Strange or bizarre tips for drivers

I cant resist this.Just how did you sue them and did you win any money.

 

ok - I see where you went wrong. I bet your hair was fairly short, ne? The idea is to get your hair wet and let it freeze. This forms a hard shell and traps heat around your head. Works better than a stocking cap.

Yes - speaking from experience. Was on swim team in HS/College. Walked home about a mile and a half after practice. After about a block, head was never cold. Never caught cold, either.

'course, that kinda temp on your fingers and face - yeah, a bit painful. Another reason to wear a full beard. And not burn your knuckle hairs on the fire.

 

YuP!
It was then.

Well,........ there's my problem right there.
I thought I was 'sposed to stick my head in a bucket of water -- and let it freeze.
I screwd up, huh?

I'm listenin'.

Why would ANYone even WANT to catch a cold?
I thought we're 'sposed to avoid cold, and that's why all the sunbirds flock to California and Florida.

YeAH!
Ya reckon?!

What amazes me is when folks from the REAL cold parts are visiting in California when the temps are in the low to mid fifties, and REAL Californians are shivverin' their buttoxes off -- who walk around in shorts and a T-shirt thinkin' it's just a tad warm.

Just don't get 'em started on our "dry" heat.

 

You might be surprised.
Ya reckon.

 

I’ve been driving commercial vehicles for over thirty years. That doesn’t mean I know everything, but I know more than I did thirty years ago. I’m just offering some insight to those who have less time in this industry and would like to have more time in the industry.

Never swerve to miss something.
My friend was at the local Spraw-mart and heard someone call her name, she turned to find a high school classmate in a wheelchair. Her friend had swerved to miss a squirrel, lost control of her car, and hit a tree. Now this girl will spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair.
I would much rather take the truck to the office with the bumper bent, hood broken, missing the headlights, with blood, fur, and guts all over it, and tell my boss that I hit a deer, than to have the truck laying on it’s side in the ditch like a drunken dinosaur telling a trooper “I swerved to miss a deer.” A story I’m sure to share with my peers at the un-employment office. When something comes in your lane, apply brakes, and hit it.

When you go to northern Maine for a load of potatoes, and you come upon a moose in the road, stop and wait for him to leave. Never blow your horn at a moose. When you’re in moose country you don’t want to find out that the nearest radiator for your Freightliner isn’t.

I found another company driver at a shipper trying to pull out of a ground level dock at 80,400 pounds gross weight. He stalled the engine several times, trying to pull out up hill on a gravel surface. I asked him if he knew what low gear was for.
“My trainer told me low gear is for mud only!” He told me.
“Perfect. Idiots training Idiots!” I thought. “Low gear is there for a reason! Use it!”
For several years I ran turnpike doubles, we had several drivers who would pull out in second gear when they were 120,000 to 130,000 pounds gross, it wasn’t much of a mystery why we were replacing clutches every two hundred thousand miles on some trucks, when we should have been replacing drivers.

I operate on the theory that I would rather have things I don’t need, than to need things I don’t have. Some drivers only carry a quarter, so they can call for help if something goes wrong. Through out the years I’ve learned to carry things to make life easier on the road.

Emergency medical supplies; I’ve been the first person on the scene of several wrecks and two plane crashes.

Chain; I carry a couple of chains. Chaining up an axle after a wheel bearing fails will get you off the road. Pulling the truck to start it after a starter fails will make the difference between sitting there waiting for someone to bring a starter and put it on, or getting back to the office to get it fixed.

Shovel; I carry a short handle square shovel, shoveling some snow out from under the king plate of your trailer can make a simple drop & hook stay simple after it snows.

Air hose; I have twenty foot and fifty foot air hoses, with shop couplings, blow gun, tire chuck, air drill, and die grinder. I can blow out my reefer when there’s no place to wash out. I can plug and inflate a tire to get to a shop, I can cut off any high security seal when the receiver doesn’t have a cutter.

