New York Times "Alone on the Open Road..." Human Interest or Can You Do Better?

New York Times Article

I read this article from the New York Times and was saddened. It's a step in the right direction, but it doesn't do enough. I hope there are more articles that are related to the subject of Trucking and Truck Drivers.

NYT interviewed several drivers and showed the Petro at Effingham, Illinois.

Aisha Gomez got into trucking to help her daughter through college to be a social worker. At the end of the interview with her, she literally says she walks with her head down. What?! Be proud. You are doing and have done a job that has destroyed relationships and big, tough men have walked away because it was too hard. It's hard to be away from home, friends, and family.

Women have been doing this job and every other "male dominated" profession since the beginning of time. We pulled together as a huge work force when our men went to war. We fed our families on farms when the fathers and sons left, or passed away. We entered the business world to create a better life for ourselves and those who followed us.

Women rock! Pick your head up. I don't care if 100 men stare. Let 'em. You're beautiful. You're doing something that not everyone can or will do. You stepped up to the plate and took care of business!

In an interview with an older man, he said, "If my grandkids do this I'll kill them." Then, why did you stay in trucking until you retired? Seriously, if a person of any age decides that trucking is what they really want to do, then who are you to make threats. I don't care if you have a budding rock star, poet, or gynecologist; you don't have the right to decide for someone else what their dream is.

The article discussed several topics, including driver pay as well as the lack of social outlets. Truckers are alone. Relationships don't work in the long run for a lot of drivers because their job doesn't leave room for other people. You lose the ability to converse, or your conversations become trucking centric, or you just don't have a frame of reference to make good conversation.

Many drivers choose to stay in trucking, but bring their spouse or significant other into it with them. Others choose to go it alone.  Either way, this is not a job that really allows significant interaction with other people. Social media, the internet, and cell phones have changed the dynamic from a few years ago, but even that gets hard. Some companies don't allow you to make calls while you're "working." Even hands-free calling is in the sights for regulations.

This is a hard job and distractions make it unsafe. That's why we're not allowed to text while driving. That's fine. That's better than fine. But, if it ever does come down to not being able to pick up the phone when your family, friends, or work calls it's going to get downright ugly.

Picture, if you will, spending all of your waking hours driving and listening to music, news, or whatever. You stop and get food in a noisy truck stop, get a shower, do some laundry. There's about 6 or 7 hours until you have to get rolling again. I don't know about anybody else, but those hours are important to get my sleep. I am NOT giving up my sleep time for anyone to tell me something they could have communicated during the time I'm awake and alert. I NEED that sleep to be able to drive safely.

Now, if your wife or husband can't reach you for most of the day, what's the reaction going to be? It isn't going to be flowers. It's going to be what were you doing? Where were you? Why didn't you pick up the phone? What do you mean you have to go to bed? Who's with you? I'm sure you see where I'm going with this.

You oldtimers who had to deal with the communication issues before the technology caught up, my hat's off to you. No, I don't want to do the job that way. I like my technology. Thanks.

I guess what I got out of the article in the Times was that somebody is paying attention. But, are they looking at it as a human interest story or are they going to look deeper? Truckers are alone. Okay, that hasn't changed in all the years since it became a regular job. That Petro sure has a nice restaurant, barber shop, laundromat, etc. But what about the hundreds of thousands of truck drivers who run out of hours and have to sleep at a weigh station or a rest area or just a parking area. No barbershops around there.

If you want to see trucking, do a ride-along with a truck driver. Don't just pull into a truck stop and think that's it. It's not. Not even close.

I'm in my company's yard for a reset. The closest bathroom is 200 yards away. The closest shower is 9 miles away. The closest shopping is the gas station 1/2 mile away. Yep, not a barbershop in sight. (I went into a barbershop for a haircut. The man said he wouldn't cut a woman's hair.)

Thanks for keeping up with my ramblings.

Renae - The Truck Driving Woman

STRESSFUL DAY

I'm gonna have to take a deep breath and chill for a moment. I hope you don't mind. It's been a long, rough day. Again. It's not that anything horrible happened, but it was definitely stressful. I've been up since 5:30 a.m. and drove 630 miles in about 10 hours. I only stopped twice on the whole trip.

