Profile For Pacific Pearl

You should contact a driver placement agency. They usually have dozens of customers that need drivers. The nice thing for you is that your relationship is with the agency - not the company. Next year the agency will still need a driver even if the company you drove for last year doesn't.

Centerline Drivers

TransForce

Interesting choices. If I were in your shoes I'd stick with the majors -

LandStar

Mercer Transportation

They both specialize in O/O, so you don't have to compete with company drivers for loads. I see a lot of Mercer drivers on my runs and I've never met an unhappy Mercer driver.

I work for a different dedicated carrier that has an account with Home Depot. You don't deliver to the stores - you deliver to local construction sites. It's flatbed so there's load securement and driver load/unload with a Moffett (a small forklift that winches onto the back of the flatbed). Your location may vary but in the PNW you're often backing into a muddy lot. Depending on the time of day it may be dark and raining so there's more ways to get stuck or hit something.

The intermodal drivers tend to drive very aggressively- second only to log truck drivers. I asked an intermodal driver about that while we were fueling our trucks. He claimed they had to drive that way because that could be the difference between delivering two or three containers in a day. A driver may have to go home early if they didn't have enough hours left to make the next delivery.

Bathroom access allowed for commercial truck drivers in Washington state

Truck drivers in Washington state will be allowed to use an existing bathroom facility located either on the premises of a shipper or consignee, under a bill signed into law earlier this month by Gov. Jay Inslee.

The new law stipulates that truck drivers be allowed to use an existing bathroom facility located either on the premises of or operated by a shipper or consignee if the restroom is also intended to be used by its employees or customers.

Let's hope this catches on and becomes a FEDERAL law.

Show me the cost to buy, then the real cost to operate it, conventional vs electric. My money is on the standard model.

It all depends on your use case. What's the climate like? How large is your fleet? What's the fueling situation like? It's a little like saying, "Sneakers or steel-toed boots, choose ONE".

Electrics have higher reliability because there are fewer moving parts. A breakdown or PM can take a ICE truck offline for several days. That's a much bigger deal if you're a small lot with one truck than if you're a large yard with eight.

In some locations they need fuel pumps just for the yard goats. Depending on the state it may be worth it just to not have to deal with the licensing, permits and DEQ requirements that come with having a fuel pump.

I'm shocked its taken this long to come up with an electric yard truck. When I was a warehouseman we had electric forklifts. The battery was on rollers with locking metal bars on either side to keep it from rolling off while driving the forklift. To recharge you'd park the lift next to a cart with rollers the same height as the rollers in the battery bay on the forklift, lift the metal arms and push the battery on the rollers onto the cart. You'd push the cart with the dead battery to a charger and plug it in. You could then push a cart with a fully charged battery next to your forklift and push it onboard. Lower the arms, plug in the connector and you were back in business. That was 35 years ago!

Greetings from Issaquah! Your best may just be to head on down I-5 to Exit 99 and chat with some of the drivers at the FlyingJ.

The main differences between dry van and flatbed are live loading, tarping and load securement. Dry van is generally drop and hook - you show up at the shipper with an empty trailer then you drop the empty trailer and hook to a loaded, sealed trailer. Grab your bills and you're on the road! You can be in and out in less than 10 minutes.

There's not much drop and hook in flatbed. There's live loading - you wait for the forklift driver to load your trailer. Once it's loaded you must secure the load. There's a lot of art in how you secure a load and a learning curve. You usually have to tarp the load too. Tarps can weigh 100 pounds and most carriers give you a small sum for tarping ($25-50).

With dry van the shipper generally loads the trailer and seals it before you show up. This means they are responsible for load securement. You're not expected to break the seal and check their work. With flatbed you have to stop periodically to re-cinch the straps and check your load securement. This must be logged on your ELD to be legal. Rain, snow, wind, extreme temperatures - you must get out of your truck several times to do this.

