Trucker's Journal

I've moved!

2008-01-01T07:18:00.000-05:00

I've purchased my own domain and will come "out of the shadows" and tell you to go to the new blog here or my homepage here.

I became a former trucker last June and now drive a desk and a computer. The choice to change was made when a friend I had worked with in the past called and offered regular hours (Monday through Friday, 7am through 4pm) and more money. The money wasn't the real reason, and I told him I almost would have taken a pay cut to get a "normal" job. I still have the highest respect for truck drivers and give them every courtesy on the road, but was just getting too old to be working the odd and many hours required. I'm happy where I am now and think perhaps I might even retire from there in ten years or so.

Happy New Year to all!

More on weight

2007-04-21T22:59:00.000-04:00

It's funny how things work. I can go for weeks and never have a bad weight, either total or on axles, then get a couple in a row. Last week I had a load assigned to me which had been loaded by a new employee who thought the object was to stack things as high as possible and pack it all in the front of the trailer. BZZZT! Wrong!

This trailer gave me steer axle weight of 13,880 (legal limit 12,000) and 28,160 on the trailer tandems with them moved ALL the way to the front to redistribute weight to the back. The balance of the 76,720 total was on the drive axles. With no way to move anything (even the sliding fifth wheel) to get it legal, the only option was to unload and have an experienced loader do it correctly. After it was done, my weights were: steer-10,580, drives-30,680, and tandems-35,460. But, remember, I had them slid all the way front, so I could adjust them back. At about 400 pounds per adjustment hole, I needed to move about 9 as a starting estimate. With that trailer, that was about 3 feet, so I slid them and ran over the scale again. Voila! Now, steers-10,620, drives-33,940, and tandems-32,160. You'll notice that moving the tandems does affect the steer axle very slightly, but it's very noticable on the drives and tandems.

I did get a load on Friday where I was overweight totally and they had to take off some of the load. I didn't get axles weights but do have an air gauge on my dash showing what my drive air bags have, and they were probably overweight, but I knew I wasn't going far (couple hundred miles) and there were no scales between start and stop, so I just didn't worry about it. Yeah, I could have been stopped on the road for something and been weighed on portable scales, but that's a rare event, so no sleep lost.

Moving tandem axles

2007-04-14T19:30:00.000-04:00

In response to a request, here's the lowdown on weight distribution on the trailer. Each type of axle/tire combination is allowed a certain weight limit and the overall limit for the truck/trailer combination is also regulated by law. For most trucks with single steer axles and twin drive axles together with a trailer with tandem axles, the limit overall is 80,000 pounds. The steers are allowed 12,000, and both the dual axle sets are allowed 34,000. You may very well be at or under your allowed gross weight but have one or more axles overweight. I'm sure you have driven by the weigh stations on the interstate and seen the parking lot behind the building occupied by a truck or three and wondered why they are there. From the scuttlebutt I've heard, the most common reason is a log violation and the second most common is weight violations. Most truckers are aware of their "tare" or empty weight with a truck/trailer combination (mine is about 32,500 pounds most of the time) and can add their freight weight to that to see if it's legal. However, many don't bother to get their axle weights to see if they are axle legal also.

Here's where the moving of the axles comes in. If you are legal overall but your rear axles are overweight, you need to redistribute it toward the front. How can that be done? Well, remember when you were young and played on a see-saw which could be moved in the middle? If you and your friend stayed there on either end but moved the middle, you would have to work harder on one end to push and vice versa on the opposite end. So it is with the axles. If you are over on the rear, you need to reduce the rear weight by moving the axles back, placing more of the total trailer weight on the front of it. You do that by setting the trailer brakes and pulling the pin which locks the axles in place. You then move the truck and trailer forward while the axles sit still. The holes are generally placed so that each one changes the weight by about 400#, so if you're 1,000 over on the rear, you would move forward about 3 holes. If you're over on the drive (dual truck) axles, you do the opposite by backing up.

After you move them and relock the pin, you need to reweigh to see if you are indeed legal now. At many truck stops, the scales give you axle weights with separate platforms, but on a single platform scale, you need to get a total weight, then progressively pull off the scale with one axle or set of axles at a time to get weights and then do the math to see if you have done what you need to do.

Many states allow up to 1,000 over on any axle or set but some don't, so you're best to get it right. If you can't move it enough, then you have to get reloaded with the freight moved around inside the trailer and start the weigh/move process all over again.

On older trailers, you sometimes can't unlock the pin and move them, so many truckers try to avoid scales. The problem with that is that if you are caught doing it, your fine will be higher!

Another thing to remember is that some states regulate the length of the wheelbase of the trailer--in Michigan where I'm based, the distance from the kingpin (on the trailer where it mates with the fifth wheel on the truck, usually 3 feet from the front of the trailer) to the center of the axles at the rear can be no more than 40' 6". There's a lot to "juggle" to get your weight and length right.

End the Presidential/Congressional impasse

2007-04-06T11:24:00.000-04:00

End the Presidential/Congressional impasse

OK, fair warning: this one's totally political! Exit now if you don't want to read it....

Congressional elections put Democrats in power with the premise that the American people were tired of the Bush war in Iraq. He (Dubya) doesn't seem to get that message. Our system is republican (small "r") which means the people govern by electing Senators and Representatives, but that isn't good enough for Georgie-boy. I think a direct democratic (small "d") system would work to show him what we really think, in a way he can't refute.

I propose that the President end the veto threat by adopting an NPR plan for funding the war. Put Dick Cheney on Fox News and call back Don Rumsfeld from retirement as guest-host on Rush Limbaugh and have them ask for money. If we take out the pork and say the President wants $100 Billion, then 100 Million Americans need to pledge only $1,000 each. It can be taken out of their weekly paychecks, so a family of five would contribute only $100/week.

Also following the NPR model, I propose a premium of a techno-coffeecup with a constantly updating numeric display of the number of American soldiers dead in the war over the picture of a flag-draped coffin, and a speaker playing "Taps" on every new death report. The other side might display smiling Dubya in his flight suit on the carrier deck under the infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner.

Here's something you'll never hear on NPR: "This is Dick Cheney and I tell you that if you don't pledge, you're supporting the terrorists! All you people with stickers on your car saying 'I support the troops' need to call now and put your money where your mouth is."

What happens if the full $100 Billion isn't pledged? Well, perhaps Halliburton could provide some matching funds out of their ill-gotten gains from the war. If the total still isn't reached, then withdrawals begin so that it's proportional. If only half is procured, then the troops come home in six months, or we withdraw the Air Force and Navy and leave the Army and Marines to fend for themselves. You get the idea, I'm sure....

I did pledge to NPR last week, but I won't be pledging to this drive.

If you have a better idea, please let me know. I do welcome comments, compliments, and complaints.

I'm back :)

2007-04-06T11:15:00.000-04:00

When it rains, it pours. I had a virus/trojan/worm in my computer which kept me off-line for a while last year, then the real storm started. My cable company and I got in a little dispute and I told them to take their service and put it where the sun don't shine.

So, I'm still without a home internet account, but a friend allows me to bring over the laptop. I hope to be back on with some more regularity (more Metamucil needed?) now.

Jesus jes' ain't gonna like it!

2006-10-12T19:39:00.000-04:00

The counter with stools is present in almost every truck stop in the country with a sit-down restaurant. It sticks out like a peninsula into the tables and booths, and attracts those who wish to talk to others while they eat. I generally sit in a booth or at a table since I'm almost always reading a book or a magazine while I eat, but I'm sometimes close enough that I can overhear the conversations with ease.

One day last week I overheard an older man expounding on the good things happening in our country since George W. Bush became our beloved leader almost six years ago. He was generally delivering a monologue, but every once in a while, someone else at the counter would interject with a quick "That's right" or something of that sort. I was intrigued with what he was saying even though I agreed with none of it. If you've read the previous posts here, you know that I'm a liberal and a Democrat and have little use for Bush or his cadre of liars and thieves. This man got on a minimum wage roll, telling how it should not be raised and that anyone in the country could get rich if he or she really wanted it and tried. He said the poor were poor only because they were lazy or stupid. He then very loudly proclaimed, "And I say piss on the poor!"

Everyone listening was silent at that pronoucement until a younger (30 or so?) black man across from him asked if he was a religious man. The older (60 or more?) man spouting politics said, "Yes, I'm a Christian." The black man then said loudly, "No, you ain't no Christian. Jesus said in Matthew 25:40 'Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' So, when you say 'Piss on the poor,' you're really sayin' 'Piss on Jesus.' I think Jesus jes' ain't gonna like it!"

The older gentleman wiped his mouth, picked up his ticket, and walked off toward the cashier without speaking another word. I just sat there and grinned at my newest friend, the truck driving Bible scholar :)

Some pet peeves

2006-08-19T11:16:00.000-04:00

Everyone has some irritations in his or her life which can be extremely annoying even though they are relatively small things. We know these as pet peeves. I have many related to my truck driving job and I'll list a few of them here. If you as a four-wheeler are guilty of any of them, please think about changing your habits. These are in no particular order, so don't think number 4 isn't as bad as number 1 or vice versa.

1) I'm cruising down the interstate at the speed limit and a four-wheeler passes me, quickly darts into my lane in front of me, then just as quickly moves right into the next lane over or the exit lane. What would it hurt if you just stayed behind me and took that extra second or two to move over?

2) As above, I'm doing the speed limit and I'm passed on the left and then the vehicle moves in front of me. He or she suddenly realizes that the speed is too high and slows down to below what I'm going. Of course, I then have to disengage my cruise control or otherwise slow down. You may not know it, but once I lose speed, I can't regain it nearly as fast as you can. If you aren't going to go faster than I am, or at least the same speed, please don't pass me.

3) I'm coming up to an entrance ramp and see that you are entering and that there's nothing near me to the left and I move over a lane to be nice. You enter the right lane and match my speed exactly or nearly so, trapping me in the left lane so I can't move back over. Most areas have laws and sometimes explicit signs posted keeping trucks in the right (or 2 rightmost) lane and I'm technically in violation because of your speed. Please either slow down and heed my right blinker or speed up so I can move back over.

4) I'm in a city and need to turn right at a fairly tight intersection and you're coming from the direction I need to turn and you're in the left turn lane. You have moved up past the white line and are eagerly awaiting the color change of the light. I begin my wide right turn and it comes to the point where I don't have enough room to complete the turn. You will notice when a truck/trailer combination turns, the rear trailer tires always follow a smaller radius circle than the steer tires on the tractor. Perhaps there's a fire hydrant or utility pole right there which I will knock over or hit if I come too close, so I have to go wide. Back to the story, you're in front of the line (which is placed where it is solely for this purpose) and I get to the point where I can't go any farther without hitting your vehicle. Please back up, pull over to the right, do something so I can finish the turn. I will just sit there until my way is clear, blocking several lanes of traffic. I was at a particularly tight intersection several months ago when this happened. A driver was fully in front of the line and I got about half-way turned and waited for her to back up. The vehicle behind her was well behind the line and left lots of room for her to get back far enough so I thought everything was OK. She put it in reverse and started backing, watching only the front of my tractor, not looking behind her. Oops, she just "rear ended" the car behind her after backing much too far. He didn't see it coming in time to avoid it. Usually when a rear-end collision occurs, it's 100% the fault of the driver in the rear. This time, I'm sure he didn't get the citation. Yeah, I indirectly caused that accident, but I wasn't involved and wasn't at fault in any way. I continued on my way, leaving them to sort it out by themselves. When you see that white line, stay behind it and please be prepared to move slightly so I can turn.

