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I just gotta tell one more and, no, it doesn't start with "This ain't no s--t."
One afternoon, there were four of us, all working for the Long Mile Rubber Company out of Dallas, on the way up to Portland, OR. We'd stopped for lunch in Rawlins, WY and had just gotten back out on the highway. Of course, we all had the trucks fixed so the only limit to how fast we could run was the point where we'd blow the engine from excessive RPM's. Naturally, I was leading the pack.
We came upon two Schnieder drivers in the right lane doing about 60 or so and yakking on the CB.
Just as I shot by at about about 105-110, the back Schneider driver went to yelling at his partner, "LOOK OUT! LOOK OUT! LOOK AT THAT FOOL!"
What followed was this, in rapid succession:
"GOD---N! HERE COMES ANOTHER ONE!"
"S--T, HER COMES ANOTHER ONE!"
"F--K, HERE COMES ANOTHER ONE! LOOK AT THOSE CRAZY BAST---S!"
To which the front Schneider driver replied in a perfectly calm, deadpan voice: "Yeah, I know. I've seen them before. They drive like that all the time."
During the 1970's and early 1980's I was leased to a company in Oklahoma City (H.J.Jeffries Truck Lines). Our Safety Director had never been behind the wheel of a truck but he was an Ace when it came to rules, regulations and statistics. This was back before E-Mail etc so he would send out MEMOS to be posted on the driver's bulletin boards in all the company terminals. Some of those MEMOS were hilarious but the most memorable one was one he posted after drivers had two or three accidents while turning right and running over a car trying to squeeze through. The MEMO said that when we needed to make a RIGHT turn we were supposed to go one block farther and make a left, one more block and make another left and finally one final left after another block. After old man Jeffries saw this MEMO he sent Grover out with one of the more experienced drivers for two weeks of OJT. Grover was a real hand after that two weeks LOL.
GL2
Last edited by Gunluvver2; 05-22-2011 at 07:08 PM..
If any of you have ever hauled used oilfield pipe you know how difficult and dangerous it can be. Two of us had loads of dirty, oily and slicker than snot pipe we were taking from Wyoming back to OKC to be rethreaded. We had plenty of chains on but we were still having problems with pipe in the middle working out to the back and sticking out more than the legal four feet. Some of the oil field yards had special boarded dirt banks where you could back into them and scoot your pipe back to get legal. It was almost dawn and we were just about to go across the scales at Lamar, Colorado. The other driver and I pulled in to the Truck Stop right before going across the East bound scale. The only thing we could find that seemed sturdy enough to back up against was a couple big power poles with a reinforced platform with a large transformer about 15 feet off the ground. I didn't need to scootch my pipe back in so I got down on the ground and guided Gary back to the pole to push his in. The first one slid in great but the second one was a bit trickier. He ended up "bumping" it to get it to slide. Job done. We head out and get back in the trucks and head across the scales going East. A few miles out of Lamar we heard CB chatter about the power outage at the Truck Stop at Lamar. Evidently that little "bump" kicked out a circuit breaker. The statute of limitations is up now but for a few hours we sweated getting to the Oklahoma line.
Drivers pulling different types of cargo in specialized trailers face different problems other than just traffic and other vehicles. One problem with the reefer boys hauling perishable food in to urban markets are THIEVES. Hunt's Point Market in the South Bronx was notorious in the 1970's for truck hijackings or having your doors opened at a Traffic light and thieves stealing thousands of dollars of boxed product from the trailer in less than a minute. Meat haulers were tempting targets to these crooks. The lil darlins in the Bronx could even get your doors open while you were still moving. I know that from a personal experience but that is a story for another day. I heard two GREAT stories about PAYBACK for these type of thieves. The stories are probably URBAN LEGENDS but any driver who has ever been ripped off by the lil b******s hopes that these events actually happened.
