Home again!

I deadheaded home from Ogden, UT on Saturday.  After taking a brief detour to ditch my trailer in Greeley, it ended up being just over 500 miles.

Normally I don't like deadheading home, but I have stuff that I have to get done here this week and my options for getting here were limited due to a weekend delivery.  I could have taken a load from Salt Lake City to Sparks, NV for a Monday morning delivery, but that wasn't acceptable.  I also could have waited until Monday for a load heading home, but again, I needed to be home.

Such is the fun of being a trucker, and more so being an independent contractor.  I'll end up being $300 or so in the hole this week.  Oh well.

Once a reefer driver, always a reefer driver

Oh hell.  I forgot to update my situation in my last post.  I guess I got too excited in my rant or something.

I'm back in the saddle as a reefer driver, with a brand new 2008 Freightshaker Century.  The flatbed gig was ok, but through the training I just had a horrible feeling that I would regret it if I did it.  Whenever I go against my gut feelings, I lose. 

Here's a picture of the new truck:

A Trucking Strike?

Seems that some people are calling for a trucker's strike to protest high fuel prices and/or pressure government to intervene in the hopes of providing relief.

I'm going to be blunt. These people are morons.

"Wait, wait, wait", you say, "that's not really fair to say. These people are just trying to earn a living!"

I repeat. These people are morons. The reason that any driver or company is going under in these economic times is the unwillingness to adapt to the current marketplace. See, we have a free market economy here, and as such, it's a consumer driven economy. That means that if your business is going into the shitter, THEN YOUR BUSINESS IS NOT IN DEMAND.

As a business owner, your function in life is to satisfy your customers in a profitable manner. You do not render services to customers for less than cost, and you do not keep offering services that are not in demand. You're trying to make money here.

"But what about the unscrupulous brokers? If I don't take their crap freight with no fuel surcharge, someone else will!"

So what? Let that someone else haul that freight and lose money on it.

For that matter, owner/operators and independent contractors need to learn to cut their expenditures, especially in fuel. Slow your ass down and quit idling so much. At $4.00/gallon at 1 gallon/hour of idle time for 10 hours, you're spending $40/night to idle that truck. How much pain are you willing to endure before you learn that lesson? Driving slower is even more of an impact. Saving 8 cents per mile over the course of 120,000 miles (about 1 year of driving) gives you an instant $10,000/year pay raise, with zero increase in revenue!!

Strike, my ass! How about I just come out and slap the stupid out of you? Or even better, keep putting forward that myth that speed = money, run yourself the fuck out of business, and leave more freight for the smart and business savvy drivers to haul.

You're not entitled to a profit in this country, and if you won't effectively manage your business, you don't deserve to earn a profit. Quit asking the government to reward your shortcomings as a businessperson.

Pop Quiz for Oklahoma City Residents

You're on an onramp merging into another onramp that will merge onto an interstate highway.  At the end of your ramp, there is a "yield" sign.  There is no traffic coming up that will interfere with your merge.  Do you:

1. Come to a complete stop at the end of the ramp
2. Double check for traffic, maybe only slowing a little as you do so, and then GET YOUR ASS MOVING

Oklahoma City drivers kept choosing option 1 and failing the test this afternoon, at rush hour.  Let me explain this once.  A yield sign means to let traffic already on the road go ahead of you.  But if there IS no traffic, you keep going.  You'd think that this is a simple concept, but I guess not...

Still Truckin'!

I'm still around, folks.  It's been busy, busy, busy.  There are some developments since my last installment.

• Another driver and I founded Primedrivers.net, a forum for Prime drivers and possible future Prime drivers.  Trolls and exclusive naysayers need not bother registering.
• MY LEASE IS ALMOST DONE!!
• After my lease is up, I'm going to try my hand at flatbedding.
• I'm a Trucker Buddy

Heartwarming, ain't it?

Holy hell! You're still here?

Ok, I know I haven't updated in a long time... again. But I've been BUSY!! By shutdown time, I've been too exhausted to even think about putting together coherent sentences.