Now, most of my days seem to involve the long hours but don't produce as many miles. Usually, that's because of shippers and receivers or going through areas where traffic is nice and thick, with stop lights, stop signs, traffic jams, and so many other wonderful things to slow a hardworking truck driver down. You've all been through towns and cities during rush hour or every block has a stop light. I don't need to describe it.

Shippers and receivers are the customers that we pick up and deliver the loads to. Sometimes, it's quick. In and out in about 20 minutes to a half hour. Other times, it's like being inside molasses and nobody but you seems in a hurry. Live loading and unloading is a pain in the butt when your bread and butter depends on the miles you travel in a restricted amount of time. But, sometimes, that drop n' hook that usually goes so smooth turns into your day from hell.

You pull into the customer with your empty trailer, talk to the insecurity guard with the chip on his or her shoulder, and put that trailer where they tell you to. Depending on the customer, you might just drop that, pick up your loaded trailer, and grab your bills of lading from the guard on the way back out. Or... you might have to go inside and talk to a shipping/receiving clerk and do more dancing around in order to get your loaded trailer and bills and be on your way. Of course, that guard needs to earn his paycheck on the way out too, so you gotta stop and see him.

The day from hell usually begins when you have to wait in a line of a dozen trucks all needing to do the same thing you are doing. Then you go through the guard, who provides clear and precise instruction through the maze of buildings. (This is highly exaggerated. Most of the time, I swear these guys are speaking ancient Greek.) Then you have to wait for the dozen trucks ahead of you to decipher and complete their instructions. Then you have to meet said drivers waiting in line for the clerk to give you more Greek.

When you finally get to the trailer you're taking out with you, you realize the landing gear crank is stiff or stuck. You get that fixed by spraying WD-40 and whacking it with a hammer. Then your reefer has an alarm code. What? The refrigerated trailer has a temperature setting and tells you when something is wrong. Thus, alarm codes. You figure out the fuel gauge is faulty and send in a breakdown report stating that it needs replaced. You finish that and go back to checking out the trailer.

This pre-trip inspection on trailers is essential. You don't know if it's been damaged or it was dropped off without it's marker lights working, tires in good shape, or mudflaps missing. You don't know if someone hit the fuel tank with a fork lift or even if it has fuel. You have to check it out and report the problems so they can get fixed. They send you to the repair shop and there goes half your day. That's money down the drain people! My potential income for the day stuck in a garage.

If those weren't enough to deal with, you also have to make sure that if your trailer is good to go, that the load is secure, sealed, and weighted properly across the axles. If the guy loading the trailer pushes everything to the front, you might be overweight on the drive axle of the truck. (Those double sets of tires at the back of the truck.) If the guy loading the trailer puts everything on the back, you might be overweight on the tandems. (Those double sets of tires at the back of the trailer.) There are adjustments the driver can make to even it all out, but if you pushed and pulled the equipment as far as it can go and you're still over somewhere, then you have to take the whole kit n' caboodle back to the shipper and have them rework the load. Bye bye paycheck for the day.

A non-Class A Driver's License (CDL) holder might say, what's the big deal? The big deal is that the regulations on transporting goods around the country on the nation's roads are so strict that we get special consideration by law enforcement in every state. They consider us a source of revenue. That revenue is brought in by giving truck drivers tickets, violations, out-of-service orders, and anything else they can think of. There are plenty of stories about officers making up stuff when they couldn't find anything real. Hand to God.

The condition of our paperwork, equipment, and ourselves is inspected with a fine-tooth comb. Everything. They have the right to inspect the inside of our trucks. Do cops get to go inside your house without a warrant? No? The truck is my living and working space, but I do not have any expectation of privacy. Companies are even talking about putting INWARD-facing cameras in the trucks to observe drivers. Any company or government agency who would require such a thing is asking for a lawsuit. Just sayin'.

So back to my day. My load was ready. It was easy to get to. It scaled out legally. Everything went smooth and all equipment was hunky dory. So why did I have a stressful day? One word. Traffic.

I swear people get dumber and dumber on Interstate 80 going through Iowa. I-80 is a very up-and-down highway through some lovely and some boring country in Iowa. Most trucks are governed well below the speed limit. Add that and the natural tendency to slow down pulling 80,000 pounds up a hill and you get a lot of people stuck behind slower moving vehicles. Drivers get impatient and do some really stupid and dangerous things.

