roytwo

I had a similar concern with my long post retirement road trips. My decision was to make my road guns a lever action rifle and a revolver, both in the same caliber so they could share ammo (.44mag). My thought is that those two types of firearms are the least controversial , and would best keep me out of trouble in restrictive states. In reality, in 99.999% of the cases when you need a firearm, these would serve one just fine . Regardless of the politics of gun restrictions, I just want to have some self defense and not have to deal with unnecessary drama in some restrictive state .

I didn't drive a truck that could go over 70 in a couple decades, BUT My best speeding ticket was in 1983 on HW 95 between Reno and LV. A 1976 KW Cabover. The cop asked if I knew how fast I was going, I answered no, the speedometer stopped at 90, he wrote me for 96MPH in a 60. I think I was doing better than that. I had slowed a bit as I saw him coming toward me and while he flipped a U'ey. Told me to roll into Beatty NV, just up the road ,and visit the court house, I paid my ticket there , $35, and it never showed up on my record. I kind of miss the old days of outlaw driving, and really miss driving through NV back then.

Not a sin in my world, BUT I think firearms should be made of iron and wood and would not own a Glock

Welcome to trucking, none of that is new, I exerenced it for decades

been like this for many decades . I drove from 1982 to 2022.When I started ,back before GPS tracking and with paper logs, 60 hrs a week was part time. Trucking has one advantage, it is one of the last few jobs that if you have no education and are willing to work hard and for long hours you make some good money, BUT it is not a good job, it often wrecks your health, it is demoralizing and it only takes a few years to reach burn out stage, which you deal with, for the remaining decades of your career. And once you are in , you get used to the money and there are not many of those, once upon a time, good paying, union jobs, one could get right out of high school anymore to move to making the same money

I see all these hands flying flags from their trucks and their pick ups and they thinking it makes them some sort of patriot. It only shows their ignorance of real patriotism

just because you got the $$$$$$$ to buy the boat does not mean you have the smarts or skill to pilot the damn thing I guess . As much fun as a busy Saturday at the boat ramps

Its not a matter of glorifying and normalizing 70 hour work weeks, it is a matter of being realistic that if you want to make good money as a driver or keep from being fired you accept the reality that it is not a 40hr week job. This is a fact of life for many decades. In the 1980's when I started, we worked 80+ hours, balanced three logbooks , made good money. 40hr driver work weeks paying good is rare and hard to find. It is sad and wrong , but until the government steps in and requires overtime pay for drivers there is no incentive for owners to work drivers less than maximum hours I has several 100k+years as a paid driver, but not one year where I worked less than 65 to 75 hours a week

A plane?? I don't get it

The first 20 years included a lot of good times, I caught the tail end of the era when Trucking was an adventure and a brotherhood , it was still long hours and questionable pay, But the last 20 years was a weekly decline of quality of life. Glad I am done and would not recommend this career to anyone going forward

These showed up our trucks and and is the reason I cut my career of 40+ years short and retired 2 years earlier than I planed . I adapted to Speed governors and E-Logs, But that was the last straw

Safety and consideration. Usually when a driver stops in place like that, they usually have an issue and may be out of the truck and running over a road side driver will make you late for your delivery

Tarp flap goes on the outside on the front and on the inside on the back. And only one strap on the second stack of lumber will not fly in a lot of jurisdictions, while the tarp conceals that , some scale masters are sharp and will count attachment points outside the tarp to try to determine adequate straps. But a good first go. In my 40 years of flat bedding, I tarped over 4,500 times and I am not sure my first go was not that good

I hated high droppers

the tow was $1,695 the rest was recovery. A bit overpriced but recovery/tow is expensive

Very good, means you are paying attention. Good luck with success in this very hard career. I barely survived my 40+ years at it.

Thank you, I would not known what it meant if you had typed it correctly. I am aware of cowboy action shooting, BUT Not schooled in the rules. Does seem like reckless behavior even when done in private. When I handle a firearm in my home I often check it for clear a second time and stay aware of where the barrel is pointing, in fear of a negligent discharge going through my wall and doing harm. Was not making fun of your miss type, honestly did not know what SDQ OR CDQ meant. Thanks for the info.