Anyway, I was going through my comments and came across one from "anonymous" back in August asking for a retrospective since I've been doing this for over a year now. Here goes:

It's been a LOT of learning, a LOT of mistakes, and a LOT of growing. Not so much my body. I think I've gained a little weight, but I'm not needing new clothes yet so I think I'm ok for now.

The biggest thing to understand is that when you're getting started, the money isn't there. It is very discouraging at time. VERY discouraging. It takes time, patience, stubbornness, and an OPEN MIND to get this job. An open mind is the most important thing because if you're not willing to change anything, you're going to keep screwing up and keep flushing the dollars down the toilet. The day we stop learning is the day that we die.

Advice to newbies: watch everything. Watch how truckers conduct themselves in all situations. Listen to the CB chatter. Listen to them talk. Watch how they back in to docks or parking spaces. You will learn much by doing this.

For the talk, you have to understand that 99% of everything that truckers say is pure BULLSHIT. The important thing is to learn to not only recognize the bullshit, but to understand WHY it is bullshit. They brag and boast but the reality is that they're not doing any better than you are, and quite likely worse.

For general conduct, you will learn what to do and what not do to. Don't piss and moan at your shippers and receivers. I don't care what they tell you to do. Just smile, say "ok", go back to your truck and scream there. I have plenty of shippers and receivers that I despise, but THEY will never know that. Also watch for general etiquette and PLEASE remember to avoid getting in people's way whenever possible. Fuel islands, parking lots, docks, etc. Don't block stuff unecessarily.

For parking and driving, watching the veterans and beginners is a very good habit to get into. You'll learn little tricks to try (and some to NOT try!). Even watching newbs back in is good because you can watch them make the same mistakes that you make and see why they're mistakes.

Anyway, that's enough posting for one night. Hope everyone had a good Turkey Day!

Massive Stupidity in Louisville...

This has got to be by far the stupidest thing that's ever happened to me at a shipper or receiver. Actually, in this case, this consignee just happened to be my next shipper. Zero deadhead miles. Woot.

So I got this load on Saturday to pick up at our contracted drop lot in Bensalem, PA. Delivers Monday at 0200 in Louisville, KY. No problem. I pick it up and drive down to the TA in Elkton, MD to call it an early day on account of laundry.

No sooner did I get my clothes in the wash than dispatch called me asking how soon I could get the load to Louisville, preferably in the morning. Uh, no. Still 650 miles to go, clothes in the wash. Try 1700-1800. Reason he was asking was that the consignee has a load ready to go (pick up no later than 1200) bound for Romulus, MI and it would be good to get the load squeezed in and get another one in after that before payday cutoff. He tells me that 1700-1800 will work ok, and that it will be a drop and hook. Well, it would have been ok, but...

Next day, I haul ass to the consignee. Get there at 1730. There is ONE person working the entire building and the full crew isn't due to arrive until midnight. They can't unload me until 0200, the appointment time.

Me: "But I was told it was going to be a drop and hook!"

He: "Uh, we don't do drop and hooks any more. All unloads are live. And I'm not showing a load to Romulus as being ready yet."

Fine. As I was heading back to my truck, I noticed a flammable placarded Prime trailer sitting in one of the ready pads. I walked around it and saw that it was all sealed and everything. Nothing unusual, but I just had "that feeling" that my destiny would be intertwined with this trailer somehow later on.

Now the story starts getting good.

So I come back at 0-dark-thirty as instructed. Check in, assigned door, open trailer, back into door. Unloading commences. Unloading finishes. Check out, ask for next load, and HEY!! It was loaded all the time on that trailer that I noticed earlier and rather bluntly foreshadowed for you.

That's not the good part. Here is the good part.

In order to hook up to the loaded trailer, I had to drop my empty one. Drop and hook, which the consignee doesn't do for incoming loads for some reason. So when I backed to the door, I had to disconnect from the original trailer while being unloaded (safety reasons), wait to get unloaded, hook back up, move the now empty trailer to another spot in the yard, drop it, and hook up to the new loaded trailer.

