A Day in the Life...?

there are "dozens" -{ hundreds }- of posters here with decades of actual experince ~ which is much greater than mine but I wish to contribute from my 100,000 hours in construction, industrial, & various hourly wage jobs that what I call "repetition hypnosis" is expected by me to be of consequence in the matter you seek to do work on - there may be terminology in industrial engineering as that is the area of expertise, which provides us with the information that a change-up at 4-6 hours into the shift, doing something completely different [ such as working at another job ] has a very prove-able reduction of risk

 

A trucker can wake up in any state and it may be in a truckstop it may be a rest area or an empty spot ! when your hours are out your done you HAVE to stop ! Now as far as hazards you have the steps of the cab they get wet snowy or even covered in mud so they can be slippery You open doors on trailers you didn't see loaded that may have shifted and you can get slammed by falling freight. or of course on the road as much as people want to say its the truckers fault every time there is an accident most times it could be avoide if the cars around would just realize that you can't stop 80,000 lbs. of truck in 10 ft ! people will pull right out in front of a truck when he is going 65 miles an hour STOP ! there is nothing I or anybody else can do at that point it is all in gods hands because someone is gonna get hurt its just a matter of how bad ! I hope this helps.

 

I pull a flatbed so its different for me than the van drivers. I typically wake up at my reciever. Drink my coffee, get dressed, crawl up into the seat catch my log book up, do my pretrip catch the log up again go figure out where I need to be to unload in the recievers area pull off my tarps hang them on the side of the trailer with my bungees pull the straps off(and/or chains) watch the most of the time very skilled operator unload me , roll my tarp , throw it in the bulk head (very hard normally consists of throwing up on the trailer crawling up on the trailer and then putting it in the bulkhead) make sure all my straps are rolled up , pull out , go to where I load strap tarp haul ### and then shut down for the evening when I run out of hours and/or get where I need to be first (usually the later for me). And go to bed.. I have fallen out of the truck after running threw heavy snowfall, my boots slid off the step and I hit my head on the fuel pump..

 

I pull a "rock-bucket" (End-dump), and haul rock, grain, fly-ash, kiln-dust, sand, just about any solid bulk non-hazardous materials. Some hazards/dangers we are faced with, is first and foremost the trailer tipping over while dumping. We will leave the bed standing up and walk back to look inside to see if all the material has emptied. If the bed decides to fall, and you're in the wrong place, well you're not going home. One other thing is if a hydraulic hose blows, that bed is coming down fast and hard. If you're in the wrong place, aka pinch point, your done, especially if there's still material in the bed. That's 54,000 lbs that's coming down hard. Also if you're standing near the hydraulic hose that blows, you're going to be coated with hot oil, burn baby burn...

The bed is covered by a tarp, which is secured on one side. It is rolled across a set of bows to the opposite side. The roller-bar used to roll the tarp, can get away from you once you have tension on the tarp. If you loose grip, it will quickly spin, and can cause some serious damage to you.

Some end-dumps use "Swing-away" bows, mine does. You pull these to one side using a rope, before being loaded. It takes a little effort to pull them. Last month I had the rope break, which literally set me on my back, on the rocky ground, just like someone kicked my legs out from under me. I hit my head, and skinned both elbows, one of them I think I chipped a bone in, as I still have constant pain, and at times it's hard to lift even light things.

Oh and then there's the tailgate, that thing is heavy. I have prop it open to sweep out the trailer between loads. If you get a body part between it and the bed, it's going to hurt really, really, really bad. Then there's the risk of just falling off the trailer while you're climbing in or out of it, or just slipping and falling inside it. Winter time is the worst for this, as ice will coat the "ladders" on the side of the trailer.

 

Picked up a load of sheet rock while I was flatbedding, the area I picked up in was in a tornado warning area. Pulled in, got loaded. As I'm tarping, the wind picks up as I'm unrolling the back tarp. I got 6 feet of air off that tarp before it slammed me on the deck.
Wasn't really a slam but a fall with a bunched up trap falling on you. The clouds were spinning and adrenalin kicked in. Pulled the truck into the building between 2 support beams and went to the basement with the workers and the other driver. After the adrenalin subsided my knee gave out. Turns out the fall blew my knee cap. Came back up and sheet rock was everywhere. They propped me against my truck while they got 911 on the phone.
The roof was striped off the building and a tree branch had gone through the sleeper. Insurance covered that and the company gave me my benefit without a problem.

The main reason I left flatbed was I blew the same knee again after falling off the trailer. This wasn't nature but rather driver error. Forgot that when I pushed the tarp off it would take me with it. It broke most of the fall but my knee caught the catwalk. I have never been more careful climbing on the catwalk/trailer/in the cab in my life.

This was a few years ago, if want a typical day in my life as of now just say so.