An old man's career goes flat, Snackbar moves to open deck

Well, this old school driver (me) did 2 good deeds today for a fellow flatbedder. The guy next to me got clipped yesterday while he was in the shower. When he came knocking on my door, I was out of the truck. This morning after I came back with my breakfast burrito, he flagged me down and I pulled the card from my personal dash cam and it caught a Swift L/O hitting his truck, and my camera is good enough to capture not only the truck but the trailer number. So I sent him the video. Plus, his truck wasn't building air, and he was waiting for a tow truck to pull it to the dealer. When he fired it up, I heard the unloader chugging on the dryer. He crawled under there and messed with the unloader and it started building air...his day went from crap to good within 15 min...he offered to buy me breakfast or pay me, but I told him it wasn't necessary, I am just paying back a debt for help I received when I had things go bad.

 

It's an off brand from Amazon that had good reviews. It's called 52hz. It has a forward facing inside camera and a 2nd camera with a long cable so you can mount it on the side of the vehicle (or the back if in a car).





Travelling in Canada, a personal dashcam is a must. When I was at Moore, we had the same company cameras, but they didn't upload up there because they wouldn't work with the Canadian cell companies...so I bought my own just in case one of those wreckless Canucks hit me and then claim it was my fault.

 

I know pretty much any aluminum trailer is gonna have a hump, I just dislike Reitnouer. Oh, and another think I dislike about them is the strap hook bar way under there. Not sure how a piece of aluminum bar that thin can be considered a securement point.

And after seeing too many YouTube videos of stepdeck trailers snapping in front of the axles, hauling a dozer like that on one would make me scared to hit a bump. And as easily as these decks are damaged, I wonder how many steel track units can roll across there before it is gouged and torn up.

Running the same freight lanes from regular customers helps. Plus running coast to coast regularly makes it easier. From what I have learned here, the only real time consuming part of open deck that alters trip planning compared to a box is that first day's travels after getting loaded, and the last day unloading, especially if it's a tarp load.

It has gotten to the point when I speak to my wife, I refer to any day less than 650 miles as a short day.

 

Speaking of short days, this load will be a series of them. These elevators are a live unload Monday morning outside Seattle (one exit before the 90-405 jct.). I have 2150 miles to go in 4 days, so this load will be an un-snackbar like trip, and a series of sub-600 mile days...how boring...