14 Drops

I just returned from my longest trip here yet, as far the most drops ever anyway. I had 14 drops starting in Salt Lake City, UT then to Sacramento,CA and finalizing in San Diego, CA. All the while pulling an Amish furniture billboard.



















Everything went pretty good until I got into Wyoming. Things started getting pretty cold, they were forecasting wind chills up to 50 below across the state that night. Elk Mountain was in good shape luckily, as I had no weight on. The winds were pretty calm thank goodness. Once I got over by the 123 marker my buddy Bruno that I used to work with at Navajo was passing the other way and he warned me to slow way down because the road was solid ice. The eastbound side already had a big crash with cars and trucks sliding into each other. I had slowed to 10 mph and I hit the black ice and my truck started sliding off the right shoulder, I tired to counter steer but I had no steering control at all, even with the wheel turned left my truck kept going right. To avoid sliding in the ditch I tapped the brake pedal lightly and the drive tires slid and pushed the nose of the truck back towards the middle of the road. It was only a short span of road so I was able to get by without going off the road.

As we proceeded up the hill I had to take it very slow, the slightest touch of the pedal and I started sliding again. All the cars seemed to be following behind me and everyone was doing fine, one person in a pickup decided to jump out in the left lane and as soon as they hit the gas pedal they did a 360 and baked 'er in the median! LOL That's how it goes when you get stupid. Just at that time I heard a lo boy flatbed truck holler out on the CB that he was slid across the entire westbound side, so I got by just in time.

Once I made it over that hill everything was fine again and I delivered my load in Salt Lake the next day and proceeded on to Sacramento for the next morning. I made 3 stops in the area and proceeded to the Oakland area for 2 stops. The first stop was fun, I pulled up in front and checked in then had to drive around the block of tight streets and pull down the street behind their building, a dead end street. So the only way out was to wait for the light to turn green and back out into the intersection.

The second stop there wasn't much better, I had one door to deliver. When I got there I pulled up in front along the curb and found there wasn't anybody there. So I called the number on the door and the guy came down in a pickup. He was just getting ready to head to L.A. and had no idea I was coming, turns out that I wasn't supposed to deliver to his store, it was supposed to go to the factory down by L.A. but since he was headed there anyway he just took it for me.

So I headed south towards my next drop Thursday morning in Visalia. It sucked having to fight my way out of the bay on US101 at 5pm when I didn't really ever need to be there to begin with, but that's the way it goes. I found a little place my buddy Nick told me about along the way called 'La Casa Fruta' they have a nice restaurant, fruit market & gas station there. Had a nice meal and went to bed. Got up in the morning and headed to my first drop for the day in Visalia, then finished up all my stops down in the L.A. area on Thursday and three stops in San Diego on Friday, then headed back to Oxnard to start loading produce coming back home, which took me 6 hours to get there,190 miles, a very bad way to start, but that's how it goes in southern California.

EOBR

Well the day has finally come, as we all knew it would. The FMCSA has announced plans to release a final rule for requiring the electronic logbooks (EOBR) around June of 2012, and requiring industry wide use by 2015. I used an EOBR while I was employed with Navajo and it didn't really effect my miles or pay much, but it did cause a lot of headaches in conjunction with the 14 hour rule. What that means is once the truck starts if you have not reached your 11 hours driving by the 14th hour you must shut down for a 10 hour break.

This causes problems when you're going to a customer that does not have overnight parking. So if you must park at the nearest truck stop and wait, by the time you're appointment time comes around you're already past your 14 hour limit it's virtually impossible to legally deliver your load on time then. One time I was delivering in Oklahoma City and I ran out of hours on the north side of town by the the Flying J truck stop, I drove an extra 20 minutes to deliver my load, and they still wrote me up. So I'm supposed to shut down and miss my appointment 20 minutes away?

Another problem I had was triggering a violation when I was at a customer in the middle of my break and I would pull up to open the doors and back into the dock. There was supposed to be a 2 mile buffer before the driving time activated, but it wasn't always working the way it was supposed to. The only way to bypass that was to use the off duty driving option so you could back into the dock without breaking up your 10 hour break or getting a driving violation. This presented another problem because some drivers were abusing the off duty driving privilege by using it to drive an extra 200 miles a day illegally. This prompted the company to abolish the off duty driving all together, then they really had problems because nobody could deliver there loads on time, even if they were at the customer they couldn't even back into the dock.

Customers are not very happy when you're there but you can't deliver the load because you cant back into the dock "legally". So this prompted the company to reinstate the off duty driving option at 30 minutes a day limit. The whole 14 hour rule is just a major tangle in the system, it's a just plain stupid idea. With everyone running EOBR then it will be assured the truck will be shut down for the proper rest time, and only the truck. There is no way to force a driver to get rest of course. Regardless of whether the truck is stopped or not, it doesn't address the issue of driver fatigue if the drivers not utilizing the time properly to get their rest. So in my opinion if they would just abolish the 14 hour rule the EOBR would work much more efficiently.

EOBR will not increase safety at all in conjunction with the 14 hour rule, drivers are then forced to drive faster because every minute counts, and if you get tired you cant pull over and take a short nap because you'll lose driving time when you're running against the clock. The truth is everyone needs a nap once in awhile, regardless of if they've taken their proper rest period the night before or not. The truth of the matter is it increases fatigued drivers rather than preventing them. The rules as they are now simply can't be followed to the letter of the law with an EOBR, it just doesn't work.

The good thing is, once everybody is forced to run 100% legal than shippers and receivers will be forced to change their ways because if they go holding drivers up for 4 or 5 hours then they'll find out quickly their freight is not going to get delivered on time. We shall see what the new proposal will hold this time from the FMCSA, I just wish someone would wise up and realize the 14 hour rule plays no role in making anything safer and only hinders our ability to do our jobs.

Ct

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A Day At The Ranch

I had a load of Amish furniture bound for northern SD. I met with the store owner at a truck stop near Sturgis and we headed north about 65 miles on the pavement and 10 miles off the dirt road to a cattle ranch, about 40 miles from any town. The owners of the ranch also ran a business in which they build power lines for the oil fields. It was me and two guys from the store plus the two contractors who were going to build the new office.

They had been running their business from their home but they needed to expand so they were adding onto their big garage with an office. It was a bone chilling cold day and we spent several hours unloading chairs & desks & counter tops and all sorts of different office furnishings. By the time we were done I couldn't even feel my feet anymore. Once it warmed up to 15 degrees the locals were shedding there coats, I guess they thought it was a heat wave....crazy.

When we were done the lady invited us inside where she had prepared us a feast that would put Thanksgiving dinner to shame! It was all homemade, down to the whipped cream for the pie. It was amazing, they were very hospitable. So I hung out awhile and got my belly full and checked out the ranch then hit the road for my last stop in Salt Lake City.