The first one involves the trucker that lost about two thousand pounds of boxed meat while going in to Hunt's Point. He had been ripped off before and the $500 deductibles were killing him and his company required their drivers to go to Hunt's Point. This driver was so p***** off that he decided to dead head back to Nebraska and quit. Somewhere in Pennsylvania he came up with a plan for payback. He rented a pickup truck and spent two day going around dog pounds getting the biggest most vicious dogs he could find. After loading up about a dozen of them in to his reefer he headed back to NYC. He gave the dogs plenty of water but very little food. Right before he got to the GW Bridge he stopped and turned the reefer on and headed into the Hunt's Point market. He made a point of going slow and acting like he was a new driver. Sure enough he was still a few blocks from the Market when the thieves got his doors open, One of two of the thieves got chewed up bad enough that they had to go to the emergency ward where the Police were waiting.
The second Urban legends is similar but instead of mean dogs the driver got a few bowling balls in NEW boxes and applied liberal amounts of Super Glue to the bowling balls. According to this legend two thieves showed up at a hospital with both hands glued to sixteen pound bowling balls. I heard both of these versions repeated many times for several years by truckers on their CB radios so you just know it has to be true.
During the 1970's and early 1980's I was leased to a company in Oklahoma City (H.J.Jeffries Truck Lines). Our Safety Director had never been behind the wheel of a truck but he was an Ace when it came to rules, regulations and statistics. This was back before E-Mail etc so he would send out MEMOS to be posted on the driver's bulletin boards in all the company terminals. Some of those MEMOS were hilarious but the most memorable one was one he posted after drivers had two or three accidents while turning right and running over a car trying to squeeze through. The MEMO said that when we needed to make a RIGHT turn we were supposed to go one block farther and make a left, one more block and make another left and finally one final left after another block. After old man Jeffries saw this MEMO he sent Grover out with one of the more experienced drivers for two weeks of OJT. Grover was a real hand after that two weeks LOL.
GL2
Ain't that about right for a "safety" director? Make THREE turns (which are all dangerous) to make one "safe" turn!
Ain't that about right for a "safety" director? Make THREE turns (which are all dangerous) to make one "safe" turn!
And, IMHO, it's getting worse; nowadays, it's getting rarer to find anyone in the home office who's ever been behind the wheel of a truck. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to explain to a young MBA why his idea won't work (and additionally, violates some federal law...) At my company, it's company policy that you don't do u-turns in a big truck. I understand why. But can't help but wonder if whoever decreed that ever looked out the windshield from a 13' 6" high truck at the yellow sign on the bridge in front of him that said "12' 3"...
Don't get me wrong; Most dispatchers are good folks trying to perform incredible tasks under great pressure with drivers who sometimes won't cooperate. That said, I've got a story:
I'd stopped at corporate to finally meet my Fleet Manager; an awesome woman who treated me well and made me money. Sitting in the cubicle next to her was a young man apparently fairly new to the dispatch game. During a moment when my FM was handling some phone calls, I listened to him for a bit. Our company policy was "No trucks on I-70 West of Denver (in the Rocky Mountains, in other words) from October 15 to April 15". But it was June. And the driver he was working with was picking up in Norfolk, VA and delivering in Denver. He took out his laminated, folding Rand McNally map of the U.S. and said "I'd better route him across I-80 since I-70 is restricted"...
And, IMHO, it's getting worse; nowadays, it's getting rarer to find anyone in the home office who's ever been behind the wheel of a truck. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to explain to a young MBA why his idea won't work (and additionally, violates some federal law...) At my company, it's company policy that you don't do u-turns in a big truck. I understand why. But can't help but wonder if whoever decreed that ever looked out the windshield from a 13' 6" high truck at the yellow sign on the bridge in front of him that said "12' 3"...
