Good Night From II

Yesterday my Qualcom black box and antenna were replaced, and the same problem of no connections and crashes shortly came back.

Not the biggest problem, however.
When the new Qualcom came up it had messed up my logs and put me on the drive line for almost 50 hours straight.
No way to edit the drive line. And without paper logs the log service people in Phoenix can't do anything about it.
So now I have to complete another 34 hour reset from the time I came online with the new QC.

I got it back in the shop this morning and they replaced the cable between the antenna and black box. Everything 'seems' to be fine now.

What a pain.

 

Your safety drone at your terminal can edit your drive line with an explanation noting the circumstances that required the edit. Malfunctioning equipment putting you 50 hours on the drive line should qualify.

Frank

 

I'll try to remember to call tomorrow.
But I'm not sure what edits he could make except for the explanation. I may get a call about it once I approve the logs, which I have not done yet because I was trying to get things straight.

And I brought up this issue with the mechanic before they decided to change black boxes. He assured me that they would transfer everything to the new unit, even the stuff that could not be transmitted.
I could have held them off for a while so I could create paper logs.
Stupid me, I should have done it anyway just to be sure.
Next time... I'll know better.

 

Scipio Utah. So much for booking it.

As one of the recaps rolls it's merry way into the ditch and the other shreds. Rim was fine luckily.

 

So how did two tires on the same axle shred at the same time?

Glad to see you had the triangles spaced properly. So many do not.

 

Only thing I can figure, is either one lost air slowly and the other couldn't take the weight. Or maybe the other one managed to somehow explode so hard it got the other.

I favor the first theory. I didn't limp it, I parked probably not much more than 1/3 of a mile where they both went out. First one blew, then seconds later as I'm already getting over the tread for the other goes rolling not so graciously into the ditch in the median.

I mean with 35.5k to the trailer and 105+ heat, it's a good recipe for some tire failure.

Flatbed seems to have alot of tire issues. These two make the 4th and 5th this year I've had. Bear in mind I never had a single tire blow in reefer. Had a guy over on the CMC account blow one, then blow another 100 miles later. He picked up another trailer and had to take it back to Phoenix to get another replaced.

Dosent help that people treat the spreads like tandems and flip a 180 on them. Then jobsite deliveries which are full of tire kryptonite. Or typical tiedown areas littered with broken bungees to watch out for, etc........ Leveling valves goes out puts extra weight on one axel. Something that happens often enough in the fleet. And I suspect these recaps don't take to the occasional 38-40k trailer axel load very well.

And it's not like I don't hawkishly watch tires. None of my tractor tires have ever went on me. I've found tires low or even flat and got em fixed before anything went wrong. But these bloody deck tires go all the time.

 

I hate the bay area.

I was stacked with pplans this morning.
The second was fine but the first one could not be done in that time frame.

It was sent at 0657, to pick up at 0700 where I was - at the Lathrop terminal. Then deliver 66 miles away by 0800 when the drive actually takes ~1.5 hours during that time. I counter it with reasonable times and it's rejected.
So I go in to clean up and get some coffee, stopping at the window to inquire.
No, just get it there when you can. So I accept both loads wondering why the stupid planner could not have sent a message to that effect.

Then as I drive a few hundred feet to get fuel and DEF I get a stop engine light. The engine actually shut down as I was driving into the island. Luckily I could start it up again and drive another 25 feet.
I end up having to do a parked regen in the fuel line. That took nearly an hour.

Not a big deal really because the final was a live unload with FCFS between the hours of...
It's just more wasted time.

Then I head to Hayward, CA to pick up a Pepsi Cola load.
Traffic was fine until I was coming up to the I-80/I-880/580 junction, and then it stopped. I lost over an hour in a 5 mile stretch.

The Pepsi pick up was great, though. Park your empty here, go in and find your paperwork on that wall, hook up and see you on the way out. Best Pepsi experience I've ever had.

But then heading out to I-5 there was a vehicle fire in the opposite side, and people just had to snap pictures of course. And another slow down at the I-580/I-205 split that also required fire trucks, for some reason I could not determine.
Not to mention the general evening rush hour on Friday during a holiday weekend.

But my current load to Tolleson, AZ has a generous window for delivery, so no worries there.
I was even sent the entire window in the pplan. Surprise!

And my new Qualcom has some quirks.
I wonder if the new system will be better?
??

 

More of the same today with traffic.
But this time it was sometimes slowed nearly to a crawl so people could snap pictures of fires in SoCal. People would actually stop when there was no need, stopping everything behind them.

Frustrating is the mindless digital age.

And speaking of a mindless digital age - how about planners?
I'm delivering at around noon tomorrow near Phoenix, AZ.
I was sent a pplan that picks up at Amazon in Phoenix at 0101 the next morning, live on both ends for a 0901 delivery in Las Vegas.
I don't know about anyone else, but that simply does not work with my sleep times. And I am not about to change them around and get on a night schedule while being totally unrested to complete a load like that.
That's unsafe as he!!.

 

After doing the all different hours of the day crap in reefer and then being more flexible in flatbed and keeping consistent hours. The main thing for me is to try to keep consistent sleeping hours. Preferably I start early morning before anyone even leaves the truck stop and shut down before all the spots are taken.

On this dedicated account the plant dosent load till 7am so that dosent really work. But the consistency is refreshing.