Willis Shaw Truck Drivers & the scales

I've spent some time reading through many of these post and this incident came to mind. I don't suppose none of you did any of the things we did in yesterday years. Sometimes we had to do what we had to do in order to put a dollar in our pockets.

3 of us drivers coming out of California had a problem and chicken coops were off limits to us. We did right coming east into New Mexico driving down town and stopping at the old truck stop for a while. We planned to cross the scales going out just after dark.

Everything went good and we got back on the big road and thankfully there were several trucks out that night going our way that were running along between 55 and 65. we were able to get in the mist of several of them and I had a Willis Shaw hand was between my buddy and another Shaw hand behind me.

When we got to the scale exit we just kept trucking and the Willis Shaw did to and it did not register until he was past the scale entrance what he had done. And low and behold the Shaw hand behind me stayed on the big road too. Seeing what happen I instantly hit the outside lane for I felt like he would at least slow down if not hit his brakes and stop.

The hand in front of me grabbed his CB mike excitedly saying, "We run the scales."

His running buddy behind me comes back on the radio saying, "What should we do now, we will get in big trouble for doing this?"

About that time one of my buddies in front of me felt an opportunity show itself coming got on his big CB saying, "Everyone look, look at those Shaw truck running the west bound scales."

By this time we could tell the Shaw drivers were slowing down and one of them came back on the radio but his voice was so excited that we could not understand a word he said.

It seemed some of the truckers on the east side saw what was happening and I think it was one of them that said, "If you Uncle Wille hears about y'all running the scales he will fire both of you. You better either drive real fast and hope you don't get caught or stop on the side and walk back to the scale house and explain to them you accidently missed the exit.

The last thing we heard was someone saying on the CB they had stopped about 1,000 yards past the entrance and were walking back towards the scale house with their paper work in their hands.

Its amazing at the things that happens, I feel sure from that time on those 2 drivers did not think highly of us produce haulers.

 

YES! Out there in the middle of the night in the middle of no where, no house, no truck stop, no headlights in sight. It was not fun yet it was experience them the next time the decision making was not so difficult.

One thing though, in that day if another 18 wheeler did along you could count on help, today you can't.

 

No doubt, it can be dangerous to stop and help someone today. Sad that its come to this.