Life is less complicated for Dave Krebs as he runs pretty much the same routes each week for Great Lakes Cheese of Hiram, OH. HaulProduce recently caughtup with after he has delivered a load of cheese to Atanta from Ohio. His weekly route typically takes him from Ohio to Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Pennyslvania, Maryland, and as far north as Buffalo, NY. It all involving picking up and delivering cheexe.
Dave, 55, has been trucking since he was 18 years old, where he started out driving a dump truck. He’s been running his current route for the past year. Prior to this he was delivering milk to Costco stores.
“I love having a regular route,” says the resident of Garretsville, OH. “You know what you will be doing for the week and where you will be.” He also works directly with shippers to obtain his own loads.
Dave owns a 2010 359 Peterbilt with an ISX 550 h.p. Cummins diesel. I features an 18 speed transmission, has a 285-inch wheelbase, pulling a 48-foot Utility trailer with a thermoKing unit.
While the owner operator is glad to be trucking for the same businesses each week, he readily admits being a driver isn’t necessarily his first love. Dave enjoys buying and selling things – something like a “horse” trader.
“This is a job. It’s like going on the pawn shop TV series. I’ll sell anything, including this truck,” he notes.
What does he like least about trucking? All the paperwork, the rules and the regulations.
Specifically, Dave mentions the CSA regulations of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which rates the safety of motor carriers. The FMCSA bases its safet program on percentages. This mean that 35 percent of carriers are going have safety “alerts,” since only 65 percent of carriers can be deemed safe at any on time.
He calls this rating system, “terrible.”
As for the hours of service rules, Dave say the rules do not bother him, “because what I do, the 34-hour restart does not affect me. I have time for plenty of rest in between my stops.”
While he sees some improvement in the economy, he notes freight rates are still too low and should be higher. When the economy took a nosedive in 2008, Dave sold four flatbed trailers he had been using to haul steel.