"Thrown to the Wolves"- The Saga of the 10 Wides.

My first "Driving" position was a Small excavation company. There was only the boss, and myself, we "built" the truck, I took it down and got my license (to this day I don't know if he ever got his license!). It Was only a single axle dump and a tag trailer, I was very familiar with being FAT, but widest thing we had was only about 9'
So one day I get sent an hour and half away to pick up a new Log Skidder for a logger that I moved equipment for.
I asked for weights and dimensions before I went, the owner said it's just a newer version of the one I've been moving, "same size". The old one was a little wide but not a big deal.
I get there and it looks HUGE. Really big wide rubber on it! Line it up with the trailer and the centerline of the tires line up with the outside of the rubrails.... think WOW
Mount the trailer, get it where I think the weight should be.. Climb down, step back to assess the situation.. Big WOW..
If it didn't look huge on the ground it sure did now that it's atop that tag trailer..
Kinda like an elephant riding a clown car!
Thinking about my options and the situation said to myself, well I didn't drive all the way up here just to drive home empty, better tie it down and get on with it.
A foot of tire hung off either side of the trailer, and yes it was a 102 trailer.. not a lowboy, no outriggers, most of the cab was above the side boards on my body. She looked funny up there and road like a weeble wobble, bobbling back n forth.

As nervous as I was, I still like it.

I have learned, and continue to learn, a lot since then.

 

It always seems like when things go south they keep on going.
A few years ago I was a little late on renewing my plate. Had time but it was going to be close. Mailed everything and then headed up to Canada on a 10 day fishing trip. I got home and found all my paperwork returned. The state said that my authority had been revoked 2 months previous.

WTF!!! So I call them up and find out that when I had renewed my drivers licence my middle initial was automatically added to my license. Never had it before. Authority has to match drivers licence exactly.
OK I thought this isn't so bad.

Wrong. No possible way to change my license back without a court order. The state of Wi mandated that all licences had to add middle initial upon the next renewal.
Long story but I had to spend $600 some dollars changing my state and federal authority name. Process agent, Insurance filling. Basically had to start over. After all that was accomplished I could renew my plate. Of course our Gov agency's worked as fast as they could and got everything resolved in about a month.
Meanwhile I've got grain contracted to deliver. Direct shippers to keep happy, and bills to pay.
Being the law abiding citizen I am of course I was going to park the truck for critical thing like a middle initial.
So I trucked like a vampire for a month.
Then my cousin called up. His trackhoe went down. He rented a used one 50 miles away but had to have it there NOW. Couldn't talk him out of it. So I hooks on to the small lowboy. 1954 fixed neck 8' wide with only a 18' belly. It's built like a tank but is to short to get any weight on it legally. Get there to pick it up and find out it is a lot bigger than I was told. Annual permit was no good. Loaded it anyway. Filled the whole belly with the boom hanging 5' out the back. Should have went home and got the big trailer but didn't.
Took the long way back to the pit he was crushing in. I started to finally breath again. Almost there.
I had to run the state hiway for 2 miles and then turn in the pit.
Jakes rattling I round the corner and find a state patrol car and a sheriff parked side by side in the driveway I need to turn into.
Insert several cusswords
They backed out of the way so I eased on through.
Got down in the pit behind the furthest pile I could find. Throwing chains off and hollering like a madman everybody thought I was nuts.
Got er off of there in record time.
Ended up crushing the rest of the day. I was to scared to leave. Normally I would have been completely legal but that day they would have burned me at the cross. All over my middle initial.

 

Great thread Six. "Told me I could load 40k on the spread do I did". Now that's funny right there. I can't remember my first right off but this came to mind when you talked about your banners.

Crossed into QC from. I-87 in Champlain, NY. Being QC, they have to be different and not allow yellow banners. There is also a scale just N of the border do after I cleared customs, I pulled off to the shoulder, shut my strobes off, turned my 4 ways on and changed my yellow banners to D signs. QC DOT watching me.

I get finished and pull onto the highway and the flashing lights are off...COOL they're not pulling me in ( I hate QC coops). Then the lights come on #$%&!

DOT ( French accent): may high see your spesh-eee-alll permite sir?
Me: Oui! (Give him permit)
DOT: Eeeet looks good. Does you know wa-high I make you stop?
ME: No.
DOT: You forget to open your flashing lights back on. Have a nice day bye-bye Monsieur.

 

So this is my experience... The company I was working for was pretty small and had just started in the trucking and logistics game for a hydro construction company we were partnered with. Before that they did right of way clearing. So they stole me off a pipeline company and I became there senior driver with 2 years of experience and teaching the new guys we hired with learner licenses and eventually getting there full class 1. I'd move the snow cats and stuff on a regular basis that were pretty wide and the trailers they needed for stringing the line no big deal.

