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John's School Journal Male, 50 years young
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We stopped at Denver, among other reasons, to check on the weather and to procure a set of chains for the truck. We had to cross the Rocky Mountains, the backbone of the continent, to deliver a car at Glenwood Springs, CO. And being early February, you could not take the weather for granted. The western states have telephone numbers that you can call for up-to-the-minute information about the weather and road conditions. Conditions sounded OK for today, so we headed west on I-70 and started climbing, and climbing, and climbing. Jimmy was driving - the deal was, he would drive one way to show me what it was like, then I would drive back the next day. We kept going up, and up, and up, through beautiful mountain scenery, and finally crossed Vail Pass, which was at an elevation of 10,662 feet. I couldn't believe how high we were - driving a tractor-trailer truck, more than two vertical miles above sea level, crossing the rugged and aptly named Rocky Mountains.
It was a long grind, up and down, and by the time we got to Glenwood Springs, it was dark. We couldn't find any truck stops, so Jimmy wound up parking behind a K-Mart at a shopping mall. It was bitterly cold outside, and it snowed during the night. The next morning, we delivered the car, then faced the prospects of recrossing the Rockies during a snowstorm. We each listened to the telephone recording for road conditions, and conditions were only so-so. The road was reported to be snow and slush covered, and in some places, icy. Chains were required, but only if your truck had a single drive axle. Since we had dual drive axles, we wouldn't have to install our chains (but we were still legally required to carry them with us). Jimmy wanted to proceed, and we both decided that he should drive since conditions were marginal. To tell the truth, I was pretty nervous, and most of the way across, I had white knuckles from hanging on to the armrest. Although the road was snowy and icy, Jimmy did a great job, and we never once lost traction, not even for an instant. I was actually very impressed by how well the truck handled the steep snowy grades - it just kept plowing ahead, slow and steady. We saw some trucks that were using chains, including a Werner truck that threw one of its chains (according to Jimmy, because it was way too loose). The scenery was truly spectacular, but I was too nervous to appreciate it. We finally made it across, and it wasn't even snowing on the other side. After passing through Denver, we drove up to Fort Collins, delivered another car, then resumed our eastward trek.
In the last light of the day, I drove through Wyoming and into Nebraska. We stopped at a very nice Bosselman's truckstop in Big Springs, Nebraska, and had a sit-down dinner of REAL FOOD! I drove through more of Nebraska, then in the wee hours of the morning, we changed drivers and Jimmy drove through the rest of Nebraska, Iowa, and into Illinois. Our immediate destination was the Swift terminal in Gary, Indiana, where we would stop for fuel. After a brief stop, we pushed on into Michigan, and spent the night at the Swift terminal in New Boston, MI. The terminal building was a dreary and bland disappointment. Inside, it was sterile and bare, with walls painted institutional grey - all the charm of an inner-city bus terminal. The next morning, we delivered the last car in Troy, MI, and came back to the New Boston terminal for our next load assignment. We would pick up five small, sporty Cadillacs from a storage lot at the terminal, and deliver them to Port Newark, NJ and Baltimore, MD. The Cadillacs were U.S.-made cars that were being exported.
We knew by now that Jimmy had lost his driver trainer status, so we were just going through the motions as we headed east. I don't remember too much of this part of the trip, except for some snowy weather that Jimmy drove through on I-80 in Pennsylvania. We delivered some cars at Port Newark, then I drove down to Baltimore where we delivered the rest. I drove us down I-95 to the Richmond terminal, where Jimmy and I shook hands and reluctantly parted company.
Despite the disrupted training schedule, I thought the time I spent with Jimmy was a terrific introduction to truck driving. In a little over two weeks, we had traveled through 26 states (VA, MD, DE, NJ, PA, WV, NC, SC, GA, AL, MS, TN, AR, OK, TX, NM, AZ, CA, CO, WY, NE, IA, IL, IN, MI, OH). We had traveled literally from coast to coast, had been within a few miles of Mexico, and had been further north than parts of Canada (when we were in Troy, MI, we were further north than parts of Ontario). We had traveled through such a variety of terrain - from the desert flats of Mojave to the craggy peaks of the Rockies, from the lush palm groves of Southern California to the bleak snow-drifted hills of Wyoming, from the bitterly cold mountain tops more than two miles high in Colorado, to the humid blackwater swamps of the Georgia low country. We had driven through all kinds of weather, on all kinds of roads, and through all kinds of scenery. It was a great adventure! But alas, the adventure was now "on hold" while I waited to be assigned to another driver trainer.
