Is forced dispatched forced?

I’m sitting in the driver’s lounge of a truck shop right now.  Last night, in 25 degree weather, our alternator belt broke.  It not only powers the batteries, but since everything in our modern truck is electrical, it also powers nearly everything else, including the heater.  So what does this have to do with forced dispatched?  Hang on.  I’m taking the construction detour to get around to it.

Forced dispatch simply means that you can’t reject a load that your company gives you.  Since Owner/Operators can pick and choose their loads, this is usually only an issue for company drivers.  The term “forced” is the thing most folks get caught up with.  I don’t like to be forced to anything.  Most people don’t.  Perhaps the term should be changed to the phrase, “Strongly suggested if you want any good loads in the future” dispatch.  Or how about, “The planner is too lazy to look for anything else” dispatch.  Those are both pretty fitting.

The thing with forced dispatch is that it’s really not… at least it isn’t if you’ve got a good reason to refuse the load.  And now we come to the part where I’m sitting in a shop’s driver lounge with a broken truck.  Now undoubtedly, my alternator belt would have broken at some point, but if I had utilized the exception rule on forced dispatch, I’d be close to home instead of freezing my nipples off in Longmont, Colorado.

I had just delivered a load near Dallas, TX  when I received my next load information.  This was Tuesday night and the load was going to the Denver area to be delivered Wednesday night.  Since we were due home in Missouri on Thursday night, I almost refused it.  Instead I got greedy.  I saw that we could deliver on Wednesday night and still be home by Thursday night.  Just one more load!  The problem is that I accepted the load without thinking it through.  On hindsight, I should have refused it and sat in Texas until they found something better.

I was well on my way to Denver when one of my Twitter friends (@unclefuzz) shot me a tweet that told me that he was heading to Austin TX and he hoped I enjoyed the Denver blizzard.  The what?  As they say on the iPhone commercials, “There’s an app for that.”  The Weather Channel app confirmed it, up to 12 inches of snow.  Had I known that in advance, I would have had grounds to refuse that forced dispatch, stating that I might get stuck in the storm, which could cause me to get home late.  I had the company look for another driver who might want to switch loads, but I knew it was useless.  What kind of idiot would want to drive right back into the blizzard that he had just escaped?  My dispatcher asked if I wanted to put off my home time until the next week, but that really wasn’t an option.  Under normal circumstances, that might work.  But not this particular weekend.

We had been planning a decked-out Halloween weekend for our nephews and we really needed to be home by Thursday night to prepare for it.  Our costumes had been bought way back in August.  On top of that, The Evil Overlord had scheduled a few appointments on Friday and I had a doctors appointment on Monday.  Doctors appointments are yet another reason to refuse forced dispatches.  So basically, I blew it worse than a kid with a kazoo.

And all this because I thought I could fit in one more load.  You know, it’s true what the Bible says about greed.  It sucks.  Well, it doesn’t say it in those exact words, but you get the drift… just as I do.  All snowy 12″ of them. Dang it.

The salad bar psycho

Okay readers. I need some help figuring this one out. The Evil Overlord and I had an even weirder, and scarier encounter than my last post. We’ve come up with a theory, but I’d like to hear your thoughts. And so the story begins…

Tired of eating in the truck, The Evil Overlord had been riding me for a couple of weeks to get her to a Flying J salad bar. At last, I accomplished her request when I pulled into the Salina, Kansas Flying J. We were seated and happily munching away on our salads when the weirdness began.

As we humans tend to do, I was scanning the room every now and then as The Evil Overlord and I chatted. We weren’t particularly jovial or loud, nor were we speaking softly or secretively. That’s what makes this all so odd.

As I glanced around the room, I noticed a table full of hunters and a couple of pregnant waitresses. I had asked them earlier if they were contagious, because I really didn’t want to get pregnant just yet. Next, my glance passed over a large black man who was rounding the salad bar. When I say “glance,” I mean glance. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second.

My eyes had already moved on when my peripheral vision detected a sudden movement from the guy at the salad bar. When I looked back, he had turned directly toward me and was glaring right into my eyes. He had a mean look on his face. At first I grinned, believing him to be a trucker who was trying to be funny. As he continued to stare at me without a blink, my expression changed to a look of confusion. His stare went on for 10-15 seconds.

Well, I’ve got to tell you that I was as confused as a hillbilly at a Physics convention, so I got up and started to walk towards him to find out what was going on. He immediately took two quick steps and got right in my face. I backed off a bit and asked him why he was looking at me like that. His only response was, “You got a problem with me?” I said, “No. I don’t even know you. Did I do something to offend you?” Then I got the old classic, “Do you wanna take it outside?” Naturally, I declined.

Maybe I should explain something about myself real quick. By my very nature, I’m not a confrontational person. I don’t much like to argue and the only fight I’ve ever been in could hardly be considered a fight at all. It happened when I was in my early 20’s when an upstairs neighbor had come downstairs to complain about the noise from our party. We had said a few words and he and his girlfriend had vanished. The next thing I knew, I was being picked up out of the rocks.

Later on that night a friend told me what happened. I had stepped out of our front door, which just so happened to be right next to a dark corner. Wielding a large electrical cable wrapped in rubber, the neighbor had jumped out and cold-cocked me from behind. I was out cold before I went face down into a pile of sharp rocks. Still unconscious, the guy flipped me over and starting punching me in the face. Only after a large friend of mine grabbed the guy’s arm and threaten to rip it off did he stop and retreat.