I see the problem as being the terrain more than anything. Each truck travels as fast as it can, but it's below the speed limit going uphill. Downhill, they try to make up time. But downhill can mean coasting, which most drivers do. The problem with that is the trailer becomes the control of the truck. (That's dangerous in so many ways it'd take me forever to explain them all.) The difference in the truck speeds, up, and then down, and the different power levels of each truck really causes a mess. Add in a couple of fairly good sized cities to go through with all the car traffic and it takes a bad situation and makes it so much worse.

Cars zipping up and realizing that two trucks are stuck in a slow speed race to see who can get to the top of the hill first. Trucks with faster and more powerful engines pulling up and straining for that opening to get around the slowpokes. Pretty soon, you've got packs. Packs of vehicles all vying for the chance to get into a clear space and get on their way. Pack driving is dangerous, stressful, and makes me want to pull out my hair, puke, or piss my pants. All of which are painful and no fun.

The thing is, every truck on the road is working. That driver is trying to make the miles to bring in the paycheck. Car drivers forget that. We aren't out here to mess up their commute or be an obstacle to them in some way. We're not out here playing around trying to be assholes. We are doing our job. Every car driver that decides we're purposely causing delays in his day and does something stupid and/or dangerous in order to get around or get back at us is literally doing the equivalent of walking into a stranger's workplace, waving a weapon, and screaming at the employees.  

Are those drivers being educated on why trucks are doing what they're doing? Are those drivers being taught how to treat a semi truck on the road? Are those drivers even showing the minimum of respect to the guy literally bringing everything he owns or wants? Nope. Not even a little bit.

To the drivers of the cars that do allow us in when we need to shift lanes... To the drivers of the cars who don't hang out next to the trailer at 70 mph or in a curve... To the drivers of the cars with the kids who want us to blow the air horn....

THANK YOU!

To the rest of the drivers who get dumber and dumber.... I pray you live through it.

Thanks guys for reading and understanding,

Renae - The Truck Driving Woman

Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother's Day. I'm a mother. I had a crappy day. It's not that the day itself was bad, but things seem to happen around Mother's Day.

When I was 14-years old, my present to my mother was a broken toilet. I was taking a shower and when I finished, opened the bathroom door. Within seconds I was passed out on the floor. I woke to the bathroom flooding, the tank busted, and a towel rack twisted like a candy cane. I don't remember anything after opening the door, but no one else was there so I had to have done the damage.

I kept turning the shutoff valve and it seemed to not be working. I panicked and started yelling for someone to come help me. No one was in the house. I called my grandfather, who lived next door. He came out of his house yelling for my mother. She was in the alley, weeding. I didn't know that.

My grandfather was running, well hobbling, as fast as he could and my mom just zipped past him like he was standing still. I watched it all from the bedroom window, still crying into the phone.

Mom came in like a whirlwind, twisted the handle on the shut-off valve and viola! No more water. Well, there was water. Lots of it. The bathroom flood on that floor leaked into the downstairs and flooded the basement bathroom too. It took all the towels and most of the blankets in the house to mop up the water and start the process of drying out the house.

She had to get a new tank for the toilet. Try doing that in a small town on a holiday Sunday! She did get one and I watched and helped her put it in. Then, she handed my brother a sledgehammer and we both watched as he demolished the old tank. It was his idea. She let him. She said it would be easier to throw away in small pieces, so why not?

I wouldn't denigrate Mother's Day as being a bad day if that had been the only incident. My mother-in-law passed away a couple of days after Mother's Day. I've had numerous accidents, injuries, and just bad news and crappy luck on the holiday. Yesterday, not an exception to the crappy Mother's Day rule.

I was running a load to Illinois from Kansas. A nice run, pleasant weather, and no real issues. I pick up a load assignment from the Illinois destination and move to the next one. That's the life of a truck driver. Moving from assignment to assignment is the whole job.

I picked up the new load and headed for the Iowa destination a little over 100 miles away. Rather than interstate travel, I had to take some state highways and go through some towns. I prefer interstates because the speed limit is higher and people are generally given more room to get around slower moving trucks.

The highway traffic was impatient. I was going the speed limit, but it seemed like everyone was in a hurry. I had at least 3 cars up my ass the whole time. After hanging out behind me for a little while, they'd start zooming past me like they were late for a hot date. What? No one can tell time or set an alarm so they're not running late? It's not like Mom won't forgive you for running behind. She might be more upset about the phone call from the hospital or the police saying you wouldn't be making it to any dinners in the future because you were stupid.