Waiting For My Second Driver Trainer
Once I drove home to Baltimore, I found my first week's paycheck waiting for me. (Although I had signed up for direct depost, it takes a few weeks for it to get started.) My fabulous check: $200.00 gross, $155.68 net. Whoopee! I can hardly wait to go on a spending spree - let's see, I think I can buy a newspaper and a cup of coffee. The check was correct, of course. During the first part of training (with a driver trainer), you get $50 for every day you are assigned to the truck. Since I started mid-week, my first check didn't cover a full week, which would have been $350.00 gross - still not something to write home about.
After a couple of days, my training coordinator in Richmond gave me the name of my next driver trainer: Carol Barnes, a man who drives out of the Richmond terminal and handles mostly northeast regional freight. After speaking with Carol, I learned that he frequently travels the I-95 corridor, and he though he would be able to pick me up in Baltimore as he passed through (I live less than a mile from I-95). I gave him directions, and we make plans for him to swing right by my residence during the evening. Unfortunately, he had tire problems with the trailer and was delayed until the next morning. But finally, the big white Swift truck came rumbling down the road - I tossed my stuff up into the cab and hopped in. One good thing about Baltimore is that it is so heavily industrialized that trucks can go just about anywhere without being out-of-place.
Training With My Second Driver Trainer
Driving with Carol, I got to know the I-95 corridor really, really well. It seemed that the truck kept ping-ponging back and forth, from Virginia, to New Jersey, to Virginia, to New Jersey, etc. Now and then, we would get an exciting diversion and go all the way up to Connecticut, still on I-95. I'm exaggerating, of course, but you get the idea.
We also visited, on several occasions, the all-time worst terminal in the universe - the Swift terminal in South Plainfield, NJ. It had a muddy, cramped parking lot littered with huge, water-filled craters. There was a small, dingy, run-down terminal building with filthy restrooms (so dirty I wouldn't even think about sitting down; they didn't have any toilet paper anyway). Trailers were dropped willy-nilly, and trucks struggled to snake their way through with barely enough room to maneuver. You didn't even have enough room to turn around - if you didn't find a parking space the first time through, you had to exit the terminal and go back in again. The staff was so unresponsive it would take several minutes for them to open the gate for you to exit or re-enter. I don't know why the company tolerated such a disgracefully poor facility!
We spent a lot of time handling Costco loads. We would pick up a trailer at the Costco warehouse just off exit 8A on the New Jersey Turnpike, then deliver the load to a Costco store anywhere in the region. The Costco warehouse was first-class - easy access, lots of room to maneuver, fully-paved lot, and they even had a scale on-site so you could check your axle weights. When we did a pickup, it was always a drop-and-hook. The delivery was usually a live unload in the wee hours of the morning, which made for light traffic - always a plus when you're navigating unfamiliar territory looking for road signs in the dark.
We also handled Sears loads and Wal-Mart loads. For Sears, we would pick up a trailer at a warehouse and deliver to a store, with a live unload during store hours. For Wal-Mart, we would shuttle trailers between warehouses, doing drop-and-hooks at both ends (Wal-Mart has its own fleet to deliver to their stores). Since we were handling freight instead of cars, we frequently had to back the rig up to loading docks. Carol was very good about giving me lots of backing practice, which I really needed - I only backed up four times with Jimmy. Even if Carol was driving, when we came to a situation that required backing, we would switch drivers and I would do the backing. This was very, very, helpful and I learned a lot by handling all kinds of backing situations, with an experienced driver giving me tips.
After our first trip to Connecticut, I got to drive back to New Jersey on I-95. This took us straight through New York City, traveling on the Cross-Bronx Expressway and going across the George Washington Bridge. The Cross-Bronx is notorious for huge traffic jams at any time of the day or night, and it lived up to its reputation. The highway, in places, was incredibly bumpy, with giant cracks and potholes, especially leading up to the bridge. Even at our slow speed due to the traffic, it was still a jarring ride. Sometimes I wondered how the truck managed to stay together, it took such a pounding. I heard a driver talking on the CB, saying that you would be crazy to take a flatbed load on the Cross-Bronx - the load would be jarred loose and thrown on to the roadway.
