Swift - Starting the New Year training with Swift 1/7/13 - A long read...

Pilot in Wells, NV


I got another message yesterday on the QC to contact safety regarding a critical event. Obviously this is regarding that one from about a week or so ago. I thought it was a done deal but apparently it was not.

I called and they gave me Safety Guy in Sumner. After telling him that I thought this was done and over with, he looked it up and said that I was going 23 mph around a curve that was indicated as 25 mph (or was it 30 mph). He said I should have been going half that speed around the corner. He also said that that specific corner in Tacoma (512 west going onto I-5 South) was one of the most common triggers for Critical Events. I asked and he said that it was going to be 8 points on my Swift RA score so now I go from -4 to +4. ########.

I understand the reasoning behind the Critical Event system. I do. But shouldn't it be used to track patterns of "dangerous" driving? I'm not happy with accruing 8 points on my Swift score when I work hard to keep my score good and in the negative. Annoys the hell out of me.

There's a big part of me that thinks, hey, I'm driving this truck and I can feel when I go around a corner too fast. I don't need a computer to tell me to go 12.5 mph around a corner that was perfectly safe at the 23 mph that I was doing.

 

I'm heading back up Highway 93 again, the way I just came down from Lewiston just a few days ago. What a road.

US. 50 across Nevada is designated as "the lonliest road in America" but this one has got to be a close 2nd place, especially the stretch between Wells and Vegas - basically the whole stretch.

I picked up from my old training grounds at the Lewiston terminal the other day and picked up my special Idaho permit to travel down US 95 between Grangeville and Council. What a great road this is. I traveled it once before, heading north last time, during the winter. I didn't get to stop in at the training grounds there as it was closed. I left Lewiston in a great mood and feeling like I was kind of home a little after spending all those weeks there training.

I picked up at the paper plant and headed down to N. Las Vegas to deliver. Animals were everywhere on the way down. In addition to the deer I spotted near the road I nearly clipped one. It was the closest I have ever come to actually striking an animal (other than a few birds I was successful in dispatching). This thing was huge too. One minute I'm driving along in the dark, I look at my speedometer, look back up and the deer it traveling across the road right in front of my truck. I must have missed him by about 3 feet. I didn't see him coming, didn't see him before I got to him and didn't see when he started across the road. He was just there one second, not even enough time to react and brake. He made it across but just barely.

Other animal experiences included seeing three owls. I don't think I have ever seen an owl in the wild before. They seem like they are pretty elusive. I saw one fly up in front of my truck. I saw another hopping around in a gravel drive, jumping around and flapping it's wings like it was trying to catch some food. These owls were huge. The last animal I saw was a daring coyote that ran across the road one way and then darted back across from where it came. Lots of wildlife sightings.

I dropped in N. Las Vegas and almost immediately got another load with a live load going back up near Yakima, WA. Back onto hwy 93 again. But there was some delay near the intersection of I-15 and US 93 last night due to severe flooding. That Loves there (Moapa/N. Vegas), where I stopped for fuel and to scale my load, was completely packed and overrun with trucks due to the road closure. I waited and it finally opened again.

I made it as far as Alamo or near there to a gas station with some parking off to the side of the road.

I started driving again this morning and was just in the groove, listening to some book on cd, when something roared by me outside my passenger window. I literally jumped up for a second as the roar came as a complete surprise. I looked to my right and there was a fighter jet that buzzed me, not far off my passenger side and he couldn't have been more than 200-300 feet off the ground. I caught a glimpse of the desert brown, camo pattern on it as he banked hard to the left and disappeared almost as quickly as he appeared. I sat in my seat laughing thinking that this pilot has got to know he scared the crap out of us earth-committed travelers. I was envious and would have done the same thing. It's got to be some rush being that low to the ground and flying that fast. Completely envious.

That was about it for my excitement on this trip so far.

This load is going to be late. I tried but they dispatched me late. The shipper took 4.5 hours to load and with this near 44,000 net weight and the hills, it is slow going at times (This 2014 truck is completely dogged when it comes to hauling weight. My 2011 had more balls). Plus the flooding delays. Plus my 70 recap hours were not great today.


All good things must come to an end...

I think it is done with Miss N. Carolina. It's a good thing. She went away with her girlfriend to Myrtle Beach this weekend and I barely heard from her. She texted on the way out there but I think that was just to keep her busy while her friend drove. Then I didn't hear anything all weekend. She sent a text while I was out on the road in the desert that I didn't receive until Monday. She thought I was ignoring her and said for me to have a great life. I told her that I was in a no cell zone and she kind of returned to normal but not really. We texted a few times since then but she basically hasn't wanted to talk on the phone or Skype in over a week. One of our last conversations last week was whether we were still getting together, were together, whatever. She said she didn't know.

