the dangers of trucking

LOL I bet.

 

Well said Triple Six. Any "mouth breather" can "drive a truck "but to make a living at it is another thing entirely. There are so many ways to scuttle your career I can't even name them all. I can think of five guys that I know of....and it isn't even the driving part that got them.

One guy got charged with Dangerous Driving in his personal vehicle....verdict was not guilty but it cost $20,000 in legal fees.
Another guy stood beside a load of pipe when he unstrapped and ruined his leg.
Another guy was a loud mouth know it all and he got beat up and found himself in a PA hospital.
Two more guys were killed by falling hay bales

No room for error in this business.

 

Remember that discussion we had in the heavyhaul forum about dropping the trailer and ripping the air lines out? Happened to me in North Carolina as I was showing another driver who had never pulled a lowboy. We laugh now, but that is incredibly embarrassing.

Had a really good friend take his securement off a load, have a 2500 lb part of this thing fall off and hit him in the head. Didn't kill him, but it broke his back in 3 spots. They put titanium in his spine, and fused a couple spots and he wound up 2 inches shorter than what he was. Of course, it ended his career and wiped out his savings. The year before, he ran with me on that dedicated run and stayed out for almost a year and made $400k. After the operation and therapy, he was wiped out.
Well, we all thought he had a case. His lawyers thought they had a case against the manufacturer. They found out, theres a statute already in the books that basically says once a load leaves the shipper's property, its your baby.

When my buddy told me about his suit being dismissed, I had just loaded a load valued at $60mil. Great, I am transporting a $60million dollar baby. Even if I dont get killed, an insurance claim could be lethal. Of course, you get special insurance for high value loads, and you charge out the nose to pull it, but it will still wear on you. I tell new drivers in our end of the business, "There are 2 safe spots for high value loads:1.)SHIPPER 2.) RECEIVER. Do not waste time in between the two."
The good thing about pulling high value loads is when you call your contact, he will come out from the house to meet you, or have someone come out and let you in their property and drop the trailer if they arent open or have the crane crew there. And they are ALWAYS glad to see you.

Someone asked in another thread if you lose something out of the relationships when youre OTR. Yes you do. But even local drivers will lose. It's like being a cop or a soldier. The only people that understand you are people that do what you do. If they've never done the job, they wont have any idea. They may think they know, but they dont.
I started out local...beer and foodservice. Running beer had to be, the toughest job Ive ever done. Even roofing wasnt as tough. Worked for a small company with a big route. Start out the house at 0400 and didnt get home til 2200, 5 days a week. And then the family wants to go out on the weekend and cant understand why you 'never want to go anywhere.'

Somewhere, someone is thinking, "That's 18 hours! Isnt it illegal to drive 18 hours a day?" Nope, thats from the house to the house. Driving is the easy part. It's everything else that goes along with it. And then there are some people that want to make fun of me because I prefer to have my bed right behind the driver's seat. In foodservice, if you need a nap, you sleep over the steeringwheel. Every time you see an LTL shuttle driver pulling wiggle wagons parked, he's asleep over the steeringwheel. Not knocking them, I did it. I understand. I prefer to get up at 0500 and end my day when the sun sets.

Mr Danvitt, the people that get complacent are the people that dont want to apply themselves to learning and improving their craft. They become slackers. You see drivers pass a truckstop with a headlight out. Or the trailer lights arent working. That would drive me nuts. There are so many things that people do in trucks that drives me nuts. I have a bunch of guys that I took under my wings and helped them when they started pulling windblades. Then I hear stories about how they needed fuel, pulled into a truckstop and gridlock the whole truckstop because noone could get in and noone could get out.

And they give me some stupid slacker excuse

And the Loves was the one that called the police and called your company to tell them what their idiot driver did.

Or they get too comfortable with their pilot cars and let the pilot cars take charge. Usually that means instead of getting started 30minutes before sunrise, they get started some time after 0800. The driver gives a copy of the permits to his pilot cars and never looks at the permits again. Then I hear about them going offroute.

And of course, they try to throw the pilot cars under the bus...

You're the driver. Its your show. How your trailer is loaded, whether or not you should run a load is up to you...no pilot cars, no desk jockeys, no local law enforcement, noone can make you do anything. You're in charge of the load. Proceed with caution.

 

I've got something else to add to this.

One thing mentioned is not to get complacent and this is a big problem with other drivers who don't get that they need to operate the vehicle no matter what technology is in the vehicle.

Yesterday I had to go pick up a co-worker who was in an accident. He said that a driver of a new SUV just got over and he hit her, that pretty SUV is now totalled, the kid riding in the back was scared to death, and the driver was mad at my co-worker. See the driver of the SUV has one of them blind spot car detectors which tells them when someone is in their blind spot, so the idiot drivers don't have to actually turn and see or use the mirror to see if there is actually a vehicle next to them. Well he slowed a bit when she was acting as if she may get over after handing the kid something but when she started to drive a bit while he was a car length behind her bumper, she looked to if the blind spot detector warning light was off and just got over - she admitted to that part. She got the ticket, and went to the hospital with her kid and my co-worker had to get the truck towed. Our boss said it wasn't a preventable because she was ... well he used words that can't be used here.

I have had several close calls when I'm doing the speed limit on the freeway and someone is doing ten under and just sees the indicator light off and cuts over without looking. I hate this blind spot warning thing, I think it allows stupid drivers be more dangerous.

 

One more example of how reliance upon technology has ruined us...

Tech doesn't ruin us until we become dependent upon it to any measure. (And even then, tech is an inanimate object, so it's still our fault.)

 

John Wayne said it best. "Life is hard. It's harder when your stupid."

 

...my generation sure missed a great deal of good quotes.

 

Just wait until dummies like that decide to buy a Subaru after hearing the 'lane departure warning' commercial.

(paraphrasing) 'Too tired to drive, that's OK, with Subaru lane departure nodding off at the wheel is no big deal.'

That commercial makes me cringe.