The way Carol did his runs, he managed to get home every weekend (which for him was Richmond). It wasn't always easy, and he usually had to haggle and finagle with his driver manager on Friday night, or even in the wee hours of Saturday morning, to get a load going home. Every weekend, he always managed to drop me off in Baltimore as we drove to Richmond, then pick me up on Monday. This was very convenient for me, and I really appreciated it.
Being winter, we occasionally had to contend with snow. We usually traveled on well-maintained superhighways, where the snow was a minor annoyance. It could be a little more troublesome on local roads, but we never had any serious difficulty. In mid-February, the mid-Atlantic region got walloped by a huge snowstorm - we got two feet of snow in Baltimore. This happened just after a weekend, and we were both still at home. I'm just as glad we weren't on the road. I got two extra "snow days" off, and it would have been very trying being stuck in the truck on the roadside for all that time.
Soon after the snowstorm, we had to deliver a load to Maspeth, Queens, deep in the heart of New York City. We wound up taking the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge from Staten Island to Brooklyn, then taking the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway towards Queens. To our dismay, we saw a big sign saying "All Trucks Over 12' Clearance, Exit Now", and we exited on to the local streets of Brooklyn. It was quite a trial, working our way through the congested local roads with a 53' trailer in tow (Carol was driving). We learned via the CB that the sign was bogus - you could stay on the expressway all the way to Queens, but you had to stay in a particular lane to avoid a low-clearance situation. We eventually worked our way over to another expressway, but as we headed toward our destination, we discovered that our directions were wrong - the directions said Exit 22 but we actually needed Exit 18. On top of that, as we were rounding a corner at highway speed, all of a sudden we saw a broken-down car in front of us. Thanks to Carol's extremely fast reflexes, we didn't have an accident, but it was a heart-stopping moment. When we finally got to the customer, we saw it would be very difficult to back up to the dock, due to the already cramped location being further restricted by big piles of snow. To tell the truth, I was glad that Carol backed up this time. I might have been able to do it, but it probably would have taken me an hour, and I would have blocked the road for most of that time.
After two weeks of driving with Carol, I had accumulated enough training time to graduate from the first phase of training. On the way back to Richmond, Carol dropped me off in Baltimore for the last time. Although driving with Carol was very educational and I learned a lot, it wasn't as much fun as driving with Jimmy. With Jimmy, I had a coast-to-coast adventure, but with Carol, it was just a job - driving the New Jersey Turnpike just can not be considered an adventure. As a plus, I had added another four states to my total (NY, CT, MA, NH), so I now had traveled in 30 states during my training.
For the next phase of training, I would be paired-up with another trainee and we would drive as a team for four weeks. I didn't have to wait very long to start. The story continues after the following sidebar.
Sidebar: The Endless Work-A-Day Cycle
After a few weeks, I began to get used to the repetetive cycle that we go through as company drivers for Swift. Thanks to the Qualcomm satellite terminal in the truck, a driver can quickly and easily interact with the Swift dispatching system, so both the driver and the dispatcher know the truck's status at all times. For each load assignment the driver handles, the driver goes through a specific sequence of steps to interact with the dispatching system. Here's how it works:
Let's assume that initially, you're empty and ready to be dispatched. Assume that the dispatching system knows this (we'll see how, later). The first thing that happens is that you receive a "pre-plan" message on the Qualcomm terminal in your truck. The terminal beeps to let you know a message has been received. The pre-plan message contains an overview of a potential load assignment. It includes the date, time, and location for the pickup and delivery, as well as the loaded and empty mileage figures (so you know how much you'll be paid).
At this point, you need to consult with your atlas and your logbook. You use the atlas to work out a rough plan for the trip, based on how many miles and a reasonable route. Then you look in your logbook to see how many driving and on-duty hours you have available over the next few days. If you have enough time to legally make the trip, you can accept the pre-plan. If you don't have enough time, or if there are other circumstances that would make the trip doubtful (like bad weather or truck problems), you should decline the pre-plan. Once you've decided, you send a message to the dispatching system either accepting or declining the pre-plan.
Assuming you accepted the pre-plan, you now receive a load assignment message and a routing message. The load assignment message contains all the details you need to know, such as the bill-of-lading number, the trailer number (for a preloaded trailer), the weight and piece-count, etc. The routing message contains a sequence of highway designations that will take you from your present location to the pickup location and finally to the delivery location. In addition, if the dispatcher thinks you'll need fuel, the routing message will indicate a fuel stop somewhere along the way (usually at a Swift terminal). The routing message is generated by a computer, and frequently contains inefficient or inappropriate routes (like highways that aren't truck routes, or roads that closely parallel a more efficient superhighway). You have to carefully review the computer-generated route, and make as many changes as necessary to produce an efficient and appropriate route.