I hate being in limbo and over the past week I just started feeling foolish. I'm not into chasing someone if I'm not getting any kind of reward for the chase. I can't see a one-sided relationship and I wouldn't want someone giving me the same. It's got to be a give and take type of thing. And this was becoming far from that. Today started out fine. Again, I bring up that it would be nice to talk on the phone and again, no response to that. I needed to set up an appointment with this guy down in Texas to get my tires changed over before hitting Mexico. It's coming up and I asked her if she was going to be free that weekend before. We had planned on getting together on my way down to Mexico, with me stopping off in N. Carolina. It wasn't going to be convenient for me and was going to mess up my timing a little but I figured it was worthwhile to see her. I asked her to confirm what we had talked about and she said she didn't know. She didn't sound like she was that interested so why should I go out of my way to see her. A little bit of back and forth later, her saying everything was fine (it is not) and me saying that I don't want to chase her around and we kind of said goodbyes. Who knows if that is it but basically it's past the point of no return. I'm fine with it as I'm done thinking about it. Relationships, no matter how weird (i.e. - this one), shouldn't be this difficult. The whole thing is kind of embarrassing and I'm moving on from it as I'm at peace with my role in this. If there is that outside chance that she turns around and says she wants to meet me on my way down to Mexico I'm fool enough to probably do it. That's me. I'm hopeless and a sucker to the very end.

It's almost the opposite of roles as I had with Miss Virginia a while back. Those last few days, even though things got a little weird, I could tell she was stressing over the relationship more than I was. And that wasn't fair to her. I didn't feel right about it. I know she was worrying when there was no real reason to, when things were fine, and I wasn't worrying that much. The complete opposite of this last thing with Miss N. Carolina. Funny how that works.


A new dating app and an old face...

I just joined this OKCupid dating phone app site because I'm a glutton for punishment. I put up a profile and I'm about to go another round with this crazy new, higher tech dating thing. I'm not sure why but screw it. Profile was put up, based on answers you provide to certain questions, you are matched to others based on a percentage.

As irony would have it, Miss Virginia is also on this dating site and she was matched the highest at 82%. Crazy... I just can't win.


Trip planning - made a new contact in Dilley, TX...

This guy I'm acquainted with from a riding forum set me up with a mechanic in a town south of San Antonio. I asked this acquaintance whether he knew anyone that would be able to change my tires to the knobbies and do an oil change when I get near the border. He hooked me up. Made contact with this guy yesterday and he is all for it. We set up a date of October 1st.

The great thing about it is this guy is a specialized BMW mechanic and he also has rode down to Central America before. So he will be more than qualified to do the mechanical work as well as give my bike the once over to see if it is all fit for my trip, right before I hit the border. Perfect.

After tonight, I have 11 more days until I turn my truck in. 18 days until I am on the road heading south.

 

Starting to feel like a trucker...

Something I have been thinking about lately is that I'm starting to feel more like a trucker. Not completely but the feeling is just starting to present itself some.

I'm not sure when exactly this feeling came across me but it was recent, maybe the last few days. And I don't know what prompted it either. It just kind of started feeling that way.

Right now I'm still new. I'm about 1 year, 7 months driving if you include OTR training. I've been driving solo since March of 2013 so only 1.5 years there. Again, not very long. But something inside me has started to click lately.

I'm not sure how I felt up until now. I know when I started I was just wide-eyed, excited and a blank slate to be written on. It was scary times at first and there was a lot of confusion. I still remember that first day out on the road with my trainer leaving Western Washington in the dead of winter and heading over the Cascades on a run out to NY State, that we ultimately t-called in Gary. Everything was baby steps. I remember creeping down those snowy hills, pass after mountain pass, 4 ways flashing and getting passed by every truck and car. But it was exciting. Every fuel stop, I would get out and walk into this new, crazy place, feeling more like an alien than a resident. I just didn't understand it all and it was tough to take it in. Going from a more "civilian" and pedestrian life and being thrown into this one was completely out of the ordinary. I was dumbfounded and spent most of my time trying to figure it all out. I was new, I felt new and the rest of these drivers were at home here at this stopping point, fueling place or what they considered their home for at least an evening.

Weeks later I remember that ride up from the Columbus terminal in that tenured Swift driver's truck, him playing his buddy's rock band's CDs, he sung along running his trucker hand in front of his face like he was vogueing and mimicking a rock star on stage, cracking me up all the way. That drive lasted, what seemed like, the whole night. In daylight, I saw my first truck that I would leave the New Boston terminal in, a 2011 Prostar with only 370,000 miles, #310396. Front bumper cracked, some dents on the side, the ribs bent bad on the rear of the cab like someone had jackknifed it and a nice big chunk of plastic missing under the passenger side from where, it looked like at least, someone had driven over a curb or a boulder. I was in love and it was mine, at least in my head. But I didn't feel like a trucker.