In Washington you MUST complete your TSA Background Check BEFORE you test at the DMV for your Hazmat endorsement. It usually takes a few weeks so jump on that FIRST. Some states will let you test before you background check, not Washington.

The nice thing about endorsements is that most of them are one and one - you take one test and they're on your license until you die. EXCEPT for Hazmat - it has an expiration date and you need to re-test to maintain the endorsement. Hazmat also means several DMV services that are normally done online are not available unless you go to the DMV in-person, like changing your address. Still, it's better to have the endorsements and not need them than to need them and not have them - especially in this economy.

While Washington is picky about what schools they will accept for issuing a NEW CDL, through the miracle of reciprocity they will accept ANY US CDL (with proof of WA residency and $218) in exchange for a WA CDL! I went to truck school in Keenesburg, CO. I took a Greyhound from Issaquah to Keenesburg. The school had me fill out a lease for my housing at the school. I used that as my proof of CO residency and exchanged my WA license for a CO license. In 3 short weeks I exchanged my CO license and my examiner's report for a paper CO CDL. I went to orientation and got on my trainer's truck. in about a month the CO DMV sent my laminated CDL to the school. The school forwarded it to my home in Issaquah. My carrier routed my truck to Issaquah and I exchanged my CO CDL for a WA CDL. Now, every school does things a little differently but they're all aware of Washington's restrictions and they have workarounds.

The economy is in much worse shape than you've been led to believe. There's almost a half million more trucks on the road than will be needed to meet the demand for freight this year. If you're not happy about that you're really not going to like next year. It's going to be rough for at least the next two years.

...they have good offer and benefits.

Congratulations on earning the Necromancer achievement on your first post.

Compared to what? They PREY on freshly-minted CDL drivers because they know a driver with no experience will look at the ~$2,400/wk they offer and think, "WOW - that's A LOT of money" then sign up without thinking about what they have to do for that money.

Most new CDL drivers will tell you they EARN their money backing the truck - driving the truck is just something that gets thrown in like a plastic toy in a box of cereal. That's backing into well-lit loading docks designed for full-sized trucks NOT tiny, poorly-lit parking lots while impatient four-wheelers are passing you, cutting you off or giving you an earful of verbal abuse. Start with a different job and then after you've backed the truck for a few months go to a Dollar Store on your day off and walk around the parking lot then ask yourself, "Would I feel comfortable backing my truck into this space at night or on a busy day with cars zipping around me?"

The funky backing situations give you A LOT of opportunities to hit things - a post, a light, a power cable or a fire hydrant. You'll be in an unfamiliar location, often at night or the early morning so visibility will be limited. The Dollar Store accounts are very good about documenting every incident until you get enough and they let you go. As a new driver in this economy with 30 days of experience and 2-3 incidents you're done being a driver.

Oh, about that pay figure - they don't pay by the hour, the mile or the day - they by the LOAD. While it's possible for a hard working, experienced driver to finish that load in a week an inexperienced driver just starting out will take closer to TWO weeks to finish. Adjust your earnings picture accordingly.

I think Karen is an AI bot. She sure sounds like it.

Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you.

Usually, no - resumes weren't a thing in this industry. Unfortunately, these aren't normal times. There's more than 400,000 trucks (and drivers) on the road in the US than they need right now. Employers are being picky and asking prospective employees to jump through more hoops than usual.

All-weather driving jobs (jobs less impacted by economic slowdowns) are being FLOODED with qualified applicants as experienced drivers are trying to replace jobs or income lost due to economic conditions. If they ask for a resume give them one. Spend some time to make it look nice. There are plenty of templates available online for free. Hopefully, when freight market stabilize (mid-2014 or so) they'll go back to the regular hiring practices - your driving history (tickets/incidents/accidents) IS your resume. Good luck.

...but the economy would self-regulate far better than it does with a handful of corrupt bureaucrats trying to figure it all out on their own.

with the help of some well paid K Street lobbyists