A few days later, battered and bruised, I approached the guy and he told me that he was sorry. He said he had been jacked up on coke that night. Although that’s hardly an acceptable excuse, I let the matter go, despite the fact that my friends and my brother wanted to beat the guy into a bloody pulp. As I said, I’m non-confrontational. What would whooping this guy solve? Nothing at all. All that to explain to you that I NEVER would have tried to pick a fight with this wacko at the salad bar.

So, after I declined Mr. Demented’s invitation to step outside, I just shook my head and walked back to our table. The Evil Overlord wanted to know what was going on since she had her backed turned to all the action. As I explained to her, he continued to glare at me. A minute later he turned around and began to fill up a to-go container at the salad bar. Every few seconds he would look over at me again and shake his head. Finally, he started to walk out of the restaurant. But he wasn’t finished yet.

As he walked past the table of hunters, he stopped and glared down at them. Not one of them paid him any mind, so after 10-15 seconds he wandered off. Still, he continued to look back at them and shake his head. I have to think that he was lucky that those hunters weren’t a bunch of Bubba’s who might take offense at being glared at.

Outside, he continued to turn around and look at the truck stop doors like he was expecting someone to come running out at him. Instead, he made his way towards an older white man who was walking his dog and talking on the phone. I was anticipating more trouble, but instead he walked to the passenger side of an old maroon-colored car. He then said something to the man, to which the guy answered and pointed at another maroon car in the parking lot. The psycho went over and proceeded to get into the front passenger seat. The old man put his dog in the back, got in, and drove off.

So what do you think? Sure, the guy was looking for trouble, but why? What was he doing with an older white man and his dog, and why did he walk towards the wrong car with the right color?

The Evil Overlord specializes in making back stories out of people she sees. She thinks that the black man was clearly “off-balance,” possibly mildly retarded. She also thinks that the older white gentlemen must have been his guardian who was taking him somewhere. She also thinks that this guy was a classic example of a guy that “loses it” and unloads a round of bullets into a crowd. She was ready to hit the deck if he started heading back toward the building. Luckily, that didn’t happen. That sounds like a decent explanation to me. Got any theories of your own?

I know one thing for sure. With all the weirdness that has been going on lately, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I woke up with my tongue stapled to my lip.

Meeting myself

I just had a strange encounter in the peanut butter isle.  No, I didn’t decide that mustard should replace strawberry preserves.  Although that does give me a devious plan.  I think I’ll try to get one of my nephews to eat a peanut butter and mustard sandwich.  Maybe I’ll throw in some cash to sweeten the pot.  Anyway, what really happened was that I ran into myself from two years ago.

I was listening to some tunes on my iPhone when a guy walked up and started talking to me.  I really hate that, but I hit pause anyway.  He was asking me if peanut butter ever went bad.  Truthfully, I told him that peanut butter doesn’t last long enough around me to know the answer to that particular question.  He laughed, saying that he had found a half-eaten jar under the bunk in his truck.  I said, “Well, I sure know the feeling of losing stuff in your truck.”  He raised his eyebrows in surprise and said, “You drive a truck?”  I just love it when people can’t believe I’m a trucker.  So, similarity number one.

As is typical in trucker conversation, the next question was, “Who do you drive for?”  Well, I never reveal my employer on the web, but I have no problem doing so face-to-face.  No, we didn’t drive for the same company, but the two company names were so similar that we had a laugh about it.  Similarity number two.

He went on to comment on my lack of a belly (very anti-truckerish) and said he was just starting to work on making his disappear.  He told me he was an ex-Marine and expressed how disgusted he was with himself for getting out of shape.  Now it would have been really cool if I had been in the Marines too, but I wasn’t even in the ROTC, let alone the real gun-toting deal.  Anyway, I congratulated him on his decision and he began to show me the food he was buying and telling me how he tries to eat in the truck as much as possible.  I agreed that that was the way to go.  The Evil Overlord and I figured that out years ago.  As he said, “They serve too much food at truck stops.”  So there’s similarity number three.  We both try to eat as healthy as possible and stay away from fast food and truck stop restaurants.  And believe me, that’s strange in the trucking industry.

Similarity number four came when he asked if I worked out to stay in shape.  I told him that I had a couple of years ago, when The Evil Overlord had quit trucking and I was running solo.  He said he had just bought a set of dumbbells that he was going to use when he was away from home.  I went on to tell him how he needs to find a way to workout inside the truck if at all possible.  When he looked at me skeptically, I told him that it could be done and proceeded to tell him how to position himself to do certain exercises.  I went on to explain that if he tried to do his workouts in a truck stop parking lot that he would have constant interruptions from truckers who wanted to talk his leg off.  On that subject, why can’t anyone ever talk your beer gut off?  Why is it always a leg or an ear?  Anywho, he thanked me for the tip and admitted that I was right about that.  We’re men, for Pete’s sake.  We can’t be expected to count reps AND carry on a conversation at the same time.

Similarity number five was realized as I was preparing to leave.  I wished him luck and he said, “God will help me stick to it.”  ”He certainly will,” I said.  Two or three years ago, I had decided that I should give God a little more respect than I had in the past.  I started to read my Bible and pray every morning and I started listening to some Christian podcasts.  I told him this and he said that he had strayed too, and was trying to get back into the habit of opening his Bible everyday.  He decided that the first step was unburying his Bible so that he would remember.  Good call, man.  So this fifth similarity caused the sixth.