5) Passing on the right is usually wrong, but I'm forced to do it when you're in the middle or left lane and insist on driving too slowly. If you want to view the scenery or look for an exit sign, please get over in the right lane and do it. It makes everyone happier that way.

6) I'm coming up on a vehicle going to slowly and desire to pass on the left. I put on my turn signal indicating a lane change to the left and you, driving in the left lane far behind me decide that you don't want to be behind me and speed up to the point that I can't change without hitting you or forcing you off the road to the left. I'm forced to slow down. Here again, I don't like to slow down so please don't force me into this situation.

I'm sure I'll remember more later, and when I do, perhaps I'll write another entry about them.

I also have other pet peeves related to shiping/receiving clerks and/or dispatchers, but that's another whole story :)

CB Radio

2006-08-03T16:27:00.000-04:00

I had an email from a reader asking if truckers still use CB radios. Yes, indeed, they do. But I don't. I have one and used it for a while, but it raised my blood pressure more than it helped me, so I just didn't re-install it in my new (well, different) truck when I changed companies last year.

Most of what you hear is one liners like "Come on back in, you're clear of my front bumper now," or "Look at the seat covers in that VW!" For those who don't know, seat covers are females seated in a four-wheeler. When you see that VW go by, you don't know until you look if that enticement from another driver was an invitation to feast your eyes or prepare to vomit.

Most of the truckers or companies where I pick-up/deliver who use CBs are amazed when I tell them that I don't have one. They all wonder how I get along without one. I will admit that there are times when I do wish I had it installed, such as when you see a "brake check" ahead (all lanes stopped and red brake lights showing on everything) and wish you knew which lane to get in to avoid having to merge into another lane later, or whether or not you need to be in the right lane because there's a weigh station ahead and you can keep cruising in the left if it's closed. But, I've found that all in all, the plusses for having it don't outweigh the minuses.

If you really want to know how most truckers think and act, get yourself a CB and sit near a truck stop for any length of time and just listen to channel 19. You will hear literally everything you can imagine, from sexual propositions to items for sale to invitations to fight. The first is usually called "commercial company" and is scorned by most. The derogatory name is "lot lizard". They are almost always old and ugly. I hate judging people by sight alone, but let me tell you that I've seen none in truck stop parking lots that would even get in the back door of a beauty contest, let alone be a contestant. As for items for sale, many truckers live from paycheck to paycheck and will sometimes come up short and wish to sell their road atlas, their refrigerator, their CB amplifier, etc. I've heard that you can buy some good items for next to nothing that way, but I always wondered when I heard them selling if they weren't just ripping off some of their cargo and I'd be discovered in the possession of stolen merchandise if I bought. Sometimes you hear strange things like "I have 6 cases of frozen lemonade concentrate at $5 a case. Come see me at the reefer (refrigerated truck) next to the back fence." What has probably happened in that instance is that the BOL (bill of lading) said there were 300 cases and when they unloaded, there were 306 cases. You're stuck with the extra 6 cases to dispose of as you wish some of the time when that happens. Third item: fights. "Your momma......" "Don't you talk about my momma like that." "Yeah, I'll talk about your momma any time and any way I want." "Come to the red Pete (Peterbilt) behind the garage and say that to my face." And it goes on and on.

Yeah, it's entertainment more than it's worth having, but that's just my opinion. Who knows? I may yet decide to dig it out and install it one more time. But until then, I'll listen to my CDs and my Sirius radio when the commercial radio isn't worth listening to.

Hope that answers the question to your satisfaction. If not, then remember: you got what you paid for :)

The email address is longhaul48statetrucker@yahoo.com if anyone out there wants to email me. I don't check it every day, but if you write, I'll eventually see it.

Perceptions

2006-07-22T17:32:00.000-04:00

You've probably heard Paul Harvey on the radio before with his famous line, "And now, for the rest of the story." Well, here, you aren't going to get the rest of the story because I don't know it. In fact, this is going to be as if you turned on a one hour television show at about 10 minutes past the hour and then got an important phone call 30 minutes later and missed the end of the show. But, I can't help that since I don't know it all.

I was cruising through Battle Creek, Michigan a while a few weeks ago on I-94 on my way to Kalamazoo when I saw police lights on the right shoulder from several hundred yards back. I wasn't close enough to see what was happening yet, but knew that the law stated I needed to either slow down or move over to the left lane. There wasn't much traffic and I had an open space available, so I moved immediately. I also slowed down slightly just to be safer--and so I could see what was going on. Yeah, I'm sometimes curious myself about what problems others have. As I neared, I saw that it was a van parked in front of the police car and there were people standing outside it. One was a man about 25 or 30, a woman about the same age, a child about 4 or 5 standing by what I assumed to be his mother, and she was holding an infant. The man was being handcuffed as I--and what appeared to be his entire family--were watching.

OK, show's over, there's nothing to see here, move along. I went on by and wondered what the story was. Was he a murderer with an outstanding warrant who just happened to be pulled over for speeding and got caught when his name was put into the cruiser's computer? Did the policeman spot something illegal in the back seat? Was he married for the second time and didn't pay his child support to the first wife? There are so many possibilities and there's no way to know which one was true.

The "Perceptions" title comes in when I ask you how your view of that scenario would have played out in your mind depending on who they were, how they were dressed, what they were driving, etc. We all have our preconceptions or prejudices and they play into what we think about others well before we know any facts.

What if I said they were white, dressed in ragged jeans and tie-dyed T-shirts and were driving a VW bus with flowers and peace signs painted on it. Would you immediately say they were methamphetamine dealers?

What if they were Hispanic, driving a 20 year old van with rust all over--would you think they were illegal immigrants with no proof of citizenship?

What if they were Oriental? What would your first impression be?

What if they were black, had dreadlocks and Bob Marley shirts? Pot merchants, for sure, right?

Well, I still can't tell you what the crime was or what happened later, but I will tell you what I saw. They were very well-dressed black people in a minivan about 7 years old or so. The kids appeared to be well-behaved and clean, mom was in a nice dress, and dad (in cuffs now) had on a business suit and tie. For those with prejudices, this may seem to be impossible. Well, as Sgt. Friday used to say on Dragnet, "Just the facts, ma'am." I'm telling you what I saw, I'll let you think about your perceptions and what you would have thought if you had seen that little drama unfold before your eyes.

The Devil Dispatched Me

2006-07-15T14:27:00.000-04:00

I have been trying to write one entry every week for the past month or so, but you might have noticed that I missed last week. There's a good reason, which will be explained to you here.

With the title, I don't mean to say that the office team responsible for dispatch is seriously the embodiment of Satan, but I'm positive that some demon possessed at least one of them last Friday. Thursday afternoon after a two day trip (my only one since I had been given Monday and Tuesday off due to the July 4th holiday) I returned to the office and was told that I needed to call in Friday afternoon for Monday's marching orders. So, when I arose on Friday morning I was somewhat surprised to find a voicemail on my work cellphone asking me to call in immediately. Had I owned a crystal ball and seen only 10% of what was to happen, I would have "accidentally" erased that message before hearing it, but, alas, I did what it asked and called in. It seems that one of our owner-operators (independent contractors owning their own trucks, not company employees driving company trucks as I do) had secured a load on his own from somewhere in Ohio to somewhere in Tennessee. He got a couple hours from where he picked it up and got sick, decided he wanted the weekend off, met a woman, I'm not sure of the story, but he just dropped the trailer in a truck stop and called in to say that he couldn't deliver it on Wednesday as scheduled. So, on Friday I get the call to go bobtail (no trailer, just the tractor) to just North of Cincinnati and pick up that trailer and deliver it to Athens, TN before 11pm on Friday night. OK, I go into work, get all the information I need, and head South. A couple hours later, I'm at the truck stop and find the trailer and back under it to couple it. When you do so, the first thing you're supposed to do is put the tractor in a forward gear and attempt to move the trailer. If it doesn't move you immediately know two things: 1) the kingpin on the trailer has properly been latched into the fifth wheel, and, 2) the trailer brakes are good, since before you hook up the air lines, the brakes are supposed to be locked. Well, this wasn't the case, since the trailer followed me forward. This can mean a couple of things, but since it had rained recently, I took it to mean that the pavement was wet enough that the tires remained locked with the brakes but slid on the water film. Wrong, as I was to discover later!

I hooked up everything (both air lines and the electrical connector), released all my brakes with the valves on the dashboard, and proceeded down the road toward Tennessee. I quickly discovered that the brakes on the trailer were weak at best, totally gone at worst. But, I thought that my tractor brakes could handle it alright. Since I was going South and near Cincinnati, that meant that Kentucky was very close. One thing most truckers realize is that when you cross a state line, there's probably a scale on the other side. Yes, there was one very close to the border and I had the uncommon luck to find that it was open. When entering many scales, there's a "weigh in motion" scale on the ramp which estimates your weight and gives you an arrow to follow. Left is exit back to the Interstate, right means you must pull over the accurate scale in front of the weighmaster's building. I stopped on the scale and waited for the display to show what I had. My bill of lading said 40,000 pounds, which is well under my maximum cargo rating, so I wasn't worried, assuming that I was one of the random ones who were just pulled in even though the first inaccurate scale had been passed. Well, the numbers came up on the display and I was over on my rear trailer axles. My limit is 34,000 pounds on that set of axles and I was 36,400, although my gross was alright. Oops! I got the red arrow at the end of the scale pointing right which means pull around the back and bring in all your paperwork. I walked in and got a citation for overweight axle even though my gross weight was under the limit. At two cents a pound (plus unknown court costs) I was up to $48.00 minimum for this violation.

