Friday, March 27, 2009

Breaking Free

I completed my tour with Knight Refrigerated on March 8, 2009 after becoming tired of working harder than the truck, although they did have a great volume of freight I became fatigued from having the Cummins engine which was rated at 400 horse power at 1800 rpms the top cruise control speed was set at 62 mph and top pedal speed was 64 mph

the power was actually decreased electronically as the truck started into a hard pull up a hill or mountain, all these things were good fuel economy for the company but harder on the driver, also, the limited idle time to 10 percent was a hard one for the driver i.e. me

the bunk had an oil fired heater made by Webasto which blew very hot dry air on full blast and did o.k. on not too cold of a night, I don't know how drivers will handle the heat in the summer

seems that trucking is taking a turn for the worst, the fun has about all gone from it, the get er done on these large run of the mill companies solely relies on the driver working harder than the truck does, of which I am not interested in this kind of extra slack taking up on my part

I am going to be starting work with a small carrier next week that only has about 36 power units, I believe that America needs the smaller Mom Pop type stores and Trucking Companies as well, we have already seen what kind of shape Corporate America has got this great Country in, over population is only the base root of the problems, Big Corporate is the rest