Adventures of a Flatbedder at Roehl

Woke up this morning thinking, it's gonna be a great day.
Drove over to the lot where my preloaded trailer was, with it's preloaded chain/strap job TEN trucks trying to get into the place. Me and the other preloaded trailer walk right into the shipping office and get our paperwork. I'm at the end so it's easy for me to get out.

Go back to the truck stop and wait until about 8:30. Call in to see if they are working on permits. Yep, gonna be a wait. OK, no problem.

1000 rolls around with no update so I send in a msg. "Not ready yet" UGH, was hoping to get to the "J" to scan my last trip before noon. Not gonna happen, so I go into the truck stop to have it faxed in. While he's faxing I get a call. "Got your Kansas permit." Great fax it over. Comes in and I'm rolling, oh after paying for my fax, DOH!

Get rolling down the road and make it to the "J", at 3 minutes after 12. Glad I faxed it now.

After adjusting the chains, just didn't feel comfortable, and showering I am back on the road. Stop at a TA for a load check, tire going flat! Long story as short as I can make it, call maint, TA doesn't have tire, maint calls around to find tire, tire found, TA buys tire from local guy, and I pull in to get fixed. Tire was PERFECT, valve stem wasn't.
All that waiting and calling around for a valve stem! Lost 2 hours to that. Oh well, sitting at the Petro in Oak Grove, MO about 4 1/2 hours away from my MONDAY delivery. Think I will call the place in the morning and see if I can unload tomorrow. OH the joys of OD loads and weekends.

 

Tree... on the edge bud? IMO, all the hands on training in the world is not going to help you until you get to do the load, by yourself. From my short time in the flatbedding world I have had TMC, Maverick, and even a few O/O ask me how to secure something because they never have. There are loads I get that I look at and wonder, how the (BLEEP) am I going to secure that? You just use common sense and do it. Would everyone do it the same way? Probably not. Is it secure? I wouldn't be driving it down the road if I didn't think it was.

As for TMC and their "grass" rule, I was in the Army and lived by the "rules" and you know what, they are great for the military, but not for real life. Grass was meant to be walked on and rolled on biggrin_25525 so to let someone go for walking on the grass? Maybe spend more time training your drivers instead of worrying about the grass.

Just my two cents, do what you want with it, but it's my thread.