Where does an intermodal container usually go from a sea port?

What makes trucking any more dangerous than just walking down a city street in almost any urban area in the country? I am going to back up @MGE Dawn on this. As a driver, you are MUCH more likely to be the victim of a fellow driver. Truth hurts but it needs to be understood. There are a lot of people driving trucks today that have violent histories. For example, I was at the Petro in El Paso oh close to 20 years ago I guess. I went inside had a meal and left. I was not feeling well that day (toothache) and just to keep my strength up was eating some fruit. I stayed to myself and ate. I finished eating, paid my ticket and walked outside. I did a brief inspection to check my 5th wheel and tandem release handles to make sure they were all still locked. Then I got in and spent some time in the sleeper working on some paperwork. Sit in the seat and drew some lines in my book of lies and put my truck in gear. The guy beside me took off at the same time. I stopped, looked at him and he stopped too. I backed back into the parking space and got up and went back into my sleeper for my hunting knife. I got back in my seat and by this time the guy was also back in his parking spot. It was oh about 3 PM and I was really trying to get to Demming to sleep. I just decided the heck with it and got into my sleeper. To this day I have no idea what I did to set him off, or maybe another company driver set him off, I don't know. The idiot was not worth the legal trouble that would have come out of me stabbing him so I went to bed.

Hand, stop worrying about where and when you go into places. Watch out and be very diligent of your surroundings. I am for the most part in a wheelchair today. I used to walk a lot near and around the VA Hospital and the Phoebus area of Hampton Virginia. I always had my WASP knife and unless I was going into the VA Hospital I had my firearm.

 

You sorta get a feeling about how 'bad' a place can be.

Like the place in Newark, only a block off McCarter Highway and surrounded by a tall chain-link fence with razor wire coiled on top. One public door with multiple video cameras. Man comes out and points up the street to a small square of angle iron in the fence...pull up and line your valve up with that hole....

The guy opens the window and you push the hose through the fence to him...then you sit in the cab looking at the rest of the block...vacant space for a block of two except for the remains of the concrete stoops of the buildings burned back in '68....

Not too bad in the daylight because of the wasteland, you can see anyone coming. Wouldn't want to work there at night!

 

Im sitting in line to unload here in a dumpy industrial/section 8 chattanooga hood, in front of a drug house that never sleeps right now. the brick yards are covered in razor wire.

Normal people dont steal bricks. Normal thieves dont even steal bricks.

 

It depends on the customers involved, the product, and the trucking company.

 

How many "middlemen" are between that port in Oakland and those Walmart retailers?

Most likely only two possibly three. Most Walmart DC take in those containers and empty them. You will have the carrier that brings the container to that 1st DC and the carrier that takes it to the 2nd DC that supplies the stores it serves. There will be a 3rd if that last DC does not use Walmart trucks to deliver to the stores.

 

I don't get it...what caused you to be scared of the guy in the truck next to you?

 

Well, I guess you will never get it. I don't know how to make my point made any more clear.

edited:: I will attempt to make that post more clear. What I am trying to point out is the average trucker is around other drivers MUCH more than they are around gang-infested areas of the country. More interactions with other drivers = more encounter's with other drivers at the best having a bad day. Unless a driver gets off the beaten path and is alone they generally don't get into these situations where they are hurt or killed by a thug. I can count many times over the years where i have seen or been close to where drivers have been killed by other drivers. In fact, I remember watching a TA truck stop have a fully laden 18 wheeler towed out because the driver had been arrested for murder. The murdered driver's truck had been towed earlier. The dangers out there are very real. from most any situation. I have seen truckers robbed while walking in the truck stop parking by drug addicts looking for money to buy drugs too. It is the truck stops that can be one of the most dangerous places a driver can be in. Don't believe that horsecrap most Truck stops tell you about security. Heck, even the lot lizards have been known to kill drivers for not paying them, or forcing them by brut strength to give it back. As a driver, you can be just as easily hurt or killed by that driver parked next to you as that drug addict out in the bushes waiting.

 

not true. i drove for jb hunt. i used to haul in to ports all the time. new jersey, long beach, etc i would bring from railyards. and i was otr