Torch; I carry a plumber’s torch, perfect for heating air valves when you can’t release the brakes on a trailer that froze. I can also use the torch on the high security cable type seals, heat a spot on the seal until it turns orange, then cut the seal with a pair of dykes like it was a coat hanger. I’ve watched people mutilate a cable seal with bolt cutters for ten minutes without getting it off.

Lockout kit; I tinker in locksmithing, I’ve helped many drivers who have gotten locked out of their trucks, or lost keys.

Hand tools; I carry a few hand tools, spare fuel filters, bulbs, fuses, spare belt for the APU, glad hand rubbers, you get the idea.
Message board; A piece of white masonite 12X16 inches, with dry wipe markers, for writing notes to people who don’t have a radio or have the volume turned down.

Flashlights; this seems obvious to most of us, however, you’d be surprised how many drivers don’t carry a flashlight, I carry a 6 D cell Maglight, and a forever flashlight. I also have a couple of light sticks in my travel bag, twice my YL and I were in the shower at the truck stop when the power went off. Talk about dark!

Cameras; I carry a couple of single use cameras, a 35mm auto flash camera, and the digital camera that’s connected to the computer as a dash cam. Overkill? Not really, the single use cameras are great for accidents, 25 to 27 shots that you can use for your insurance company or give to the investigating officer.
I had a guy pound on my door in the middle of the night, when I came to the driver’s window, he told me to give him twenty dollars, as he stood there with a baseball bat. I couldn’t shoot him, he’s only armed with a bat. If I tell him to fork off, he might break a window or mirror, so I got my camera and took a nice flash photo of him, then I told him he wasn’t going to like the next flash he saw. Now he has to think about what I’m going to do with the picture. I have a picture of him, if he does anything, I give it to the police. He can leave quietly, or break into the truck, kill me, and take the camera. Guess which route he took.

Food; Few things are worse than sitting in some shipper’s yard for hours with nothing to eat. I’ve been places where I had to sit all day and couldn’t leave, waiting to load or unload. I have a supply of things to eat, drink, microwave oven and refrigerator.

Gloves; I have leather gloves for work like dropping, hooking, handling chain, and that sort of thing. Rubber gloves with liners for fueling.

Rain coat, boots, jacket, coat, parka, duct tape, atlas, cleaning supplies, shop rags, paper towels, office supplies, bath towels, hand cleaner, highway flares, pail, and trash bags, to name a few more of the things some of us carry in the truck.

I’m sure there’s other things I forgot to mention, or other drivers would like to add.


Descending hills; I like to descend long mountain grades in a gear low enough to descend the hill without using the brakes, or at least slow enough to only use the brakes to check my speed, about ten seconds of brake every thirty seconds. While some drivers would think this is too slow, the more you use your brakes, the less braking power you will have as the brake become hot. It’s better to reach the bottom of a hill and say, “I could have come down faster.” Than not reach the bottom and say, “I should have come down slower.” It’s better to error on the side of caution. By descending the hill slow enough to not use the brakes, or use the brakes a little, you have your full braking capability if you need to stop. In 31 years of driving truck, I’ve never smoked my brakes on a long mountain grade, I’ve been passed by a lot of guys who have.

 

That is some good stuff right there!

 

Otter,
You recapped it in a small nutshell. New and not much experienced drivers could do well to print this, compare what they now carry and supplement up to their specific needs. Years back. most of these were on every rig runnng long haul.
As for hitting them head on, you used deer as example. In my day it was "a mule" that was in the road and I "had to swerve" and rolled it up. I "missed him tho"....
My old boss's words to that driver; as he wrote his going away check, "I did'nt see any mule sh1t out there anywhere. Mules graze roadside, mules #####..
Brake the bottom and hit them square.

 

Native Californian here

I have to admit while I was growing up (or at least getting older) I never knew where all the jokes about our "dry heat" came from ........ that was until I spent a summer in Illinois.........

OMG....... give me 110 in Bakersfield any day!!!


(and yes...... I freeze my tushy off when it drops below 65 degrees )

 

A dry heat beats humid anytime, A nice day in Australia 40C = around 90F heaven.