Without knowing, I kind of fought the lifestyle a little as I grew. I saw drivers do things that pissed me off. I heard all the Swift banter as I acquired my CB, I felt the looks of horror from some drivers as they saw what must be another newbie on the road pushing 80,000 of metal towards their truck or backing between their sleeping trucks without any sign of real confidence. I developed a resentment and I didn't really fight it. It just kind of happened and, to some extent, I closed my mind to other drivers and to the lifestyle. I lived in my own world, doing this job the way I wanted and the way that fit best for me. It worked but I also distanced myself from other drivers in the process. I grouped most of them together with that guy dumping pee out of his window in the fuel island. I grouped them together with that guy dragging the landscaping boulder across the Walmart parking lot, ensuring that I won't be able to park there again in the future. I grouped them with the guy that nearly ran me off the road one night, intentionally, because I was doing exactly the speed limit through a work zone. And so this distancing and not recognizing my own growth in this profession continued. I still found plenty of drivers that I enjoyed talking with and spending time around but those negative aspects of the profession created a divide in me that I didn't completely recognize. That was until recently.

I'm not sure what clicked. Maybe it was this whole dating thing with me and realizing how hard it is to do this job and have a life separate and successful outside the truck. Knowing my own experience, I have a newfound respect that I discovered recently for all of those drivers out on the road, day after day, separated physically from their families trying to earn a paycheck for those same families they rarely get to see. My experience and struggling social life is nothing compared to what these other drivers go through. It's an honest living but a difficult one, something a non-driver will never understand. I have more respect.

I kind of get it a little more now. I understand that we all might complain about life out on the road but that something inside us keeps us doing it, something outside this just being a job to pay the bills. Despite the negatives, despite how bad things get at times, we know that there is no other job like this one. And no one outside the fraternity will ever get it. We know that in a lot of ways, we are to be envied for our lifestyle, even if others don't understand it. It's freedom they will never have in their cubicles, dreading that Monday to come before Friday is even finished. Waking every day in a truck, at work, there really never is a Monday - it's either a bad day or a good day.

I get the wave out on those backroads in the middle of nowhere, passing each other going in opposite directions, just sharing that bond if only for a second. It's not unlike the wave us motorcyclists give each other, a nod or any other sign that says "yeah, we are in this thing together. You understand it".

I understand the frustrations more. The look we get arms folded over a steering wheel, face speaking our resignation, after sitting at yet another shipper for 5 hours waiting to be loaded, or worse yet, waiting for a dock assignment while we know that an appointment only really means that we must be on time yet no one else is required to adhere to a set time. I get it a little more, the resentment of more government interference in our daily lives, once again telling us how to be a quarterback by those whom have never touched a football. Struggling to find a parking space no one really wants to provide us yet they want to continue buying everything that is ultimately delivered by us. I'm starting to understand.

I am starting to feel the life style more. I've been living it, but maybe just not putting it all together, a perfect forest for the trees analogy as I'm starting to see that forest more. My time off, regardless of how often I get it, now feels more like the stranger and my everyday life in this truck is the norm. We should all be making great money as we can never really leave our work at work. We are always here working and a day off in the truck really isn't a day off, not unless we are where we want to be doing what we want to do. But that doesn't happen.

It's taken a while but it's starting to make sense. Not a day goes by whereby I don't learn something new. But I'm starting to get it, if just a little.

 

It wasn't full but I just cleared out my inbox anyway. Should work now hopefully

 

It's getting there I think. Starting to feel it a little more. Can't wait to not be a rookie anymore but I have a lot of time until then.

Haha I've seen that too.

The thing with pee is that I can't stand the smell. There's so many better ways to get rid of it than some of the ways I've seen.

It definitely doesn't seem any easier for women in this new dating scene. But I will say that women get a lot more to select from in my opinion. More guys approach women than the other way around.

Not looking forward to being an old timer just yet lol.

That's a good idea. I will keep that in mind. Yeah, if and when I come back to Swift I would like to start at "0" on my RA score again. I've screwed up before (that early scalehouse, the tandems in the Vidalia onion field early on and now this recent Critical Event) but I work hard to keep my score low. I'm learning and trying to improve.

I'm going to try and leverage a little more money from them if it is possible. I'm at the point where I have more options to go with another company so I'll use that to my advantage.

Despite Swift's faults I do like that Swift has a lot of drop and hooks. I also like that they almost always have freight. But the recent shortage of drivers should now work in the favor of all of us drivers. And it is about time.

This job is not easy and we should be compensated for what we do. Consider the responsibility of operating something that has the potential to injure or kill, the fact that we move most of the freight across the U.S. and the fact that we spend countless hours away from family. It's time for us drivers to get paid.