Random LTL Rants (all are welcomed)

Welp,

I finally did it. I hit my first bridge. Before you keep on reading, I didn't destroy a bridge or did a spectacular can opener on my trailer.

It all started last Friday when they didn't have enough freight for my bid. They broke my bid and send me into an area I was not familiar with. To soften the sting, the offered me OT after eight hours. I reluctantly agreed. I mean, what the #### could go wrong on a Friday the 13th in the year 2020.

Got done with stop #1... Then pushed on to the second one. GPS said 0.5 miles till stop #2. It was an industrial zone and I didn't think much of things when I saw a final sign at an intersection. The exact wording were "Warning, Low Clearance Ahead,". It didn't give me any dimensions, and as I squinted ahead, I saw a bridge at least 22 feet high.

I was singing the Elmo's World Theme song out to myself (cause my 2 year old had it on a 3 hour loop before I got to go to work) and noticed the bridge started going lower and lower on me. I am only going 20 mph, so this whole ordeal takes about the same time it takes to read through a CVS receipt.

I squinted as I went underneath the last truss; expecting to lose my air-dam and cut my trailer open like a tin of sardines. Instead, the last 6 feet of my trailer had some side railing reinforcement towards the roof and I literally saw sparks flying.

So what ultimately happened was that I had 12k in the nose, causing the nose to squat down, and thus missing the bridge railing.... But my back of the trailer was empty, so the arse end was squating up. And the last 6 feet caused the top of the trailer to catch, then force squat it down, before releasing the trailer with a violent grind and then causing my rear tandems to jump.

I expected half my roof to be gone, but it ended up fine. Even if I took out a chunk of my roof, my roll-up door would have made it impossible to see the damages.

I came back with less than 10 minutes of overtime

 

Yes. My trailer is still useable. No actual notable damages were done. I called it in as I usually do with the usual "no damages, no witnesses, no worries. Keep on trucking, that trailer won't empty itself with you bullspitting with me on the phone" as a response.

Love my dispatcher