Welcome to my Nightmare.

Well good to know there's more people in the world than me and a few people I know who don't think those of us with a nice truck that we love to drive are just some dumb SOBs who live to break the laws and scare the slow company drivers when we pass them at 70 in a 65(which is kind of fun I have to admit).

 

I was asked a question once and couldn't answer it the way I wanted to. I was asked that if I was being tried in court for being a Christian would there be enough evidence to convict me? Unfortunately, the answer was no. I try to think about this daily and do my best to make sure there is enough evidence to convict me but I fail at it daily. I just try to do better tomorrow than what I did today.

That's also how I go about every aspect of my life, I only compete with myself. I try to be better tomorrow than I was today at being a son, brother, family member, friend, husband, O/O, and so on.

I learned a valuable lesson about 16 years ago when I was 5 years into my driving career. I lost a job because the insurance wouldn't insure me. I had 3 speeding tickets on my record and the company I worked for switched insurance companies. There new company said that statistically more accidents happen to drivers that have between 4-8 years of experience because they GET COMPLACENT. Since I had the tickets and because of me experience level they believed me to be an accident looking for a place to happen. I never looked up those statistics to see if they were true but I made the decision to not be one of those statistics. I would not let myself become complacent. Sure, I've screwed up and made mistakes but I know I don't know it all and never will. So that gives me something to strive for, to be better tomorrow than I was today.

The HH section is filled with probably the some of the best people in all of trucking. I'm tired of being a door swinger but haven't found our exactly what open deck niche I want to be in. The wealth of information here is awesome and really gives a guy a lot of insight to what the job entails. I thank each and every one of you for sharing your experience with us.

 

That right there is I think the part that bothers me most about the world in general, look, we all understand it's not bright to walk under a suspended load, and if you make a habit of it, you need to go, but the past 2 years I took a dedicated home nightly job with a large (2000+units) company that had a 0 strikes policy on it.

I ended up moving on because amongst other things their solution to one ####### hitting another ####### in the head was to institute a hardhat policy in the trailer barn instead of for instance not keeping the straps rolled up on the winches, or disciplining the idiot that got hit for not looking before being in the way, nor the thrower for not paying attention to what was on the other side. Objections that every driver with our terminal raised, and were summarily ignored. (The response to my point 6 months previously that straps stored on winches were a hazard and throwing away money in premature failure was " we know we shouldn't, but it's easier for the route driver's)
Even better, after 1 year of 2'drop, 16 foot tarps (on 53 foot trailers, frequently with 4'+ tall loads) at our winter "safety" meeting we were told by our terminal mgr that when he brought up proper tarps for the ####### job for the umpteenth time, HIS boss told him he wasn't allowed to bring it up on our behalf anymore...

I could go in, but I'm trying to limit my kvetching in my dotage (I'm 34 now, so it'll only get worse from here on out)

I'm all for working safely and within your personal limits, I dont even mind presenting real findings based on realistic studies, but I'm ready to take a winch bar to people's heads when they tell me things are about "safety" these days... This goes for personal AND work life

 

Isn't he practically one now? Most people these days stopped developing mentally at about 6 years old it seems.

No disrespect intended to you Mr Six.

 

About the cb bit, i have a cb, it's even pretty good, tuned it to my antennae and truck, works great, but mostly I leave it off because more than 95% of what I hear on there is nothing but sphincters, racist sphincters and wannabe Billy bigriggers. I refuse to listen to drivel in the hopes that someone might have something reasonable to say, I'll pop it on here and there but by and large it's for checking in with the guard shack remember, those piss-pants have Cbs too and there's no way to filter them out....

 

Jesus Christ, I won't let my wife hold my 7 year old daughter'' hand about things like this and that's how someone is treating a boy nearly 2x her age? Insane

 

I was the kid who didn't like waking up to go to school either, I didn't mind getting up at 3 to help to load hogs though so it might've had more to do with where I was going than lazy.

 

Im lazy without a doubt, but crying to stay home? Even at 10 years old I had a bloody backbone....

 

I tried faking sick a few times, mom caught onto that pretty quick though.