You mean to tell me that I couldn't have just left the loaded trailer in the door, hooked up to the new load and been on my way? They had yard goats, for crying out load! Basically, I was sitting around waiting to move an empty trailer for them.

Ugh. Needless to say, ontime delivery in Romulus, MI was no longer possible, and had to be rescheduled for tomorrow because they can't take loads after 1200.

This is not a job for hotheaded people, that's for damn sure. Ugh.

Getting fingered in Slowhio... (coarse language!)

The following is a letter to an asshole:

To A Gentleman in a Grey Pickup Truck Who Passed Me Near Cincinnati This Morning:

I was in the passing lane doing 63 (in a big rig, that's speeding in Ohio!) going around traffic that was moving just a little bit slower so it took a little while. Should have been pretty easy to understand. After I overtook the vehicles, I moved over to the right lane and watched traffic pass me. You were second in line, and you flipped me off as you drove past.

There really is no delicate way to put this, so I'll be blunt: WHAT THE FUCK, DUDE?? If you're pissed off because I was holding you up by only going 63 even though my truck will certainly exceed that speed, might I remind you that your beef is with your idiot Ohio lawmakers who mandated that the speed limit for trucks be set at 10mph below the rest of the traffic. That is, 55mph when everyone else gets to go 65mph. I was doing 63mph, which was pushing it. Given Slowhio's reputation for harassing truckers, I wasn't going to risk a speeding ticket just for your convenience. I was also not about to sit behind traffic moving slower than me.

In addition to this, was that two or three minutes really that important to you? Were you that late to be somewhere? If that was the case, I have no sympathy for you. I did not cause you to leave home without ample time to get to your destination. If you were running late, the fault lies entirely with you. So again, don't pin your idiocy on me.

I'm a professional driver, and I do my best to be a courteous driver. You could certainly help out my cause by being a little more patient and willing to share the road. Instead, you chose to be an asshole. For that, I pity your parents. Fuck you.

Love,

Rodger

Delivering in Delaware...

Here I sit, waiting for this Wal-Mart distribution center to finish unloading my trailer. The drive through Maine yesterday was quite pleasant and relaxing, and everyone at the shipper sounded like comedian Bob Marley. I'm not kidding there.

Of course, things turned crappy once I got back to Massachusetts and got worse in Connecticut. Friggin' Northeasterners need to learn how to drive. They don't seem to understand a few basic concepts such as:

• Every lane change contributes to backed up traffic. Multiple lane changes by the same care compounds the problem.
• When entering the highway, you're supposed to be a freeway speed BEFORE you get to the end of the ramp.
  
• Traffic already on the highway has the right of way. These bastards push their way in like you wouldn't believe. Again, adding the backup.

Things deteriorated really quickly as I approached New York. Apparently, a tree decided to fall on the highway and this caused a nine mile backup to the last service plaza in Connecticut. Joy.

I took my break in New York's retarded, evil brother, New Jersey. Actually, New Jersey wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the people living there, but that's a whole other essay (or rant). In any case, I stayed at the Vince Lombardi service plaza. If I had more time, I would have taken a shuttle into NYC to poke around a bit because there's a LOT of truck parking there and I've never really seen NYC in any meaningful way. Just I95 and JFK airport. Some other time, though.

I'm preplanned to go to Chicago next. While I'm no fan of Chicago traffic, it beats the crap out of what I've been dealing with this week. This load also is another piss-poor payer, not even $1.00/mile. But there are two things that are making up for it:

• My expenses are already paid this week (and then some!), so all the profit goes directly to my bank account
• I'm getting the HELL out of the northeast!!

The bad news is that unless my fuel optimizer has a better solution, I have to go brave Washington, DC. Ugh.

Maine...

Delivered my load in Lewiston, Maine tonight. Created myself a parking spot at a nearby truck stop, and hopefully they won't bother me about it while I'm sleeping. I'm past my 14 hours for the day and I'm exhausted. I really don't need to be hunting up another spot in the middle of the night.