If you haven't been to the pickup or delivery locations before, you now send a message requesting detailed directions to the exact street address (the routing message only routes you from city to city). Once you receive the detailed directions, you write them down in your notebook - they are VERY important.
Now you're on your own - you accepted an assignment, and the dispatching system gave you all the information you need. Now you have to do it. You first drive to the pickup location, paying attention to all the details: the pickup appointment date and time, how many driving and on-duty hours you have available, routing information, street address directions, traffic, weather, truckstop locations, etc. Once you get to the pickup location, you send a message telling the dispatching system that you arrived at the shipper. You meet with the shipper's personnel and do your drop-and-hook or live load. Once you're loaded, the shipper gives you the paperwork for the load (the bill of lading). You now send a message telling the dispatching system that you're loaded, including a few details from the bill of lading (like an accurate weight and piece count, seal number, etc.).
Now you drive to the delivery location, paying attention to all the details, as before. When you get to the delivery location, you send a message telling the dispatching system that you're at the final destination. You meet with the customer's personnel and do your drop-and-hook or live unload. Once you're empty, the customer gives you a signed copy of the bill-of-lading, proving you delivered the load and it was accepted by the customer. You now send a message telling the dispatching system that you're empty. Later on, you fill out some paperwork and submit it to Swift so you get paid for the trip.
This starts the cycle all over again. The dispatching system knows that you're empty and ready to be dispatched. Now you wait to receive another pre-plan message. (I have omitted quite a few minor details, but these are the main steps.)
There is one other important detail: your PTA, or Projected Time of Availability. Obviously, you can't work 24-hours a day, non-stop. As a truck driver, you can drive up to ten hours before you must take an eight-hour break. Every day, you need to review these parameters and make an estimate of when you'll be available for a new assignment, once you've finished with the current assignment. You also make an estimate of how many driving hours you'll have at that time. Then you send a message providing this information to the dispatching system. For example, let's say you receive a load assignment with a delivery appointment of 09:00 on 5/21/03. After you do your trip planning, you estimate that when you arrive at the delivery location (hopefully, on-time), you will have been driving for three hours since taking an eight-hour break. Assuming it's a drop-and-hook, you can allow an hour to do the drop-and-hook and related paperwork, so your PTA would be 10:00 on 5/21/03. At this time, you would have seven driving hours available. The dispatching system uses this information to figure out an appropriate pre-plan for your next assignment, based on when you'll be available and how many driving hours you'll have. As another example, let's say you estimate that when you arrive at the delivery location, you will have been driving for nine hours. You can allow an hour to do the drop-and-hook, but then it would be wise to use your last driving hour to find a truckstop where you can take your eight-hour break. Therefore, you should set your PTA to 19:00 (that is, 7 pm) on 5/21/03. I computed the PTA like this: 09:00 delivery time + one hour drop-and-hook + one hour to get to the truckstop + eight hour break (minimum) = 19:00. At this time, you'll have 10 driving hours available. Obviously, it will make a big difference to the dispatching system whether you're available at 10 am or 7 pm - that's why figuring out an accurate PTA is important.
Driving With My First Trainee Co-Driver
After finishing up with Carol, my training coordinator in Richmond told me that there would be a significant delay before I could continue with the next phase of training. The Richmond terminal had plenty of trainees available as co-drivers; the problem was, there weren't any trucks available. For every pair of trainees, you need a truck, and there were no trucks. However, if I was willing to travel to the Swift terminal in Eden, North Carolina, there was another truck and trainee available immediately. I felt like I was on a roll and wanted to continue with my training, so I agreed to train out of the Eden terminal for the next phase. The training coordinator said to report to Eden the very next day after Carol dropped me off in Baltimore.
I came to regret my decision to train out of Eden. It turned out to be a six to seven hour drive each way, which burned up $20 of gas each way (not reimbursed by Swift). Also, the Eden terminal was in a weird location for a trucking terminal - in a backwater part of the state not near any interstate highway. On top of that, on the day I was due to travel, a major winter ice storm was in the forecast. But I forged ahead, and managed to arrive before the ice storm got too bad. I stayed in a motel overnight (not reimbursed), and reported for duty the next morning.