Parking has always been an issue, BUT I am SO glad I retired before paid parking became a thing

Bet he can't hit the broadside of a barn, but he thinks he looks cool trying BTW what does CDQ mean

WHY? I did not say TOO low. Crank the gear down , just touch the ground, then reverse a turn or two to ensure there is no pressure on the gear. Then you can Drop the airbags , back under it, inflate airbags, spin landing gear handle with one finger, back into the cab and put it in the wind. elapsed time 2 minutes When they are too high backing under with the match being just a few inches one way or the other puts the entire landing gear in a bind making it hard to crank and leads to damage and bent landing legs. Also a high drop can lead to over running the kingpin and now you are left trying to crank it higher and finding something to wedge under the fifth wheel to level it so you can pull out and then go back and crank it down low enough to catch the pin Also on cans they can often be parked close together giving no room to crank, so hooking to a properly lower dropped can allows you to pull forward and give you room to spin the handle. In my 40+ years of driving only noobs and fools preferred a high drop. Harder on the driver , harder on the equipment

there is a special place in hell for high trailer droppers

Don't forget working hours for free, waiting in long lines to load/unload, sitting in the snow for two days waiting for a pass to open, spending hours looking for some place to park and sleep, Or the fun of putting your 53 footer in a 1940's era loading dock in the old part of town, a dock that was built for a 32 foot trailer almost a 100 years ago

Several reasons flatbeds get stacked That is how new trailers are delivered to the final seller or customer with less transportation cost as it only takes One tractor and driver to deliver 2 or 3 trailers Because it reduces tire wear on one trailer and helps prevent tire skipping or dragging on the bottom trailer that can often occur with an empty flatbed trailer If the trailer is a leased or rented trailer, there is often a charge per mile for miles traveled, taken directly from a  hubodometer on the trailer that only counts miles if the wheel is spinning. This way a trailer can be deadheaded 1000 miles or more with no additional per mile cost In adverse weather like heavy rain or snow , especially with A Trains and doubles, having the weight of the pup on top of the main adds weight and improves drive wheel traction and improves stopping grip on the trailer

In my career I delivered to a location 50 miles inside of the Mercury NV Nuclear test site, The bangor nuclear sub base, The Hanford nuclear site and multiple military bases. It was always accompanied by one or more clearing actions. Sometimes needing to receive Pre clearance, many times on site proof of citizenship, Deep search of truck, dog search of entire rig, and in some cases an armed escort. I was always given a route to follow and instructions that I was warned not to ignore or deadly force could be applied. I am sure that at area 51, they take similar actions and they do not allow the aliens to walk around outside in the daytime or park the saucers outside of the hanger. You must have seen the documentary film, Men in Black, about how all this works

yep either way not going to be fun,

We are maybe ten years from living the script of the Terminator . I read a story a couple days ago that Musk's idea to build a moon colony is to first build an AI robot production facility on the moon and send AI robots there to operate it , to build a robot workforce .

I never had more that a total of 28% to 32% taken from my check

The first gen ones I drove sucked, but the one I drove about three years later was actually pretty good

You were Not in the wrong , BUT you were not practicing situational awareness and defensive driving. the Truck had his left turn signal on and obviously slowing to make the Turn, But he should not have made the turn with you in his way, but you could have better understood the room he needed and gave way a bit , even if you had the right of way, instead of zooming up beside him at high speed. Sloppy driving of both drivers IMO

A lot of Truckdrivers' voted Trump, I do not see many here defending trump, his war and the new oil price boom

Those are the best driver jobs for sure. I worked for a company that bagged cement products and we delivered it across three states IT WAS a great driving job, paid well and had great benefits and 98% of the time the day started and ended at the same parking spot

100%!!!!! that was my last job, I drove for like 22 years before I happened into such a job. I kept it for the last 19 years of my career. Hourly pay, overtime, medical, 401 K, Hated to retire because when I hit 20 years I would get 6 weeks of paid vacation. It was hard to struggle through years 15 to 19 with only 5 weeks. When I Started it was 60K a year , my last year was 105K. Spent 8 to 10 nights a year on the road...in a nice hotel room for ten hours. I actually looked forward to those runs. Pay your dues, get some good experience, keep your record clean and then work for a company that has trucks. That is my advice to new drivers

 "Unfortunately you’ll need to slum it at a mega for a year or two unless you get lucky on a local gig." 100% accurate

