Amusing factual stories - real life experiences in trucking

[Finntrucker]

Hey people,
I found this page whilst looking for chainsaw pages but as Im just starting out in trucking on the otherside of the world in Finland (had my C+E licence 3 months ), I thought I would see how things work in your side of the world.Its been really interesting 2 days and 34 pages. Although I will not experience any of the same "problems" you guys have it is really entertaining reading so please dont stop.

[Doctor Who]

Hey people,
I found this page whilst looking for chainsaw pages but as Im just starting out in trucking on the otherside of the world in Finland (had my C+E licence 3 months ), I thought I would see how things work in your side of the world.Its been really interesting 2 days and 34 pages. Although I will not experience any of the same "problems" you guys have it is really entertaining reading so please dont stop.

Hey I would welcome some tales from across the big ponds. I'm sure as you go along in your career you will come across some comical things to write about...

[Doctor Who]

ICE AND AIR DON'T MIX!

Friday the air temperature did not get above 30 degrees, really didn't feel all that cold but as fate would shed its ugly light upon a hapless driver...

About 1100 I pulled a load out of the Martin Marietta quarry the truck would not pull worth a damn. I managed to get the wagon on the scale, weighed and then tried to pull onto the road. I looked at the scale ticket, the load weighed out at 21 tons, not heavy at all. I looked at the left mirror and noticed the first trailer axle left wheel was not turning. Yeah it was locked up. I dragged the wagon to the side of the road walked back to check the problem and found the airbags squashed and the brake tight against the drum.
I drained the air tanks the night before and the air dryer on the tractor does not work.

Another company driver stopped to check things out and went on to the asphalt plant to call the mechanic since the drivers are not allowed to have cell phones. I will state that the company drivers who, were running out of the same quarry, stopped to check on my well being.

While I knew the mechanic was on his way, the frustration level was mounting exponentially. After an hour of listening to lame assed songs and stupid commercials on the FM I tried, in vain, to get the brake to release.
I wandered across the road to a small construction company and asked the lady sitting at a desk if she had any alcohol, she did look at me kind of funny. I then asked her if she had any finger nail polish remover which, I knew she had since the smell was really overwhelming.
The manager of the company came out of his office and asked me why I was asking for the afore mentioned objects, I told him that the objects in question would work well in removing ice from air lines and I also told him I would have asked for Gentleman Jack since that would work just as well but the reaction of the highway patrol Motor Carrier Enforcement Officers might be more than I could handle trying to explain the remedy.

The lady at the desk gave me her finger nail polish remover then she followed me across the road to watch the process. Yes it did work as the brake released and the airbags inflated back to their normal state. I did give the lady money for a new bottle as the mechanic finally did arrive and pretended to work on the now fixed malady!!!

Didn't have anymore problems after that!!!

Just a side note: While I sat on the side of the road I started thinking about being broke down on the side of an almost deserted highway late at night not knowing if help is coming or not. While cell phones have changed that for the most part, there are still handfuls of drivers who don't have or, not allowed to carry the devices and trying to rely on the CB is just about fruitless....

[boredfeet]

More stories, please?

[arkansas road hazard]

New to CAD but not new to trucking. Thought I might add a ice story to the mix. Just before X-mas many years ago was in Southern Calif. working for a company in Tacoma.Wa. I lived in Northern Calif. then My travel agent gave me a load of beer to Bremerton,Wa. with a load of mty kegs going back to Calif. for delivery after the holidays. the prefect load to get home for Xmas. On the way north Wa. got hit by an ice storm.This was before quallcoms so all I had was a phone number to get directions with. I recorded the directions that the woman on the phone gave me. She said turn right at the only light in town and were on the left. Not much of a problem I thought, got into town with out to much slipping or sliding , the steel bridge did make life excite though. found the light and knew I was in trouble. No business on left and hill going down covered with ice and a bigger hill going up the other side. All I could do at this point was put the pedal to the metal. I made it about 3/4 of the way up the big hill before I lost traction and came to a stop. Had a few 4 wheeler tell me I was number 1 but i was not going anywhere fast. Finally a city cop shows up and asked where I was trying to go. I give him the name and he informs me that I should have turned left at the light and they were right there, just around the corner. I pull out my tape recorder and let him listen to the directions that I was given. Now he's mad not at me but at the woman who gave me directions. He than ask what he could to help. He had them stop all traffic on the street, and asked if some sand would help. he then call the city yard to bring a 6 wheel dump down with a load of sand. Don't know where the rocket scientist that was driving the dump truck got his brains, but he started dumping sand at the top of the big hill and about a third if the way down he ran out of sand. Said he was going back to get more. That's when he discovered that he to was stuck in this valley of ice. Not to much of a problem just get a ride back to the city yard in the police car. WRONG!!! It to cannot get up either hill. We decide to try and turn my 70+ feet of rig around so we can try and go up the smaller hill and be headed in the right direction to make the delivery.there was a small dirt road at the bottom of the valley. We now have news helicopters flying overhead. turning around was not much of a problem. Tried to back up the big hill as far as could to get a run at the small hill but to no avail. I am still stuck. Now the dump truck drive is back with the front end loader for the yard and again starts at the top of the little hill, but doesn't come all the way down. He back up the hill on the sand to go get more. the police officer and I are just standing around waving at the helicopters. We then notice that there is beer running out the back of my trailer. Must have turned a few cases over while trying to get out. He calls the receiver thru a patch on his police radio and tells them to have someone there to help unload my truck. Not much excitement in the valley of ice, just waiting to get enough sand on the road to get out.Finally got to the receiver's and they had about 12 big guy there to unload me only a single pallet had tipped over. Not bad for what it had went thru. Now the bad news. My load of empty kegs was in there back lot and their forklift could not get to them. I called my dispatch and was told they had seen me on T.V. and to come to the yard in Tacoma for the night and we would figure a way to get home in the morning. But that is another story.