He said he was trying to quit cussing.  I laughed and said, “This is getting weird.” I told him that I had quit cussing a couple of years ago when I started reading the Bible again.  He laughed and said, “Man, it’s sooo hard when you’re out here with all these truckers.”  I assured him that he could do it.  I also made sure he knew that I fall back into my potty-mouth self every now and then, especially when I’d like to nudge some four-wheeler into the ditch for being a moron.  I thought it might help him when he caught himself slipping.  You know, for some strange reason, when you start reading the Bible, you realize that your mouth could use a whole case of Palmolive dumped into it.  God’s weird like that.

As for the seventh and final similarity, well, some things are just hard to believe.  As the conversation wound down, he stuck out his hand and said, “Man, it was nice to talk to someone who has been through all this recently.  I didn’t catch your name.”  As I stretched out my arm, I replied,”Todd.”  His hand stopped in mid-air.  Through squinted eyes he said, “Seriously?”  I grinned and said, “Don’t tell me your name is Todd.”  It was.

Please, oh please, give me the bypass!

Have you ever seen a long line of trucks pulling off the interstate and wondered what was going on?  Either they’re heading into a weigh station, or there’s a car load of spring break bound college girls that have a flat tire.  Either way, it’s the law to stop…isn’t it?

Weigh stations are set up by the DOT (Department of Transportation) and are usually manned by state troopers and/or vehicle enforcement officials.  Their main purpose is to check vehicle weights, but they also do vehicle and driver inspections when the mood strikes them, which usually just so happens to be when you’re behind schedule on a tight load.

Weight limits in the U.S. are limited to 12,000 pounds on the steer axle, 34,000 pounds on the drive axles, and 34,000 on the trailer, or tandem axles.  Add them together and you get a gross maximum weight of 80,000 pounds, or 40 tons.  If the trailer has single axles instead of duals, 20,000 pounds is usually the limit for each axle.  Special permits can be purchased for oversize loads.

The weight of the vehicle itself determines how much freight you can haul.  The typical company-owned truck/trailer combo that you see usually weighs in the 34-35,000 pound range, which leaves enough room for 45-46,000 pounds of freight.  The trick is getting all that weight distributed well enough to avoid an overweight ticket.  Truckers call this “axling out.”

Bridge laws determine how you need to distribute your weight.  (For a detailed explanation and a cute little visual of the bridge law, click here.)  In short, bridge laws determine how far your drive axles (on the truck) must be from the trailer axles to avoid damaging bridges.  These laws vary from state to state, so you need to find out which states you will be traveling through and then adjust your tandems to meet the minimum requirements for your trip.  At 40 feet from kingpin (the knob on the trailer that hooks to the tractor) to the center of the rear most axle, California is the shortest distance.  If you’re going to axle out a heavy load going into California you must get most of the weight between your axles.

This is a kingpin and it goes…

into the fifth wheel.

Pull this lever to slide the trailer

Here’s a sliding fifth wheel. Stubborn buggers.

There are three basic ways to get your load to axle out.

1. Load the freight evenly – Most trailers nowadays are 53 feet long, but the weight of your freight determines how much of the 53 feet you can use.  If you’re hauling styrofoam coolers, you can load it from floor to ceiling, all the way to the trailer doors.  However, if you’re loading only nine-5,000 pound coils of metal, you’d better space those suckers out to avoid being over the 34,000 pound axle limit.  Learning how to position freight comes with experience, but in general, if you can get a 45-46,000 pound load within the first 48 feet of trailer space, you can get it to axle out.  Why do you need to leave 5 feet at the rear of the trailer empty?  That’s where bridge laws and our next method come into play.
2. Slide your tandems – Most trailers are built on a rail system that enables you to slide the trailer box independently from the frame.  This is done by pulling a lever near the trailer’s axles or operating an air-powered switch inside the cab, which in turn pulls 4 pins out of a sliding rail underneath the trailer box.  You then lock your trailer brakes, release your tractor brakes, and start sliding your trailer along the rail system.  When you get it where you think you want it, you release the lever under the trailer, jump back in the truck and slide the trailer a few more inches until it locks in place.
3. Slide your fifth wheel – This is the part of your tractor that hooks onto the trailer’s kingpin.  On some trucks the fifth wheel is adjustable for fine tuning an extremely heavy load.  I’d rather be forced to watch reruns of General Hospital for days on end than slide a fifth wheel.  They aren’t used nearly as often as the trailer sliding system and therefore are typically as cranky as the old lady down the street who smells like cat urine and mothballs.  If you must do so, you slide the fifth wheel much like you would the trailer, however, you start by lowering the trailer’s landing gear to the ground.  This is usually necessary to take most of the weight off the stubborn little fifth wheel.  You then lock the trailer brakes, release the fifth wheel pin (either manually or air-powered), and start sliding the fifth wheel by moving the tractor forward or backward.  Brace yourself before you start moving because when and if it ever unlocks itself, it will usually jar you hard enough to cause you to vomit up your spleen.

So there you have it.  But how do you know if you need to adjust your weight in the first place?  Well, again, that mostly comes from experience.  I feel pretty comfortable guessing where the tandems should be on loads under 40,000 pounds.  However, if something looks fishy to my experienced eye or a load is heavier, I simply slide them to where I think they need to be and head for the nearest truck stop with scales, which is most of the major truck stop chains.  The first weigh will run you $8 to $10.  If you’re over the 80,000 pound limit, you’re probably going to be heading back to the shipper for reloading.  If you’re just overweight on one set of axles, you can pull off the scale, slide your tandems a bit, and reweigh for $1, as long as the reweigh is within 24 hours and it takes place at the same truck stop where you did your first weigh.  If you can’t get legal on all three axles, you’re most likely headed back to get your load adjusted by the shipper.  By the way, the majority of carriers reimburse the cost of scales.  If not, save them for tax time.