Anyway, I'm preplanned to pick up a load of nonrefrigerated goods in Wilton, ME for delivery in Delaware on Saturday. The pay sucks for this load, but that's the freight in Maine for you. You get paid well coming in, crap on the way out.

By the way, I still hate driving in New England. What's the deal with all those toll roads? What are they doing with all the money they collect on those? I know what they're NOT doing - paving the roads. Or even modernizing the cash boxes so that they don't create traffic jams. Open road tolling a la Chicago would be a really nice way to use some of that money.

New England...

Driving in New England sucks. I don't know how people do it day in and day out. I'd refuse loads in an out of there, but they pay too well. I wish freight rates would switch for the northwest and the northeast, because driving out there is far preferable. Oh, and you haven't seen traffic jams until you've gone to Pennsylvania, New York, or New Jersey. Traffic jams of breathtaking scope. And lots of road construction. Just resurfacing. They're not doing anything useful like widening the roads like everyone else is doing. Basically, they're just making sure that you crawl along slowly on somewhat smoother roads.

That's my rant for the day.

I start today in Zanesville, OH after a murderous run on little two-lane state highways through southern Ohio. Get to Pittsburgh, PA, where I faithfully follow Prime's fuel optimizer and take PA28 up to I80. It was fine until it went down to two lanes, and then it degenerated into another twisty turny hilly mess. Like Slowhio, but more road construction. Finally, I make it to I80 and crawl through its various traffic jams. I got fuel at the Sapp Bros. in Clearfield where I was surprised to find that they were having a barbecue for truckers. For trucker appreciation week, apparently. Whatever they're calling it, it was free grub. Much appreciated, y'all.

Tomorrow, I get to blast through New York (thankfully not the city this time!), Connecticut, and a couple of other states on my way to Maine.

Posting Again!

Yeah, yeah. Once again, I've become lazy and haven't kept this thing up to date. Still going strong with Prime.

Started out in York, NE this morning and got a "check engine" light and the engine started running crappy in the middle of Omaha. Nice. Got it to the TA in Council Bluffs and found that my fuel filter is clogged and I'm getting EGR codes from the engine. The fuel filter got changed, and now the engine is running better. I'll have the EGR fixed later when I have time.

This fiasco put me about 2 hours behind, so I rolled up to my consignee in Valparaiso, IN about 1.5 hours late (had the appointment changed, so no service fail!). Was a long and rough day, and I'm done. Should get a load home tomorrow.

Fun With Reefers

I finished my hometime this morning and drove out to the Budweiser plant in Fort Collins to pick up an empty trailer. After a while, I found the trailer, and it was certainly empty. Of fuel. And battery charge. I call my dispatcher who sends me to road repair who tells me that my dispatcher needs to decide whether to have me get the trailer fixed now or go find another one. This is the fun part. For over an hour, I send messages over the Qualcomm asking for a solution. I also called a lot, but got an automated message saying that my dispatcher is "away from their [sic] desk".

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHH!

I finally call the Prime "all purpose" number and get transferred to the supervisor who discovers that I'm being dispatched from Salt Lake City today (my normal dispatchers get days off?!) but the phones aren't transferring properly.

After all this is straightened out, it is decided that I am to go get this trailer fixed. First, I go to Johnson's Corner in Loveland since it is close and not far out of route. I get the trailer fueled and find that the shop doesn't open for another hour and decide that instead of waiting, I'll just drive down to another shop that's near my pickup. Great idea, huh?

Fast forward to the Tomahawk Truck Stop in Brush, Colorado. One guy is working the shop. Needless to say, this takes a while.

So after waking up at 4 am to get a trailer and get my load, I finally roll into Fort Morgan and grab the load at 3PM. Great start, huh?

Headin' HOME!!

Finally, I'm on my way home. I've earned it, having been out for over a month now.

Anyway, things have been going well at Prime so far. The last week wasn't so productive because your options get VERY limited once you have to go in a particular direction. But that's ok.

I spent the last week driving around New England, delivering frozen vegetables and picking up and delivering ice cream. Had a four-stop load of ice cream treats to Ohio to supply the ice cream trucks. Man, talk about some messed up backing situations at those places.

