The voting for Crap Company of the Year ends today! Have you voted yet? I'll be taking the page down but you can still find it HERE and vote! New Crap Company of the Week starts Wednesday. I think we will have a quarterly vote and then those 4 can fight it out for Yearly winner!
Remember, today is the regular Monday live show at 1pm EST on YouTube. I hope you will be there. In a somewhat hilarious blog comment, it has been suggested that I keep my opinions to myself. I am not sure if people have notice, this entire website and YouTube and everything else is my opinion! Do I know everything about trucking? No. Decades of experience allow me to give an informed opinion. Gather that with other trusted opinions and then make your decision. See you on the road!
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This topic came up on my live Christmas show and was discussed some so I am going to do a video about trucker legal plans and should you get one. In a nutshell, I say yes. Many larger carriers have a plan as part of their benefits package and that is how I get mine but I would have one anyway. This doesn't mean you are some bad driver. It is like insurance. Sure, you could put the monthly fee aside in case you needed it but I think its better to just be able to make a call and have things handled. Do you just put $50/wk aside in case you need an appendectomy? No. We have insurance for that and this is the same type of thing. The courts have become defacto organizations to collect money from drivers. Your license is your job and it needs to be protected at all costs. Fight all tickets. Having a lawyer on your side to do this could be the difference between points and no points. Some of the plans I have been looking in to also will do a DATAQ challenge to have CSA points removed once a ticket is dismissed. That can save your job. Remeber, they can't guarantee an outcome and there is a wide variety of coverages and costs.
See you on the road! U-Haul, a regular viewer and contributor to the live show, was in my area so we arranged a meeting in Gary on Christmas. We were behind enemy lines with the CR England training school close by. Still, I popped the tail of the TRUCKING ANSWERS mobile unit and went live. While having a discussion on all things trucking, Wildbill shows up! He is also a regular on the live show. I didn't even know he was coming! Let me tell you this, no greater gift could have been given to me that day. To think that someone would take time out of their Christmas to drive to Gary and see me is just incredible. I could not feel any more honored by that. I thought the meet-up was super fun and I am going to do more of them in the spring. I'll announce in advance where I'll be. Now, if you come by be sure to introduce yourself. You all see me but I've never seen you! Meeting others who want to change the industry is amazing.
The voting for Crap Company of the Year continues. New Crap Company of the Week videos start next year! VOTE. Look for better videos coming in the new year. I will be upgrading the video editing software and learning to use it. I already upgraded the mic, I hope it is helping the sound quality. It seemed to do a good job in the live show over the holiday. See you on the road! I get asked about this all the time. Since truck drivers are currently exempt from minimum wage laws under the FLSA of 1938, should that be changed? Yes, it should BUT don't get into the mindset that minimum wage is going to change your life. As I have said, drivers should get paid for all of their time, no doubt. For a company to comply with the FLSA as of today, a driver who has worked 70 hours in one week would need to be paid $616.25 before taxes (gross). As long as you are getting more than that, changing the FLSA would not change your life. I suppose some drivers would get more due to local laws but there would likely be some kind of exemption for interstate drivers that they would be subject to Federal Minimum wage. The point is this, don't worry about the minimum of anything. Don't work hard to get the least amount of pay. $616 a week is just over 30 grand a year. If that is all you are getting, quit. There is plenty more pay than that out there for you. There are already companies paying for all of your time. Make more, don't work more.
Live show today at 1pm EST! Live show at Auto Transport Intel on Christmas Day at 8PM Central! See you on the road! Have you Joined the Nation to get on the newsletter list? Why not? You can join HERE and until then you can get the latest newsletter right HERE!
Traffic will be crazy the next few days as usual. Don't try to beat the DOT and run over your hours. Your license and good record are what feeds your face and keeps your family in underoos. Protect your record. I will have my regular live show on Monday December 24 at 1pm EST and may pop up live on Christmas from a remote location! Nothing set in stone yet but watch for it! See you on the road! I had numerous trailer related problems at work last night which got me home much later than normal. So, my normal video of a company doing it better is delayed due to time. I feel that answering my emails is very important as people are needing information. I also know that I am behind on video comments which I will catch up soon due to the holiday and some days off of work. Sometimes there are just problems.
