Profile For Viking

I wouldn't recommend going solo while remaining OTR with England.

When I was still OTR ( 2 years ago) team trucks where paid 40 cpm. Solos were 29cpm.

My recommendation would be to apply to a dedicated fleet near your place of residence, especially if they have a solo fleet there most of the dedicated fleets only ask for 3 to 6 months experience.

Also, I can guarantee your under contract. If you leave now, you will receive a bill.

If you are having DM problems, seek out your DMs boss and work from there. Assuming you have your ducks in a row you.

I've been with England for 2.5 years. Been solo all but 4 months of that on a dedicated account.

Neat. Thanks bill.

At Prime i pay for my chains, load locks and and trailer padlock. if i left i could take them or sell them. they are mine

i have paid maybe 3 or 4 times in 5 years for parts such as light bulb, mud flap, fuel cap. not only do they reimbirse for the parts but then pay for for installing them.

Scale tickets i pay for in advance and get reimbursed if i need the actual ticket for a customer. otherwise i use the phone app for the CAT scale and pay nothing.

sometimes i pay for parking $15 or a shower at a location of my choosing. but those are my choices.... i love the soaking tubs at Little America truck stop but rarely fuel there so i do not always have shower credits. Sometimes i get a hotel room.. or grab an uber to see sights or dine, shop.

covid really is annoying me cause i am enjoying the road less.

I also use the phone app for scales, I have noted it says a printed ticket will be available at the fuel desk for 1hr. I've never bothered because I don't ever really need a physical copy and part of the reason I use the app is to not have to find somewhere to park and walk inside ( I usually drive almost exclusively at night). Have you tried that? Kinda curious.

Oh forgot one more thing.. How or why would any big or small company let you drive their tractor back to your "home" if let's say u still gotta drive another 200-300 miles or more (after dropping the load ) to get from the closest Terminal back "home" ???

1. Are they really gonna let u use their truck and " their" Diesel fuel to just get back home? Does driver have to pay or reimburse the company some $$ ? ohh and put alot extra Mileage on their rig... carrying no load meaning no moneymaking for company , right?

2. And again.. Liability.. with their Truck.. if yur officially off-duty and offclock ... what if have breakdown or worse accident on way back to get "home" ? then what?

3. Or does company just cover Driver anytime if yur driving it ? Is driver just Always covered by company insurance and all gas and oil used is paid for by the company ??

Is the gas, oil, and wear tear on Truck really so little minor for major truck company - they will cover it ? since (maybe) if they want care bout their Driver's rest and chance to go "home" regular like?? thxxx

Typically they will get you a load passing by where you live. You park the truck in a nearby truckstop for a few days while still loaded. Enjoy your time off. When it's time to go back to work you finish the load and get back to making that$$. Running empty is called Deadheading and you'd be surprised how much of it you do sometimes.

Even if taking the truck home (assuming you have a place to put it) that will be considered driving on duty time.

I for example have no where to put a truck at home. The nearest truckstop is 25$ a day at the T/A in Jessup MD. However I am on a dedicated account with a terminal about 90 miles from my residence. So I just park the truck at the terminal and commute the 90 miles home. I go home once a week. Still less miles on my personal vehicle then if I worked a normal job 20-30 mins from home.

On a lighter note...

Greetings from Jonestown PA.

Lovely day to take in the rural “fresh farm” air, sitting as the technicians replace my sick Qualcomm and all the hardware.

I haven’t harped on this for a while; but I lived the point about not relying only on technology. Tuesday my Location Transmitter went-out mid trip. Had to run paper logs because the location software could not find me. Remember location is recorded each time duty status is changed. Although I knew where I was going because of familiarity with the territory, I maintained the course using memory. This is proof that trip planning is a must and route direction backups are necessary in the likely event of a hardware or software problem.

We drive the trailer using a 6-wheeled rolling computer.

Peace.

I had a similar experience last year.. ran for a week like that. After 8 days they dispatched me on yet another trip and I refused the assignment because i had been on paper logs for 8 days. They finally decided to fix it then.