Of course, most trailers have movable real axles so you can adjust your weight distribution, so I figured I'd just slide the tandems to correct it, run back over the scales to verify it, and get on down the road. Of course, to slide your tandems you must release them from the trailer body with a lever, set your trailer brakes so that the trailer moves but the tires don't. Uh oh, I tried it and found that my brakes weren't weak, they didn't work at all. So, without the capability of locking those brakes, I can't move the tandems to place more weight on the front of the trailer and will be liable for more tickets on the other scales on my journey. I know there are at least two more--one in Southern Kentucky and one in Tennessee. Yeah, you *can* bypass scales by taking back roads around them, but policemen know that and are very likely to be stationed on those roads with portable scales. If they catch you doing that and you're illegal, then the fines are much higher. So I always just go through them properly. I call the garage where I work and ask what I can do. The first yo-yo to whom I talked had an ingenious solution: walk back into the DOT building, tell the officer who had just cited me that my trailer brakes didn't work and could I please borrow some wheel chocks to slide my tandems. Think about that for a second; having just been given a ticket for a very minor infraction, would I be smart to admit to a much more serious one and risk another more expensive ticket? If you've just been stopped while driving a car away from a murder scene for running a stop sign, would you ask the officer for a handi-wipe "just so I can remove this gunpowder residue from my hands"? Of course not. So, I asked that ignorant employee for the boss, who told me he would send a wrecker over to help me slide the axles. He soon showed up and first tried to manually adjust the brakes. No go, there wasn't any adjustment since the shoes were worn out totally. He had to chain my axles while parked behind me and hope his brakes would hold them while I pulled ahead the required number of holes. Each hole where the locking pins fit is approximately 4-500 pounds adjustment, so we calculated how far to go ahead. Yes, it worked, and he flagged me when I had moved enough, I reset the locking pins and drove back over the scales. Hmmmm, still slightly over the axle limit but within the 1,000 pound tolerance most (all?) states allow, so I'm legal. Well, there's 90 minutes lost and the company owed $250 for a wrecker bill, but I'm legal now on the weight.

On down the road, through Kentucky (where the last scale was closed) and into Tennessee. About three miles into that state comes a long hill, several miles up at a good grade (6 or 7%?), where I got down to between 30 and 35 mph. Upon cresting the hill, I know that I now have the same amount of hill on the down side and don't have trailer brakes with which to slow/stop, so I stay in a lower gear so the engine will help brake me. Oh, did I mention that my engine compression brake ("Jake brake") isn't working? So, I have to pay special attention to my speed and brake as lightly as possible with my tractor brakes to keep the speed down while not pushing so hard that I "smoke" the brakes. All is going well until I see the dreaded sign: Construction ahead, left lane closed 1/2 mile. OK, I think I can handle it. I'll just stay back a long way from the vehicle ahead of me while managing the engine RPMs and brakes as well as I can. Unfortunately, the traffic ahead is almost stopped and I rapidly approach them. I start braking harder and harder, and finally grab the trolley valve on the steering column (it operates only the trailer brakes) and pull it down as far as possible hoping against hope to get *something* out of the trailer brakes. Yeah, I got something alright--the very small amount of shoe left started smoking, so I had nothing there and had to press on the foot valve even harder, causing my tractor brakes to start smoking also. This is all happening about 20-30 feet behind a slowing car
and I'm almost ready to get scared. Fortunately, this was the point where the slope started to level out AND the traffic ahead picked up some speed. I'm safe, although the vehicles behind me are engulfed in large clouds of smoke coming from my brakes. It was close, but it worked out well in the end.

Due to the scale and construction zone delays, I was about 10 miles from the delivery point at about 15 minutes before 11pm. No way can I get into the dock and get unloaded before that shift goes home, so I decided to pull into the conveniently located truck stop only 7 miles from Athens, TN. I'm at the end of the ramp sitting at the stop sign and can see the lights and signs on the other side of the Interstate for Crazy Ed's Truck Stop (the real name--Niota, TN). Nothing is coming either way, so I ease off on the clutch to turn left. BOOM! A loud noise from under the truck and I'm wondering what happened. I thought it might have been a tire but I can limp over the truck stop and get it fixed there and still make the delivery in the morning. I release the clutch pedal again and nothing happens. I'm not moving at all. No power is getting from the engine to the tires. I set my tractor brakes, turn on the 4-ways and get out my flashlight to have a peek underneath. It's not good, folks. My drive shaft is snapped in the middle and one end is lying on the pavement. I'm not going anywhere without help now. So, I call the night dispatcher and give him the bad news and the good news, which is that the truck stop (according to my book listing all of them in North America) has a garage. Maybe then can fix it overnight while I sleep. He gets me a wrecker to pull me the 1/4 mile or so that I need to go, and I park there, expecting to sleep fitfully with work going on underneath the sleeper. No such luck, since the garage isn't open all night on the weekends--they won't be in until 9am tomorrow morning. So, I have uninterrupted sleep until my 10 hour break is up at 9am the next morning. The load I'm pulling MUST be delivered before noon on Saturday or we face paying for 15 men two shifts a day who will be idle without the equipment I have for them. My dispatcher talked to the wrecker driver and he subcontracted a local driver to come pull my trailer to the delivery point for unloading before noon. He also called my prospective backhaul to cancel it. That man was none too pleased to be given a couple hour's notice that his Monday load wouldn't be in Detroit by 8am and threatened fines for late delivery. Oh well, it's not my problem....

But wait, it gets better and better! When my tractor is pulled out from under the trailer and the other tractor couples, the red (emergency) air line doesn't want to stay coupled. It keeps popping off, but it makes no difference and the trailer rolls anyway. Without that line on, the trailer should lock up tight and not move at all. He leaves it dangling and motors on down the road the 15 minutes to where we need to be. Whew, we're into the dock at 11am and should be unloaded within 30 minutes or so. Wrong! Some of the cargo has shifted and can't be unloaded with a forklift. Men have to be brought into the trailer to hand move some of it onto other pallets. It's like an oven in there and I'm standing in the rear just watching the others do the work when a man walks into the trailer and says, "Which one of you is Ken?" That's me, but I'm not wanting to answer quickly since he's holding a sledge hammer in his hand. I have visions of saying "Yes, that's me" and having him start hitting me for being 3 days late AND requiring hand unloading on this cargo. But, I figure that he will know sooner or later by elimination who I am so I meekly tell him. He smiles, walks up and offers his hand for shaking and says "Thanks for getting it here before the deadline so I don't have to put 15 men out of work two shifts a day." I sigh since I'm not going to be killed with a blunt instrument and smile and tell him I had lots of help getting it here.

At about 2pm the load was off the truck and we could leave. We pulled the empty back to where this driver worked to park it and meet up with my tractor, in tow, for the ride to the repair facility. My dispatcher had already made the decision to have it done locally instead of being pulled to either Knoxville or Chattanooga to the dealer. The odds were that on Monday morning they could figure out what needed to be done, secure the parts locally, spend an hour putting it together, and I'd be out of there by noon. There was a Holiday Inn Express directly across the street from the garage, so I got to sleep in a real bed, have a TV and bathroom in my room, and enjoy the A/C for Saturday and Sunday.

Again, the devil was involved, I firmly believe, because the parts weren't locally available and couldn't arrive until Tuesday morning. But, I'd be on the way by noon Tuesday. Another promise made to be broken.... I told the desk clerk that I would be enjoying their fine facility yet another night (3 now instead of 2, but all paid for on the company credit card) and would check out Tuesday morning. I'm across the street on Tuesday at opening at 8am inquiring about the parts. Yes, they are on the way but won't be in until about 10am. Not to worry, I'll be out by noon. Yeah, right. Noon comes and goes and a rusty U-joint won't come loose with any sort of persuasion. Big hammers eventually break it into little pieces and a new one is installed. By the time the job is done and all the credit approvals and signatures are applied, it's after 4pm in the afternoon. Theoretically, I've been on duty since 8am and my duty clock is running, meaning that I can't legally drive after 10pm that evening. But, I figure I'll try to see if I can make it home to the terminal before stopping. Nope, this old guy just doesn't have the stamina he had when he was in his 20s and 30s. I'm off the road at about 9pm and in an Interstate rest area. After the rest period, I start driving again and return to the terminal about 3pm Wednesday afternoon instead of the Saturday late arrival to park the backhaul for Monday morning delivery.

That backhaul was cancelled totally, and I wasn't given another. The big boss/owner decided that losing the income from a possible backhaul was cheaper than having the trailer brakes rebuilt on the road instead of in our garage. I had informed the office that there was no way I would pull another load through those mountains with no trailer brakes so their choice was either get the brakes fixed on the road or bring me home empty. As it was, that trip was a huge money-loser for the company, to the order of a couple thousand dollars when factoring in the three wrecker bills, the repair, the lost backhaul, my layover pay, the overweight ticket, etc. When I arrived back, they told me that I was supposed to be the company's saviour on that load, to which I promptly replied that my initials were not JC!

I begged my dispatcher not to send me anywhere near Tennessee again for a while. Guess what? I'm going back there Monday. Keep your fingers crossed that it's more auspicious next week than it was last week.

Did the Devil have a hand in that trip? I doubt it seriously, but I don't rule it out totally. I've been told by more experienced drivers that every so often a "trip from Hell" pops up for everyone. All I can hope for is that my next one of that sort isn't in my immediate future.

Something political for a change of pace

2006-07-01T17:12:00.000-04:00

I was fueling my truck a few months ago and was parked at the pump next to a diesel Ford E-350 van which had been armored and had the "Wells Fargo" or "Brinks" or "Loomis" logo on it--I forget which one, but it was a large national chain. Out of the blue, with no previous conversation between us, the driver (with a pistol clearly on his belt) asked me: "What do you think about that a$$hole Bush?"

I was taken aback. I'm *not* a Bush fan at all, but he didn't know that. I said rather noncommittally, "Lots of people don't like him."

He proceeded to shock me again. "A few weeks ago I was on a side street, first at the intersection waiting for the light to change, when the police stopped all movement to allow Bush's motorcade to pass by. I was less than 30 feet from that SOB and had my hand on my pistol."

I replied, "And???"

He says, "There were two layers of bulletproof glass between us. But I sure wanted to pop him in the head."

This guy obviously is going to get in trouble for what he says someday. He didn't know if I was the country's number one Republican or a retired Secret Service agent. I'm neither, FYI.

As much as I'd like to see Bush and the entire criminal gang in charge gone, that's not the way to do it. We have an election coming up in the USA this fall in which the entire House and 1/3 of the Senate is up before the voters. Start thinking now about how you will vote. You will go vote, won't you?

Time to change the underwear

2006-06-25T04:28:00.000-04:00

I'm sure if you're familiar at all with the US Interstate system, you've seen many of the small dirt or paved areas between the separate directional lanes. They all have a sign posted saying something to the effect of "No U-turns. Authorized vehicles only." They are mainly used by law enforcement, construction crews, and other official people. They aren't supposed to be used by the "normal" motoring public who needs to change direction. But they are.

Yesterday I was heading home for the weekend on I-69 North of Indianapolis, IN when I saw that I was rapidly overtaking a four wheeler in the right lane. I checked my mirrors, turned on my left turn signal, and moved over a lane to pass the minivan going slowly. As I passed, I saw that the driver had a map spread over the wheel and was trying to navigate while driving. Uh oh, that's dangerous stuff! I was almost ready to complete my pass and return to the right lane when he suddenly gave a burst of speed and turned on his left signal, then pulled into the left lane ahead of me. Before I could even begin to take in all this information, he applied his brakes quickly and forced me to do the same. Alas, his brakes are much better than mine and I'm coming up on him rapidly. I can only see one thing at a time and didn't have the resources to check the right mirror to see if I could move over safely without possibly hitting him in the rear. I finally slowed enough that I knew I wouldn't hit him immediately and checked the right mirror. The lane was clear far enough back that I could pull over the 75 foot long/40 ton behemoth, barely missing the minivan as he turned left into one of those "Don't use this" turns.