I talked to my ex-codriver tonight. He had found a new codriver, but that arrangement lasted only about a week before he got fed up with the guy. Since then, he's been back at the Ford account as a utility driver and is starting Monday morning at Knight Transportation. Good luck, dude.

You want me to drive WHERE?!

Prime wasn't able to get another truck to take my load before I took off yesterday, so I just started driving as hard and fast as I could to gobble up some of those high-paying miles on the load, planning to stop at Glade Spring, Virginia. Late in the day after I passed Knoxville, Tennessee, I received a message on the Qualcomm: "Can you make it to Hagerstown, MD"? WTF? As in, 300 miles past my planned stopping point? Do remember, I started out near New Orleans.

Umm... I don't think so. Almost 1100 miles in one day is way too much, and I don't have millions of dollars to spend on any negligence suits that may crop up if I were to crash and take someone with me. Needless to say, they found me a swap. And the driver I swapped with brought me a gift: a two stop load to Delaware and Vermont that pay $1.91/mile to the truck. And the first drop (Delaware) doesn't drop until 6/4! That means I really don't have to start driving until the afternoon!

Now to get a PM busted out...

Fun with Haz Mat and The Value of a Good Post Trip Inspection...

I ended up spending a second night in Springfield and earned a 34 hour restart for my 70 hours. I woke up, drove out to the yard to find my trailer, found it, and did a pretrip. The trailer had a flat tire. Now this just pisses me off because tires just don't go flat in such a short amount of time unless they blow out. Never mind that, being a Haz Mat load, the person who brought it in should have been checking the tires (pressure and temperature) every 200-250 miles and logging said tire checks. It's a DOT requirement. Never mind that this trailer is equipped with the nifty TIREMAAX autoinflation system. When a tire is 10psi below optimum pressure, the trailer shines a BRIGHT ASS light in your driver's side mirror.

This was just pure laziness. The fact that this jackass couldn't be bothered to spend 10 minutes post tripping the trailer and turning it over to the shop to get the trailer fixed ended up costing me about 3 hours. See, not only was the tire flat, but part of the rim was bent around the brake drum which meant that the rim had to be CUT off and the brake chamber had to be changed. This could all have been done while I was sleeping last night. But no, this dipshit was too lazy to bother. Cost me three hours to save himself 10 minutes. For those of you who read this, do your post trip inspections properly! And even more importantly, if you find something wrong, GET IT FIXED!! I promise that it will cost the next driver more to take care of it than it would have cost you. Don't be an asshole. Please.

Even worse? It meant this genius was dragging around 41,000 pounds of hazardous material with a flat tire. This is dangerous.

After I finally left the Prime terminal, the rest of the day was just driving. Found a little rest area south of Dallas to park in for the night.

My fleet manager messaged me on the Qualcomm practically begging me to take a load out to Jersey for delivery on Saturday. Problem is, I'm supposed to be at home on Sunday for my wife's birthday. Well, the load is 1540 miles, paying at about $1.42 per mile, plus fuel surcharge. The minimum fuel surcharge this week is $0.25/mile, so I'm looking at $1.67/mile minimum, maybe as much as $1.72/mile. I called my wife and we decided that I should go ahead and do it so that I don't have to struggle to break even this week (this dumb load to Houston is only $1.o7/mile, INCLUDING fuel surcharge!) and actually should be able to turn another tidy profit. That'll probably put me home late next week since it'll take 2-3 loads to get me home from Jersey. Shorter loads out of there pay MUCH better than longer loads.

The Great Rigmaster Install and a very twisted road

I woke up this morning bright and early to deliver a load of cut fruit and vegetables to Wally World in Clarksville, AR and prepared myself for the "short" drive up to Springfield, MO to get my Rigmaster generator installed. To shorten the drive and make it interesting, I chose to take state road 21 to US412 to US65. Well, I did succeed in making it interesting...

