Maverick .... from a wife's perspective

Latest update.

Redcoat dropped off his load in Hickory Hills this morning arriving at 0745 which is 45 minutes later than he wanted. With all the construction on the interstate near the consignee, they had the exit barricaded and then he found himself in the wrong lane to get off at the next one so it took him a bit to get turned around and headed back in the right direction. The unloading went fine and he got a dispatch to East Chicago to pick up a load of skidded coils headed to US Steel in Salisbury, NC.

He has been to US Steel before and he says its a pain because you have to take a test before they let you in the gate. If you fail the test you have to wait 24 hours to retake it. The last time he was there, he passed the test the first time but he says its still a right ball-ache to go there because of all the OSHA rules.

RC was about an hour past Gary when he got a message to go back to the yard. They wanted to check his tires on the tractor to make sure they all matched (which they didn't). So RC lost a little over 2 hours driving time messing around with the tires but he suspects they might be trying to help him get better MPG with a matched set.

Redcoat is spending the night just north of Louisville. Tomorrow he is going to try a very direct route from there to the con....maybe. It's hard to pry him off the interstates as he is convinced that is the best way to go. Well, maybe not totally but generally for the most part. However, in this particular case, he doesn't have much of a choice and his route tomorrow is going to be through the heart of the Appalachians so I know there are going to be lots of hills and switchbacks.

Today he talked to one of the other guys who was in his class and they compared RPMs on their trucks. The other guy received a newer truck and was traveling down the same route as Redcoat did a couple days ago. It was I-76 through PA and the highest gear Redcoat could get out of his truck on that road was 7th. His classmate was in 9th and 2000 RPM lower than Redcoat was able to get. RC thinks his truck is just tired but he doesn't want to complain in case they try to give him a different truck. He wants to grind it out with this one and try to pry some decent MPG out of it in the hopes that he will get a new truck next year some time.

Earlier today he was almost to the shipper and had to make a right turn. There was a car behind him and you know how you get a feeling that a 4-wheeler might try to do something stupid so you keep an eye on him? Well, RC signaled for the right turn and swung it wide to the left to keep away from the curb and sure enough, the idiot zoomed up his right side to get past him before he made the turn. So RC let him have a blast of the horn right as the dude went past his nose plus a few choice British euphemisms.

Stay tuned.

 

Well, he didn't exactly go that way. It was more like I-65 south to Louisville then I-64 across to I-77. From there he plans to go the way you said down to US 70 east to 601 south to pick 29 down to US Steel. He just crossed into WV and should hit Charleston in an hour or so.

Maverick says it should be 688 miles but I think he's going to end up doing around 750.

Notarps I hear ya on not using the automatic but sometimes folks have to arrive at their own conclusions. I think he's starting to use manual more and more now anyway.

Stay tuned.

 

Duly noted. However, Redcoat tells me that in orientation he was instructed to only use manual to hold the truck in a lower gear like going down hills.

He's seen this several times where more experienced drivers say they do something a certain way (driving technique or load securement) and even though it makes sense to him, it's contrary to what he was taught at orientation.

For instance, while at the receiver this last time for the coils, he tarped them according to how he was taught. BUT, there was another driver there who tarped his load differently (same load but 3 coils instead of 2), and RC said the man's tarp job looked much neater in the back. Immaculate even.

So what does he do? Keep doing things the way he was taught or start doing things the way more experienced drivers do it.

He has decided to do things they way they told him in orientation until he gets out of probation (whenever that is) and then maybe start to modify the way he does things to emulate the more experienced drivers.