What all are the expenses or Outofpocket money truck driver has to shell out ... I assume you all have pay for your own food eats while working nite/day trucking, right ? But how's it work who pays for things like :: 1. huge loads gas or fillups ? 2. tolls or wgh station fees ? 3. if State cop stops ya cites you a speeding tix or some code truck violation ? who's responsible driver or company ?? who pays ? 4. Vehicle or driver insurance ? or Liability insurance?.. like do i have to tell my personal car insurance that I got a CDL-A now not just classD, and semitruck driver now ? Are they gonna up up increase my personal car ins or is it totally separate thing? 5. If truck or driver has accident minor or major ? What happens? Does driver have to pay company back maybe at least their ons. deductible, like maybe $2-3000 . Or does company have big ins and cover it all and just warn driver, if wasn't really his fault? 6. anything else Drivers have to pay cash $$ outoftheir own pockets ? 7. Do most company refund reimburse driver expenses later ? Maybe only the best ones do that ?

Quite a few questions. Ill do my best to answer these.

1. Company issues you a fuel card

2. Company issues truck "EZ" pass transponder. Certain tolls that the transponder doesn't cover but are required are reimbursed in full. Unauthorized tolls are your problem. I'm guessing you mean Scales. Fuel card pays for those, if the scale doesnt accept the fuel card you can always pay out of pocket and be reimbursed with a receipt.

3. You. Don't speed.

4. No. The company handles that. Most of the big ones are self insured.

5. Depends on each individual situation and the drivers history. Usually if it's your first booboo and not to damaging you get a slap on the wrist and possibly a training video. This also depends on your attitude post accident. Not sure about payroll deductions post accident.

6. It varies but, in 2.5 years I think I've paid out of pocket once for a spring for the air lines and was promptly reimbursed with receipt.

7. Yes.

The Agency will modify the sleeper-berth exception to allow drivers to split their required 10 hours off duty into two periods: an 8/2 split, or a 7/3 split—

”with neither period counting against the driver’s 14 hour driving window.”

someone tell me is I got his right please. In regards to the neither period counting against the 14

I drive 1 hour and take a 3 hour break in sleeper.

Then I drive 8 hours and then take a 30 minute break.

Then I drive 1.5 hours. I've done a 14 hour day and now take an 8 hour break in sleeper.

After my 8 hours in the sleeper will I get back 3 hours? Thank you

3 hrs? No.

If I'm reading your example correctly you would have

1hr drive time 4hrs on your 14 After 7 hrs in the sleeper.

Wow I bet you needed a new pair of pants when you finally got where you wanted to be! Haha

No matter how prepared you are there are always curve balls thrown at you.

One thing I learned the hard way is to always attempt to use Google Street view to familiarize yourself with the shipper/receiver during trip planning. GPS has a tendency to get you into this bind.. or the classic problem of being given the address for the car entrance and the truck entrance is half a mile away around the corner.

Learn new things everyday.

Glad you made it out of this situation unscathed.

Are you not logging pre/post trips? Your drive time and on duty time should never realisticly be the same unless your not logging pre/post trips or fuel stops as on duty time.

Other then that one question you seem to be getting along great. Thank you for the interesting read so far and keep up the great work!

Good point.

With team running we are generally doing pre- trips and post- trips at the beginning and end of the day. But to be honest we aren't really doing diligent pretrips and post- trips. I do more inspection of the truck when we stop and I'm logged off- duty per my trainer's instructions. I don't think I seen my trainer open the hood once. And we are not focusing on making sure they are part of our on- duty time.

While I'm not your trainer, I'd advise against not logging things properly. Yes it eats some of your 70 to do it correctly but otherwise you're risking tickets/violation for "log falsification" when the DOT eventually finds out, and they will find out sooner or later.

Are you not logging pre/post trips? Your drive time and on duty time should never realisticly be the same unless your not logging pre/post trips or fuel stops as on duty time.

Other then that one question you seem to be getting along great. Thank you for the interesting read so far and keep up the great work!