One day the owner phones my foreman and tells us they need a truck moved from Saskatchewan to northern bc up towards dease lake where the other project was happening. So I figured it can't be that hard lets drive. Nope! It's not road legal and way to heavy since the back had some massive drums of cable among other things. So we rented an 8 axle hydraulic neck lowbed. I had no idea how to even disconnect the neck when I went and picked it up from the rental place so I asked and the guy gave me a 30 second tuturial and said cya later. So I trucked 6 hours out there. Loaded the truck on with some difficulty, chained it down with my shiny new 1/2 chain that were in 20 foot lengths... Never again will I have a chain that long unless I really need it. Didnt put enough on I found out later once I did some research, and headed for the scale to double check the weights before I ordered my permits. HOLY CRAP WAS I OVER ON THE TRIDEM.... I figured with the way I drove it on it would be heavy on the truck and tandem jeep and light on the back. NOPE! So after talking to my boss who's a get it done kinda guy I trucked it 6 hours back to the rental yard to pick up a tandem booster to make it a nice 10 axle set up... I had no idea how to hook it up, shim it and what the hell is that extra glad hand for common air! Lol so tried ordering the permits but bc was in road ban season and wouldn't permit anything past 8 axle load weight. So we said just give us the permit for as far as they would give us and the lowbed guy from the camp up there would come down as meet us and grab the truck on 8 axles and get it up there since they were fairly certain it would be legal on his trailer being that it was lighter then the heavy rental and it was 355km's of nothingness except the 100 km stretch of the main highway they had to go down. So off I go with my permits and picked up another pilot car at the bc/ab border which I'm glad I had him and not just my coworker with a slapped on D sign on one of our pickups because when we got to Prince George he knew the way around the town that all the over size loads take. So the permit off told me they could give me until Smithers bc so that's where I went. Dropped the truck off and spent the night. That night I read my permit and what they actually gave me was a permit to only go just an hour past Prince George. I was 3 hours past where I was legally allowed to be! Thankfully empty at that point but I was pretty nervous heading back that the scale would put two and two together and bust my balls. I went on to pull a couple more over size loads up there but did alot more research and payed more attention to my permits.

 

I will throw my butt to the wolves....

I'm. 19. In NY upstate by Windsor on RT-17. Moving stuff here and their for the "well" guy. Mr. Clark.

I had a chauffeur lic. Thought I was hot ####.

Well Mr. Clark had a friend with a lowboy , and on it was a
Champion road grader with the blade broken, so no turning the blade.
I get told. Just run this down to monticello and come back. Easy 75 miles. I jump in and roll 74 miles. Between me and the dirt lot is........

You guessed it. "New York State Trooper"

Who follows me into the yard.


Fines
So I get $500 out of class lic.
$300 for no permits
I remember another fine for $200. Ohhh ya. I said " do you smell bacon cooking??"

Truck stayed, I called Mr. Clark he came down in his pickup to get me. And go down to the court house to pay my fines...

Ohhh the good ol days of youth...

 

First OD I hauled a few winters ago, when 6122 and 3257 slows down; I put my #### sign UPSIDE DOWN... sheeite. OverSized was DezisRevO. Cop wasn't impressed when I told him I was doing a tribute to LUCY! #### Toledo.

 

@peterbilt_2005 .... i just caught the "Monticello" part! My aunt Ida used to have a farm there, that we'd stay at in the summer when I was a kid (moooooons ago LoL) man, I remember the town "social" (like a Fair) that they used to have there. Haven't heard mention of that place in YEARS!~

Yeah, ohhhh the good ol days of youth!!!!

 

My first 10' wide was the Friday of my first week alone in the rollback. Paid $1500 to the truck, deadhead to Laredo and winch on a 10' construction disc (like a tiller). Was told nobody was there and I would have to self load.

I get there and there is a full crew. Foreman tells me get it on, then drive over to the excavator and he will help center it for you.

Well with the excavator, I could place it sideways and it wouldn't be wide. But I'm new and didn't want to risk not getting the wide load pay so I load it wide anyways.

Was a pretty easy ride from Laredo to Houston, I miss those easy $375 days. But it was a nice easy load for me to learn on.

 

Well, here's mine.....

About a year or so after getting my CDL, I get a gig working for one of the biggest crane companies in FL. We were based just north of Ft. Lauderdale, but did a lot of work in Miami and Miami Beach. One Friday the crew is finishing setting up a tower crane, and we need to get the Jacking Frame used to raise new sections of crane into place gone from the jobsite. Well, the crew is already several beers deep into the cooler, so instead of breaking it all down to a legal load, they decide "Hey! Let's just take the corners apart and set the whole thing on the new guy's flatbed!"