There were a few chores awaiting me. First, take a simple written test covering basic company practices and procedures, then take a driving test. The driving test was a breeze - drive a rig a few miles without hitting anything or getting a ticket, and voila - I passed. I met Mike, my co-driver, who was from nearby Yadkinville, NC. Mike had already driven with another trainee co-driver, but they had to split up due to personality conflicts. Mike was already assigned to a truck as the "first-seat driver", which meant that he would keep the truck when he went solo (he was also responsible for paying the tolls and doing the paperwork). I was assigned as the "second-seat" driver; after going solo, I would have to find another truck at the Richmond terminal.
Mike told me the story of his present truck, which was interesting. It seemed another Swift driver suddenly quit without returning his truck. The training coordinator at Eden told Mike to go retrieve the truck, and gave him a key for it. Mike had to be like a "repo man" and sneak on to the other man's property, try the key in the doorlock (it worked), then start up the truck and drive off before any trouble arose (it didn't). Once he got the truck to his house, he had to spend hours and hours cleaning it - trash was piled knee-deep on the floor, and the entire interior was covered with grime. After doing all that work, it was only fair to assign the truck to Mike.
After meeting with the Eden training coordinator and getting entered into the system, we received our first dispatch, and it was a beaut! Proceed to Lexington, NC to pick up a load of synthetic fabric, then drive all the way out to Ogden, Utah and deliver the load to a Kimberly-Clark plant (where Huggies diapers are manufactured). We fueled-up at Eden and headed off into our adventure.
I don't remember all the details of the trip, but a few things stand out in my mind. I remember passing through St. Louis, Missouri, and seeing the majestic Gateway Arch in a park next to the Mississippi River. The arch is a symbol of St. Louis' long history as a gateway from the east to the west. What held true for the early settlers is still true today - St. Louis is still a gateway to the west, and was for us.
I remember driving on I-80 through Wyoming on a very windy day, with the truck shuddering and heeling in the wind. We saw a sign saying "High Wind Area, Next 5 Miles", and we thought, "oh, it'll be over soon," but nooo! After five miles, there was another sign saying "High Wind Area, Next 5 Miles". Well, the winds kept up for many miles, and so did the signs.
After dropping our load at Ogden, UT, our next load was a stinker - Clearfield, UT to Salt Lake City, probably all of 30 miles. We also had to play "yard jockey" at the shipper to shuffle trailers. But then we got another good load, Salt Lake City to Graniteville, SC. We had just finished taking a trailer full of raw materials to the Huggies diaper factory; now we would take a trailer full of finished diapers (36,835 lbs worth) to a Kimberly-Clark warehouse back east. We really enjoyed the beauty of the snow-covered mountains in Utah - the scenery was absolutely spectacular. And, we saw it twice - once going in, and again going out.
As I was driving back through Wyoming, I heard a "BANG" and saw strips of rubber flying off the left-rear trailer tire. Damn, a blowout! I slowed down and pulled over and we got out to inspect the damage. The tire was completely shredded, with huge holes and frayed steel belt showing. We put out our emergency triangles and used the Qualcomm to let the company know we had a problem. It took over an hour for them to get back to us; they directed us to drive to a truckstop in Rawlins, WY (about 65 miles away) and get the problem fixed. Luckily, Mike's truck had a spare tire, which would make the process easier. I thought it would be dangerous driving with a blown tire, but it turned out to be no problem - no more pieces of rubber came off. And since the rig had so many tires, there was enough load-carrying capacity with the remaining tires that we didn't overload the remaining tires. In Rawlins, we stopped at Rip Griffin's, a truckstop/oasis in the middle of the Wyoming wilderness. They did a good job mounting the spare, and the price was very reasonable.
It was dark when we left, and we encountered snow flurries here and there. At one point, the highway hugged the base of Elk Mountain, which at 11,156 feet, can intensify any inclement weather. A snow flurry was in progress, but it kept getting worse and worse. Finally, I was just crawling along through heavy snow that was whipping sideways through the headlights; everything in front of me was uniformly white. Although the snow wasn't deep, it was hard to tell where the road went. In my mirror, I saw that I was the lead truck in a caravan of trucks. I wondered what they would think if they found out this was a Swift truck with two newbies. I heard other drivers talking on the CB, and they referred to the weather phenomenon as a "ground blizzard" - imagine that, I drove through a ground blizzard past Elk Mountain, Wyoming. The blizzard was vicious but short, and we soon found a truckstop and stopped to check the weather. It didn't look too bad, so we kept going.
