yesterday I noticed a billboard from "The hammer" Mr. Isaacs that said to call him if you are injured by a truck on ice. Pretty sure it was referring to the Werner case.