Profile For Vincent S.

I was able to keep calling and I got in this wednesday since someone just cancelled! I already found a trailer to use. This one is a LOT nicer. Feeling way better about it this time around!

Whelp, the inspection report was out of date on the trailer, so I have to go back. I saw the inspection report, that was stapled to the 2019 registration along with a current inspection sticker, but I didn't notice that the date was 2015 on the inspection report

Now the dock foreman is scrambling because he doesn't seem to have any of the paperwork correct on the trailers. I was able to get another appointment on the 30th, which is actually a miracle. They're back up by 2 months at all the offices within 300 miles

Its the insurance companies not the trucking. without the 160 hrs you will be hard to insure. most of the mega carriers are self insured. and i know a guy who did the same as you and when he hit something, the company gave another drivers information to the other company and then told that experience driver to "step up and help the company. take the hit on your record for the company cause we couldn't insure this new guy".

be careful. i would imagine most companies will want at least 6 mos. the the 160 probably wont matter. As for local experience counting.... local only counts for local.

Yeah that's why I am thinking I'll stay at least 4-5 months and then I will look around and start deciding whether to stay or go, based on what will be available at that point. I figure by the time it comes down to applying, I could say I have the 6 months experience and if they will accept the type of driving I'm doing as experience, I might leave this job at that point. Then again with my hourly pay, plus they pay drivers a little extra while driving, if I can manage to get enough extra hours to average 55 hours a week(which I think is a possibility), I will end up making almost 80k a year...so if I do in fact get a decent amount of OT, I may end up sticking around for a while. I guess when I said "I don't plan on staying long", it was relative to the fact that I've been working for this company for almost 15 years.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I think I'll take 2019 rust bucket. There's only a small chance they will notice the cracked shock, where they're definitely going to notice a potentially expired registration.

Oh thank god!!! i really started to appreciate our trailers...they are like mercedes compared to that lol

it seems dishonest to use them and leave. and you dont have a 160 hour certificate so who will hire you?

Their trailer is more rusty than that one lol. Even the brake canisters are badly rusted...but they do work and the tires are in good condition.

I won't be leaving right away. In fact I may stay, it just depends on how much overtime I get out of the deal. I'll end up staying for at least 4-5 months to see how it shakes out. They'll definitely get their investment out of me, since they won't have to bring in an additional driver this season and they can use me as needed on top of my current responsibilities(I'm a production foreman)...They're going to be saving thousands in just a few months by using me as a fill in driver and not bringing on another driver full time.

Another factor in whether or not I stay is what type of other jobs I'll be able to get without a 160 hour certificate, since I learned everything on my own. I know most of the big freight companies won't hire me, but surely I can find a decent local driving job here in a big city like Houston, TX. I prefer something where I can be home at least a couple nights per week anyways. If companies will be willing to consider my local driving at this job as experience, I may end up staying another year to be able to say I have a years experience.

Wow...quite the rust bucket. Take a good look at the tire nearest your camera lens...looks a bit “chunked”, flat spotted. Look at the tread depth on that spot.

That's not the actual trailer, just an similar one I found a photo of online. The actual trailer is a lot more rusty than the one in the photo lol. The tires are good on it, though.

How are you ever going to pull a load for this company if you can't even find a trailer your confident in for the test? All this talk of rust and spliced wires is really getting overly particular. Do the lights work? Are the brakes working? Nobody cares if the tandems are rusted, or the wires are spliced. I've spliced wires on trailers lots of times - that's how I got the lights working so it would be legal.

You can make this job way too hard on yourself. You don't want to start out overly stressing on non essential things. You'll stress yourself excessively and burn out in a matter of months.

The lights and brakes work great. There is definitely a visible crack in the upper half of the shock, though. You're probably right and I am just stressing out about it for no reason. I really don't want to screw this up tomorrow, since they are doing me a huge favor by letting me use their truck and CDL driver on the clock. To be totally honest I don't plan on staying with this company for long after I get the CDL. All of their equipment is poorly maintained like these trailers...however it is their laid back attitude that is allowing me to get my CDL using their equipment, without making any type of commitment to drive for them.

Here (NY) you don’t actually DO a pretrip, you just explain what you would do, and no one inspects the truck or trailer.

In other words, you verbally do a pretrip while pointing at the parts. You don’t actually check the brake linings, or crawl under to inspect anything. Shocks? You would simply point at them.

They want to know that you know HOW to do a pretrip.

I'm leaning toward taking this one since I'm 110% sure the paperwork is good on it. There's a 1/3 chance I won't even have to inspect the trailer anyways. Here in TX they have you draw a card and each card represents either under the hood, the door and back of the truck, or the trailer.

I'm very confused.. a shock, like a shock absorber, on a trailer? Most trailers I know of don't have shocks. They have leaf springs, or sometimes a torsion bar looking type of spring, or it's air ride..

Or are you saying that the truck you will be using has a defective shock?

This particular trailer has a shock absorber on the center of the axle.

The upper half of it has a crack. It still appears to be functional, though. You have to stick your head under the trailer to see it.

I'm wondering about the accuracy of what the foreman said on the ones with paperwork that says 2018 expiration. One of the drivers I asked also said that he is correct and that it "rolls over". Even though the paperwork says it expires in 2018 it's good until 2019. That just seems really strange to me...