Don't get me wrong; Most dispatchers are good folks trying to perform incredible tasks under great pressure with drivers who sometimes won't cooperate. That said, I've got a story:
I'd stopped at corporate to finally meet my Fleet Manager; an awesome woman who treated me well and made me money. Sitting in the cubicle next to her was a young man apparently fairly new to the dispatch game. During a moment when my FM was handling some phone calls, I listened to him for a bit. Our company policy was "No trucks on I-70 West of Denver (in the Rocky Mountains, in other words) from October 15 to April 15". But it was June. And the driver he was working with was picking up in Norfolk, VA and delivering in Denver. He took out his laminated, folding Rand McNally map of the U.S. and said "I'd better route him across I-80 since I-70 is restricted"...
Yep, morons like that are all over the place.
I once got a ticket on I-95 for not having a Delaware fuel sticker (this was back before the universal fuel permit). When I called dispatch to tell them about it, he wanted to know what I was doing in Delaware to start with.
He correctly reminded me that I had loaded in Trenton, NJ, bound for Asheboro, NC and said I should be on I-95, instead of in Delware.
I said, "Get out your atlas and follow along with me." When he finally noticed that I-95 traverses about 8 miles of Delaware, he said, "I never knew that."
I just gotta tell one more and, no, it doesn't start with "This ain't no s--t."
One afternoon, there were four of us, all working for the Long Mile Rubber Company out of Dallas, on the way up to Portland, OR. We'd stopped for lunch in Rawlins, WY and had just gotten back out on the highway. Of course, we all had the trucks fixed so the only limit to how fast we could run was the point where we'd blow the engine from excessive RPM's. Naturally, I was leading the pack.
We came upon two Schnieder drivers in the right lane doing about 60 or so and yakking on the CB.
Just as I shot by at about about 105-110, the back Schneider driver went to yelling at his partner, "LOOK OUT! LOOK OUT! LOOK AT THAT FOOL!"
What followed was this, in rapid succession:
"GOD---N! HERE COMES ANOTHER ONE!"
"S--T, HER COMES ANOTHER ONE!"
"F--K, HERE COMES ANOTHER ONE! LOOK AT THOSE CRAZY BAST---S!"
To which the front Schneider driver replied in a perfectly calm, deadpan voice: "Yeah, I know. I've seen them before. They drive like that all the time."
Aha! I recall driving a rental car NB on I-81 up through VA one day. About 80MPH was all this POS was capable of doing uphill, but a string of semi's walked right past me and kept on going.
That road was so heavily traveled that it was easy to avoid radar by keeping an eye on traffic ahead of you and watching for brake lights.
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Stillkit; one more dispatcher story: This one's called: "Ain't nobody more dangerous than a dispatcher with a fuel stop directory."
Back when I was in our OTR fleet, I had delivered in Columbus, OH and picked up an empty trailer. One of our other drivers had picked up a load in Coshocton. Ohio (ENE of Columbus) but didn't have the hours to run it over to Pittsburgh. Dispatcher sent me a message to swap trailers with him. At the Petro truck Stop in New Paris, OH. Exit 156 on I-70.
Well, the Petro is off Exit 156 in New Paris, OH. But New Paris is right on the Indiana border and Exit 156 is actually in IN on I-70. When I messaged the dispatcher that, he THEN set up a swap at some fuel stop I'd never heard of. So I found the number to the place and called them. The manager was taken aback that anyone would try to get TWO trucks into her small station...
I finally told the dispatcher to arrange the swap at the T/A at Exit 126, OH 37....
Aha! I recall driving a rental car NB on I-81 up through VA one day. About 80MPH was all this POS was capable of doing uphill, but a string of semi's walked right past me and kept on going.
That road was so heavily traveled that it was easy to avoid radar by keeping an eye on traffic ahead of you and watching for brake lights.
^^^^I'm not a trucker but I've used this trick for ages.
However, it has it's limits.
I am driving from northwest IL to KS after the 4th of July via Iowa in a sportscar that can go about 200mph...when there is little traffic I just think to myself that I really wish I could just crank it up to 120 and cruise on home....but can't.
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I just gotta tell one more and, no, it doesn't start with "This ain't no s--t."