When we got to Kansas City, Missouri, we stopped for fuel at the Swift terminal in nearby Edwardsville, Kansas. Even though it was late at night, the fuel lane was full and there was a traffic jam in the terminal. A driver waiting in line had turned off his truck, but it wouldn't restart - the battery was dead. Somebody finally came out with a little Bobcat skid loader and pushed the truck out of the way.
Much later, I was driving through the eastern suburbs of Atlanta, GA, heading for the Swift terminal in Decatur for fuel. I had the directions carefully written out, but one signpost was twisted out of view and I missed the turn. Now I discovered how quickly a routine fuel stop can turn into a nightmare. I had to find someplace to turn around, but I kept driving for miles and miles, heading out of town and into a residential area, with no turnarounds available. I was getting really anxious, and stopped to consult the map. A very helpful local truck driver (driving home from work in his pickup truck) guessed my plight and stopped to offer assistance. He told me about a shopping center where I could turn around, and gave me easier directions to get back to the Swift terminal. I found the shopping center and pulled in to turn around, but it was a tight fit. I wound up getting stuck half-way through turning around, and was blocking traffic. I was beginning to panic, and walked over to the other side of the shopping center to see if there was another exit. Meanwhile, while I was reconnoitering and fretting, my co-driver Mike calmly and neatly turned the truck around (aren't co-drivers great!). When I got back to the truck, I hopped in and drove off, and we got to the terminal without any more trouble.
Well, those were our two long trips, to Utah and back; now we would just knock around the east, doing all kinds of short to medium runs. After we dropped the trailer full of diapers in South Carolina, we hooked another trailer of diapers to take to a Sam's Club warehouse in Lakeland, FL. I enjoyed visiting sunny and warm Florida - everything was green in the land that knows no winter. There was some trouble at the Sam's Club warehouse - they rejected one pallet of diapers, saying they were wet (nobody wants to buy used diapers!). We had to drive all the way over to the Swift terminal in Ocala hauling the single pallet of diapers, then we dropped the trailer in the yard.
Next, we were directed to pick up a load of furniture in Thomasville, GA, to deliver to a Value City warehouse in Columbus, OH. Unfortunately, the Qualcomm didn't have any directions to the shipper in Georgia. I used my cell phone to call the shipper directly, but it was after hours, and the only person I reached was the guard at the gate. I asked for directions, but he mumbled and stammered and it became clear he didn't really know where he was or how to give directions. I don't think he even knew how to tie his shoelaces. Lucky for us, one of those rare miracles occurred. We arrived in Thomasville late at night and were looking for someplace to stop and ask directions. And what do you know? A small local truckstop materialized, just when we needed it. They not only knew exactly where the shipper was, but they had a detailed local street map posted on the wall. After hooking the load, we headed off to Columbus, OH, passing through Kentucky. I remember driving down a steep hill in Covington, KY, where we would cross the Ohio River into Cincinnati, OH. As I looked across the river from the hillside, I thought the nighttime Cincinnati skyline was quite impressive, all lit-up with lights, including neon lights.
Our next trip was to pick up a trailer full of furniture at the Swift terminal in Columbus, OH, and deliver it to a retail store at a mall in Fishkill, NY. We arrived at the mall after dark and parked for the night. The next morning, we went to unload, but found out that the retail store had moved - Swift didn't know about their new location. Luckily, they just moved to the other end of the mall, so it wasn't a big problem.