Yes, occasionally things happen so quickly that you don't have time to do anything except wonder if you have indeed filled your underwear with unwanted substances. I didn't, but I wasn't far from it yesterday.

People, have some common sense and don't pull in front of a tractor/trailer combo doing 65 miles per hour in the left lane and then put on your brakes! My underwear could be the least messy part of that if you stop quickly enough.

The Ray family

2006-06-18T07:53:00.000-04:00

I'm sure the intent was good when this sign was made, but there's a big difference between a "censor" and a "sensor" even though they sound the same and are somewhat related. The large vertical white box behind the sign is a radiation sensor, used so that radioactive scrap isn't melted into good scrap and contaminates the entire batch. It's located at an aluminum recycling plant where I make deliveries at times.

"Censor" in the dictionary says: a person who is authorized to read publications or correspondence or to watch theatrical performances and suppress in whole or in part anything considered obscene or politically unacceptable.

"Sensor" in the dictionary says: An electronic device used to measure a physical quantity such as temperature, pressure or loudness and convert it into an electronic signal of some kind (e.g a voltage).

This brings to mind our old friends, the Ray family. The father is Light Ray, the mother is X Ray, with their three children being Alpha Ray, Beta Ray, and Gamma Ray. As we begin our little play, we see the children playing in the front yard of the Ray home.

Alpha: How about that HBO show last night with the nude woman? Did you see her *****?

Beta: I'm more interested in talking about how much I think Congress is full of b***s**t these days.

Gamma: I'm gonna tell Mom and Dad what you two are talking about. They don't like us discussing sex and politics. I'm the Ray family censor, you know!

Gamma leaves the yard to go tell Light Ray and X Ray about what Alpha and Beta are discussing, whereupon he returns with Mom and Dad bearing bars of soap which are liberally applied to the mouths of Alpha and Beta.

The Censor triumphs again :)

The Canadian Curse?

2006-06-10T18:35:00.000-04:00

The company I'm working for has several customers in Canada. Since I'm based in Michigan, it's not that far and I don't mind going. Yes, the customs/immigration can be a PITA (pain in the a**) at times, but not terrible most of the time. I've been four times now and the first three all had something unusual happen so I was beginning to believe that Canada was cursed for me. The first time I was within an hour of re-entry to the States when I passed a scale. I've been by hundreds of them and passed through almost as many. However, in over a year of driving, I had never been pulled out of line and brought around back for inspection. Well, the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) must have decided I looked ripe for the picking and I got the dreaded right-arrow at the end of the scale. An officer met me around back and told me to bring all my paperwork inside. That includes shipping papers (invoice/bill of lading), log book, truck and trailer inspection paperwork, registrations, insurance, permits, etc. They want to see everything. After he checked all my papers and told me they were OK, he said, "Now, let's look at the rig." We walked outside where he retrieved his scooter and tools and started looking at everything. He checked all the obvious things first such as the lights, then proceeded to open the hood and check everything there. Now it's time for him to lie down on the scooter and run up and down underneath the truck and trailer. Every brake self-adjuster was measured, all the tire treads, all air hoses, etc. The trailer passed fine and got the sticker which allowed it to pass through such an inspection next time (within a year, I think) without being given the fine-tooth comb treatment. All he found bad on the tractor was a small (1/2") cut on the inside of one tire. That wasn't enough to "red-tag" it and make me sit until repaired, but it was enough to keep the tractor from having the coveted sticker. Maybe next time, huh? Of course, that lasted over an hour and kept me from getting back across the border before I ran out of hours for that day, so I stayed overnight in London, ON and made it back the next day.

The second trip wasn't quite as eventful, but Canadian Customs didn't clear me after the requisite few questions (What is your citizenship? How long will you be in Canada? Are you bringing any weapons or firearms? Etc.) as they did the first time. They wanted to X-ray the trailer and inspect the tractor. So, I pulled forward until motioned to stop next to this huge truck with a long arm off to one side. He proceeded to lower that arm over my trailer and drive slowly down the length of it. I'm guessing the gadget on the arm was the sensor and that the X-ray source was on the truck. After he finished that, the agent got into my cab and checked it. I was sitting on the bench watching in my shirt and I wish he had told me it was going to take a few minutes so I could have put on my jacket--it was cold that day! Finally, he got out, walked over and told me to proceed to my delivery and to have a nice day. It was only later that I discovered that he had inspected my bottle of aspirin in the overnight bag and failed to replace the cap properly. Oh, yeah, I had about 150 little white tablets all over the bottom of that bag.

The third trip was the one which was most memorable for me. The delivery was completed, I was within 15 minutes of the border, and an oncoming driver fell asleep after working the overnight shift, crossed the yellow line on a two lane road, and skidded down the side of my tractor and trailer. I saw him start to cross the line but could not swerve very far since we were on an overpass and there were guardrails very close to the traffic lane. No one was hurt, he did wake up, and the police were called. I spent three hours being interviewed by them and getting my trailer tire and rim fixed. He had hit so hard that he bent two rims and one of the tires was even ejected from the truck and rolled away. Like I said before, when you get in a fight with a big rig, you don't win. He will never drive that beautiful new pickup truck again because of the damage done. I was informed that he would be charged with reckless driving, giving him 6 points on his license and a fine of almost $500. I can't emphasize enough how nice the people were there. One witness willingly stayed to talk to the police and was late to work. The officers were very businesslike but not overbearing or haughty in any way. They assured me that with all the witnesses and the physical evidence (skid marks, etc.) they had, they probably wouldn't need me in court in case he decided to fight it. In any event, since I'm a resident of a foreign country they couldn't even send me a subpoena, only a request to appear.

So, after three unusual incidents related to three trips to Canada, I was within my rights to be somewhat apprehensive when told I had another trip over there last week. I was on my best behavior (spelled behaviour in Canada!) and made it to the delivery and back to the border without incident. The trucking gods must have been smiling on me since I didn't even have to wait in the usual two hour line for the bridge crossing due to the backup at US Customs/Immigration on the far side of the bridge; the wait was only about 5 minutes, which amazed me later since I learned that was the day the RCMP arrested the "home grown" terrorist cell in Toronto. I'm hoping that any further trips will be as uneventful as that last one. The Canadian Curse is done!

2006-04-01T10:09:00.000-05:00

The cattails are ready for harvest now. Most people view them as a fairly harmless water-loving plant, but don't realize that they are actually wild sausage plants. The ones in the picture are of the "frankfurter" variety, but you can also find "polish", "italian", and "country link" plants if you know where to look. When they do get ripe, you have to pick them quickly because they are often eaten by wild animals who appreciate Nature's bounty being served to them on a stick.

OOPS!

2006-02-04T09:55:00.000-05:00

OOPS! I saw this recently at a truck stop and wondered how it happened. I came up with two possibilities: 1) someone backed into the trailer at a fairly high rate of speed, or, 2) the driver tried taking a corner without swinging wide enough. If the first, then you can bet the offending driver didn't stick around very long. If the second, then you can almost rest assured that the driver is now looking for another job. It's the worst example of trailer damage I've seen short of a total "crash and burn" incident or a rollover. I'm glad I wasn't involved!

2006-02-03T18:54:00.000-05:00

Merging

2006-01-22T08:51:00.000-05:00

Merging

A couple of recent comments (thanks, Frank and Jan!) have prompted me to again type some words of advice to you 4-wheelers. Merging is one of the most dangerous acts on the highway for me as an 18-wheeler since I have so much length to worry about. There are several types of merge including the on-ramp, the disappearing lane, and passing. I'll save passing for later since it's an entire subject in itself.

On-ramps are tough for me no matter if I'm getting on or if I'm already there and you're trying to get on. I will try to merge with the flow of traffic when I'm entering *if* I can, but sometimes it requires cooperation from you also. I'd prefer that you slow slightly to allow me in, or, if there is a lot of space behind you, increase your speed to open a hole behind you. Alas, it doesn't happen often enough for me and I'm forced to slow down to wait for a hole.

Let's digress a moment to talk about power. I have a large diesel engine with over 400 horsepower and you have a smaller engine with 200 hp or so. Yes, some of you have less, some have more, but that's a good average to use. So, you say, I have twice what you have, why is there a problem? Well, let's look at what that power has to do. You have maybe 4,000 pounds to move around. Here again, I'm sure many have less, some have more, but it's a good number to use as an average. If I am pulling an empty trailer I weight a total of about 30,000 pounds, whereas if I'm loaded I can have up to 100,000 pounds (in some states with some special trailers), but the "normal" two-axle trailer combination has a limit of 80,000 pounds in most states. So, to get into some very simple math (don't desert me here, I promise I won't use much!), you have a weight to power ratio of about 4,000/200 or 20 to 1. Mine figures as 80,000/400 or 200 to 1. Doing one final division shows that you have 10 times as much power meaning your acceleration is much better than mine. Surprised? You shouldn't be if you've driven near any semis at all. You know they can be sluggish and you know you can just tap your pedal and outrun me easily.

OK, back to merging. When I'm in the right-hand lane and you're merging with me, I'm going to expect you to accelerate to get past me before your lane runs out if you can do it safely. Please don't make me slow down to let you in! There's not much I see while driving that is more annoying than having you creep up barely in front of me, pull over, and fail to increase your speed to meet or exceed mine when I'm coming up behind you. You have the power to just increase the pressure your right foot puts on that little black pedal and make me happy. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've had to slow down only to see you suddenly realize that you *can* get out ahead of me quickly after I've been forced to slow down and then begin the process of gaining speed again. You might ask, "Why don't you just move over to the next lane to the left for me?" Well, I will do it if I can safely, but you might notice that sometimes that's just not possible. It's so much simpler for you to either get ahead of me quickly or merge behind me and then move over yourself. You can do that easily compared to me since 20 or 30 feet of space opens in that lane much more frequently than the 100-150 feet I require as a minimum.

Back to the question of why I sometimes won't move over even if I can--perhaps I know the next exit is in 3/4 mile and I have to be in the right lane to take it. If I move over and you don't allow me to return to the right lane, then I'm stuck over there and can't get off where I need to. That's a major annoyance that thankfully doesn't happen very often, but it does. It's worst in a city because of heavy traffic, but outside the city if that happens to me, then the next exit where I can re-enter going the other way then exit where I should be may be miles down the road.

I will mentally (or, sometimes even verbally, though you can't hear me) say a word or two if you don't cooperate with me. But the flip side is that if you do slow to allow me to merge with you, I'll almost always thank you by flashing my clearance lights a couple of times or turn on the 4-way flashers for a few seconds. Many truckers do this and you may have wondered what it was about--now you know.

