Trucking Now vs. Back In The Day?

Guessing the roads were less crowded.

 

Hi Lightside, um,, not really. Plenty of tie ups, a lot of 2 lane ( now 4 lane) and morning and evening traffic in big cities was still a crawl until you got to the suburbs. The thing I DON'T remember is these mega pileups. 1st big storm coming to the mid-west this week, we'll see what happens.

 

There were pileups just did not see them on the NEWS 3 minutes after they happened or posted to U TUBE with a play by play of how it unfolded

 

Fixed that for ya.....

 

Judging by a previous post, the roads were crowded with drug fuelled, overworked truckers driving deathtrap trucks at nearly double the speed limit.

 

It was bad on the roads at times , lots of BOOZERS , places use to sell premixed 2 gallon jugs of RYE / COKE , VODKA / ORANGE , bars were meeting places instead of truck stops and a lot of trucks were in bad shape

 

Let's see what was missed. Truck stops that had real sit down restaurants, waitresses that were friendly. You could get a whole set of tires, good quality ones, for $700, free dinner and shower while you waited. Fuel attendants that gassed you up checked tire pressure, washed the windows. And in some cases even parked the truck. Time to bs and take it easy. If the truck broke down wasn't a $100 sensor, engine had a hole in it or something real. Western union lines to get cash for fuel. Trip permit lines, bingo cards, power steering was bigger biceps, cabovers, Climate control was how far you rolled your window down, no pilots TAs, flying j was around and a couple Petro stations. 42 foot then 45 foot trailers. 73280 weight limit, if you were out on a holiday free turkey dinners etc. Cowboy boots were judged on their stitching, and everywhere you went had a shoeshine stand, shine em up for ya while you showered. Freight moved for 80cpm. Diesel cost 49 cents. Less than what freight moved for. Now freight moves for less than half the diesel price. Trip leasing. Payphones were a dime. People knew how to operate a map. 500 loose leaf log pages for a buck. Truck stops had bars in them. Bars had women in them. Sometimes you could get a drink, sometimes you could get lucky.

 

You got it

 

Less need these days to check on a broken down truck since ALMOST everybody has a cellphone. The ONLY driver I've come across in the last 10 years without a cellphone was equipped with Qualcomm. If a driver is broken down and unable to call on his phone, it's less likely he has a CB/speaks English to answer an inquiry from a passing driver. He certainly would be outside the truck trying to get attention. I never see that happening. I'd estimate about 25% of trucks carry no CB. When I was OTR it seemed like every truck had a CB and the drivers you couldn't call on CB were as likely to be running on "foreign channels" as no radio. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

This is basically how LTL works today. This is how it is atmy barn minus the moving up part.. There's too much stagnation to really move up much.