COVENANT -- From a wife's perspective

Hey Mrs. R.....

sorry to hear about your aunt, if my wife and I get through Ala. we'll make sure to shoot you a message and say hi.

As for Mr R....I think I understand what he's doing wrong, as I did the same thing when starting out, probably everyone does. I'll try to explain better if I can think of a way....if he is the analytical type, when he does a straight line back, he probably gets lined up and sits looking straight ahead and glances from one mirror to the other, takes it slow and if he sees too much of the trailer in one mirror he corrects it so that he sees equal amounts of the trailer in each mirror.....does that make any sense?
To most people, if you see equal amounts of the trailer in each mirror you must be going straight.....right?

The "fly in the ointment" here is that he is not sitting in the dead center of the tractor, he is sitting way off on the left hand side so if he sees just as much trailer in his right hand mirror as he does in the drivers' side, his trailer will be going way too far right.......he is sitting to the left of center in the cab so he needs to see quite a bit more of the trailer in his right side mirror than he sees in the passenger side mirror......

does that make any sense at all??

my wife and co-pilot (and reason for everything I do) just said she kind of understands what I am saying so hopefully you can too)

Best wishes to you and Mr. R.....talk to you later.

 

I just re-read my post, way too confusing I understand what I am trying to say, maybe if you read it and re-read it to him it will help. He just needs to remember to see more of the trailer in his drivers' side mirror, not alot, but if he sees any of the trailer in the passenger side mirror, then he's crooked. Tell him to consider that he is only maybe a couple feet from the drivers side mirror and 5-6 feet from the passenger side.

We are off to Salt Lake City and as we sit here in Oregon the wind has our truck rocking like a crab boat on the Bering Sea this should be an interesting ride, glad we have 45,000 in the box!

Talk to you later.

 

Hey MT1 thanks for the clues. Actually I DO understand what you are trying to say. My only question is I thought you guys had your mirrors lined up like I do in my motor home. I have them set so I can just see down the length of each side starting about halfway back. I've found that if I include the walls of the rig on each side then I can glance in my mirrors to see how far I am from each of the white lines. And it gives me perspective on how close passing traffic is to me.

So if a trucker has his mirrors set the same way it just seems to me that the offset of the driver's position would already be compensated for. Although, having never been in the left seat of a tractor, I'm probably wrong.

Quite frankly, Redcoat is, IMO, a terrible backer. I've watched him back up my little Mariner and most of the time he would end up crooked. BUT I would *never* tell him this. I talked to him tonight and he told me that they went to an empty lot near the airport and were practicing straight backing there until they were run off by airport security and the cops. Seems they were acting suspicious and Redcoat said that once he thought about it, they probably DID look pretty suspicious being so near the airport.

Anyway, I told him the next time he had a chance to practice backing up, he needed to get out and analyze exactly how the trailer is ending up and by how far. If it's crooked the same way every time then he needs to figure out how to compensate for the illusion that he's straight. Which is probably was MT1 was trying to say in the first place.

Trip update.

They made it to Newark, NJ and while they were there they had enough time to go see the Statue of Liberty so he enjoyed that. He said he also got some great pictures of the NYC skyline. So it's good that he's actually able to see some of the sights and that cheers my heart.

He's now in Avon, OH and they are supposed to drive up to Motor City to pick up a load to take to Kentucky. He said his trainer got a ticket. I think it was in NJ when they were trying to find the shipper. The route Covenant gave them had a road closed and they asked an ambulance driver how to get where they needed to go and he gave them directions down a road that had a weight limit on it. When they pulled over to figure out what to do, a cop pulled in front of them and that's how he got the ticket. It's BS if you ask me but even though it wasn't their fault, they were still wrong so you can't argue. Redcoat said Covenant would pay the fine but his trainer still will get the points so he is not a happy camper.

That's about all my news. I'll be leaving Illinois Wednesday morning (providing the mail I am expecting arrives by then.) I've found a campground a little ways south of I-459 in Birmingham called Cherokee Campground and that's where I'll settle for a few months. My picture territory is mostly south and east of B-ham so I'll be running up and down I-459 and down I-65 in the Helena area and out I-20 toward Leeds. Trips to my mom's house will take me back and forth on Hwy 78 (I-22). So if y'all see me in my little black Mariner with the Air Photo signs on the doors, you better honk and wave and then come in here and tell me it was you.

 

Hi Redcoat I love to come read your stories they are great I am sure you hubby will probably travel down I 75 in ohio to KY from the motor city I will look for him and wave lol I live a hop skip and a jump from exit 179

 

Hey Wallbanger. Loved your post but there is NO WAY I'm going to tell Redcoat about it. LOL He has enough to worry about now and hopefully he'll be a little more confident by the time the bad weather rolls around.

So that made me wonder. What happens to you guys if you hit ice and slide off the road like Swifty did? Does ice on the road count as an emergency which allows you to pull over on the side of the interstate? Or if you have to keep going until you can get off but you end up hitting the ditch first, does that go on your DAC as being your fault?

I remember years ago my ex and I were driving from Mississippi back to Delaware in my beloved TR7 and the weather in Tennessee was crap. We pulled off to gas up and my ex took over driving. I told him the roads were getting squirrelly but of course, what did I know. Sure enough, less then a couple miles down the road we ended up doing a couple 360's on I-40 just outside of Nashville and we slid off the road. When I looked out my door there was a mile marker about 3 inches from it. About 10 seconds after we came to a stop, an 18-wheeler went by that had been behind us. I bet that driver had an eyefull watching us turn into a carnival ride. A dude pulled over and the three of us pushed my car back up onto the road and we went on our way. Then we started seeing semi's and cars in the median and down in the gullys off the side. It was like within seconds the road just froze and that was all she wrote.

