What are your greatest fears?

Ice is a valid concern. I am going to address this.

Mountain Ice.. now that is awesome. There was one place near Altoona called Babcock Ridge on a two lane state road that works up towards some of the mountain towns above the ridge state park. Anyhow.. getting up there on straight ice loaded isnt a problem. Getting back down with a empty flatbed on a CH Mack is interesting because at the bottom of roughly 8% in places is a 200 degree turn to the right that also drops like a hundred feet while you are coming around. It's really hard to describe. I would come off the top remembering Mr Adams, my old profane driving teacher hollaring, go down the gear you came up in *SMACK! keep it simple 'profane word' stupid!!! I can still hear him and one other hollaring to me to this day from school on the mountain. Its a hard to describe. All that yelling hurts tender feelings, but pounds lessons that will not be erased.

Another was near Sheridan WY. There you have alot of split ice. Meaning one side of your drives is on wet chopped stuff and the other side is on smooth ice ready to jacknife you. A Rocky Mountain Double tanker gasoline man up front leading us 4 learned it was my first time on REAL split ice over the radio and told me to throw the interlock in, settle on 4th low at around 12 mph and keep above torque. Since I made it that far over other ice there was no problem taking driving lessons from another trucker who lives in the area and hauls two trailers doing it. What a fun day to take a drive to Sheridan on that ice.

One of you feared phone calls.

I got sick one time my father was the point of contact. My dispatcher/owner had 12 states worth of police hunting my rig loaded with butter. They wanted to arrest me, fire me, charge and imprison me and a host of other actions which may or may not include being chained to a tree over night and a lynching. As this was way before satellite comms there was no contact with me for two days and nights. I ended up in the ER after a strange out of body drive home from Connecticut and required surgery. The Butter load? I guess Boston did without for a week. The yelling has not stopped to this day, there was no pay for the week either.

The other time I got sick I could barely drive, I again contacted my father and told him Im working my way home. My qualcomm was full of call me, where are you, what is going on. I could care less Fever 104 and so on. Somehow I made it across the midwest towards home. The fever broke. Dispatch told me to rest a few days and that I still have my job because I called someone who called dispatch to notify that I was seriously ill. Usually they fire people for doing what I did naturally trying to get to home when bad sick. Today I think they just put out a BOLO and run you down to see what's the matter with you. None of that fooling around.

Getting that phone call is really hard. Ive had that happen. Sometimes the impact of loss or damage to you personally is enough to consider staying off the road because you are not in your right mind. You might sit and say no no no im good, nothing mental wrong with me. But when you lose someone special or have that person turned to something that will never be the same again ever you are going to get hurt and cut deep. Trust me when I say you will not be right for a while.

Im laughing on the floor under the keyboard at some of you with the pictures of I90 washington state east of seattle (Loved that pass) and the toll tickets etc.

Toll barriers. I hated and feared them. I had a good Trainer named Mr Kuhn, who would yell really bad if I made a mistake. He did not yell much. Enter the toll gate on the PA Tpike at Breezewood. Snap a mirrior in the metal posts around the ticket pull machine. HEY!!! YOU *&^%!!! THE BIG #### IS NOT YOUR ISSUE IT"S THE &^%$ LITTLE #### LIKE THIS!! ARE YOU STUPID!?

It took a year before I stopped worrying about those stoopid mirriors, especially after Freightliner had those wonderful new ones that actually FOLD. YAY. No longer I have to carry a stack of 20's to hand to drivers whose mirriors I break in the back dark row, produce warehouses and so on.

talking to a DOT when he steps out into my traffic lane at 80 mph downgrade on the pike demanding me to pull over. Finding out I have pizza, coffee, drinks and doughnuts spread all over my dog house, dash board and chair around my driving eating lunch fueling up for the battle to come in Philly....offered him a coffee thermos and doughnut. Did not think of it at all.

The inspection went... rather chilly after that. I passed it, But I don't think a innocent offer of extra coffee and doughnuts went over too well. Oh well.

And I will stop here with another fear. This one is more serious. I did not realize I had it until it happened.

There is a Cement operation with a pair of quarries that has been dug on since yea colonial times hundreds of years ago. It is called either colonial or continental I don't remember which. ANYhow, after getting empty I was told to write out a last will, living well and sign a wavier protecting the customer because...