If you went to trucking school with the idea you would roll into a nice 40 hour a week job when you left school, you were VERY wrong. Truck drivers, especially those right out of school, work 50 to 70 hours a week and often spend 10 OR MORE days in a row on the road, working for a shit company before they can catch the interest of a recruiter at a good company with good driving positions, And it is rare as hens teeth to get a gig only working 40 hours a week in any driving job, Since the federal government does not require truck drivers to be paid overtime, a company can work you to your legal limit of hours and it saves them money over hiring a second driver when you can work 60 or 70 hours at straight time And the reason you are getting the need more experience responses, is because you are looking for the great trucking job that every driver wants and who spends years gaining the clean experience needed to get those jobs. Those companies can be very picky as you are finding out. The common path is paying your dues at some shitty driving job for a few years, keeping clean and safe. Bad decisions and incidents can add years to the path to a good job I drove 40+ years, it took me ten years to land that good , sleep in your own bed, driving job and I still worked 60 hours a week. There is VERY little room in the trucking industry for 40 hour a week drivers, that's part time work.

two years is the future. My point being is that AI is not responsible for that many job losses currently or for any in the trucking industry at this time. Today's job market issues are from different causes.. For the last ten Years I was driving I kept hearing driverless trucks were coming for our jobs. Been retired 5 years since and the number of driving jobs lost to driverless trucks is struggling to reach 10

"Jobs apocalypse now starting due to".... the incompetent trump administration, the one that most truckdrivers voted for, so FAFO the year before Trump, we averaged 328,000 new jobs a month, for the year 2025, we added a total of 181,000 for the entire year. AI is going to be an issue, in the future. But it is not currently causing the nation's weakening job market and the multi million reduction in job growth

I trucked 40 + years, three of the last 5 years I made six figures. Worked for a local production facility and delivered our product in three states. I did work long hours, the legal amount +3 or 4 hours a week. It is difficult to get to six figures but is doable, BUT one will probably not get there working OTR and being paid per mile.

If I lived in a place where I felt I needed to lug that around all day to be safe I would move.

I agree

Wasn't going to look it up because it was irrelevant for the question at hand. But I concede that the 60/70 hour limit can be exceeded but you just can not drive if you have exceeded that limit.

Not sure of that, because on duty not driving counts toward that 60/70 limit, and I am unaware of any rule allowing that to be exceeded. All the time limits are pretty firm, But I am not sure enough to debate it and really not up to researching it.

Not indefinitely, you are still bound by the 60/70 weekly restriction, BUT You can stay on duty after hour 14 as long as you like until you reach the 60/70 limit, as long as you do not drive until after the 10 hr break

40+ years here and I agree, you are 100% correct

correct

Correct, except that you can not exceed your 60/70 weekly number so can not be 24/7

Your dispatcher is correct, it pains me to say that, You can only drive 11 hours within 14 hours, BUT as long as you do not drive you can "work" until you hit your 60/70 limit but can not drive again until after 10 hours Off Duty or a 34 hour reset. The 14 hour clock ONLY limits when you can drive, you can stay on the clock beyond 14hrs as long as it is NOT driving or exceeding the 60/70 limit. We had to get a DOT ruling on this at my last job, because we would often roll back into the yard at 12, 13, 14 hours but had to see that our truck was reloaded properly for the next day A lot of drivers misunderstand the rule * **Other Work (Limited): You can continue other on-duty tasks (like loading, fueling, inspections) past the 14-hour mark, as long as you don't drive, but these still count toward your weekly limits.** This is correct info and I will not be debating this with anyone that says it is not. Not wasting my time on something that easy to verify 40+ years as driver/dispatcher/safety officer

I bought my first one in 1976 and bought my last one a few hours ago, I still have every one. They all go my son, and he is already looking forward to it, I told them he does not get them until I die, and say ya, you will die one day, meanwhile take care of my inheritance

Some think they seem dorky or noob like, BUT they can really be helpful in changing lanes and tight backing. And Being cool is nowhere near as important as being safe and ensuring NOTHING breaks or bleeds, especially if you want a long successful career

These trucker Subs are full of them. Non drivers wanting to get close to real drivers. But mostly dudes. To be fully honest, back in the day when I was like 18 (1976) I used to occasional drive through the local truck stop to look at the different types of trucks. . ( Mostly cab overs back then). Plus CBs were all the rage back then and everyone had one. So you could be part of the "club" and no one knew you were rolling a F100 Went on a couple Seattle -Oakland rounds in a 1976 KW Cab over , with my Bother in law, he let me drive a some miles (while he sampled some herb, different time in the 70's). Back then , WAY before CDLs, you just had to get a "Chauffeur's License" and you could get one by having someone with a "Chauffeur's License" sign your application saying you were able to drive a truck. At some point he signed my application, and I became an instant truck driver, A start of a career lasting for 40+ years. They transitioned my "Chauffeur's License"  to a CDL, never had to take a driving test

I never set mine if I was parked on reasonable level ground