 

Now would you want to be sitting on the side and get rammed cause a car or truck lost control on the Ice?

It best to slow down and get off the road and park when it gets to bad out. Most of the cars and trucks sitting in the Ditch or in the median are ther cause they were going way to fast.

 

Coastie pretty much covered it, as long as there is no damage (to private or publice property) then the cops probably wouldn't bug you at all. Now if you need a wrecker (cause you got stuck), then they could write you a ticket for failure to maintain control. And if that doesn't happen, then the company may ding your DAC with a preventable accident/incident, since they have to pay for a winch out. This is my best guess, we would need to talk to a trooper to find out for sure.

And I don't blame you for not worrying Redcoat; best to let him get a little more comfortable before reminding him that the 'white stuff' is on its way.
I read about his backing trouble; maybe he just waits too long to make adjustments, or makes too small of an adjustment. I don't know, because I set my mirrors up the way you do (in your RV), and I just try and keep an equal amount of trailer in each mirror (on a straight back).

On a related note, I once totaled my wife's car and did not even get ticketed. The road had black ice on it, and I found some the hard way (even though I was only going 25-30). The car spun out and then got clipped by a DCX parts hauler (by his tandems). Staties showed up, collected info, and said 'have a nice day'. Go figure.

 

Trip update.

Redcoat is somewhere between Nashville and Memphis this morning with the load scheduled to drop in Memphis. His trainer is driving the day shift.

They have a high-security load (DVDs I believe) and Redcoat says the rules are that the truck has to keep moving. He said he found it ironic that you're not supposed to stop within a hundred miles of the shipper but the first thing they did when they picked up the load was to go to a Pilot and get weighed. So that kind of doesn't make any sense. Then they stopped at another truck stop early this morning for a shower and Redcoat thought they were supposed to keep moving but his trainer took about a six-hour break and they left at daylight.

I told Redcoat he needs to make sure he's clear on exactly what the rules are for these high-security loads just to make sure his trainer isn't bending them a tad and if he tries it he'll be taking the chance of getting in trouble. Not good.

I also asked him if he had to go solo today did he think he could handle it and he said, yes, with the exception of the backing problem. So that's serious progress from where his head was at a month ago. He said he's got the qualcom thing down. He said it actually kind of silly sometimes in that when you tell them you're loaded and ready to go (and I may not have this exactly right but those of you who do the work will know what I'm trying to say) you have to send a macro giving your status. It will ask you how long it will take you to get there and when you expect to arrive. Redcoat's thinking is that he has no freakin' idea how far it is and how long to get there and that Covenant already knows the answer to this because they're going to pay you what they say the mileage is no matter how many miles you actually drive and so why bother asking questions they already have the answers to???????

I was thinking I should start a list of Things In Trucking That Don't Make Any Sense but I'm sure somebody in here had probably already done that so I'll do a search for it.

I told him what MT1 said about the illusion with the mirrors and he said he'd keep that in mind. He said they have very little time to spend for him to practice (not to mention trying to find a place) so that isn't helping things. Seems we go from one crisis to another. We finally get the panic under control and now he frustrated with backing issues. It makes him mad because he didn't seem to have any trouble straight-line backing when he was at Roadmaster school and he can't figure out why he's having trouble now.

I keep telling him he'll get it sorted out to keep trying and that it will come eventually. Of course, I'm going with the odds. I see the thousands of drivers out there and they all can back their trucks up -- granted some better than others -- but they all figure out a way to get it done. I am reminded of Rocks' story where she got super frustrated trying to get backed up and she just made herself calm down, said a prayer, and carefully got it done. That's what Redcoat needs to do but he has a tendency where if he doesn't get something right after ten or 15 minutes, he will throw up his hands in frustration.

The RV park where I am is just off exit 23 on I-55. I can sit here at my computer and watch the trucks going past in both directions. (Celedon....Schneider...Wal-Mart...Prairie Farms...United Van Lines...Target...Schneider...MCT...Prairie Farms...Swift...Werner...CFI...Crete...Werner) Last night I had just gone to bed around 1 in the morning and I heard *BLAM* this huge explosion and then thwackthwackthwackthwack. So I'm thinking, man, somebody's not having a good night. That's the first time I've ever actually heard a tire explode. It's way louder than I thought it would be. I know if I was in the sleeper it would scare the bejesus out of me.

Well, time for me to get ready for work. Sold 9 pictures over the weekend and so made a little over $400 in two days which helps make up for the terrible week I had all last week. I told Redcoat to send me all the numbers for his mileage so I could post it for the new folks reading this thread.

 

High secuirty loads generaly mean do not leave the load unattended.
You no matter what have to weigh the load to make sure it is legal.

 

Thanks for that info. We're still learnin' here. Redcoat is now in Olive Branch, MS just outside Memphis. Wish it was a day or so later as I'll be passing right through there on Wednesday on my way to my mom's house between Tupelo and Fulton. They are at Covenant's yard waiting for a load. How is it that a trucking company as large as Covenant has a yard with NO BATHROOMS?????

Not even a port-a-potty??? That makes no sense.

But Redcoat did say he practiced for about an hour backing up. He got it into the dock (or whatever) after about ten tries. I told him that it may have taken him a while but at least he knows it can be done and he can do it again.

Next goal....nine tries....then in eight....then in seven...