Miscalculated + farewell

As I start to write this comment it is 25 till 9 AM on the east coast. I just got off the phone with a driver I know who has driven for Schneider for close to 30 years. He is sitting at a Truck Stop waiting to hear back from the company. Another company driver seems to have peeved off a dock manager and got asked to leave the property. This guy drove up soon afterward and was cussed out by this guy. There are few OTR drivers that have not been disrespected by someone at a dock. My friend is giving serious thought to retiring. He is almost 70 now. If he retires that company will have lost a driver with many millions of safe miles over a career spanning almost 5 full decades. In today's environment, he can't be replaced.

 

Well, that's nothing new, pal, that crap happened to me 20 years ago. It's the nature of the business, high stress all around, it's how well you deal with it. I worked for small, regional companies and usually knew all the drivers, so that wasn't an issue, but when I hauled rail cans, I ran into that a lot, "the last guy was a so and so", or was warned by dispatch to be nice. If you are going to be a road driver, this is exactly what you must put up with.
As for your friend, and I don't mean to be rude, but a 70 year old has no business in a truck these days. I'm sorry, some guys say "oh I love to still drive", when in reality, they either HAVE to drive, or don't know what to do once retired, and die in 6 months. 30 years with Pumpkin, got to have some retirement built up, no? With SS, you can do okay, just no new pickup trucks. I LOVE my retirement, and it gets easier on the 3rd of every month,,,
If it's any consolation, pretty clear the company will probably hire 3 UNqualified drivers to replace your friend, and just put up with whatever happens. Nice huh?

 

Fare thee well, OP. I bid thee adieu...lol

 

I neither agree nor disagree. The decision to hang up those keys is a decision every driver at some point will face. I faced it when in my mid-50s 10 years ago. My friend while 70 is in great shape and still gets a 2-year medical card. In fact, he doesn't look 70. He lost his wife to cancer about 15 years ago. He has 2 daughters. His baby daughter wants him to retire and move into the small apartment over her garage.

 

Bull. Speaking for myself, at 75, there are days when it feels good to be out there driving. I still like getting up early and going to the woods and I probably always will. Am I as sharp as I was 20 years ago? Can I run as hard? Can I hustle with the RGN or the logging truck like I used to? Of course not, but I don't expect that of myself either.
I don't drive full time but I drive enough to keep abreast of what's going on. I have several retirees from this company that still come back and drive when I need them. One of them just left with a logging truck, he's 80 and he was like a little kid on Christmas Eve...goin' truckin' for a couple of days.
So...if you at your age don't feel like you should be driving, that's okay. A man should know when it's time to quit and when he's incapable of doing a decent job anymore.
But keep your halfass broad stroke blanket judgements about us older drivers to yourself. Nobody is paying attention to them anyway.

 

when i told my boss that i was retiring after 48 years (at different companies), he didn't want me to leave. he depended on us "older guys" and that's what/who he prefered to hire, over people out of school or under 5 years experience. his thoughts were, "older guys show up for work, do the job, don't complain *much*, then go home at the end of the shift".

he offered me a new Penske lease truck, my choice of stick or auto.

i just could not go on anymore myself.

actually, about 3 years after i retired..??

the company sold out that division (dedicated customer/freight) and just went into logistics.

i didn't think trucking was going to work out for me, but with a family, and a student loan on my shoulders, i sucked up a lot of bull hockey, and did my best.

it is a better idea for someone to get out early if they can, rather than to be miserable every day.

 

@buddyd157 in my case I was slowly becoming medically unfit to drive. I remember speaking to one of the Vice Presidents of my company in the terminal break room. I was almost crying I was that depressed. I wanted to stay in trucking and at the time thought I could still drive. I was offered a job in safety and was excited to make that change. In late 2012 a few days before Christmas I had an EEG done. Then the neurologist laid it out for me. I still wanted to do something, so I moved to Virginia and was still planning to work in safety. That ended in disaster, I had a tonic clinic seizure that cost me my CDL as well as ALL my driving privileges.

 

You are completely out-of-line. There is no driver expiration date. For some it's 30 and for others it's 90+. My point is that there is a means of determining when a driver is no longer of sufficient health to drive a CMV and it has nothing to do with looking at his/her birth date. You really need to check your thinking here because you are coming off like you are some kind of authority when you really don't have a clue.

 

Yup. Our oldest driver is 83 (I think?). I doubt he will ever get out of the truck, just keep going until he drops. our youngest diver is 19 (she is driving a spotter until she's old enough to cross state lines). I would think the 19 year old would quit before the 83 year old. Its not that the 83 year old has to drive or doesn't have anything, because he spends his vacations at his property in Alaska or fishing at his cabin in Wisconsin. I think he's just one of those drivers who would keel over if he had to leave trucking.

Heck, I recently hired a 78 year old as a part-time driver. Some drivers retire and then figure out quickly that they can't just sit on the couch. 3 days a week is just about right for him.

 

I do think a driver much over the age of 65 has more productive days behind them than ahead. By 70 a driver should have some kind of exit plan in place. Here is why I say that. First I said exit plan, not setting a date to leave. As a driver, I could tell my body reacted differently at 50 than it did at 30. After I got to around my mid-40s I had to watch how I pulled myself up to get inside my truck. There were many times I went to bed with some kind of pain cream on my arms after pulling a muscle. I was 54 when I retired. Had I not been forced to retire I most likely would have continued driving for at least another 12 to 15 years. It just comes down to the rigors of the job. If you can handle it all power to you. If you can't you need to hang up the keys.