The disappearing lane can occur either on the right or the left, sometimes as a permanent part of the roadway or sometimes in a construction/maintenance zone. You've seen the signs, you know it's coming: "Right lane closed 1 mile ahead." I see it and try to plan moving to the left immediately. That may seem insensitive to you, for me to be going slower than you want in the left lane, but I know how difficult it is and when I see the chance, I take it, even if I'm 2 miles back. I may not get another easy chance. Depending on how heavy the traffic is and how aggressively you try to drive, I may or may not be nice to you in the right lane and let you in ahead of me when the end of your lane finally comes. You saw the sign a mile or two ago and didn't move over, why should I allow you to take advantage of me now? In reality, when you do that and force your way in, you are actually stealing from me. I don't get paid by the hour, but if enough people delay me in that manner, I've lost time which could have been used to drive. I get paid a percentage of the trip pay if I'm loaded, and I get paid nothing if I'm empty. When you delay me that way, you are either causing me to be late for starting another trip or causing me to delay my return home. Think about how much you want to get home or make another dollar today and don't force your way in and make me get home later or miss getting that next trip today and waiting until tomorrow for it.

I've also seen the planned disappearing lane become a cause of my blood pressure going up. "Right lane must turn right" or "Left lane must turn left" sometimes become dangerous when you don't want to turn and merely use the lane to attempt to speed by me and then force in ahead of me. It can be very dangerous only because I'm paying attention to many things at once and you might be in one of my blind spots before you start to pass me to merge and I could hit you inadvertently. I'll let you in on a secret here: if you and I get into a physical confrontation, I may not win, but I almost guarantee that you will lose in a 4-wheeler. Remember that weight I told you about up there? Put your 4,000 pounds against my 80,000 and try to guess which one will be the big loser. Yep, you got it right--it's you, not me.

One other merging situation I've seen is totally incorrect legally, but it happens. If it's rush hour and traffic is extremely heavy and backed up, many times people will move around me in the breakdown lane and then merge back in again. Don't do this! I'm not expecting it at all and I will have some choice words for you. The lady (no, she was no lady, only a female) who did this to me on I-69 South where it merges into I-465 just North of Indianapolis is where she decided that since she had a Mercedes Benz SUV she owned the road and could do this to me. She doesn't have any idea how much I wanted to just let my foot slip off the brake and bump her. She would have been cited by the police rather than me, but I didn't do it. Had I made the other decision, she might have been late to her appointment, chipped one of her lacquered nails, or spilled her Starbucks latte on her Donna Karan pants. Oh, the pity if that had happened! Here's another tip to everyone, no matter how many wheels you have: if you have to be there at 830am and it takes you 15 minutes to drive, don't leave at 820am and hope to speed and cut off others to gain a second or two.

To finish, you are perhaps thinking that I'm asking for the best of both worlds: that you allow me to merge with you and that you actively avoid me to merge. Yes, that's right, I'm asking for a kindness from you. If you've never done it, you don't realize how difficult 18-wheeling can be and how simple 4-wheeling is on a comparative basis. As I expressed in a previous post, I've got that firmly embedded in my brain now and if I never drive a big-rig again, I'll have the utmost courtesy to them when I'm in a smaller vehicle.

As always, compliments, comments, and complaints are welcomed. You have two options: there is a "comment" link at the end, or you can send me an email directly using longhaul48statetrucker@yahoo.com in your email client program. Thanks for reading my rants and raves!

Are truck drivers "professionals"?

2005-12-13T11:06:00.000-05:00

According to one dictionary, a profession is "An occupation that requires considerable training and specialized study, and often, a license issued by a governmental body after extensive testing procedures." Many people think that to become a truck driver, you just need to have a job offer, then you jump in and start driving. BZZZT! Wrong! We are professionals in every sense of the definition above. My training (and this may vary somewhat for others) consisted of 4 weeks of schooling, divided about equally between classroom study and driving practice, which was in turn divided between range (a large parking lot devoid of other vehicles) and road practice, always with a seasoned driver in the passenger seat. After that, I signed with a national company which required 270 hours of driving time behind the wheel, in the presence of another driver with considerably more experience. That in itself took over 6 weeks to complete, so before I was out on my own, I had over 10 weeks of supervised training. The last part of the definition, a license, was issued by my state after passing both a written test on rules and regulations and a driving test covering all aspects of the job. If you think it's not a hard test, next time you're renewing your license at the local bureau, pick up a copy of the CDL (Commercial Driver's License) manual and study it. You'll have to realize quite quickly that it takes a lot more knowledge than your normal Operator's license.

There are bad big-riggers out there who give the entire profession a bad name, but I can daily point out many drivers of lesser vehicles who do the same thing for that portion of the population. If you pay close attention to us, you'll find that the vast majority are legal drivers and are polite.

Another aspect of what many 4-wheelers think about truck drivers as a class is disdain. They believe that all are dirty, rude, drug-users, impolite, etc., etc., etc. That is true for a small portion of us, but as above, it also true for other drivers also. Keep in mind that trucks do indeed carry the goods for America. When I think about what I've hauled in the past year, the list might surprise you:

Oil (motor oil for your vehicle, and olive oil for your cooking)
Paper (both raw paper and printed material, as well as several loads of toilet paper!)
Aluminum (the water pump in your next vehicle might have come from one of my loads)
Software (last year's TurboTax didn't just appear on the shelf at your favorite store)
Food (canned beans, biscuit mix, cherry pie filling, etc.)
Bricks (your wall or sidewalk might have been mine at one time)
Scrap (can you spell "recycle"?)
Beer and soda (picture a truck driver when you pop that top next time)
Paint (is your auto bare metal?)
Medical supplies (an entire load of surgical dressings--thank me when your appendix is removed)

That's just a very partial listing--there are many others, but I don't want to bore you with the entire thing. Among the things I don't haul because I've never driven a tanker, include the gasoline or diesel fuel you use every day, the milk you drink, even the bottled water you drink. There is very little in your daily life that hasn't been hauled by a truck at some point. Even if you live in a log home that you built yourself of trees you chopped, I would bet that the axe came in on a truck. Even if you eat only organic food grown by the farmer down the street, the bag or box you carried it home in came in on a truck. The computer on which you read this was delivered at one point by a truck. Even if you...well, you get the picture, I think. Even if nothing else, remember that your garbage is hauled away by a truck :)

The next time you are inclined to think about truckers in a negative light, stop and reflect on how much they do for you. I'm hoping that one or two people will read this and change their minds about trucking being a degrading position, and the people who do it being less than human.

Have I touched a nerve with you? GOOD!

Visibility

2005-12-11T13:10:00.000-05:00

This is one of the hardest things to explain to a 4-wheeler. Visibility in a big rig is both better and worse than what you have. On the better side, I'm a lot higher than you are; my seat is about 6 feet above the road, placing my eyeballs about 8.5-9' up. This allows me to see above your roof (in most cases) meaning that I can see road conditions and obstructions better than you can. Incidentally, that height also allows me to see into most cars and small trucks unless your windows are heavily tinted. If you're doing something you don't want me to see, such as drinking a beer, rolling a joint, or other activities (some of which should be confined to the bedroom or other private place, either solo or as a duet), then remember that when I'm next to you at a red-light or you're passing me, then wait until later.

In direct opposition to the enhanced visibility I may have to the front, my side and rear views are confined entirely to what I can see in my mirrors. If you've never been seated in a big rig's driver's seat, you really have no idea how limited that area is. I'm sure you've seen the signs on trailers which say "If you can't see my mirrors, I can't see you." How true that is! There are times when people get so close to me the only way I can see that they are there depends on lighting. If at night, I can see your headlights shining to the sides behind my trailer, or in the daytime if the sun is right, I can see your shadow to the side following me. Your brakes are better than mine, so if I decided I need to stop suddenly, you can avoid hitting me provided your reaction time is good. If not, well, you may end up with a crunched hood, radiator, lights, etc., and I will have a small set of scratches on the trailer bumper. Believe me, I will win almost any physical contest you and I get into.

On the sides, there are huge blind spots where I can't see you in my flat mirrors. I do have convex mirrors also, and sometimes you will be visible there. If I'm trying to change lanes, please be alert for my turn signals and avoid pulling into those areas on my side where I have difficulty seeing. I don't really want to force you over with my trailer while you're next to me, but if I don't know you're there, it's a possibility.

Remember, you always know I'm there, but the opposite isn't always true. Please drive accordingly and we will both get home safely and without points on our licenses.

More later, perhaps next weekend.

Pickup and Deliverance

2005-11-11T23:39:00.000-05:00

11-Nov-05
Pickup and Deliverance

All of my job involves three things: picking up freight, driving, and delivering it to the final customer's loading dock. The driving part is really pretty boring most of the time, but I've had some real experiences doing either the pickup or delivery portions. Earlier this week I had a pickup in Paintlick, Kentucky. Yes, there really is such a town, and after interfacing with the one of their residents which spoke English (or made a good attempt at it, given that he wasn't quite all there mentally, I believe), I'm positive that they really do lick paint there and that it's the lead variety which leads to brain damage.

My directions weren't very good: drive a couple of miles, look for the big gray building on the left and turn into the driveway. Well, if you've ever driven in Kentucky off the main roads, you know that with turns and hills, you can breeze right by something before you see it, even if only driving 20-25 miles per hour. Yep, I missed my turn. Oh well, I've done it before and there's always somewhere up the road to turn around. Oh, you four-wheelers have it so good; almost any two lane road is wide enough for you to do a three-point turn. But, with a 53 foot long trailer behind a big truck, I have about 75 feet of vehicle to manouver around. I saw several nice looking driveways, and all were gated. The open ones were too narrow for me to even think about it. So, I drove through the town of Paintlick with its one-lane bridge and finally came to a spot in the road West of town where there was a third lane for left turns, and some gravel on the shoulders. I was just barely able to turn around after locking my differential on the real axles so they didn't spin in the gravel. Then, back through Paintlick to my missed driveway after the 20-25 mile scenic detour. I finally got there and pulled in. When I walked inside, I was informed that I was in the right place, but there was no pickup scheduled for today. He called his boss and found out that there was, then told me that I should have backed in. Backing isn't my strongest point, but I'm getting better at it with more practice. Why do I need to back in? Well, there's not enough room to turn around there.

I asked for help and was given the assistance of two Hispanic young men to help me get out of the drive (narrow, no guardrails, running over a creek), onto the narrow road, pull up past the drive, then back in. Sounds pretty easy, right? Well, normally, when someone helps you back, they stand where you can see them easily in the mirrors, give hand signals to let you know which way to turn, how much, how far you are from obstacles such as the abrupt drop-off into the creek, etc. Well, these two took their stations about 200 feet down the road in either direction and put their hands up to stop traffic. I was on my own backing in, but eventually I managed it. But wait, there's more! The dock is around the corner at the back of the building, but at least I'm not worried about backing into the creek there.

