Well, I have spent the last couple of years telling you how much fun truck driving is – all the beauty that I see, the points of interest, the little gems I find as I drive along. Here is how things really work. But first, a few explanations.
LOG BOOKS – According to the law, once I start my work day, I am allowed to be on duty for 14 hours, then I have to take a 10 hour break. Even if I am stuck on a loading dock for eight hours, I still have to abide by the 14 hour rule. Of those 14 hours, I am allowed to drive for 11 of them. So the important numbers are 14, 11, 10.
WEIGHT – I am allowed to carry no more than 80,000 pounds gross vehicular weight. And that has to be divided as follows – 12,000 on the steer axle, 34,000 on the two drive axles, and 34,000 on the two trailer axles. Now the trailer axles will slide to shift the weight forward or backward. They are held into place by four pins that slide through holes in the bottom frame rails of the truck. A lever attached to a cam, which is attached to a shaft, is lifted and locked in place to release the pins, then lowered and locked to place the pins back. A spring helps keep the pins pushed through the holes and also, by just lowering the lever, actually pushes the pins into place when the holes and pins line up.
PAY PERIOD – My pay period runs from 0001 Tuesday morning to 2400 Monday night. Any loads delivered during that time span go on that paycheck. I get paid by the mile.
Before we begin the sojourn through my personal hell, I have one other thing I need to explain. Our company has a few divisions, one is regional, one is dedicated customer runs, and one is over the road. I am in the over the road division – I am supposed to carry the freight all over the country. But since I returned to the road at the end of May, a check of my log books has shown that about 85% of my loads have originated or terminated in the Midwest – Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy driving through those states, just not every day. I have made brief trips into Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Tennessee. But for an old Southern boy like me to spend this much time up north – I really need to be in places where, at breakfast, the waitress puts down a big bowl of grits first then asks, “Honey, what will y’all be having this mornin’?” I miss the wide open plains of Wyoming and Nebraska, the endless corn and wheat fields of Kansas and Iowa, the Rocky Mountains and the deserts of the Southwest. And yes, I miss my southern, country fried way of living too.
On Monday of last week, I picked up a load in Hamilton Township, NJ at 1130. It had to deliver in South Boston, VA on Tuesday at 2200 (10 pm) and the run was only 395 miles. I spent the night 40 miles north of Richmond, VA and most of Tuesday. That afternoon, I left the truck stop drove the three hours to South Boston and parked there for a couple of hours. An early delivery would be counted by the customer as a failure and result in a fine against USA Truck (seriously). I rolled into the customer on time, backed to the dock and was unloaded. I went back to the truck stop for my 10-hour break. When I awoke, I went about a mile and a half to do my pick up for the day. The load was supposed to be ready at 0300; I arrived at 0930 expecting to drop my empty, hook the loaded one and go. It was not ready. I was finally loaded at 3 PM and left for Denver, PA, a total run of 351 miles. I would basically follow the same route north as I did south. North of Richmond, there are a number of truck stops crowding one exit and then nothing until I reach Baltimore. At the hour I left, the Baltimore truck stops would be full, so I planned on stopping north of Richmond, where I had been the day before. The weather went bad though, and rush hour was at full strength, so I shut down about 45 miles south of where I had planned. I had it figured – a 10-hour break, hit the road, beat the morning rush in Washington, DC and most of it in Baltimore. Well. First of all, I should have only logged two hours driving for the day but just before I went to bed, I changed it to three hours, thinking I had made an error initially. That pushed my start time back an hour. Then, I overslept by an hour. Full blown panic mode set in and I was gone in 15 minutes. Unfortunately, so had all the other people who commute from Richmond to Washington (more about THAT some other time). And of course, there was an accident that shut down I95 for a time. I got clear of that, ran hard to Baltimore and right into the middle of their rush hour. Needless to say, I was an hour and a half late for my appointment.
Four hours after bumping their dock, I was empty and headed to my next pick up in Hanover, PA. Hanover is an old, south central Pennsylvania town – many of the buildings are registered landmarks. The town was built in the late 1700’s. It is home to at least five potato chip and pretzel baking companies and I was going to pick up at one of them. I have got to tell you, the town smells wonderful, by the way. That pick up went well and I was on my way to Plainfield, IN. I spent the night in Carlisle, PA, just before my log book ran out for the day. I got up the next morning and drove to Spiceland, IN to spend the night before driving the last hour to my delivery. The delivery went well and I drove to Lebanon, IN to pick up a load for St. James, MO. The way my schedule was for Saturday, I was supposed to deliver in Plainfield, drive to Lebanon and pick up, drive to St. James to deliver, then drive to Edwardsville, IL, north and east of St. Louis to do another pickup, then I could shut down. But, there is always a but, things unraveled quickly in Lebanon. When I picked up the trailer I was supposed to take to Missouri, I scaled it at a truck stop next door and the drive axles were >4000 pounds overweight. I slid the axles as far as I could, re-weighed the truck and the axles were still >2000 pounds over. At this point, I was sweating and cursing a blue streak because the spring that was supposed to push the pins into place was bad. That meant I had to line up the pins with the locking holes and manually push the pins into place. Not as easy as it sounds because the pins are about two inches in diameter and the holes are about two and a half inches. So every time I had to make an adjustment, I had to get everything lined up as close as I could from the driver’s seat, walk to the back to see how far out of line I was, then had to ease the truck either ¾ of an inch forward or backward to get things to line up exactly. And usually, I missed the line up by an inch in either direction, of course. Anyway, after all this, I went back to the customer and explained the problem. I was assigned a dock where I waited. And waited. Finally a forklift started unloading my truck to reload it properly. After two hours, I was released and weighed the truck again. The drive axles were still 150 pounds over, so back I went to get re-reloaded. Anyway, after spending eight hours total at the customer, and weighing the truck two more times, I was finally legal to leave Lebanon. I only got as far as Troy, IL – about 25 miles east of St. Louis – before I had to shut down for the night.
I got out of bed this morning and hit the road hard. I made the delivery in St. James, ran like the wind to Edwardsville and picked up there. That went well too, thankfully. Unfortunately, because of all the trouble in Lebanon, I had been playing catch up and had not been able to shut down close enough to any deliveries – I have been accruing extra driving time against my log. The load from Edwardsville was supposed to deliver in London, KY on Sunday afternoon, but my log book ran out of driving time again and again, I am two hours short of my destination. I will deliver this load early in the morning and then drive to Somerset, KY to pick up a load for Plano, IL to deliver on Tuesday morning. The problem with that load? I am supposed to be in Orange, TX on Thursday morning for five days off of relaxing and visiting my daughter. Plano, IL to Orange, TX by Wednesday night – I don’t see that happening in this lifetime.
To wrap it up, I only gained about 2200 miles this week for my paycheck. I usually get 2500-2700, so I am coming up short a little bit. I will get reimbursed for the five scale tickets I bought on Saturday, but still.
So, my fine friends, that is the trucking business. And that is why most of my blogs refer more to the good days, the sights, the smells, the wonders that I see. The little gifts I am given along the way. I try real hard not to dwell on weeks like this – but it sure does make it hard to be polite on the highway. Anyway, see you out there where the highway meets the sky and remember, be kind to the truckers out there – their weeks may have been like this too.