Our next trip was supposed to be New York City, but Mike hated big cities and balked. He turned down the New York City pre-plan and we got another pre-plan: Newark, NJ - not much better than New York City. We were to pick up a load of beer (2,156 cases, boy could you have a party with that!) and deliver it to a distributor in Wilmington, NC. This trip started out as a disaster, due to more bad directions from the Qualcomm. Once we got to Newark, the directions said "take the frontage road after exiting the turnpike". As we pulled away from the tollbooth after paying our toll, we could see that the road divided, but couldn't tell which way to go for the frontage road. We guessed "right", but just as we were irreversably veering off to the right, we saw a sign saying the frontage road was to the left. Damn! We wound up going the wrong way on US 1, heading off to who knows where. I did some quick map reading (I was riding shotgun), and determined that we could go up a little ways, then turn right to pick up the turnpike again. Amazingly enough, this worked, and we wound up back at the same tollbooth again. This time, naturally enough, we turned left, and followed the sign to the frontage road. The directions said we would pass some hotels then see an access road for the beer plant. Well, we passed some hotels, but then came face-to-face with a barrage of signs saying, "Do Not Enter", "Authorized Access Only", etc. Upon closer inspection, we saw that we were heading into a New Jersey state prison camp that was neatly tucked away in beautiful downtown Newark. Not wanting to become residents, we pondered what to do - maybe back up a mile, or make a 32-point turn in the narrow street? My co-driver walked over to a supervisor's shack in the prison maintenance yard and explained our predicament. We were obviously not the first truckers to get lost there, and permission was quickly granted to drive through the maintenance yard to turn the truck around. Since the directions were obviously faulty, I called the customer's number, and after getting call-forwarded a couple of times, got connected to the recorded directions number. I played them back several times, and noticed that the Swift directions left out a vital step: exit the turnpike, GO 2 1/2 MILES, then get on the frontage road, etc. We tried for a third time to find the beer plant - this time, with the all-important step inserted, things worked just fine, and we finally reached the shipper. I have to say, it was extremely frustrating wasting all that time and energy wandering around Newark, NJ trying to find the shipper. What kind of moron could enter those directions into the system, and leave out such an important step? I don't know, but he probably still works for Swift so I shouldn't be too insulting. My poor co-driver hated cities to begin with, and after our getting-lost-in-Newark nightmare, he was physically drained and really soured on "the Swift system".
After dropping the beer in Wilmington, NC, our next trip was to pick up a load of big rolls of kraft paper in Garysburg, NC, and deliver them to a cardboard box factory in Huntington, WV. We took the West Virginia turnpike, which had some pretty spectacular scenery - it reminded me of the mountains out west. We encountered a freak storm with gusty winds. At one point, the winds blew a bunch of twigs and leaves up from the ground and right into the windshield. West Virginia has some dreary-looking towns, but at least they have interesting names - we passed through Nitro and Hurricane on the way.
Our next trip was to pick up some swimming pool chemicals in Charleston, WV and deliver them to an exporter in Charleston, SC (neato - Charleston to Charleston). The chemicals were being exported to Italy via containership. The load assignment message indicated it was a hazmat load, which was a first for us, so we spent quite a while reading up on hazmat procedures to make sure we were OK (we had to get a permit faxed to us). Once we got to the shipper, it turned out it wasn't a hazmat load after all. Due to the specific formulation of the product (sodium dichloroisocyanurate dihydrate, just in case you were interested), it wasn't classified as hazmat (because it was the dihydrate version). Sometimes you have to become an instant chemical engineer.
Next, we picked up load of plastic in Lugoff, SC, and dropped the trailer in the yard at the Swift terminal in Eden, NC. Whew! Somebody else would deliver that load - it's time to take a couple of days off. Now, I experienced what a nuisance it was training out of Eden. Mike had a short drive to his home in Yadkinville, but I had a six to seven hour drive, each way, to my home in Baltimore. It was hardly worth it. I spent so much time driving back and forth, that when I arrived back at Eden, I was just as tired as when I left.
Mike and I would spend eight more days together, hauling 7,082 lbs of pillows from Virginia to Kentucky; 19,192 lbs of shovels from Kentucky to a Sears warehouse in Wilkes-Barre, PA; Proctor & Gamble merchandise from Tunkhannock, PA to two Sam's Clubs in suburban Detroit, MI; 43,400 lbs of Detroit Diesels to a Freightliner factory in Cleveland, NC; furniture from North Carolina to Ruther Glen, VA; and 45,074 lbs of copper rods from Richmond to the Swift terminal in Greer, SC.
We were routed to the Greer terminal because it was time for us to split up. Mike had accumulated four weeks of driving time with a trainee co-driver; it was time for him to solo. We needed to attend a training course in Greer for drivers about to solo, covering mostly defensive driving and proper logbook techniques. After that, Mike drove us to Eden and we parted company. I enjoyed driving with Mike. We got along fine, and he was a very competent driver. I wish him well. As a plus, I had added five more states to my training total (MO, KS, UT, KY, FL), so I now had 35 states.
