Profile For DJames

Thanks to everyone for the replies and advice. Kersey, I will definitely check out your video.

I have been driving for two weeks now and went through some snow coming back from New Jersey today. I have lived in the south all my life (FL). I have driven in tropical storms, around tornadoes, and all sorts of torrential rains and floods but I have never driven in snow until today. It seems like everyone pretty much just treats it like heavy rain and slows down a good bit.

Is it generally safe to push ahead in snow? I know you don't want to mess with icy roads. What guidelines can one look for outside of closed roads to know when it is just too dangerous to continue on or when you shouldn't even start out? They never covered this in training or CDL school.

We still have rioting season, plandemic 2.0 season and man made "natural" disaster season to go as well. On top of that, hopefully Bubbas homegrown militia can refrain from being provoked, if they do exercise stupidity, the regime will be able to clamp down society to plandemic levels with general support of public, as we demonstrated by J6.

Yes, In addition to all that let's not forget the judicial and other political activism that seems to be taking place in at least two states so far. I have a lot of the same reservations about the upcoming election and whether any other candidate will be "allowed" to unseat the current regime.

I think when this stops, the market will begin to improve.

Let's hope Q4 '24.

From what I've been reading, alot are saying Q3 of 24. Miles and loads have picked up for me and been consistently busy for the last quarter. My TM and DMs have said there are still bad areas, but that freight has picked up for us. It's still a market that requires a driver to bring their A plus game every day though. At least with us, those that don't are sitting a lot.

That is good to hear that things are picking up and that consistency is there.

Normally, technology is a huge boom to the economy, but with AI, this is something we've never seen before. The big tech companies are laying off people in groups of 10,000 or more. Other corporations will follow, as soon as they figure out how to use AI.

Trucking seems pretty stable right now, and jobs are easy enough to find, as always. It might be tougher than it is during boom cycles, but the bust cycles don't last long in trucking because the industry adapts pretty quickly. When things get ugly, the number of trucks on the road decreases rather quickly, and rates pick up again.

I agree, the AI displacements could happen in much higher volume than technological displacements have in the past. Many times with tech advancements a newly created job is there to which the displaced workers can be moved. I think the rate at which AI can displace jobs will make that very difficult if not impossible.

In the past many thought that AI would impact blue collar jobs first and hit them the hardest, however it is looking like so many white collar jobs are going to be impacted prior to blue collar jobs.

Just wanted to see what you all think about the current downturn. It seems that with such a prolonged downturn that a change would be on the way sooner than later. I know the market is still clearing excess capacity and that nobody has a crystal ball, but when do you think things will start to pick up? 2024? Later?

Welcome back! I’ll jump in here too.. I just did 14,000 miles last month working for a small carrier. My buddy works for Walmart and has grossed $106k this year and he even had 10 weeks off for health reasons. I have another buddy working for a smaller carrier also pulling approximately 3000 miles a week.

Congrats on those miles....that is something!

Davy makes a very valid point. If you don’t have a commitment from the company yet, it could be a big mistake to move to TX just on the hope you will be accepted in their training program.

That's another thing that I would need to run by them...would it be possible to apply and get an orientation date contingent upon moving out to TX

Let me ask you this: Given that my current job is stable and the current state of the freight market would you recommend waiting it out a bit longer?

Welcome back! I’ll jump in here too.. You said that conditional hire or pre hire was back in 2020 so you’ll need to get back in touch with them and see if they’re still looking. I know things aren’t fantastic in trucking right now but if a reputable trucking company is willing to hire you and put you through training I see no reason to delay if trucking is what you want to do. Things are generally a bit slower out here but there are still plenty of us making money. I just did 14,000 miles last month working for a small carrier. My buddy works for Walmart and has grossed $106k this year and he even had 10 weeks off for health reasons. I have another buddy working for a smaller carrier also pulling approximately 3000 miles a week.

Yeah, if i were to stay in florida I would not give notice at the current job until I had an orientation date set. That's another thing I would need to ask them: Would I be able to apply to go into their facility in TX without having moved there.....just contingent upon moving out there?