Voting for the Crap Company of the Year continues! Have you voted yet? There will likely be a newsletter tomorrow so be on the lookout for that. I also wanted to say that Trimac contacted me. They assure me that they have no driver facing cameras in any of their trucks and never will. The inside facing part is not turned on. So, there you go. See you on the road! You have suffered through the indignities of unpaid layovers. You have waited at the dock with no pay. Three students got in the truck but only one came out. You have had fuel deducted from your check and you were called 53 times during your break. Life at some trucking companies is like a bad country song. It doesn't have to be that way. Until that changes I will continue to expose these scumbag outfits for what they are. Now it is time to have your say. It is time to vote for the Crap Company of the Year! The winner will get a trophy engraved with their name and likely a certificate suitable for framing! I will be presenting these live at the Mid-America Truck show if they company is there. If not, I will make other arrangements. Just like in Chicago, vote early and vote often! I am running the vote through the end of the year because not everyone will watch the video on the day it is put out. I think next year I will have a vote every quarter and those four will fight it out cage match style at the end of the year. Now, go VOTE! Be sure to share this and tell everyone to vote. Just like in Chicago, vote early and vote often!
See you on the road! Yesterday on my regular 1pm live show it was brought up by a driver that the company this person works for is punishing them for some of the things they have posted online about their employer. Although they have a right to do this, the company would be better served to address the problems it has rather than trying to simply stifle those that would oppose them. Still, I want to put out this warning. Companies have bots that crawl the web searching for their name. So, when you complain that Company X is garbage and here is why, they will likely find it. If you use your actual name, they may take action against you, up to and including firing you. Now, this driver was not fired but was spoken to and admonished. So, do not use your actual name if you are going to post bad stuff about the place that pays you! It is super easy to use basically any name you want. I might use the name of the CEO, that would be hilarious. Is a company hassling you about this very thing? I would like to know what is happening. Let me know HERE.
Are you ready to watch Jay tonight on Auto Transport Intel on YouTube? His show starts at 8pm Central time. It is a live show of information and memes. Check out the show HERE. See you on the road! Out of all of the Crap Companies of the Week that have been done, did you think there was one worse than the others? Well, now you can have your voice heard! Dec 19-31 there will be voting for Crap Company of the Year! I will have a special page set up on the website that will allow you to vote. When voting is over the winner (loser?) will have an engraved trophy made. Presentation of the trophy will be at the Mid-America Truck Show in Louisville, KY at the end of March if they are there. Not all companies attend. If they are not there I have another plan. This should be fun and in the future I plan on a Crap Company of the Quarter with those 4 squaring off at the end of the year. I will have a link to the voting page on Wednesday! Voting will begin in the afternoon. Refresh your memory of the Crap Companies of the Week HERE.
For those of you that don't know I do a live show every Monday on my YouTube Channel. The show begins at 1pm and usually goes about 2.5 hours. It is a Q and A type show so bring your questions or comments and let's enjoy! I have been asked about Christmas Eve and yes I will be live that day as well! I will likely do a live show on Christmas also but I don't know at what time or for how long so it will be more of a pop-up show. The same for New Year's Eve and day. Regular show Monday and pop-up Tuesday. See you on the road! Did you know that to be in compliance with the ELD mandate you must have the manual to the device with you in the truck? That is a fact. Keep that booklet with you, actually with the device in case you are asked for it. Look, its a BS ticket but it still is a ticket and theoretically could hurt your CSA score. If you are at a company and you do not have the manual, have your company get it to you or download it and print it our yourself. The small cost to print it is less that an ticket.
The Love's is adding dog parks to some of its Travel Centers. Do you travel with your dog? This may come in handy to you. Get your free tickets to the Mid-America Truck Show HERE. I'll be there Friday and Saturday and most of it will be LIVE! See you on the road! |
AuthorHi! Welcome. I'm Mark and I've been a professional truck driver for over 33 years, the last 19 years at the same company. It is time that drivers got paid for every minute that we work and we are treated like the licensed professionals we are. Archives
February 2022
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