Although you can get most loads to axle out with room to spare, every once in a while you’ll encounter a load where the best you can do is 100 or 200 pounds overweight, either gross weight or on a particular axle.  Before I head back to the shipper, I ALWAYS call my company first.  I’ve had numerous occasions where they told me to run with the load because some particular weigh station you’ll be crossing will allow a little leeway.  Don’t ever try this without permission and always get permission in writing (via satellite).  If they won’t give it to you in writing, refuse to haul it.  Overweight tickets are notoriously expensive, and it will be yours to pay if you can’t prove you were told to run with it.

Weigh stations are a pain-in-the-wazoo, but unfortunately, they are a necessary pain-in-the-wazoo.  Luckily, some companies provide a wonderful little savior that sticks to your windshield.  It’s called a PrePass.  Just as a toll pass allows you to roll past toll plazas, PrePass allows you to pass weigh stations.  At least most of the time.  And that’s why I say, “Please, oh please, give me the bypass!”

Hauling Hazardous Materials

Wow.  What a great title.  I put soooo much thought into that.  Hazardous Materials, or HazMat for short is part of the big, bad, scary side of trucking.  Or is it?  What are Hazardous Materials, what does it take to haul them, and how dangerous are they?

First, the technical definition.  A Hazardous Material is a substance or material which has been determined by the Secretary of Transportation to be capable of posing an unreasonable risk to health, safety, and property when transported in commerce, and which has been so designated. The term includes hazardous substances, hazardous wastes, marine pollutants, and elevated temperature materials.

Now Todd’s special definition.  Hazardous Materials are products that are more dangerous to haul than regular freight, but you’ll probably never notice.

How’s that for short and sweet?  Truly, the hardest part about hauling HazMat is getting your HazMat endorsement tacked onto your CDL (Commercial Drivers License).  Before 9-11, you could obtain a HazMat endorsement simply by taking a short written test.  In todays world of terrorist activity, the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA (yes, the same people who confiscate your fingernail clippers at the airport) requires a driver to go through an FBI background check and fingerprinting before you are able to take the written test.

Other than that, hauling HazMat doesn’t take much extra effort; at least not for the average trucker.  You see, most of the really dangerous stuff is hauled by carriers who specialize in that particular hazardous material.  Since that’s usually all that they haul, those drivers receive specialized training from their company.

So who’s responsible for what?   In short, shippers are responsible for packaging and labeling the product, preparing certified shipping papers, providing emergency response information, and supplying the proper placards to the driver.  Placards are those pretty little signs that are required on all four sides of the trailer.  There are nine classes of HazMat, plus one extra, all of which get their own placard.

1. Explosives
2. Gases
3. Flammable and Combustible Liquids
4. Flammable Solids
5. Oxidizers
6. Poisons
7. Radioactives
8. Corrosives
9. Miscellaneous
10. ORM-D (other regulated materials-domestic)

I won’t go into details on these because it’s nearly as boring as watching a PC boot up.  Ooo.  Low blow by the Apple fan boy.  If you still want all the gory details, click here.  But please, go get some friends afterward.

The carrier (trucking company) responsibility is to double check the shippers paperwork, refuse any improper shipments, and report any accidents or incidents to the proper authorities.

The driver’s responsibility lays in double checking HazMat labels and markings, refusing damaged or incorrect product, putting placards on the trailer, insuring proper blocking and bracing of the product, safely transporting the product, and keeping the shipping papers and emergency response information in the proper place, which is in the drivers side door or in the drivers seat when out of the truck.  For more details on each parties responsibilities, click here, you glutton for punishment.

Now that may sound like a lot to know and remember, but in reality, average truckers like myself have very little knowledge of specific hazardous materials.  There are simply too many different types, guidelines, and combinations to memorize.  Instead, we are issued HazMat guide books by our companies and taught how to use them.  So here’s how it actually works.

You arrive at a shipper and they load your trailer.  Although the shipper is not officially responsible for loading the trailer, in my 12-year career I have never loaded any HazMat and don’t ever expect to.  Once loaded, the shipper tells you there is HazMat on the load and supplies you with the correct placards.  Before I close my trailer doors, I look inside to make sure that nothing looks like it will move around or fall over.  Let me take a tangent here.

Although it is officially my responsibility as the driver, I rarely look to see if the product is marked correctly.  For one thing, I can’t open every container or unstack pallets to verify that sort of thing.  Secondly, the shipper has given me a certified shipping paper that states that they know what the heck they are doing.  They know far more about this stuff than I do, so I’ll just take their word for it.  It would be like questioning your IT guy at work.  If the stinking printer starts working, don’t try to verify how it was done.  Just give him a manly slap on the buttocks and thank the good Lord above.  On second thought, maybe you better leave the butt slapping to the NFL.

Back to the process.  After I close my trailer doors, I put the supplied placards on all four sides of the trailer.  That is, if they are required.  Loads with of very little amounts of certain kinds of HazMat don’t require any placarding.  How would I know?  Here comes the company supplied HazMat handbook.

Every hazardous material is assigned a number.  For instance, paint is UN-1263.  That number is required on my shipping papers.  I look up that number in my guide book and it tells me what the product is, what type of placards I need (if any), and how to deal with an emergency.  What I like to do is put a bookmark in that page and store the book in the drivers side door alongside the shipping papers.  That way everything is in easy reach if something horrible happens.