It's sad how many people risk their lives and the future holidays with their families because they don't leave on time, or early. It's stupid and I feel sorry for all the families who lose loved ones during holidays. Allowing yourself to risk your family and friends to always associate holidays with something so life-altering is just selfish.

Enough of my after-school special.

I get to my destination and call for a manager to meet me at the receiving office. It's hot, the doors are locked, I can't get out of the heat, and they're taking their sweet time. I call back again and then again. Finally, they get to the door and sign my bills so I can break the seal and back into the dock. Yay! I can feel the air conditioning in my near future!

I pull the truck forward to make room for the doors to open and that's when my stressful day goes to hell. The stack of pallets at the back of the trailer starts falling. I jump back as fast as I can, but the product still hit my hand, wrist, and arm.

I have to go to the office and track the guy back down so he can take care of the pallets that are laying upside down on the ground behind the trailer. My neck and back are starting to hurt, my head is pounding from the heat headache, and I'm still not done with this place. Getting into my truck is a no-go because I have to watch them clean up the mess so I can dock.

The cause of the collapse? Pickles. The pickle jars lost their lids at some point. The pickle juice soaked the cardboard, collapsing it. When I opened the doors, the unstable load on top of the pickles had nothing to hold them in place. The shipper regularly sends loads sealed and without any kind of restraints.

Me, as the driver breaking the seal and opening the doors, is the one at risk of injury. I escaped major injury this time, but I had another load of wood that fell. That one cut me a little as it fell. Again, another close call. It's just as easy to be blamed for the collapse and breakage and have that fall back on the company or the driver themselves. I didn't load or secure it. I just transported it to the customer.

The end result is wasted time and my back hurts. Jumping around trying not to get crushed is not a good activity for someone who has arthritis from old injuries. Oh well. It's not the first time, it won't be the last. If I get crushed under a falling load who gets to sue?

On a happier note, my kids sent me Happy Mother's Day texts. My aunt sent me a note and one of my friends sent me a note. I wasn't forgotten this year! Yay!

Thanks for reading about my Mother's Day,

Renae - The Truck Driving Woman

SHARE THE ROAD - YOU BUTTNUGGET!

My last post was sort of a split between a rant about the lack of respect the industry as a whole has, and the lack of respect for trucks and drivers, and the fact that a man doing his job, made a mistake and killed a woman just trying to get home after her job.

Sorry for the inconsistency, but that's what happens when you have to pause in the middle of writing and try to come back to it. Your train of thought is interrupted and the words don't exactly flow together.

As driver's we are held to a higher standard than the rest of the motoring public, but we are also regulated and targeted by law enforcement and government entities who ensure that same public safety. I'm sorry, but aren't I also part of the motoring public?

Drivers are singled out, but the statistics are that less than 7% of all accidents actually involve trucks. The trucks that are involved in accidents are often blamed because the damage when 80,000 pounds goes wrong is devastating and dramatic. Lives are lost more often in a truck-involved crash and usually, it's the 4-wheeler who gets the bad end of that stick.

The prevalence of dash-mounted cameras are also providing some even more disturbing statistics. Drivers of 4-wheelers are often the cause of a truck-related crash. They zoom across a lane for an exit or stomp their brakes in front of a semi, and run off down the road. Most of the time these drivers are unaware of the havoc they just created for the entire highway behind them.

The dash-mounted cameras are being used as evidence that something happened in front of the truck that caused the driver to react, sometimes with disastrous consequences, and other times with just a close call. But the fact remains, when something goes wrong, that truck is going to cause a much larger impact than a car. The difference is that cars just don't win that game of chicken. Lives are lost and the trucker's career is over.

I will not say that drivers of big rigs are perfect. Far from it. We're human beings. No one is perfect. I've experienced days when I can't park straight, much less actually stay between the lines. Fatigue is a huge aspect of the job. Working 14 + hours and then trying to park a 73' vehicle that bends and twists in the middle is not fun. I will often bypass difficult spaces when I'm tired because I'm worried that I will hit something. I'm just that tired.