I wouldn't dare compare Arkansas SR21 to the likes of "The Tail of the Dragon" (www.tailofthedragon.com), but taking a truck through there wasn't wisest of choices. I'm not stupid. I knew what taking a little state route through the Ozarks in Arkansas would entail. And for the most part, it wasn't THAT bad. Just a couple of 25-35mph stretches which were really twisted and one curve that was posted 25mph and became VERY apparent once I was in the curve that the 20mph I was going was about 10mph too fast. And I got to climb a long 11% grade. And the atlas has the route marked as a designated route and no restrictions are listed. So imagine my surprise when I encountered a 34 ton bridge. I drive a truck with a gross combination vehicle weight rating of 40 tons. Let's just say that: 1) I was empty, 2) no cops around, and 3) there was no where to turn around at this point. I'll leave my solution to the problem to your imagination.

I finally arrived in Springfield after fighting strong temptation to run over some of these Missouri drivers who absolutely refuse to drive any faster than 50mph in a 60mph zone. With the amount of traffic on the road, it's dangerous to impede the flow of traffic like that, but I guess that they don't care and never will.

My truck gets to spend the night in the shop getting the generator installed while I get a bunk room at the terminal. A bunk room is essentially a scaled-down motel room. It has a double bed, a couple of nightstands and lamps, a chair, and a tiny tv with basic cable. It's not the Hilton, but it's comfortable. And it's free.

*sniff* Farewell, load!

Here I sit at a tiny truckstop in rural Mississippi on my 10 hour break waiting for another driver to come by to repower my load. See, I can't legally deliver this load on time anymore. I pulled into our terminal in Springfield to get fuel, the trailer nazis found some stuff that they wanted to fix on the trailer and wouldn't let me leave until it was done. Only took four hours. Two hours ahead became two hours behind, and my fleet manager was unable to reschedule with the customer. So, the options are to repower the load with someone who has the hours to do it or let me be late, get worked in, and probably be late for the last two drops as well.

No worries, though. We're still early in the pay period, so there's plenty of time to make money.

Wasted Day

I delivered my load of cooking oil in Cheyenne, WY, this morning and immediately got a new dispatch. Woohoo! It's a little longer than I wanted because I was hoping to get a quick one done before Tuesday to fatten up this paycheck, but that's ok. Next one will be all the more fatter.

Anyway, I get to the shipper and find out that they haven't yet killed enough cows to fill my trailer. So I wait. I finally get called in at 1700 (A whole 2.25 hours before I HAVE to shut down). They tell me which trailer it is and where to find it. I hop into my truck, search the lot twice, and go back to the guard shack and tell them that it ain't there. After some confusion, they get someone to finally drag it out for me. I hook up, pretrip it (there's a hole in the side that road assist told me to get fixed at a TA, Bosselman's, or Petro as soon as I can. it's not penetrating the insulation or leaking cold air, so it's ok for a day or so). I also take pictures at road assist's request so that they can bill the shipper for the repair. I haul the trailer over to the exit, wait for the guard to finally decide to check me out, and he discovers that the seal number is incorrect. ARRRRGH! (No, I couldn't check it because they don't give us the bills of lading until we're checked out) An hour later, someone FINALLY comes out and fixes it. Great. I have just enough time to scale and shut down.

They can't all be good days, I guess.

Sleeping in!

A rare treat today. I got to sleep in! My next load isn't scheduled to be picked up until 1600 EDT so I didn't set my alarm and just woke up whenever. When I did get up, I called over and they told me that the load would be ready in an hour. I pull up a little over an hour later and they're still not done. No worries, I still have plenty of time.

Not all loads have "plenty of time", though. I had to bust my ass to deliver my load last night, and I was still 2.5 hours late. You can thank the orange barrel crews in Ohio and Pennsylvania for that one. I mean, no sooner does the snow melt than they start shutting down half of the traveled parts of the highways. I'd probably be a little more forgiving if the freshly paved portions in Pennsylvania didn't feel like I40 through Oklahoma City. (BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!) Granted, I should have taken a little more time in planning the trip and noticing the lack of time immediately, but I'll live and learn. The consignee got revenge by making me back into their most difficult door, so I did my penance. Only one pull up, too. I'm not sure if I could do that again.