The actual transporting of the product has a few small hassles.  For one, all placarded loads must come to a complete stop before crossing any railroad tracks.  So please quit cussing the poor driver who keeps stopping on that back road with a million railroad crossings.  An even bigger hassle is routing.

There are many tunnels across this great nation of ours that won’t allow HazMat loads.  For instance, I-76 in Pennsylvania has a few and Eisenhower Tunnel just west of Denver on I-70 is a real doozy.  Since you can’t take HazMat through Eisenhower, you are forced to take US 6 over Loveland Pass, which just so happens to be an 11,990-foot-high goat path full of sheer drop-offs and switchbacks that force you to use both lanes.  It’s tolerable in decent weather, but I’d rather get rammed in the groin by said goat than drive it with snow on the ground.  Been there, done that.  Trust me that it will NEVER happen again.

Another issue with routing is with route restrictions.  Cities all across America have certain routes that you must take around or through their city.  Cops love to issue tickets for ignoring their signs.

These routing problems aren’t much of a problem for an experienced driver.  We know were these places are and can usually avoid them quite easily.  It’s the newbie driver that has to watch out.  If you don’t know about those tunnels in Pennsylvania and Colorado, you could be in for a lot of extra miles trying to find an alternate route.

To sum up, HazMat scares more people than it should.  Sure, every now and then we hear about the big HazMat spill that shut down the highway for hours and hours.  I, myself, had one minor HazMat spill which held me up for an entire hour.  Accidents happen.  However, the vast majority of these HazMat loads get delivered without incident.  And many of these HazMat loads just shouldn’t be feared at all.  I mean, really.  Who could possibly be afraid of a load of hairspray?

Hell Week

Everyone has bad days.  I’m no different.  But what I just went through could only be described as “Hell Week.”

While all of you normal working stiffs have been anticipating a long, relaxing Labor Day weekend, The Evil Overlord and I have been out here on the road.  The last few weeks before our last home time were pretty good.  We ran hard and made more money three weeks in a row than we have since the economy took a turn for the worse.  Unfortunately, the high-value load I wrote about last week was the end of that spree.  We delivered that load on Saturday morning, and by the following Friday we had a whopping 300 miles.

Hell Week started when my company didn’t have a load for me Saturday morning.  I sat at a trashy truck stop until the following morning, when I took off to pick up a load approximately 180 miles away.  The shipper asked me to turn off the truck so I could talk into the intercom that was at the outer gate.  I did so and the truck started right back up.  I again turned the truck off at the inner gate, but this time it wouldn’t restart.  It wouldn’t even try to turn over.  It didn’t even click.  My voltage meter showed 12.5 volts when it should have been 14-15 volts.  I knew I was screwed.

Although I know better, I didn’t have any jumper cables in the truck.  I used to keep a set in the side box, but I went so long without using them that I decided to leave them at home years ago.  I hadn’t needed them until now.

The shipper eventually sent a forklift driver out to jump start my truck.  After numerous attempts, I hadn’t even gotten a “click.”  Then, out of the blue, it just started.  And that’s when the weirdness started.

When my truck restarted, my satellite wasn’t working properly.  I could see that I was getting messages, but the messages were blank.  I couldn’t send any messages at all.  Unfortunately, I didn’t notice this until the forklift driver was long gone.  Since this little quirk had happened before, I knew that if I rebooted the satellite system it would work just fine.  Problem was, I needed to turn the truck off to reboot the system.  If I did that, I didn’t know if I would get lucky enough for the truck to restart.

Now having a malfunctioning satellite won’t normally keep me from running.  I might have to call my dispatcher to get all my load information, directions, and routing, but other than that it’s business as usual.  But Hell Weeks are anything but normal.

As you may have guessed by the outer and inner gates, this was another high-value load.  High-value loads needs to be kept track of and updated.  And of course, they accomplish this through the satellite system.  Therefore, I was ineligible to take this particular load.  An hour later, I watched as another team drove away with my load.

The next step was to call the Maintenance Department and inform them of my problems.  I heard keys clicking away as I described my issues to the friendly maintenance guy on the other end of the line.  He told me I needed to get to a shop.  Duh.  As it so happens, the only loads we had anywhere near there were all high-value loads.

I sat all day Sunday and reported my issues to my full time dispatcher on Monday morning.  By 5 p.m. I was still sitting there twiddling my thumbs.  My boss couldn’t understand why the planners hadn’t sent me to a shop yet, as I was only 150 miles to our nearest company terminal.  Out of desperation, he told me to call the Maintenance Department again.  When I called, I found out that my issues had never been written up, so no one was aware that I even needed to get to a shop.  No wonder I was still sitting there!  Once they actually wrote up my issues, I immediately got permission to go to our shop without a load.  So, in short, I sat all day Sunday and Monday because some moron didn’t write up my problems when he was supposed to.

On to step two of Hell Week.  I get to the shop later that night and they inform me that the truck won’t even get looked at until Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.  As you may have guessed, it was more like Wednesday afternoon by the time they got to me.

Once in the shop, they did some tests and believed the problem to be a faulty starter.  Now instead of checking to see if they had a new starter in the Parts Department, they proceeded to tear out the old one.  Only then did they discover that they would have to order one and it wouldn’t get there until the following day, which, if you’re keeping track, would be Thursday.

