Profile For Dart

Hey Dart, quick question.

DId Roehl come after you for the Gycdl training fees at all? or hotel , food fees?

been wondering exactly what happens when you dont finish the school and they terminate you.

thanks

Sorry it took so long to reply.

Yes, to the tune of about $6k. After about a month I got a letter, then started receiving calls from lawyers shortly thereafter.

Good to hear from you, Tracy.

I'm doing well at Swift. About to finish up my 2nd month solo. They keep me running pretty well, as I usually don't have to sit more than a few hours without a load. If I do, a quick call to dispatch and I've got a load.

So far it's been the best job I've had since I left the military in 2012. As I get better, the job gets better.

How about you?

If they don't got apus then damn right I'm going to idle when it is hotter than heck. Swift will send us a message to idle less, but to do what is necessary so we sleep comfortably. Dart has a newer truck so his will automatically start and shut off (from what I heard the 2018 have this capability), I am in a 2016 so I just set the cruise control and the truck won't turn off. Good luck staying alive inside of a truck in desert or in the humidity of the east without having the a.c. going.

Actually, even though my truck is an '18, it's one of the older style '18's. It will automatically shut off after about 5 minutes of idling if the outside temp is between 35 and 68, but won't restart (as far as I'm aware, since I can't manually set Opti Idle on this truck).

Ok, more specifically, companies with no APUs, and possibly a no idle policy. I had read some companies had no idle policies so I mentioned it to a recruiter who dodged the question. Now it may have been an innocent dodge but it made me wonder.

My truck does not have an APU or EPU, no idle management, and it won't stay idling between 35 and 68 degrees (anything hotter or colder and it will idle as long as you keep the key on).

This really hasn't been a huge issue for me. It's made me nervous a few times, but not to the point of having an actual problem. I can run a crock pot, my laptop charger, phone charger, bunk lights, and a 12v fan for a few hours before bed, then the bunk heater or vent fan and the 12v fan all night without killing the battery. Just to be sure I won't kill the battery, I idle the truck for a few minutes (3-5 minutes) periodically when I'm awake.

Dah...I realized after I got on the road this morning I made a mistake in my previous post. Murphy's law, not Newton's law as I had posted.

Thank you.

Just wrapped up my first day of solo driving. Not very productive, but one of my most stressful days yet.

Let me back track a bit. I upgraded on Monday in Greer, SC and was sent by Greyhound to Rochelle, IL to pick up my truck (2018 Freightliner Cascadia 125 with an automatic...it's not one of the new style Cascadias). After getting on the bus and hopping in a cab to the terminal, the truck was locked and the keys were in a lock box where I was unable to get them until this morning. Stayed in the hotel last night and took the 10:30am shuttle to the terminal. BTW...no sooner did I walk into the terminal last night, and I already had a preplan for the load I'm on now.

Getting the truck was pretty uneventful except for having to get with maintenance and parts to get a few items for the truck. Pre tripped the truck, found an empty, got it aattached to me, and I was on my way.

The drive started fairly uneventful until I left the truck stop a few miles from the shipper. There was construction in front of the truck stop and I didn't see the no left turn sign until I was driving to the exit. So I take the right and watch for signs of how to get back to the interstate. I saw a sign with 3 flashing arrows to the left, looking like they were pointing me down a service road to go back an exit to get on the interstate. As I go down the road, tthere's a "no outlet" sign before an intersection.

There wasn't much traffic, so I decide to go straight to get a better look at the road. I figured that since there was almost no traffic I could just straight back to make the turn on the road that intersected the one I was on or back onto that road to turn around. As Newton's law states, if something can go wrong, it will. I see that the road I'm on dead ends into a gated lot. I only went about a truck length or 2 down the road. I bakc up SLOWLY, watching for traffic as I do so. Right as I get to the intersection, someone opened the flood gates and traffic started pouring off of this road. Fortunately, a passing motorist was kind enough to assist in blocking traffic and getting me on the road.

So I make the turn and start looking at the map on the GPS for roads leading back to the main road. All of the roads in this area were dead ends.

There was an ungated area where there were trucks coming out of, so I make that turn to ask if I could use the yard to turn around. There were do not enter signs all over the place. I ask a guy standing by the gate if I could go in there to turn around despite the signs, assuming he worked there (we all know what that means). He said yeah, go ahead. I pulled in and make a turn where it looked like I could turn around. A yard worker stopped me and started griping at me. I explained the situation and he helped me get the truck backed out and turned around.

I get out of there and make my pick up. The pick up was the easiest I've had thus far. I just had to check in, drop the empty, grab the loaded, do my Qualcomm work, and off I went. No need to check out.

Since the load doesn't deliver until Friday morning, and it's less than 400 miles, I figured I'd push it to near the delivery and take tomorrow off since I have family near there. Then it hit me "it's almost 5pm and I'm going to have to go through the Chicago/Gary area. If I push it too hard, I'm going to run out of hours around midnight and be stuck with nowhere to park." I decided to start looking for a place to shut down, knowing that it was going to take ages to find a spot. Not only that, traffic was horrendous and it started raining pretty hard. I went on for a couple of hours and couldn't find anything, so I took a fuel island 30 (ensuring not to block anyone).

After my 30, I continued my search for a parking spot. Traffic finally cleared up on I90 east, but the rain picked up. After a couple of hours and several botched parking attempts, I found a pull through at a truck only rest area.

I only have about 3 hours of driving to final, so I'll be able to get up tomorrow and find a better parking spot closer to my final with more amenities. Maybe even get to see my aunt tomorrow evening.

I passed my upgrade tests with flying colors. I missed 1 question out of 57 on my written (it was a question about overspeed in a company truck...I've been in a lease operator's truck for my training and they're governed a bit higher than a company truck) and had 1 point deducted on my road test (I did too many pull ups on the backing portion).

I've been assigned a 2018 Freightliner with an automatic transmission , but I've got to go to Rochelle, IL to pick her up. After spending tonight and tomorrow in hotel Greyhound, I should be in my truck tomorrow night.

Thank you, Susan.

I'm looking forward to FINALLY taking off the training wheels and going solo.

Just completed my 200 hours of driving with Swift. I wasn't able to upgrade today because I got to the terminal late in the afternoon. I'll be in the hotel this weekend and upgrade Monday morning.

I'm still at Swift and doing well so far. My mentor/friend was having some issues with his stability system giving off false critical events, so they put me on a truck with another mentor.

I've been running team for a bit now and have 137 behind the wheel hours of my 200 required to upgrade.

While Roehl pretty much had me in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Missouri, Swift has had me coast to coast (almost literally). I got on my current mentor's truck in South Carolina, drove down to Atlanta, then out to Phoenix, California, and Oregon. Went through Vegas at night and got to stop at the Hoover Dam for a few hours to take a bike ride and see the dam. Then back to Texas and Tennessee, which will soon be followed up by New Jersey.

As far as my driving, I'm doing well. More driving and fewer stops at customers has REALLY helped.

The biggest downside is I will likely be stuck in automatic trucks because both of my mentors have/have had automatics (I don't have an automatic only restriction, just minimal experience with a manual).

At this point, it looks like I should be able to take my upgrade tests in about a week (give or take a few days).