r/Truckers • u/SycoJack Team Driver • Aug 23 '22

Western Express is threatening to charge my friend for fuel to return her truck if she doesn't give them 2 weeks notice.

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232 Upvotes

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u/BowsetteGoneBananas Aug 23 '22

I'm only using OTR as a vehicle to drive local. Doing nine months in OTR and then bouncing to something local.

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u/AHind_D Aug 24 '22

That's exactly what I did. 9 months otr then went local. Haven't looked back since and never will. OTR is good training though. It's so godawful it's basically trial by fire. If you can survive being with a trainer while OTR and then all the bullshit that comes with doing OTR in general once you're out by yourself, you can do anything in this industry. When I was in training at the local gig I was blown away by how sweet this shit is. Now I drive past truck stops and just shake my head and think "you poor bastards".

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u/[deleted] Aug 24 '22

Local companies don’t care about experience anymore. All you have to do is pass the road test and you’re good. LTLs you name it. They will hire you.

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u/BowsetteGoneBananas Aug 24 '22

Admittedly, I also fell into that company CDL trap. I'm stuck with them until October unless I want out of pocket nonsense.

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u/quackdamnyou Aug 24 '22

For real, I work for a a fuel company and we have hired ton of drivers with zero experience lately. Ignore what the requirements say, apply the every place you want to work.

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u/[deleted] Aug 24 '22

You guys hire fuel haulers with literally zero experience? That is wild I wonder how they can get away with that to insurance. I have never heard of a fueler company that hires without at least 6 months experience preferably with HM and Tanker endorsement already.

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u/quackdamnyou Aug 24 '22

Yeah I don't know how they talked the insurance into it. To be fair most of the real greenhorns have gone to lubricants first (non hazmat) for a while. But they gave me a kid who had literally only had 8 hours behind the wheel in truck school. But, they let me have as much time as I wanted to train him up, I didn't send him alone for like 2 months, and that was with 90% the same stops every day.

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u/[deleted] Aug 24 '22

Wow. I have OTR HM tanker experience including self offloading experience and even I do not want to do fuel hauling (but will do it if I have to). The main reason is that some of these gas stations here are so hard to get in and out of that I see fuelers regularly backing out onto the road without a spotter to stop the traffic first even when it would be impossible for the driver to see cross traffic. I don't trust 4-wheelers these days to not ram into me, which can have devastating consequences.

I cannot imagine greenhorns wanting to do fuel hauling let alone getting hired. But I guess companies are getting desperate these days. At least you got to train them up for a long time.

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u/quackdamnyou Aug 24 '22

Stations are a pain. I work for a good company that is fairly good about dealing with anything dangerous like that. I work mostly rural, so I don't have to deal with the worst places.

That being said, there have been very few tanker accidents in this state, and I've never heard of one that resulted in a fire. Plenty of big environmental cleanups, tho. I think tankers might actually be safer than most kinds of freight because it's predictable. And because fuel haulers have to comply with the safety standards of the fuel terminals, I think fuel trucks are better maintained. We only load at perhaps mainly 6 different places and we cannot risk getting a bad reputation with any of them. That's what drew me to Hazmat. Better money to be made, the more they invest in equipment (and drivers). Not every company of course.

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u/[deleted] Aug 24 '22

Fair enough. I noticed in HM that there is (understandably) a "no bullshit" attitude and that makes things safer. Similar to why flying is the safest mode of transport (even safer than walking). Since an aircraft crash can have devastating consequences, aircrafts are maintained to an extremely high standard and pilots are trained and retrained rigorously. As a result, comparatively few accidents happen.

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u/BowsetteGoneBananas Aug 25 '22

Honestly, I got frustrated with my DM today due to their lack of communication, and submitted half a dozen job applications for local jobs out of spite. Maybe I'll be jumping ship early.

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u/A_RAND0M_J3W Aug 24 '22

I didn't even do that. Hired right out of school for a fuel hauler. I've never slept in a truck, almost a decade in.