The guy loading me drove the fork-lift as if he had just graduated from the NASCAR school, yelling at one of the Hispanic guys his estimated weight of each bundle. As he yelled, I could see the 3 or 4 teeth remaining in his mouth, and they were variegated. That's a polite word for multi-colored: some yellow, some green, some colors the rainbow has never seen. It was about then that I started thinking about the movie "Deliverance" (thus the play on words in the title here) and listening carefully to see if banjo music emerged from anywhere nearby. He finally got me fully loaded and started adding up the weights from the pad where he had dictated them. He approached the calculator with each bundle's weight as if he had never seen it before, or was expecting that the numbers moved around after every use, and finally got a total weight for me. Incidentally, the estimates were really close, because when I delivered it, he was off by only 200 pounds on a load that was over 40,000 pounds. Half a percent is pretty good in anyone's book, I guess, so he was good at something.

While he was filling out the bill of lading (a work of penmanship training's finest moments, by the way) I inquired of him about nearby truckstops. I had noticed a very small one with a restaurant nearby on the way in. He informed me that they were too expensive and had fancy food there. He recommended I drive about 20 miles up the road to one which actually had an Arby's, which was his preferred place to eat. It was cheaper and better food. Hmmm, a real restaurant (with fancy food in Kentucky) or an Arby's? I didn't take long making up my mind: it was the fancy place. Yep, real fancy, with hamburgers, beans and cornbread, and the special of the day: pork ribs. Expensive? Not really, I had the ribs and a Coke (I think it was really Pepsi, but in some parts of the U.S., everything dark and fizzy is a Coke) and it came to slightly over $10. It was nothing to write home about as far as quality, but it sure beat Arby's. The only real surprise there was the cornbread which was served with the meal. I must say I've had lots of cornbread in my life, having grown up in the South of parents of Southern extraction, but I'd never seen anything like this before. It was about 8 inches in diameter, about 1/4 inch thick, and looked exactly like a pancake. But, the waitress assured me it was fried cornbread, one of the specialties of that area. Yes, on tasting, it WAS cornbread, but the appearance threw me for a loop.

I never did hear the banjo music, but the idea of Deliverance keeps popping into my head every time I think about Paintlick, Kentucky. You really should visit someday :)

Rules for four-wheelers

2005-11-06T09:35:00.000-05:00

I've been paying attention to how "four-wheelers" drive in relation to the "big trucks", those with long trailers and many more than four wheels on the pavement. I will readily admit that before I started driving a truck for a living, I thought little about it. Now, even if I never drive a truck again, I will pay the utmost attention and give every possible break and courtesy to them when I'm a four-wheeler.

In the days/weeks/months ahead, I'm going to write several pieces about how the world looks from the elevated seat in front of 75 feet of moving vehicle. I will pay particular attention to items such as clearance, visibility, turning, lane changing, construction zones, entrance/exit ramps, starting and stopping, merging, and others as they occur to me.

I hope you as a four-wheeler will learn something which will enable you to realize the difficulty the big riggers have fitting in with their smaller cousins on the road. As always, comments will be welcomed.

Rivers

2005-10-12T09:43:00.000-04:00

12-Oct-05

I've noticed while driving around the country that many rivers have descriptive names. I've seen the White, Green, Black, Big Blue, Red, etc., Rivers. I often try to peer over the edge of the bridge and see if the White River is actually white, and so on down the color parade. I've been disappointed every time in that they seem to be a fairly uniform muddy color. The only one which seems to have the possibility of living up to its name was the Red River, which at the point where I saw it, had banks which appeared to be red clay. It appears that at certain times of the year, when the water runs high, those banks could be eroded and carry the red clay in suspension, giving a distinct red color to the water. Maybe the other rivers have similar characteristics at points where I didn't see them.

We won't even get into the other names I've seen and fancifully wondered: Hog Creek (which had no hogs floating in it), Rice Creek (ditto with the rice), and others.

I've also wondered how rivers with a geographic name relating to a state or region are named. For instance, there is both a river and a state named Mississippi. What determines which state got the name, since I'm guessing the river name came first. The Mississippi River flows by the state of the same name, but it is neither the first or last one it passes by or through, and isn't the biggest or most important state either. Anyone have a clue for me?

First real entry for new job

2005-09-11T17:34:00.000-04:00

First real entry for new job

Yes, I'm now working for a small local company, but basically doing the same thing as before. I pick up freight at one spot and deliver it to another. Most of what I'm hauling now is the output of a local aluminum recycler and consists either of ingots or "sows" (large ingots each about one ton) going to foundries, die cast facilities, or some such end user. All the backhauls (picking up freight at the other end for return to or near the origin) have consisted mainly of aluminum scrap of one sort or another destined to be melted into the aforesaid ingots or sows. I've been on only two overnight trips; all the rest of the time I've returned for at least the minimum required 10 hours off duty before going back to work again.

The first of those overnight trips involved stopping overnight at a truck stop in a truck without functioning air conditioning. That meant that until the outside air cooled off (it was above 90F when I stopped) the oven-like interior of the sleeper was unbearable. Well, about 11pm it finally got cool enough that I could get to sleep, where I stayed until about dawn, at which time I continued my journey. The freight involved over 40,000 pounds of chili beans going to a food distribution warehouse. Upon arrival and the ceremonial "breaking of the seal" unloading commenced. Uh oh, one of the large pallets of shrink-wrapped cans had toppled to one side, resembling a silver Leaning Tower of Pisa. Why, oh, why, couldn't I have been carrying a tomato-based sauce so I could have called it the "leaning tower of pizza (sauce)"? Fortunately, the fork-lift driver was fairly good and he was able to nudge it sideways into the trailer and thus make the bottom once again line up with the top so that it could be unloaded.

The second of my overnight trips was better...in a way. The air conditioning DID work on this truck, and it's later in the season so that the day (and subsequent night) was ever so slightly cooler. I figured I'd sleep easily. Uh oh, think again, Mr. Trucker Dude. The A/C works well in the cab, but the auxilliary unit in the sleeper didn't; it was hot as the proverbial place of abode of the bad dead. Oh well, I'll just prop open the curtain between the sleeper and the cab and direct a couple of the vents directly that way. Mission accomplished, I can lie on the bunk and feel the cool breeze waft over me. Uh oh, once more, this truck has an idle protection circuit in its computer. Very simply, that means that since the truck idles about 600rpm and doesn't have very high oil pressure at that speed, it automagically shuts off after 15 minutes. But, I've encountered this before, and know that you can set the cruise control so that it idles up and stays running. Uh oh for yet another time. The cruise works very well on the road, but fails to function while sitting still and idling. A quick call to the garage (over 300 miles away, so they can't come fix it for me) yields a makeshift solution: sit something relatively heavy on the accelerator pedal and move it so that it idles at the required speed. Yep, I can do that, and did. It seems to work well, so I get back into the sleeper berth again, feeling that lovely cool air coming from the front. I'm noticing the sound of the engine start to change subtly, but don't pay much attention since I'm close to being asleep. BAM! Like a switch had been thrown by an unseen hand (which indeed it had), the engine stops. It seems that as it idles, the overnight bag propped on the pedal had slowly, ever so slowly, been vibrated rearward changing the weight balance and causing the pedal to rise to the point where the automagic shutoff kicked it off.

Well, being a cooler day, about 8:30 or 9 pm it finally got cool enough outside that I could sleep. I awoke naturally (without an alarm, which I failed to pack) about 5 am, went inside the truck stop to get my oh-so-necessary cup of coffee and moved on down the road. I will try to remember tomorrow to turn in a repair slip on that A/C and/or cruise control, but I may indeed forget it. Someone remind me later....

Some leftovers

2005-09-11T17:11:00.000-04:00

Here are a couple of short ones I wrote and forgot to post before changing jobs. Yep, I'm no longer with the major national company. Last month (Aug-05) I was hired by a very small local company to do regional deliveries. No longer am I out 3-6 weeks at a time; I'm home almost every day or night, depending on the schedule.
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SURPRISE!
28-Jun-05

This is perhaps one that the prudish will not wish to read. With that warning in hand, proceed if you're brave.

I've talked before about HOS (hours of service) and their affect on my schedule. Yesterday I had to make a pickup in Virginia, going to Orlando. It's one of the strangest loads I've had so far: one hundred large stuffed toys, weighing a total of 2,000 pounds. Do the math, each one weighs twenty pounds, so yes, they are large, about five feet long. It's an evenly mixed load, with fifty each of Dale Dolphin and Wycliff Whale. When the loading was done, I had exactly zero hours left for today, so I pulled around the front and backed out of the way, preparing for slumber.

It's unfortunate that my body demands a certain function that normally requires the use of a flush toilet upon awakening since the toy manufacturer/distributor closes for third shift. This is the first time this particular bad coincidence has happened, and when it got to the point where it was about to reach an unwanted conclusion involving changing of certain items of clothing, I decided that I would take a walk behind the building. I grabbed my trusty roll of paper which heretofore had been used only for nasal purposes, my flashlight (an indispensible tool for a driver), and began the circumnavigation of the area. This particular place is at the edge of "the country" in that it's the last place on a dead-end road. I got all the way around to the very rear in the darkest area (another unfortunate circumstance--this place believes in plentiful security lighting!) and started scouting for a spot. I was about three seconds from beginning the job at hand when I heard a noise from very close by. Thinking that it was a racoon or 'possum but wanting to be sure, I turned on the flashlight and shined it in the direction of the noise.

It took a second for me to realize what was happening, or rather, what was going to happen soon. I saw the small furry animal with black and white lengthwise stripes begin to raise his (her?) tail and turn away from me. OOPS! A skunk had been checking out the trash at the rear and I was disturbing it. Now, I'm not much of an exercise buff, but I believe that I might have set some sort of running record a few minutes ago. I got as far away as I could in 10-15 seconds then stopped, listened, and smelled. I was fortunate that the skunk provided only the warning and didn't follow through with the attack. Yes, I did then find another, safer spot and conclude the business. And no, I didn't have my camera with me, so no photographic evidence exists of the skunk :)

PS: If you are now a truck driver, or ever become one, do NOT under any circumstances accept a load going to Gate 3 of Sea World in Orlando, FL! The gate is unmarked so I circled the LONG block twice looking for it, finally had to stop and ask a groundskeeper. He told me how to get there, and I would never have found it otherwise. Once inside the gate, the road is extremely narrow and very difficult to navigate with a 70+ foot vehicle. Once I backed into my loading dock (fairly easy), I discovered that pulling out was impossible going the way I wanted to go. So, I jockeyed around for about 30 minutes turning around, got a little yellow paint on my fender from getting about 1/2" too close to a post protecting a fire hydrant. Once that nearly impossible chore of turning around was completed, exiting was simple. Now, the next problem is that Orlando is not truck-friendly at all, only one truck stop and it charges for parking. So, I'm sitting in a Wal-Mart parking lot clearly marked "NO TRUCKS" and waiting for someone to tell me to get lost so I can wonder where to go next. I hope dispatch is quick on this one since I don't want to sit here very long at all. Should I not get lucky and have to sit a while, there's a restaurant I might check for lunch provided I get brave enough to leave the truck and risk having it towed away. Well, there's always the half-full one liter Coke from yesterday and the cheese and berries danish from who knows when I found under my seat. With the amount of preservatives put in food of that type, it's probably still very edible and marginally good.
================
A Hard Job?

