Doofus of the Year Award!!!

One time I was told to get an empty drybox, very few since it was a reefer company. The only thing on the yard was a reefer trailer with no reefer & a piece of plywood bolted over the hole. So, I took it, put a bead of silicone around the plywood and left. I was gone over the road a month with that trailer with no problems. My dispatcher finally figured out what I had done & covered for me, she thought it was funny.

 

some of the posts on this thread make for an interesting information.

i never thought about people locking and sealing empties just to reserve them. LOL.

it's been 13 years since i actually pulled a van.

 

I have seen them lock up the glad hands too. I one time put hazmat placards all around one trailer just so no one would mess with it.

 

i dont understand the rationale of companies making driver find his own trailer
I am sure we drop and hook as much as anyone and i have my next trailer assigned
unless it is at a lowes dc but then there is a whole row of mt's
running around stealing trailers is crazy and a waste of time

 

Two things, first your trainer was being an idiot! A trainer should NEVER advise in any way a student to violate the law or circumvent a state scale. Secondly the worst thing this trainer did was lose a golden opportunity to teach you to visit a CAT scale ASAP after loading if the load is too heavy you take it back to the shipper to get the load cut! I know there are situations where the closest CAT scale is a long way away. I went through this yesterday. I also know sometimes you are on the receiving end of a drop&hook/repower and the idiot driver you got load from failed to get it legal before dropping it. However I still contend YOU GET LOAD LEGAL EVEN IF IT MEANS GOING BACK TO SHIPPER. or in the case of a Drop/Hook/repower you refuse the load if the source is a long way away and going back to shipper is not an option and if needed call safety. There is NO excuse for getting an overweight ticket, NONE! IN Jan 2011 I went through the USA Truck upgrade, several of the upgrade instructors went over all of this and spent some time doing it. When you get stuck on stupid like this you cost both yourself and the company CSA points. In the case of USA Truck they really don't need this #### right now!

 

This must be sanctimony day on TTR! My god!!

 

Yeah the people breaking seals at the Dallas Yard has been a problem for a while now.I have left my loads there a few times and picked em back up on Monday to deliver with the seals broke and my lock cut off.We have some real winners working for us when they compromise a load by breaking the seal from the customer.I have never broken a seal from a customer or a USA Truck seal nor will i ever.If its sealed i assume its loaded

 

I've broken quite a few USA Truck seals, but after FM checked and confirmed the trailer was empty for me .

 

Two things here.....

1. I do exactly what USA Truck motivational banners that hang everywhere say. I take an acceptable risk when it comes to my loads depending on the situation. For example. I left a shipper in BFE, TN about a month ago (don't remember the name of the place or town except it was a grocery load going to Kroger DC in Memphis. Nearest scale was the Loves at the 33MM on I75S. Anyhow it was an hour away from the shipper. Had a delivery appt of that night in Memphis. When I went to scale out, it was at 81000 gross. I called the shipper and they said that they could take pallets off but that I would have to wait in line when I came back and it wouldn't be right away. So I whip out the trusty atlas and realize I could "go through the woods" and dodge all the scales on a decent route (US 60) all the way across Georgia, Alabama, and into Missisippi. The only scales I couldn't dodge were the ones at Corinth, MS. So when I got there, I hit a truck stop and just waited asking each truck that went by going East if the westbound scales were open. When I finally got told they had closed, I proceeded. Didn't hit another scale and took US 78 up to Memphis. Load delivered on time and it wasn't that big of a deal. Now This wasn't legal and Safety would have frowned upon it but it was that or call dispatch and let them know that I had to go back and get reloaded, wait on the customer to fix the load, run out of hours, and then have to hope that the delivery would be rescheduled. This would have costed me time and money that I couldn't get back as I would not have been compensated for the turnaround. So I rolled. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

2. People get downright stupid at that Dallas drop yard. I don't understand why. I pulled in there one night and got permission from the gate guard to stay hooked to my empty. I was only able to do this after I told him that I had a live load appt to p/u at 0600 and if I dropped the trailer it would definitely get snatched. So he told me that I had to either be gone before 0530 or drop the trailer before then because thats when the management came in. Well I parked way in the back by the containers. Some mofo knocks on my cab at 2230 and keeps knocking until I wake up. One of our drivers who had apparently opened the doors on my trailer, seen it was empty, sent the number in to night dispatch, then tried to tell me that they said to have me give up my trailer to him. I about blew up on this guy. I pretty much told him to kiss my arse and that I wasn't dropping the trailer and he needed to go away because I was going back to sleep. This guy then tries to hold up his QC out his door to show me the message that they told him to tell me to drop the trailer. I said I didn't care and I was going back to sleep. Then I get a msg from night dispatch saying to give up this trailer to that guy because he had a 0830 appt to load up and needed it. My reply was "NO." I told him to go down to Whirlpool at the Hutchins exit because there are always several empties there and that I was going back to sleep. My QC kept beeping and he tried to knock again about 10 minutes later but I just ignored it and went back to sleep.