The trucking industry

I think for some, your theory makes sense as to why they quit. I also think the psychological part of it beats drivers up as well. I gotta buddy that's finally going local after 14 years OTR. He was talking about starting a garden lol. He's never been built for OTR. He likes his normal life too much. I think that's the difficult part for drivers to give up. It's too big of a lifestyle change, because you give up just about everything. The first Christmas or anniversary they miss, the wife is giving them hell, they'll be looking to make a switch. The whole work life balance ordeal, I guess. I couldn't imagine going back local or regional. I like the autonomy of OTR too much.

 

Really? I consider EVERY place I go where I am forced to do a live load/unload and told "sorry no bathrooms for truckers" to be disrespectful. So you force me to sit in a truck for hours and hours and give me no place to go to the bathroom? Even criminals arrested for violent crimes have a toilet and sink in their cells.

When someone tells me no bathrooms for drivers, I immediately lose patience. Calls to my dispatcher to get me the hell out of there won't be far behind. The only times I've cursed out shippers or receivers were places without a bathroom. Just the IDEA of them having access to a bathroom anytime behind that glass wall while I'm crapping in a bucket in my truck delivering THEIR CRAP TO THEM pisses me off to to end and always will. ANY drivers who tolerate this should be ashamed of themselves.

I literally delivered to a brand new 1 MILLION SQUARE FOOT WAREHOUSE with a sign affixed to the driver entrance door "No driver restrooms". I told that ##### behind the counter you got one hour to get the crap out of my trailer or I'll make a delivery of a brown substance in your parking lot. I was unloaded in 30 minutes flat. I have cursed people out who kept me without a bathroom and left a bag of crap in their parking lot. I don't care if it gets me banned. I don't WANT to go back to places like that that TOTALLY disrespect drivers. Ever since I got shot I have bowel problems sometimes. I NEED access to a bathroom. Even a dirty port o let will work. But NOTHING? Oh no. I'll let you know you made a mistake when you go to find out what's in the Wal Mart bag in the parking lot. Since the shooting there are days where I have to go 3-4 times. So "going before I leave" doesn't help or guarantee anything.

 

That is nasty and childish. You leave bags of dookie on someone's property, and actually admit that on here? Someone's gotta pick that up. That whole rant you just laid out is why these places don't want drivers using their bathrooms. There are alternatives. You talk repeatedly about how you got shot, then do the very thing that could piss someone off enough to shoot you. The irony.

 

Oh the irony, huh? I got shot IN MY OWN DROP YARD walking my dog by a druggie who owed his drug dealer money. I'm sure you've done stuff to piss people off, too. Why don't you say #### like this to my face? Oh yea, cuz I'd knock your ####ing teeth out. You hold someone against their will without even a bathroom and you're likely to get shot. That's kidnapping, a felony. You can use deadly force to stop a felony. Didchayaknowthat?

It's nasty and childish to refuse to allow "professional" truck drivers to do something as basic a human function as relieving themselves, especially considering some might have driven 7-8 hours just to GET THERE.

Childish to use the bathroom? What alternative is there to sitting in the parking lot of a 100 million dollar facility that won't give delivery drivers a place to take a ####? They want us to act like professional drivers but won't give us a place to crap like even people on death row get?

Do you realize how stupid you sound? Because a driver takes a crap in a bag because they won't let the driver use a bathroom, that's reason a place would not let a driver use the bathroom? THEY'RE ALREADY NOT LETTING US USE THE BATHROOM . Even congress was looking at passing a law mandating that places we go MUST give us SOMETHING to go to the bathroom in. You CANNOT lock my truck to a wall, behind a gate I can't open, and tell me for 6 hours I can't use the bathroom. BULL ####. If I have to crap I'm going to crap. In a toilet or in a bag. Your choice. But the bag stays with you.

If they get pissed at me for throwing feces in their parking lot after NOT letting me use their bathroom, then maybe they should let drivers use their bathrooms. I've never left so much as a napkin in the parking lot of a facility that gave me a bathroom to use. In fact, I've CLEANED bathrooms of places I've gone who gave me a nice bathroom. I've used a piece of toilet paper and picked up loose pieces of toilet paper and paper towels laying on the floor and threw them away, making it CLEANER than when I arrived. I've also thanked numerous locations for giving drivers a place to use the bathroom. Because I treat them like they treat me. Treat me like crap, they'll receive the same, in spades. I'm tired of getting up at 1am to arrive on time for an appointment at a place that says no bathrooms for drivers and hold me for 5-6 hours waiting to be loaded and disabling my truck where I can't leave if I want to.

The fact that you defend these kinds of places and that you think its perfectly ok to force a driver to sit for hours without a place to crap tells me what kind of a person you are. You are part of the problem, not the solution.

 

Ok....I stand by what I said.

 

Good, you can stand in it for all I care.

And I stand by what I said.

Failure to refute a single point I made makes it clear you know I'm right. You can't justify treating prisoners on death row better than truck drivers trying to feed their family.

Thanks for playing.

 

We just differ in opinions. Neither is right or wrong. To be honest, I can understand your frustration about not places not allowing drivers to use their bathrooms, I've experienced that same frustration; however, I understand why these places don't allow drivers to park at places, use their facilities, etc. Did you ever stop to think, how did we get here? You and I know good and well how nasty drivers can be. We've seen the piss bottles on the ground, #### bags on the ground, trash, just all kinds of uncivilized actions. What I don’t get I the retaliation. They can do what they want with their property. I'm not saying I agree with it all the time, but I'm not about to trash their place and leave fecal matter on their ground. You could at least put it in the garbage. That's where my issue is. That's all I'm saying on it.

 

If a place doesn't have the dignity to give a driver a place to relieve themselves from a basic bodily function, I don't give a #### what they think of truck drivers. If we would stop delivering to places like this, they would get the idea REAL FAST. They need us, WE DON'T NEED THEM.

The last company I worked for would pull the contracts of any place that didn't give drivers restrooms to use. That was the ONLY company I ever worked for that stood up for their drivers. We were having tons and tons of trouble finding empty trailers in the Jackson area of our home yard. Come to find out, Nissan, our biggest customer, was using our trailers as free storage. The owner gave them 24-48 hours to unload a trailer once it got on their site. They failed and continued to hold onto our trailers for months at a time. One day the owner said they'd had enough. Told all the local drivers to go pull all of our trailers. The owner told Nissan you have 24 hours or we will report you to the state police for grand theft. Within 24 hours we had 60 empty trailers on our yard. That freed up our sales team to get us new accounts for customers that wouldn't sit on our trailers. The best decision that owner made while I was there. After that moment in 2021, we never had an issue finding an empty trailer in the Jackson area again.

 

Unfortunately I think a lot of it is the way drivers act these days. I’ve been to a lot where the clerks were just plain fed up with drivers that can’t comprehend simple instructions or act as if every policy is a “violation” of their “rights”. Bathrooms that were provided but drivers act like barn animals and trash those facilities leaving waste in the lots. Drivers that go into a place looking (and often smelling) like they crawled out of a dumper. Or just can’t even read signs stating rules or dock location because they can’t speak or read English.

Some shipping & receiving are just plain disrespectful period. But in the last 10 -15 years alone the drivers have been become their own worst enemy.