Naturally, it’s kind of hard to start a truck without a starter, so they told us to go to a motel.  You might think this is good, but for us it’s just a pain-in-the-sitter.  The truck is set up with everything we need.  We have to lug a bunch of bags to a hotel room.  Not good.

Once at the motel, we discover that they don’t have any non-smoking rooms.  Again, not good news when The Evil Overlord has an allergy to tobacco smoke.  After a couple of calls to other nearby motels, we finally found a non-smoking room at a dumpy little Motel 6.  The only luck we had this week was that the room turned out to be tolerable.

On Thursday, we waited for an hour for the company van to pick us up at the motel.  When we finally got back to the shop, we found our starter replaced.  Yeah!  Not so fast.  They had discovered a leaky wheel seal and were now working on it.  By 6 p.m. that was finished.  Yeah!  Hold on now.  ”We need to put a limiting device on your inverter now.”  Great.  I had told dispatch we were ready to go and they had a load for us.  Now we lost it.  Almost through, right?  Wrong.

Our mechanic was so proud that he had discovered that our truck had never had a special part installed on it, even though every other truck had it.  (Sorry, I can’t tell you what part it is because it is unique and I’m not supposed to let anyone know what company I work for.)  The bad news was that the only guy who knew how to install it was a day shift mechanic and yup, you guessed it, he was already gone for the day.  Fabulous.  I went to pull the truck out of the shop and guess what?  It wouldn’t start.  A quick jump start ensued and they told me that it was probably just low batteries due to sitting in the shop all day.  Uh-huh.  Whatever.

That night we would at least get to sleep in our truck.  Since there was nothing to do until morning, we began to watch a DVD and cook some dinner in the microwave.  BANG!  We blew a fuse.  On our inverter.  You know, the one they just added a limiter to?  I ran across to the shop and got two more fuses.  BANG!  BANG!  Two more down the drain.  The mechanic came out and determined I had a bad battery cable.  He assured me that this may also be the cause of our truck not starting.  So no TV and no microwave.  Dominoes got a call that night.

I was standing outside the shop door on Friday morning when the door opened.  To my surprise, they had me pull in straightaway.  They replaced all of the battery cables and told me that the batteries were at full charge.  My special part got installed and we were finally released.  Joy to the world, the Lord is come!  Four hours later, we had a load.

Well, we delivered that load and had received our next one.  It wasn’t that great of a load, but what can we expect on Labor Day weekend?  As I sat at the truck stop waiting to pick up the load at the scheduled appointment time, our truck died.  This was not a surprise because our trucks turn themselves off to let you know when they need to do a regeneration process (for EPA regulations).  No problem!  I’ll just start it back up with my nifty new starter.  No click, no nothing.

After numerous attempts at restarting, I gave up and went looking for a fellow company driver who might be willing to give me a jump start.  I was prepared this time because I had bought a set of jumper cables as soon as found the nearest Wal-Mart.  As the driver was getting out of bed and making his way over to me, the truck decided to start.  I still have no idea why.

One thing, however, is crystal clear to me.  Hell Week may not be over.  It may, in fact, turn into Hell Fortnight.  Don’t you just love British words?

Super high-value loads

The length I go to just to bring you a story. . . I can only hope you appreciate the danger I’m putting myself into.  Someone probably has my forehead in the cross-hairs of a high-powered sniper rifle right now.

Okay, perhaps that’s just a taaaad bit of an exaggeration.  While the company I drive for does forbid me to talk about high-value loads, as far as I know that’s only when I’m actually under such a load at the time.  Also, no one outside my immediate friends and family knows what trucking company I drive for, so no one can track me that way.  It also helps that no one reads this blog except for immediate friends and family.  So I’ve got that going for me.  And that frees me up to tell you this. . .

I have just delivered the highest-value load I’ve ever transported.  That is, if you consider a load of cell phones worth 5 million smackeroos high-value.  No, I have no idea what brand.  I’d like to thing they were my beloved iPhones, but I really have no clue.  It was also the only load that has ever required an escort service to tail me the entire way.  Oooo.  Now we’re talking CIA-type stuff.  McCann. . . Todd McCann.  Gee, that doesn’t have any kind of ring to it at all, does it?  It’s a good thing that I’m better looking than James.  Anywho. . .

The Evil Overlord started out the trip in the drivers seat while I settled down for a bumpy night’s sleep.  On high-value loads, most trucking companies require the driver to travel a minimum of 200-300 miles before we make our first stop.  Having the bladder the size of a BB, The Evil Overlord took it easy on the liquids so she could fulfill the requirement.

With our fuel gauge on full, we were set to make the entire trip without refueling.  Unfortunately, the escort car didn’t have 250 gallon tanks.  A mere 200 miles out, she was forced to stop so the escorts could fuel.  Since the BB was about to burst, The Evil Overlord actually welcomed this early stop.

Via our in-truck satellite, The Evil Overlord notified our company that we were stopping, while the escort called in the stop to the shipper.  Some trucking companies require the driver to contact them every time they stop the truck while under a high-value load.  Other companies only have that requirement under certain high-value loads.  Still others don’t need to be notified of any stops.

Nearly all trucking companies have some sort of policy for high-value loads.  Part of this policy might include padlocking the trailer or backing the trailer doors against an immovable object when you stop.  They might require the driver to stay with the truck and trailer or they might set a maximum time that you can leave it unoccupied.  If you are a team driver, they might say that the vehicle must be attended by one driver at all times.  They might tell you to avoid stopping for breaks near certain notorious cities or high-crime areas.  The rules are all over the map when it comes to security.  And now you know.  And as G.I. Joe says (in a deep, macho voice), “And knowing’s half the battle.”  Where the heck did that come from?  I digress.