[Doctor Who]

More stories, please?

Ask and Ye shall be granted your wish!!!!

Only not right this minute!!! That is until I can get this Major Medical Malfunction taken care of!!

Yeah another fun tale of snow and a LEO

It's an Ostrich part 3

And a visit from the brother(ex-codriver).....

Stay tuned...

Oh before I forget: Road Hazard the story was good, keep 'em coming!!!

[Doctor Who]

FLYING OBJECTS

A day or so ago I was on my routine trip to deliver yet another load of sand when a dude in a beat-to-**** Ford pick up loaded with a bunch of HUGE white bags came whipping in front of my tractor. I will add here that the wind was blowing at about 10 miles per hour, not a fun time for any trucker with a less than perfect aerodynamic truck. Anyway, the combination of the high wind and the slip stream disturbance from the CH-600 a HUGE white bag flew off of the pile and hit the front of my truck causing the bag to break. Contained within this HUGE bag was empty aluminum cans, it looked like a hail storm as the cans attacked with a vengeance. I managed to pull off the exit ramp and stop the truck to inspect the damage. I was shocked to find the only damage I sustained was part of the bug deflector had broken off.
While I was doing the walk around a gentleman from the state DOT had pulled up behind me, he got out of his car to check for damage.
His first comment was: "Damn, you should have seen it from behind, it looked like a mushroom cloud had risen from the road!!!"
He told me that the cans had scattered everywhere, I told him I couldn't avoid the bag and he understood he said he also contacted the HP so they could take care of the guy hauling the cans. Pulling an unsecured load would've been an apt ticket for the guy...

I went on to deliver the sand and yes I did find some cans on the tarp before I dumped the load. On my way back to the pit I saw a HP officer having a chat with the owner of the pick up and the DOT man.

Later that day another company driver asked me about the cans in the road and I told him I hit the bag. He told me when he got to the site there was a guy pushing a broom trying to clean up all the cans... Still don't know if the HP officer issued a summons.
I did explain to the foreman about the attack on my "Dog" all he did was shrug his shoulders and called the Mack dealer to order a new deflector. Oh, he did say something about only I could find trouble like that.
I told him I was getting bored and needed to add some more humourous stories to my ever growing book...

[Goose1]

I guess I'll throw one out there.

Back in the bad old days, I started out driving for Schneider..During the C-team (two rookies one truck and not a single clue) I was asleep in the bunk north on I-5 pretty soon I'm sliding back and forth and bouncing around in the bunk. I open the curtain and see this Shiney hiney about 15 feet in front of us were going about 70 mph with the Jake roaring merrily and my "Co-driver" is chatting away and following these trucks down the siskyou mountains. We had about 44,000 in the box and this isn't a pleasant ride. So as the adrenaline hits and I'm panicked I ask Todd what are you doing!? His reply "Oh these guys are showing me how to get down the mountain" I've been listening to the cb through this little debacle and one of the other drivers says Youre doing pretty good there Schneider, Dont try this loaded though..