On the way to the Sea World delivery mentioned elsewhere here, I had a truck pass me which was decorated with a famous name brand: Viagra. It carried something related to the NASCAR team they sponsor. I had an urge to rib the driver, so I called him on my CB radio. When he replied, I asked him if driving that truck was a hard job. He replied with a sarcastic tone saying that I was the first person ever to ask him that question.

Ah, my sense of humor is sometimes twisted, strange, and weird. Those who know me will attest to that fact, the rest of you will have to take it as an article of faith.

2005-06-26T15:25:00.000-04:00

Yes, I've fiddled with the picture to make me and the truck less identifiable. Don't complain, it might be all you get :)

Greedy chipmunks and hungry birds

2005-06-26T15:12:00.000-04:00

Greedy chipmunks and hungry birds
25-June-05

Truckers are governed by many rules and regulations. Some say too many, but that's another essay here. One of the rules governs how much you can work. It takes many pages to list them all, but suffice it to say that you violate them at the risk of heavy fines and penalities. Plus, I work for the only company which utilizes electronic logging (a hint to those in the know!) so I can't even think about cheating on my log book to go just a little bit farther.

Yesterday I arrived at a shipper with only 4 hours left to work (drive or be "on duty") and it took them more than that long to get to me. So, when they finally finished loading me, the only thing I could do was pull away from the dock and park on the side of the street for my mandatory 10 hour break. To add insult to injury, this was out on the edge of town in an industrial park, so there wasn't anywhere to walk for a meal, which would have been my one and only meal of the day. That doesn't count the Coke or honey-buns about 11 hours before that. So, I walked inside and sweetly inquired of the shipping clerk if there was a local pizza (or other) establishment which delivered. Wouldn't you know it, she had the pamphlet in her desk and let me look. She then even dialed and ordered my meal from Mario's. Yep, you guessed it--Chinese food! No, I'm joking, I ordered the 10" All-Star Pizza which included green peppers, onions, pepperoni, mushrooms, and linguisa. Of course, I had to ask what it was. My first thought was that it was tongue (lingua being Latin for that anatomy as well as the root for language) and I have never eaten that meat before (make your own - http://www.emerils.com/recipes/by_name/linguisa_sausage.html). She didn't tell me what it contained, so I might have had tongue last night, but she did say it was a spicy Portuguese sausage loved by the area of South Massachusetts which has many of that ancestry. It wasn't too spicy, at least I could tolerate it. It was good even if slighly greasy. I could have eaten every crumb of it, but had been sitting watching a couple small birds scavenging the ditchline where I was parked, and one was even taking something to a baby sitting in the bushes. I'm compassionate (even if not conservative!) and thought I'd share the crust of one piece with the birds. So, when I finished all but that one crust, I stopped eating and placed the box on the ground next to the truck for the birds to eat. I was planning to retrieve it and deposit in the trash, but events to be told later prevented that.

It took only about 30 seconds for a previously unseen bird to fly in and start investigating. He (or she?) landed on the box which immediately tipped slightly and scared the bird off. It was about the size and shape of a robin, but was all gray except for a brown head and black tail feathers which shone slightly blue with irridescence in the setting sun. It returned almost at once and started pecking at the crust, gorging on the liberated crumbs. The smaller bird (wren or sparrow?) which had prompted me to make the sacrifice was watching and got impatient and flew down and alit next to the box. The gray bird squawked and spread its tail feathers in a display of dominance, making the smaller bird leave temporarily. When the gray bird finished, the small one went over and pecked loose crumbs several times, filled its bill and fed the baby, returning again and again.

All at once, something crawled out of the weeds and evicted the small bird! It took me a few seconds to realize that it was a chipmunk. I figured with the size of the crust and the size of the animal, he/she would eat a little bit and leave the rest for others. It sat there and ate quite a bit, then showed that we humans aren't the only ones with a propensity toward hoarding things we can't use now. It carefully tried picking up the entire crust in its mouth, having trouble until it happened to figure out the physics of the fulcrum point and bit it in the middle so the weight was evenly distributed and ran into the bushes with it. The small bird came back and pecked around on the cardboard for a few minutes, gleaning everything possible, then left. I was going to then get the carton and throw it away but as I neared, I noticed on closer examination that it was now covered with ants. Well, I'm no expert on them, but I know some of them bite and/or sting and it's painful, so I decided to leave it there. I normally don't litter, but if you had seen that ditch, you would have thought that it was on the same level leaving it there as throwing one grain of sand on a beach, so I didn't feel as badly about it.

2005-06-26T15:11:00.000-04:00

The chipmunk and gray bird mentioned. The bird waits while the crust is stolen.

Good intentions

2005-06-26T14:48:00.000-04:00

Good intentions
25-June-05

I recently drove through Virginia and North Carolina and noticed that in parts of those states, highway beautification is going full force on the interstate system. Spring and the imminent arrival of summer shows a profusion of planted flowers, both of the cultivated and "wild" variety. One section in NC, I believe, was extraordinarily nice. The northbound and southbound sections were separated by a small hill so the median was all that was visible beside the highway. One portion could be called a meadow and was covered with brilliant red poppies. In the center of those wonderful blooms was a fawn, still covered with the white spots/stripes characteristic of the young of the white-tailed deer. It seemed oblivious to the traffic as it munched on poppy greenery. (I wish I had been able to get a picture of it, but my camera takes about 5 seconds to "warm up" sufficiently to snap, so by the time I saw it and tried to turn on the camera, I was a quarter mile down the road. Alas....) The thought crossed my mind that it was on its way to becoming addicted to opium, courtesy of a political subdivision of the same country which pays other countries *NOT* to plant poppies.

You see, the red poppy (first Google link I found - http://opioids.com/poppy.html and another - http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/p/popwhi64.html) growing there is the same poppy as those grown by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and by countless others in countries around the world. They harvest the raw opium and convert it to morphine and/or heroin for shipment to the United States and other countries where there is a demand. But, it's not illegal to grow those same poppies in the US. There is no USDA program similar to the "don't raise pigs or soybeans or (insert crop name here) and we'll pay you money" that is one of the mainstays of our convoluted farm subsidy program. You may plant as many as you wish, if all you do is enjoy the blossoms. I've been told, but haven't verified, that until you have the INTENT to harvest the raw opium from those plants, there is no crime. You don't even have to do it, just have intent. Talk about your "thought crimes"! (Another Google link which contains a "Laws" subsection - http://www.erowid.org/plants/poppy/poppy.shtml which says it's illegal to grow for the opium but questionable for ornamental use.)

"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." Quick quiz: who said that? When asked, many people believe it's from the Bible. BZZZT--wrong! It's not 100% documented, but many scholars lean toward Karl Marx as that quote's author. Others (http://www.samueljohnson.com/road.html) say Samuel Johnson. Intentions are slippery things; does that fawn have the intention to partake of the opium in those poppies? If so, it's on the road to prison, if not Hell.

Sirius radio

2005-06-18T15:11:00.000-04:00

I took the plunge and spent $99 (with $50 mail-in rebate, which I *must* send in soon, net cost $49) for a Sirius radio for the truck. Yes, it's a subscription service costing $12.95 each month, but I figure I'm in the truck 24/7 for 7 of every 8 days, and I need reliable entertainment and news programs. There are lots of channels I don't like and will never listen to, but there are still some I haven't sampled yet. So far I've not strayed far from the news and talk with the occasional foray into music. Channel 10 is "The Bridge" and is light (as opposed to heavy metal) music of my generation including Jimmy Buffet, James Taylor, The Eagles, etc. There are classical, blues, jazz, etc., also, and I'll get there eventually. I did listen to the trucker's channel (138) and got into a talk show where they were berating "some crackpot who doesn't like our President" and said "he actually believes our government would hide information from us about 11-Sep-01 and other things", both comments which turned me off. I might sample it again, but will be on the lookout for stuff that doesn't agree with my worldview such as that.

Yes, I've spilled the beans, I'm a Democrat and a Liberal. I'm avoiding the "right" (as in right and left, not right and wrong) talk channels and concentrating on Air America, NPR, etc. For news, it's NPR, PRI, BBC, etc. Fox News (motto: "We distort, er, report, you decide") has an audio channel on there, but it was the first experiment I performed on blocking a channel so I won't accidentally tune it.

If you have Sirius or the rival, XM, let me know how you like it and what your favorites are. Channel listing http://sirius.com/pdf/channelguide.pdf and you must have the Adobe reader to view it.

2005-06-18T14:09:00.000-04:00

This is not a great photo, but I'll share anyway. You can see dead bugs and wiper smears, but the man with the hard hat is standing on the first car of a train at a steel foundry where I had to deliver a load. The strap across his shoulder holds a small box which is a remote control for the locomotive behind him. I watched him push a button and the horn blew, then he moved a joystick and the train started. There are times I wish I could sit at home and run this truck by remote control, but that system isn't available...yet.

2005-06-18T14:06:00.000-04:00

Here's another view of the St. Louis Arch. The black spots to the left of it are not UFOs, merely the remnants of unlucky bugs which met my windshield at a high rate of speed.

2005-06-18T14:04:00.000-04:00

I had to go through Indianapolis on the Memorial Day weekend and saw a blimp which was probably televising the race that Sunday.

2005-06-18T13:54:00.000-04:00

I spent the night on the Illinois side of St. Louis and this is the Gateway Arch as seen over the spectator stands of the Gateway Raceway. They were having drag races there the next day and my time sleeping was interrupted numerous times with the noise of 15 seconds of roaring as they did practice runs. It wasn't a lot of fun sleeping 27 times for 10 minutes each.

2005-06-18T13:51:00.000-04:00

This sign is on the I-270 loop around Columbus, OH. The first time I saw it, I misread it as "Turtle" and thought that the signal lights on that road must take a L-O-N-G time to change!

2005-06-18T13:48:00.000-04:00

Mosque just South of Toledo, OH. It's a beautiful building which I got most of while driving down I-75.

Unusual truck warning signs

2005-06-18T13:27:00.000-04:00

Unusual truck warning signs
03-Jun-05

I've started watching signs intended only for trucks. Many are very self-evident, but there's one that still mystifies me when I see it. Well, not it as in single, since this involves two or more in a series. Picture yourself driving a tall vehicle down a limited-access road such as the US Interstate system. Bridges will for the most part be labeled with the vertical clearance. It is a major disaster if you try to pull a trailer under an overpass of some sort that is not quite tall enough. The standard trailer height is 13' 6", but different states have different labelling rules, so that you often see those signs for higher clearances. The mystery to me is why state highway departments waste signs in a situation involving two bridges/overpasses where the second one is higher than the first and there's no place to enter the highway between them. Maybe that doesn't make sense, since if you see a 14' sign and can clear it, do you really care if the next one is 15' 10" since you know you will clear a higher one if you already went through a lower one. The opposite way, yes, both are needed, but the way I described it, there's no way the truck can grow 1' 10" taller in between them without some very highly unusual circumstances.

