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You are wrong. The eligibility requirements are posted on the ATA web site. The link is in my post above.

This June 6-9, Diane and I responded to the FedEx Chairman's Challenge and competed in the Minnesota State Truck Driving Championship, which is part of the American Trucking Associations National Truck Driving Championships. In this three-day event, neither of us placed high enough to advance...

Are you maybe talking about a Freightliner backpack closet? Or was it a different kind of truck? Also, was what you saw on a factory sleeper or custom sleeper?

The New York Times article that prompted discussion in trucking circles was Soaring Fuel Prices Take a Withering Toll on Truckers. The part that jumped out for me was, "...carriers with at least five trucks are also going out of business at an accelerating pace. In the first quarter, 935 of...

While there was no good reason for not doing it sooner, I finally got around to ordering Airtabs for our truck. I am always skeptical of fuel economy claims made about any aftermarket device. While a given driver may indeed see a fuel economy improvement, I wonder how much of it has to do...

Back to the original post, another item that comes to mind is fleet owners that pay for fuel. I would think they are feeling pressure like never before. On one hand, the driver has no financial incentive to minimize incidental deadhead trips. Driving say fifty miles to a truck stop to get a...

We average 9-10 mpg depending on speed, wind and terrain. The truck weighs 34,000 lbs. empty. We are not disappointed in the mpg numbers as we had no predefined expectations when we built the truck, though 7 mpg would have been a disappointment. In calculating its fuel surcharge, FedEx Custom...

As if $4.00/gallon for diesel fuel was not bad enough, $5.00/gallon is now being charged in some areas. Fuel surcharges trend upward as a result, but not on the personal deadhead miles expediters do. At the moment, we are 900 miles from home. At 9 mpg for a straight truck, that is 100...

Every carrier has its top producers, long-term contractors and happy people. So too with flashes in the pan, long-term complainers that don't do well but don't leave either, and wash outs. At least important as the question, "How contractor-friendly is the carrier?" is the question, "How...

We have delivered to a movie production facility in New York City and a large movie studio in Los Angeles. The New York delivery was frozen pizza dough to be used in making a TV ad for a major food company. The other was a nearly-finished movie that had post-production work done on it in New...

Two bars and a pizza joint sounds like reason enough for me. :p

Good words. Keep us posted.

Most recent run: Deadhead from a town in Maine, west on U.S. 2 to a town in Vermont to pick up. Drive loaded to a town in Upstate New York to deliver. (A delightful New England summer drive, I might add.) Miles on offer: 405 Miles on FedEx-recommended route as calculated by Delorme: 395...

If you are willing to establish yourself as a carrier, this may be an option to consider: GPSNet Technologies I was skeptical when I first learned of this approach a few years ago. But they have a success story to tell. In articles he has written and interviews he has done, company honcho Stu...

That is a great site, Crazynuff. Thank you for alerting us to it. By choice, we don't have a TV in our truck, but with online TV expanding like it is, it seems more and more that if you have a laptop, you have a TV too.

Users of Sprint and Verizon air cards regularly report high satisfaction with the services. At the moment, we are online with an air card, and also backed up to a loading dock, waiting for the shipper to arrive. We are at least 10 miles from any WI-FI access point that might be around and at...

Thank you, aarbsthw. It was an anti-climatic event. While it is nice to own the truck outright and have no truck payments to make, we feel no less focused than before. The plan is to run this truck for ten years. With two years behind us and eight to go, and adjusting for inflation, we...

TeamCaffee has it right. If the load pays enough money, accept it. Otherwise, don't. With or without reefer relocation pay, reroute pay, fuel surcharge, labor pay, deadhead pay, liftgate pay and any other pay, it has never mattered to us what they call it. All that matters is how much the...

While expediting is a tiny slice of the transportation industry, there are numerous styles of expediting that people do. Diane and I have zero interest in running under our own authority. That is not to take anything away from those that do. It is just that we value our free time. The people...