Needless to say by this time the brakes are very hot and my ding-a-ling co-driver is oblivious to the danger. I told him to get it stopped anyway he could..It was a pretty spectacular sight, I in my BVD's dragging my hapless Doofus of a co-driver out of the cab and beating the crap out of him.(slight adrenaline overdose, Normally I am pretty harmless).

It pretty much converted me to a "solo" driver right on the spot.

It was a pretty spectacular sight, I in my BVD's dragging my hapless Doofus of a co-driver out of the cab and beating the crap out of him.(slight adrenaline overdose, Normally I am pretty harmless).

It pretty much converted me to a "solo" driver right on the spot.

And I thought I was bad. I just left my one and only co-driver I ever had standing on the side of the road in west texas in the middle of summer.

[Doctor Who]

FLYING OBJECTS volume 2

A few years back I was leaving Houston as fast as my 72 mile per hour Freightliner Columbia would take me.
I was chatting with a few folks on the "ham" radio and half heartedly noticed a mini-van rolling past me, it was nothing new. As I was chatting I kept seeing things flying through the air, I do remember telling one "ham" that I probably needed to get some sleep as I swore I kept seeing clothes flying through the air. He did ask me if I had partaken in any "spirits" before I left the facility in Houston.
I did tell him I thought the water tasted a bit odd.

All the time spent on the "ham" radio I kept hearing some commotion on the 11 Meter(CB) radio. I tended to ignore it since commotion reigned supreme. For the record I didn't want to carry the CB but it was a necessity for the job, drivers needed to communicate with the inbound load managers...
Anyway, a driver had pulled along side of me turned on his dome light and pointed to his CB mic, I turned my radio up and asked him what his problem was.
He asked me if I had seen my antennas and did I notice "Flying Objects"!
I did tell I thought I had seen clothes flying and chalked it up to needing sleep and I did ask about the antennas.
He told me I had something hanging from one of the antennas so, we pulled over on to the shoulder, I got out and found a pink bra wrapped around the "ham" radio antenna plus, we noticed socks and a few other articles of clothing strewn across the highway.

After a 10 minute discussion we both pulled back onto I-40 and proceeded East when we came upon a Texas Trooper and a mini-van sitting on the shoulder, I did mention to the other driver that was the van that had passed us earlier, I also noticed the van had a plastic roof mount carrier with the top missing.
That did explain the flying clothes, I did tell the other driver we should have stopped and returned the bra to its rightful owner!!!

A positive Jevic tale

[kreeper01]

Ah SNOW.. The dreaded four letter word that strikes stupidity in the best of drivers....

Drivers driving stupid over snow :?:

99.9% of drivers drive stupid regardless of what season it is, even if there is rain, sleet, snow or ice on the road :!:

Not saying this to make anyone mad, its a know fact :!:

I am not excluding myself out of this, so don't razz me about it.

[Doctor Who]

FLYING OBJECTS volume 3
Or, Snow and the LEO...

Snow, kids off from school and trucks make for a very bad combination. Kids bored find hurling snowballs at things that move quite the entertainment to make a day go by fast. I fell victim more times than I care to count and on one such occasion in Philadelphia an ice-ball came crashing through the passenger side window of a Brockway I was driving. I ended up with glass in my right eye, right ear, not to mention, cuts on my face. Never was able to catch the person who threw the object...

Way back in the '70's I was making LTL deliveries in northern NJ on a fun filled day after huge snowstorm. I was heading back to the domicile when I was pulled over by a local Constable. At first I wasn't sure why I was pulled, I wasn't speeding, road conditions were not the best so, I rolled along slow...
The LEO got on the cruisers PA and ordered me back to the car. I walked up to the drivers side with all the proper paperwork and asked the LEO what I had done wrong, his response, I rolled through town disturbing the peace by blowing the horn. I looked at him in disbelief, I knew damn well I didn't use the horn but he insisted. At that point I realized I was in harms way by standing by the road and asked the LEO if I could get in the cruiser, he told me no but I could stand on the passenger side. I will add he kept calling me a "no damn good Hippie!"

While he was reading me the "Riot Act" I happened to look up and saw quite a few round objects hurtling towards the cruiser, I did tell the LEO he may want to shut his window he told me to be quiet so, I acted like I dropped my license and ducked down to retrieve it as the round objects hit the cruiser with a dull thud.
I looked in the cruiser to make sure the LEO was OK, he was and he stepped out.
"Are you sure that's a wise thing to do?" I asked him.
He responded by telling me to mind my own business and leave. He didn't have to tell me twice but as I started walking back to the cab I saw another barrage of round objects falling from the sky.
"Are these people friends of yours?" I asked the LEO as I ducked behind the trailer.
I was told there was a total lack of respect for the law. I stopped and thought about that for a second. "Where have I heard that before?" I thought as I got back into the tractor.