Well, me not wanting to cause problems with the new job said "Sure, why not. It's legal, right?" Oh yeah, they assured me. Even had one of the few guys not drunk follow me in his Chevy Suburban with his hazards on to prove it. Took the four sides of something similar to this(it was a little over 15' wide at the catwalk sections) thru rush-hour traffic 3 hours on the FL Turnpike, no banners, flags, or strobes. Just my SUV "escort"......
I had whiplash from checking the mirrors so much. Good times for sure.

 

Well my first oversize was moving farm equipment all over southwest Kansas as soon as I had my 18th birthday and a fresh Class "A" license. Didn't know any better to know if I was doing things right or wrong.

Fast forward a few years and after having spent many years with my Large Car Chicken Truck with my matching spread axle reefer running back and forth to California thinking I was living the good life I finally parked the Rooster Rocket and came home. I grabbed the Yellow Pages and went knocking on doors looking for something more local. I get hired on to a little 5 truck outfit jointly owned by a ready mix company and a pre-fab concrete company to pull a pneumatic tank hauling cement powder and fly-ash. Oh and she said they do some work for the railroad and haul the pre-stressed concrete panels etc. No problem, followed the senior driver the first day, learned how to load and blow off the cement powder.

That was Monday, hauled powder Tue-Wed then Wed afternoon get back to the yard and the dispatch sheet under the wiper on my car was "Pre-Stressed Bridge 07:00". So totally confused I call the senior driver who trained me on Monday, he said just be at the Pre-Stressed yard about 6:30 to get my bolster loaded and hooked up to the "dolly". I had no idea WTF he was talking about but I was there with the other 4 at 6:30 the next morning. I follow them to one of those gantry cranes and watch as they get these big things picked up and hitched into their 5th wheels. I followed suit and got one put on mine then off to the other end of the yard where they were hooking up to these funny looking trailer like things with the pintle hooks on the back of the truck frames. Senior driver helps me back up to mine, shows me how to hook it up, shows me the little engine, how to start it, then opens this box, pulls out this yellow thing with a bunch of buttons on it with all the labels/letting long worn off and gone and says "this is your steering remote" WHOA HIT THE BRAKES!!! Steering remote I ask?? Oh yeah he says, it's how you steer your trailer, then proceeds to explain what each button does but I never heard a word, I was stuck back on "steer your trailer". He said "just follow us, it's easy" - Yeah like handing someone your beer followed by "watch this".

We proceed through the yard to another gantry crane and proceed to unhook the dollies, drive ahead a couple miles while they set these "little" beams on that are 3 miles long. The ground crew runs all the cables, hoses etc up on top of the beam and up the the "bolster" while the senior driver schools me on securing the 3 3/4" chains and ratchet binders on each end and away we go for a 200 mile trip.

Maneuvering in the yard was easy, acres of room to turn, the 3 mile long "little" beam riding on the 4 axle trailer thingy 2 miles back there finally gets back behind me just as we reach the drive onto the old highway. We make a left out of the very wide drive which was only about a 45 degree turn then we arrive at main street which was another 45 degree turn to the right. All went good to this point but these guys are on the radio just have a grand time chatting it up like it's nothing. I was smelling something in my shorts and wondering how long before the warm wet feeling becomes a cold wet feeling in my jeans. Then we arrive at the 12th street stop light, there are 4 city cops with traffic all stopped and the intersection wide open for us to make a 90 degree turn to the left. I watch as these other trucks all drive up there, turn while the beam continues straight down main street then at the lest second the wheels turn and the 4 axle trailer thingy drives right around the corner and right back in line.

Okay Okay Okay, I got this, I got this, I got this (crapping myself the entire time). Okay, senior driver says flip this switch to unlock the steering, check, then everything goes straight to ####. Last thing I remember before getting stopped is seeing that beam 3 miles back there out of my right mirror chasing a city cop down the street and up into the bank parking lot.

Then the laughter starts, I was the rear end of the new guy hazing and was given a pat on the back for not running over anyone or anything before getting stopped. Senior driver walks back there, says "welcome to the team" takes my remote and hands it to the guy in the company pickup behind me. See sometimes they steer themselves but rarely, the standard routine is the lead truck is steered by the next truck in line and so on till the last truck which is steered by the foreman in the pickup following the convoy. When there is no foreman in the pickup the lead driver runs the rear, steers the truck ahead of him then steers himself. After 4 years I "could" steer myself but having 36 years less experience than the lead driver it was a very slow process in creeper gear.

We won't talk about the next week with the "big" beams where the different 6 axle trailer thingy has a cab under the beam and a dude in there steering it. More new guy hazing, new guy gets to drive the dolly for the first trip.