I experienced recently an incident where the lane I was in was going to go straight but the exit I needed opened into 2 lanes going into the exit. I hit the blinker as soon as the opening for the exit branched off. This was about 1/2 mile before I lost my lane completely. The cars were behind me. They started branching into the next lane but refused to move to the far lane to let me in. Then they began edging into my trailer space.

I have my blinker on, I'm losing my lane, and they have an extra lane to allow exiting traffic to go into. But no, they have to hold the lane and encroach on my trailer knowing that I'm trying to get over there. I don't want the whole road. I just want to do my job. My job is to put on my blinker and give you in the car the opportunity to do the right thing.

I began nudging the line to indicate that I really needed that lane, and in my mirror I see the closest driver pull out a cell phone and point the camera at my truck. Really? Hey, Buttnugget! You just completely ignored the legally mandated blinker, the road splitting, and the empty right lane next to you and now you decide I'm being unruly? Inconsiderate asswipe.

Inconsideration on the road is becoming my biggest pet peeve. Follow the law, pay attention to the traffic around you, allow space for your fellow drivers to maneuver, and for the love of Pete put your cell phone away.

I try, every single day, to allow other drivers to maneuver around me. I brake to allow someone signaling to enter my lane. I brake to allow a faster vehicle to pass more quickly. I brake to keep distance between myself and the drivers who aren't paying attention. I move out of your way as much as I am allowed. And still, you have to be all that.

Well, you're not all that. You are one of the millions of cars and trucks on the road. Share it!

Thanks

Renae - The Truck Driving Woman

RESPECT THE JOB

It's a nice feeling, knowing that your work has an impact on the world around you. As a driver, I deliver to grocery stores, meat processing plants, dockyards, pet stores, packaging companies, mailing companies, beverage companies, and so many other places. I've hauled everything from apples to carpet to cardboard to broccoli.

I was thinking about all the different things that I've hauled across the country and then I listened to a podcast called TalkCDL The Trucker Show. One of the things they talked about was a 62-year old driver who hit a bicyclist and caused her death. He was sentenced to prison by a judge who stated the man was a professional driver and had to be more aware than the average motoring public.

I felt bad for the woman. Her story was that she had just recently begun working at a place and didn't have transportation except the bicycle and she had just finished working for the day when she was killed. I also felt bad for the driver of the truck that hit her. It takes only one thing going wrong for disastrous consequences. I'm not sure of the time of day, but she was dressed in black and had just finished her work for the day, so I'm going to assume it was either near dark or dark when the accident happened.

We're told that dawn and dusk are the worst times for being able to see the road and the surroundings. Wearing dark colors at these times of day, just makes it that much harder to see. This man had multiple things going against him and now has the ending of another person's life on his hands, the end of his career, and the end of his freedom. It's sad.

The judge said he was a professional and threw the book at him. I understand the label of professional. How much training and regulation effect the truck driver, pounds the responsibilities of the work into a driver's bones. My point is this, if I'm a professional who is responsible for the economy of the world, why am I paid the same as a burger flipper?

I work 7 days a week and regularly work 11-14 hours a day. To be honest, even that isn't enough to get the job done. I regularly feel like I've only done half the job. Considering that I'm a result-oriented person, this drives me insane on a regular basis.

I know that I'm a professional driver. I work my ass off every single day. I make burger flipper wages for twice or three times the hours and I never see a penny in overtime. It's sad because driver's deserve better than that. We're the black sheep, the eyesore, the obstacle that other's have to work around.


Just imagine a world without us. No clothes showing up on the hangers, changing with the seasons. No holiday shopping for presents or decorations. The turkeys and hams for holiday dinners won't be in the freezer cases. The lumber for building new houses and furniture won't be available for the construction workers. The rocks, boulders, gravel, and cement won't be hauled in to fix the roads. The granite and marble won't be available for that dream kitchen counter.

The list of things a truck driver hauls FOR YOU is literally endless. Respect the truck. Respect the industry. Respect the work. Respect the driver.

Without us, you literally are back in the stone age. Even the electronics you use to read this come on trucks. Without us, you literally would starve to death.

Think about that the next time you go shopping and see a truck on the road. Thank him (or her) for their work. Even if they don't hear you, at least you know you THOUGHT about what he's doing and acknowledged that without him, you'd be less.

Thank you for hearing me out

Renae - The Truck Driving Woman