The LEO was not hurt but I did want to find out the history behind the man.
I made a delivery in the town about two weeks later and asked the receiver about the LEO and I was told the gentleman in question was not the most well liked human in town. I couldn't understand why...
The receiver also told me he was one of the group that was on the hill that day.

After that I never went back to that town, I often wonder what became of the LEO!

[arkansas road hazard]

One winter night many miles ago I was going around all the hills on I-5 by taking US97 out of Weed, Cal. and running it up to OR 58 and back west to I-5 Bigger but fewer hills to pull. after turning onto 58 I decided that there was more than enough snow and ice on the road that a drag chain on the trailer would be the prudent thing to do. As I pulled in front of a JB truck parked in the chain up area I noticed a driver standing in front of the cab over holding a tire chain in his hand. I didn't pay to much attention to him and went about putting on a single drag chain to go down the hill. After I had finished I looked back and the driver was still standing there with the chain in his hand. I walked back and asked him if he had a problem? He said he only had 1 tire chain and didn't know where to put it. For once in my life I was not a smart ass and explained to him that I was only going to put 1 chain on and he saw how and where I put it. He said he had and that he could get it put on without further assistance. I started down the hill which goes down for awhile then levels out then down again. Well at the level spot it was snowing much hard and the road was looking real ugly. I stopped to decide if this load was really that important to go down the rest of the way. While I'm sitting there here comes JB flying down the hill, I got on the radio and ask him if he really thought it was a good idea to go down the hill at this time. The answer I got was he had a drag chain on and that was all he needed. 30 minutes earlier he didn't even know what a drag chain was. I decided that since I told him how to install the chain I better follow him down and help pick up the pieces when it got ugly. I don't know if it was blind luck or divine intervention but some way we both made to the bottom of that hill safely.

[Doctor Who]

Another good story Hazard....

[Scoe]

One winter night many miles ago I was going around all the hills on I-5 by taking US97 out of Weed, Cal. and running it up to OR 58 and back west to I-5 Bigger but fewer hills to pull. after turning onto 58 I decided that there was more than enough snow and ice on the road that a drag chain on the trailer would be the prudent thing to do. As I pulled in front of a JB truck parked in the chain up area I noticed a driver standing in front of the cab over holding a tire chain in his hand. I didn't pay to much attention to him and went about putting on a single drag chain to go down the hill. After I had finished I looked back and the driver was still standing there with the chain in his hand. I walked back and asked him if he had a problem? He said he only had 1 tire chain and didn't know where to put it. For once in my life I was not a smart ass and explained to him that I was only going to put 1 chain on and he saw how and where I put it. He said he had and that he could get it put on without further assistance. I started down the hill which goes down for awhile then levels out then down again. Well at the level spot it was snowing much hard and the road was looking real ugly. I stopped to decide if this load was really that important to go down the rest of the way. While I'm sitting there here comes JB flying down the hill, I got on the radio and ask him if he really thought it was a good idea to go down the hill at this time. The answer I got was he had a drag chain on and that was all he needed. 30 minutes earlier he didn't even know what a drag chain was. I decided that since I told him how to install the chain I better follow him down and help pick up the pieces when it got ugly. I don't know if it was blind luck or divine intervention but some way we both made to the bottom of that hill safely.

Ah yes, Willamette pass. I know it well, it seems like it takes forever to get down the hill heading West into Oakridge. Once you do though it is mostly flat running all the way to the big road, I-5 @ Eugene.

[arkansas road hazard]

Yes Willamette pass>>> scariest ride I ever took was one night coming down and there were two snow plows working. The first one was removing the snow and the second was spreading salt. Some how I end up in between the two of them running on nothing but ICE!!!!! Finally got the first ones attention and he quit plowing and left me some snow to run on..

[Doctor Who]

I DIDN'T WANT TO BE A DRIVER TRAINER!!!!!

More to come as the FRAZZLED nerves slowly mend themselves!!! :shock:

[Lady18wheels]

Ain't it fun :?: :!: :idea:

[Doctor Who]

Lady, you don't know the half of it!!!!

Just a brief preview, if I may, just picture two people who supposedly have multi years experience and can't BLOODY shift a 10 speed!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

And no, I don't get COMBAT pay, just a promise of a new truck if and when I can clear either person to drive my "beloved" Mack. I told the Super that I hope the transmission lasts the week....

[Lady18wheels]

Will this help?