Speaking of bridges, I believe New York is the only state which doesn't follow the method other states use. I've been told two different explanations for their system, and am not sure which one is correct. Number one says they measure from the center of the axle, which is approximately one foot. The other says they have planned their system so that if there is one foot of packed snow on the road, the sign will still show a correct clearance. Personally, if there's a foot of snow packed down into an icy sheet on the road, I really don't want to be driving on it. But, back to my New York bridge story. I was making a very early morning delivery in the Buffalo area and there was little traffic as most hadn't started going to work yet. I had some incomplete directions which only told me which street to turn on without a direction such as "left" or "West". I got the the street, mentally flipped a coin, and turned left. Uh oh, almost immediately I saw a bridge labelled 11' 8". Following the rule I just gave you, since there wasn't any snow, I mentally added the foot and thought that my 13' 6" trailer wouldn't fit under a 12' 8" bridge. I stopped, put on my 4-way flashers to alert other traffic, and had my cell phone in my hand to call the police to help me turn around. The company for which I work forbids U-turns unless under the direction of a police officer, and I really couldn't do it without backing up a good distance since there was a concrete divider between the two directions of traffic. I was poised to call when I heard a horn sounding very close to me, so I looked. Directly on the other side of that barrier was a man in a small pickup truck yelling at me. I rolled my window down and he told me I could make it. I asked how he knew and was informed that he drove a large truck for a local delivery company and came through here all the time. I pointed to the sign and asked how I could clear. He told me to look closely and notice that the underside was arched, and that it was measured at the lowest point over the traffic lanes, near the edge. He told me to get as close to the barrier as I could and go through slowly and I would make it. I pulled up very close and started edging forward slowly. At the point where the tractor was under but the trailer wasn't, I stepped out and looked and sure enough, I had inches to spare! Thanks to the good samaritan I was spared the laughter of a police officer when he told me the same thing and watched me drive under.

I have gone under several marked 13' 6" and looked overhead and seen concrete missing or shiny spots on exposed metal which leads me to believe some tried it with too much snow pack, or hit a bump which caused a bounce. I've never hit anything overhead except for overhanging tree branches. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the future.

Truck drivers as ballet stars

2005-06-18T13:24:00.000-04:00

Truck drivers as ballet stars
03-Jun-05

Have you ever watched a ballet? I confess I've never seen one live, only portions on television. But, I'm sure that most truck drivers are really failed ballet stars. We are forced by Federal rules to take a 10 hour break after driving up to 11 hours, and I don't sleep 10 hours, so the rest of the time is spent eating, showering, computering (is that a word?), or just sitting around watching the sights in the parking lot. Most truckers prefer to back into a spot rather than pull in, and it's fun to watch the different techniques used. In a small lot with little traffic, it's all solo action. When you get into a larger lot with heavy traffic, there are always many trying to park at once--in different spots, of course. Each of them becomes a prima ballerina and it totally unchoreographed in relation to the other drivers. The most intriguing ones to watch are the ones with supreme self-confidence who make it seem so simple, and who can do it in one perfectly seamless motion with no corrections or repositioning pullups. The most fascinating to me are the ones who pull up and look at the spot, then immediately start making a large tight turn away from the spot. The tractor will at times make a 90 degree (or more) angle with the trailer, and you will only be able to see one side in your mirrors. They can position their trailer so that it's almost lined up for a "straight back" which is the simplest time. They will then, if there is enough forward room, straighten up the tractor and trailer and smoothly enter the empty space. There are other varieties of backing into a spot including the 45 and the 90, named for the angle of the trailer to the empty hole when the backing process begins. The 45 wasn't taught to me in driving school since it's not covered on my state's CDL test, but it's much simpler than the 90. There are times when the 90 is the only choice you have and is the most difficult one to do, but can be mastered with enough practice. But the simplest parking place to occupy is the "pull through" where there aren't two rows of tractors and attached trailers back to back between two traffic lanes. The pull through can be tricky if there isn't enough room to swing wide while lining up with it, but since it doesn't involve backing, it's the spot of choice for most truckers. As I was taught in school, the first rule of backing a large 70 foot combination vehicle is don't do it unless you have to!

some more random thoughts

2005-05-26T21:53:00.000-04:00

Automatic toilets
21-May-05

Have you ever seen one of the public toilets which flushes automatically? There is a sensor built into the wall behind where you sit; I'm not sure if it's heat or motion activated, but they work most of the time.

This seems at first glance to be a great idea for several reasons: 1) You don't have to touch a potentially dirty handle of some sort; 2) You don't forget to do it; 3) Odors are cut down since the source disappears very quickly; 4) Cleanup is easier since material which might stain the bowl doesn't linger long; 5) Probably others which you may add as you think of them.

However, I have discovered one major flaw in this process. While bare skin overhangs the water, it's sometimes necessary to reposition your body in some small way. Maybe you need to lean forward to reach the paper dispenser. Right at the time when you do so, the flush process starts. Water enters at a high rate of speed and pressure, swirls around, and inevitably some of it splashes around. Remember the purpose of the toilet and what might be in there, and think about all that splashing up on you. Yes, it's part of the process that you will get "dirty" on at least one small portion of your body, butt (intentionally misspelled--if you don't "get it" then your sense of humor has been surgically removed at some time in the past) most people don't wish that small dirty area to be enlarged beyond to the total exposed posterior section of your body. I've seen bidets but never utilized one, but I'm thinking that the automatic flusher emulates one, although in an unexpected and unwanted way.

Let's realize that automatic isn't always better and work toward a return to the manual flush.
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Should you be nice to others?
24-May-05

I stopped for the night at the Welcome Center/Rest Area on EB I-64 in West Virginia last night. When I woke up and made the mandatory trip to the facilities, I noticed that a split-axle flatbed trailer had a brake chamber hanging loose and dragging the pavement. I went to the cab, but the driver was either out of the truck or in the sleeper berth. I returned to my truck and wrote a note telling him/her of the problem. I wedged it tightly into the gap between the driver's window and the rubber seal, knowing that it would be seen. While I waited for my mandatory 10-hour rest period to end, I periodically looked to see if the driver had seen the note. As I looked, I saw the driver open his door, remove the note, and read it. I then expected him to walk to the rear and inspect the fault. Instead, he wadded up the note and threw it to the pavement, started the engine, and drove away. The broken brake chamber was sparking as it dragged the concrete.

I have had many instances where I was nice to others and had it ignored or worse. Was this a bad fault? Well, having any of your braking system non-functional is not good, but on this trailer, it was only 25% of the capacity, and of course, there is more braking available on the tractor than the trailer, so it was a small loss. But, who is to say that it might not be the difference between stopping two feet short of a school bus or an elderly pedestrian in a crosswalk or stopping two feet past that hazard? I fulfilled my moral obligation to inform him of the problem. If something bad happens, I don't have any guilt. I suppose that if you wanted to be a real stickler, you might say I should have called the local authorities and reported it. That would have caused the trailer to be "red tagged" and immovable until repaired.

Did the other driver fulfill his obligations? To that I say an emphatic "NO"! Regulations require that every day you do a complete vehicle inspection, and even a cursory walk-around would have seen that problem. This is the type of driver which gives the entire profession a bad name to the four-wheeler community, and should be removed until properly trained. Would I want another driver to tell me of an obviously visible fault such as this? Of course, and it has happened, with the identical problem as described above. I was pulling an empty at the time, so I just used a bungee cord to tie up the hanging brake chamber and immediately went to a repair facility to have it replaced. Cost to me was an hour of down time, to the company, about $125 in parts and $100 in labor. Possible savings are as listed above: injuries or deaths prevented at the worst, fines and/or red-tagging at best.

Will I continue to be nice to others in such circumstances? Yes. It's not just the right thing to do, it's the only thing to do.

2005-05-18T21:42:00.000-04:00

Ooh, I hope I never have a pickup or delivery at the bottom of *this* one.

2005-05-18T21:41:00.000-04:00

OK, think this one through. The slope is 5% and you can't stop. Does it make any sense to go down a 7% ramp? Terror and disaster wait at the bottom if you do.

2005-05-18T21:40:00.000-04:00

Here's what the runaway truck ramp looks like. It's very steep and covered with loose rock and gravel. I've been told that it does slow you down very rapidly. The downside is that once in, you don't get out by yourself--it requires a wrecker. Then, of course, you need someone to come out and repair/replace your brakes before you can continue.

2005-05-18T21:38:00.000-04:00

It's an order not a suggestion. Do not try going down in high gear--you will not be able to downshift later. Trust me on that one.

2005-05-18T21:36:00.000-04:00

Hmmm, 7%? That is *steep*. And notice the sign next to it. You do NOT want to try that one out.

2005-05-18T21:35:00.000-04:00

A grade of 5% may not sound like much. Believe me, it is, especially if you have a heavy load. And 3 1/2 miles is a LONG way down. Now maybe you can see why they wanted all trucks to check their brakes!

2005-05-18T21:33:00.000-04:00

When the limit is posted for trucks, they really do mean it. Too fast and you will "smoke" your brakes and not be able to slow at all. To paraphrase Martha Stewart, "It's a bad thing."

2005-05-18T21:31:00.000-04:00

This one and the next few go with the one below. Yes, I found out that they post in reverse order. Next time I'll go from last to first.

2005-05-18T21:30:00.000-04:00

Mandatory Truck Stop 1 mile. Yes, there's a real good downhill grade coming up and the authorities want to make sure you can stop safely.

2005-05-18T21:28:00.000-04:00

Notice the logo above the bunk emergency exit. I thought it went well with the company name, "Keyboard Carriage."

2005-05-18T21:24:00.000-04:00

This lighthouse on top of a Maryland mountain on I-68 has been successfully keeping ships from running aground for many years.

First Post

2005-05-18T19:25:00.000-04:00

I'm a trucker now. What a change in lifestyle for someone who spent decades behind a desk pushing a pencil and using a computer. But, when life gives you lemons, you either make lemonade or watch them turn green and moldy before you throw them away.

I'd welcome comments from other truckers on their take on my writings, either to differ with me on details I may have gotten wrong or to relay similar experiences.

Since I'm on the road 7 out of every 8 days and not every truck stop has wifi access, the postings will be sporadic. Every day is out, maybe every week, but I might write every day and just post when I can.

I'm new to blogging and don't even know if I can include pictures. Well, even if I can, most will be shot while on the move and through a windshield, so don't expect Ansel Adams quality if I can do it.

Incidentally, some of you might know who I am, but I'm not exposing myself to the world here by name just in case I write something that offends my company or other truckers. I hope you understand my caution in that regard and won't share anything except the content, not my name.

Thanks for reading and happy trucking :)