The next stop she made was another 300 miles down the road.  By this time, it was time for us to switch positions.  The escorts decided to do the same.  The Evil Overlord whipped up some vittles for herself while I ran into the truck stop and nabbed some Subway.  The nice lady at Pilot informed me (in a high-pitched squeaky voice), “Did you know that for 30 cents less, you could get the 44 ounce iced tea instead of the 32 ouncer.”  Naturally, I went with the bargain.  I hate it when they upsell.  Within 45 minutes we were rolling again.

Now normally, I store my whiz about as efficiently as a camel stores water, but c’mon, it was 44 ounces!!  Therefore, even I, Bladder Man, had to stop at a rest area before I could complete the rest of the 300 miles to the receiver.  Oddly enough, the escort driver refused the need to use the facilities himself.  I might have thought that he too had a gargantuan bladder, but I had witnessed him carry a 12-pack of water out of the Pilot.  I didn’t ask any questions.

To make a long story short (too late), the rest of the trip went fine until I missed the turn into the receiver.  It was on a blind curve and they had a little, bitty, teensy, weensy sign.  A few blocks down the road I found a place to turn around.  When I got back to the receiver and told the elderly gentleman at the guard shack that they needed a bigger (or earlier) sign, he said, “Really?  You’re the only one who’s ever missed that turn.”  I caught the sarcasm in his voice and the twinkle in his eye, so at least I was justified in my ineptitude.

I have to admit something about my first escorted high-value trip.  I expected it to be a lot worse.  In fact, I expected it to be maddeningly annoying.  I expected to be pissed about it for the rest of the weekend.  You see, I figured that the escort drivers would constantly be wanting to stop for gas, food, and bathroom breaks, and that we would constantly be stopping, starting, and talking on the phone with them.  I was wrong on all counts.  Just don’t go telling The Evil Overlord that I admitted that.  I’ve got her convinced that I’m perfect.  Pssshhht.

Friendly truckers haven’t vanished

Many older truck drivers have fond memories of the way truckers used to help each other.  They say that all of the truckers nowadays only care about themselves.  They also say that selfish drivers are causing truckers to have less of a community.  Well, I’d say that they’re partly right, but I’m too concerned with myself to care about anyone else’s opinions.  Kidding.

The biggest compliant I’ve heard is that “back in the day” you’d never see a broken down truck on the shoulder without another driver who has stopped to check on him.  That’s true.  I rarely see two trucks pulled over together anymore.  But why is that?

I’ll admit something here.  I never check on a stranded truck anymore.  The only time I do is when it’s 20 degrees outside and someones life might be at risk.  But by and large, I don’t stop.  ”Back in the day” I tried to be the good citizen.  I rarely stopped, but nearly always contacted the broken down truck via CB radio.

Over the course of my 12-year driving career, in every single case, the driver had either contacted someone for help via his/her in-truck satellite system, his/her cell phone, or both.  So the fact is that with modern day technology, the need to stop and help has been rendered unnecessary.  Furthermore, I don’t even bother contacting them by CB anymore either.  I figure that everyone and their Gerbil has a cell phone these days.

As for the lack of community, well phooey on that.  Walk into any truck stop restaurant or driver’s lounge and you’ll witness plenty of community.  Drivers still tell stories to each other like they always have.  They talk across tables as they eat.  Even further out of site is the myriad of truckers that have taken the community on-line.

There are trucking websites, trucking blogs, trucking forums, and social websites such as Facebook and Twitter, just to name a couple.  Even more convenient is that all of these websites can now be accessed through a smart phone.  No computer required!  Many of these truckers talk back and forth on-line like they’ve known each other for years.  Maybe they have.  It’s just that they met on-line.  The fact is, they’ve probably never met face-to-face.  But does that matter anymore?

The point is that, like every other industry, trucking is being affected by technology.  Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is up to the individual.  Sure, there’s nothing like quality face time with real live people.  But I’d be willing to bet that some of these old timers who complain the most could actually be more involved with the trucking community if they’d trade in their  dial phone and typewriter for an iPhone and a laptop computer.

Too stupid to fuel?

A couple of days ago, I was reminded of something that I had known for years, but had totally forgotten.  It seems that the good citizens of Oregon (and all passers-by) are apparently too stupid to put fuel in their own vehicles.  At least that’s what the state’s lawmakers think.

As usual, I was wandering around the truck stop waiting on The Evil Overlord to finish up her shower.  Women are so stinking slow.  Anyway, I happened to be looking out the front doors as two cars pulled up to the gas pumps.  Then they just sat there.  No one got out of the car.  ”Hmm,”  I thought.  ”Why are they just sitting there?”  My question was immediately answered when an employee said, “Excuse me, sir,” as he slipped out the front door and proceeded to start pumping gas.

First off, am I really old enough to be called “sir”?  I guess I am, but I doubt I’ll ever get used to it.  After all, I’m used to answering when I hear The Evil Overlord use the words “dumb-ass.”  Or is that just one word?  Sorry.  Off on a rat hole again.  Back to the subject.

As soon as the guy started those fuel pumps, I remembered.  Many, many moons ago, The Evil Overlord and I had been stranded at a company shop near Portland, Oregon.  We had borrowed the company car and stopped for some gas on the way into town for a nice dinner at Jake’s Famous Crawfish (YUMMY!!!).  Being the lightning fast guy that I am, I had the pump in hand in a flash.  That’s when the guy came running out to stop me.

