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