On command I will travel about a thousand feet in the air across a thin yellow painted land bridge between two quarries, occasionally hanging some of my outside tires over open space which is about 400 to 1000 feet down straight down. All I have to do is keep that yellow painted 10 inch wide line centered on my left front steer and ignore everything else all the way across.

Ok let's go. Halfway across the wind gusted rocking me a little and I got scared. I thought well let's stop. but then what? Leave the rig here? walk across? Crawl? Pee and be laughed at the rest of my days? I did not have that kind of fear in me until that day. Then I hear that creak as the weight shifted to the inside tire holding the entire flatbed on the road. Just the one. What do I have to do to steer that thing to get more tires back on? Any direction means death or worse.

School does not teach that *&^$. I don't care about the laws and had a good stiff drink once I got clear of that cursed quarry. Throw me a book for driving tipsy. But hey... I figured Ive got a new birth day that day.

 

Thanks for sharing. I

Thanks for sharing, Steve M. I'm not a trucker but have long had to deal with excessive anxiety driving over bridges.

I think it stems back to one night driving home from my summer job as a teenager. 16 years old, just got my license, and our town got hit by the "flood of the century" that took about a dozen lives. Half a century later, I remember driving over the bridge that spanned our local river, looking down and seeing the raging torrent. It was like our normally peaceful river was possessed by a demon.

Anyway, I deal with it and cross the bridges as they come...but with a death grip on the steering wheel, breaking out in a sweat, and my handy "window poker-outer" gadget by my side.

"Real courage is being scared but saddling up anyway." - John Wayne

 

On a related note, the Burger King creeps me way out.

 

I'm afraid killing myself or a family out here. So I'm constantly battling with other road king's and also avoiding lethal work behaviors.

 

{shivers}

 

My sister has always been terrified of driving over bridges. Since we were children. Consequently, my brother and I never missed an opportunity to torture her on family outings. Sometimes to the point where Dad would stop the car do to her wailing, and threaten us with some life ending punishment. God I'm laughing just thinking about. Even as adults, we never missed an opportunity. She would put on a brave face, but you could tell she was mortally terrified. If you knew my sister, you'd know our actions were justified lmfao.

 

Night before last, someone either pounded on my sleeper, or slammed a door right next to me. Well, sleeping brain interpreted it as a gunshot, so I'm going from happy X-rated dreams in my cozy bunk to sitting straight up, eyes wide open, heart pounding like a double bass drum in a metal band, and I'm panicking because I can't remember where I'm at. Took me nearly an hour to stop shaking. PTSD is a #####.

 

When I was in the teamsters, I found the brotherhood to be the most dog eat dog thing I've ever been apart of. The company still did what ever it wanted. We were all supposed to be equal, but nothing was further from the truth.
They had some of the best drivers you'd ever see, and some very hard workers, they also had quite a few that were lazy as the day is long.
I started doing local with the Pumpkin a moth or so ago, and make about $150 less for a 60 hour week. I could go back to the local driving a mixer, but it's much harder work, and no one counts it as tractor / trailer experience, even though your 80K pounds everywhere you go, and its 10 times more dangerous driving the mixer.
So I don't know, I'm in a small dedicated distribution fleet, like 6 drivers maybe, all day cabs, no one messes with us. The two guys running it just let us do our thing, you take your break, fuel, pick your nose, whatever, when you want, as long as your on time. If you get done early, you go home with the same money, or you do something extra, and make more. I'm not forced to work a 6th day.
If I could be gone for just 2 nights in a row I could make twice as much with my own truck doing a super regional distribution, that is extremely organized, and very easy.
But I also think that SWIFT, CRE, CRST, PRIME and the other bottom feeders that prey on inexperienced, actually naïve drivers, should absolutely be organized, because those are like slave shops, that operate under an "abuse the driver format."
I started at CRE in 2005, only did 3 months, but they would say how much they care, keep you rolling, team effort, blah, blah. I remember sitting in the lot of their main terminal, and at 4:59 PM the operations people would flood out of that building like it was on fire. I always thought about that when I was sitting at some hole for the weekend, or at a receiver for 6 or 7 hours, then be another day to get reloaded.

 

My two greatest fears? Roll over. I crawl around curves especially 180 ramps. The other, a head on on a two lane. The first one I can keep from happening. I have nightmares about head on. Something I've no control over.