When he first explained that I wasn’t allowed to pump my own gas, I thought he was joking.  Only after a few minutes of him pleading with me did I honestly believe that I wasn’t the victim of a Candid Camera joke or something.  When asked why they had this stupid rule, the kid just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Don’t know.  It’s just a state law.”

Back in the present, I asked the current gas pumping dude the same question.  He said, “I heard two reasons.  One, was that a long time ago a husband and wife had gotten into a heated argument while the man was gassing up the car.  One thing led to another, and he wound up soaking his wife in gas and setting her on fire.  The fire spread and the whole place went up in flames.  The lawyers got involved and sued everyone.  So they passed this law.”  I guess my expression showed my doubt as the validity of this story, because he said, “Yea, that one’s a bit hard to swallow.”

“The second reason I heard is that the lawmakers decided that pumping gas exposed people to toxic fumes, so they outlawed it.”  I added, “So it’s okay to make one person sniff toxic fumes all day, every day, but it’s bad for everyone else to inhale those same fumes for five minutes every three of four days?”  To which he replied, “Yeah.  I’m not sure I buy that one either.  But I could see them not caring about a guy that’s pumping gas for minimum wage.”  I agreed, but added that I didn’t think even the government would be that stupid.  I stand corrected.  They can be.  His story wasn’t too far off.

Thanks to the iPhone and the internet, I quickly found the truth.  In 1951, Oregon lawmakers ruled that, due to the flammable nature of gasoline, it was unsafe for “unqualified” persons to pump their own gas.  New Jersey had passed a similar law two years earlier.  Many other states have had similar laws in the past.  All but Oregon and New Jersey have since grown a brain cell.  I guess it made sense back then when pumps didn’t have automatic shutoff valves.  But times have changed.  At least for 48 of our states, it has.  Click here for more information about these laws.  Incidently, they have modified the rules to allow truckers to fuel their own vehicles.  So for once, a trucker was determined to be smarter than the average citizen.  Hear, hear!

When I revealed the truth to the gas guy at the truck stop, he didn’t seem surprised.  I think he summed it up nicely when he said with a grin, “Doesn’t surprise me.  Don’t really care either.  People who live here are lazy and this job keeps me off welfare.”  Well put, my friend.  Well put.

This economy just won’t listen

I don’t ever recall giving this economy permission to affect by life, but similar to The Evil Overlord, it seems to be blatantly ignoring my demands.

There was a time when an experienced trucking team could get 6000 miles per week if they felt like working hard.  Those times seem to be gone for now.  Nowadays, if we can manage 5000 miles, we feel extremely lucky.  3500-4000 is what we usually get.  Every time The Evil Overlord and I think we’ve got a good week going,  the freight seems to vanish like a birthday cake at an after-meeting Weight Watchers party.

One particular weekend not too long ago, we were in the Seattle area with 3500 miles and we still had three days left in the payroll period.  We figured we would run at least 1500 miles in that time, putting us at an acceptable 5000 miles.  2500 (easy for a team) and we would hit 6000.  I shouldn’t have got my hopes up.  Three days later we had 3800 miles after a couple of crappy little local runs.  Those of you following my Twitter feed probably got tired of my whining about it the entire weekend.  Sorry about that.  A guy’s gotta vent somewhere.

This week, The Evil Overlord is at home taking a break, so I’m running solo.  I had 2300 miles with two days left in the pay period.  I was looking at a good week for a solo driver.  Then I sat for nearly two days, effectively squashing my mood like a cockroach under a kid’s foot.

As bad as freight is right now, that isn’t the only reason that the economy has affected my trucking career.  The company that I work for has been laying off non-driving personnel with a vengeance.  This affects me because everyone still standing is overworked, grumpy, dazed, and confused.

I had one forlorn weekend dispatcher tell me that he was so stressed that if he couldn’t find me a load, he’d have me go get a truckload of beer and route me to the company headquarters parking lot where we would promptly set to work on it.  That one gave me a good chuckle.

Here’s how this shortage of driver-supporting personnel is affect us:

• After sitting for a few hours, you ask when you’ll be getting a load.  Half the time, they didn’t even realize you had delivered your previous load and are available for another.
• Day shift doesn’t let night shift know what’s going on and vice-versa.
• You call in on the evenings or weekends and they are so understaffed that it takes 30-45 minutes of horrible hold music before someone answers the phone.  Then they transfer you to someone else, which forces you to endure another butchered orchestral version of an otherwise decent song.
• They send you to get empty trailers that don’t exist.  If it does exist, the place you are taking it doesn’t want it.
• You finally show up to pick up a load, only to discover that it left with another driver two hours ago.
• When you are home waiting for the company to call you with a load (as they said they would), they continually call your cell number instead of your home number, even after you’ve told them a million times that you live out in the stix and your cell phone doesn’t work when you’re at home.  Because they can’t get hold of you, they give your load to someone else and forget that you exist.  When you call them and find out what happened, they somehow manage to blame you.  Ugh!

Okay, I admit that the last one probably doesn’t happen to most people, but it certainly does to us nearly every time we go home.  The rest of that stuff doesn’t happen everyday either, but the frequency of these kinds of things is ever increasing.

My whole point is this.  If you are considering driving a truck in this economy, you may want to re-examine your thinking.  This will accomplish two very important things:

1. You might save yourself from not making as much money as you were expecting.
2. You’ll leave more freight for me.