Driving With My Second Trainee Co-Driver
Mike had completed his four weeks of training, but I still needed a few more days with a trainee co-driver before I could solo. (Mike had actually offered to extend his training time so we could both solo at the same time, but this plan ran into so many problems that we were forced to abandon it.) I talked with my driver manager in Richmond and found out the situation there was the same - plenty of trainees but no trucks. After waiting nearly two weeks (with no pay!), I finally was assigned a truck - a Freightliner Century-Class that looked to be in pretty good condition. This time, I would be "first-seat driver" and would keep the truck when my training was complete. My driver manager worked out a plan to team me up with another trainee co-driver who also needed a few more days of training. We would take a load from Virginia to the Swift terminal in Phoenix, AZ, where another Richmond truck was waiting. The trip would take enough time that we could both solo when we arrived in Phoenix. My co-driver would get the truck that was waiting in Phoenix, and I would keep my truck. Then we would split up and start solo driving, each in his own truck.
To make a long story short, it didn't work out that way. Despite its good looks, my truck failed its pre-trip inspection (air brake and steering problems, among other things) and went into the Richmond shop. For days, and days, and days. Eventually, we got a loaner truck to make a few runs and earn some money. By the time my truck was finally fixed, the Phoenix deal had evaporated (the truck out there had been assigned to someone else). We finally started driving together, but instead of a long and interesting trip, we did a bunch of little jobs knocking around the mid-Atlantic region. Not much fun, and pretty forgettable.
Solo Driving At Last
I went solo in Richmond on April 15, 2003 (income tax day). There was no fanfare, no tests - my co-driver simply packed up and left and I was on my own. I thought I would be a little more excited, but I wasn't. The ordeal of waiting to get the truck fixed and having so much of my time wasted left a sour taste in my mouth. But I was finally solo, and that was my goal. I will tell you about my solo driving experiences in the next section of this journal.
Regards,
John Baltimore, MD
(P.S. If you want to contact me, my email address is john_santic@hotmail.com.)
Comments and Observations
As with Section 1, I have added a few more comments about my likes and dislikes. Keep in mind, these are my own personal opinions; others may have different opinions.
What I Liked
Seeing the country - I enjoyed team driving with Jimmy and Mike, when we got to do long trips and see the country. There's such an amazing variety of scenery, people, and places, you just have to see it to believe it. Unfortunately for a newbie, this type of driving looks like the exception rather that the rule. It seems like we got one nice long trip to "turn us on", then the rest of the trips were short to medium runs in our local area.
Getting more proficient at handling the truck, and all the other details of the truck-driving profession - There certainly are lots of details, and I'm pleased that I'm getting better and better. It's actually very satisfying to be earning a living by doing a complicated and demanding job; most people I know wouldn't be able to handle it. It's a tough job, and if you do it well, you can take a lot of satisfaction in that.
Time passes easily, and you only have to worry about "now" - Truck driving is very much a job that takes place "in the present". Some jobs, like my previous computer job, required a great deal of thought and planning "for the future", such as to meet a deadline or to install a computer system. We did our day-to-day work, but all of the results were slowly accumulating so that we could eventually meet some future goal. If we kept working at it, over a period of months, all the work would get completed, and finally the goal would be reached, and we were done! This required two completely different mindsets: one to handle the day-to-day work details, and another to do the extensive planning for the future. With truck driving, "the future" means "tomorrow", which is so close that it doesn't even seem like the future. So in general, it seems easier (or at least different) to me, since you don't need that extra mindset to do extensive planning to achieve future goals. You just need the usual "present moment" mindset to handle the day-to-day details, then you keep the truck rolling, watch the miles tick off, and live very much in the present. Once you deliver a load, it's ancient history, and a new load assignment automatically plops into your lap (via Qualcomm), and you start the process over again. Frequently when I drive, time just seems to flow effortlessly, and the miles roll by without requiring a whole lot of concious thought. Since we get paid by the mile, I guess I am earning my pay without even thinking about it! Of course, as a practical driver, I know that we REALLY earn our pay when the problems arise, which they frequently do. Rolling down the highway on a sunny day is the easy part.
What I Didn't Like
Poor sleep - I am a very light sleeper and had a very difficult time sleeping while the truck was rolling. Most of the time, I never did fall soundly asleep. Even if I did fall asleep, it was not restful sleep,but just fitful sleep. This was a continuing problem the whole time I drove with someone else, since we usually drove as a "team" and kept the truck rolling. Now and then, depending on our schedule, we would shut the truck down and both get some sleep. I am very much looking forward to solo driving, which will obviously eliminate this problem situation.
Poor diet - I sure did get sick of five-minute truckstop meals: grabbing a hotdog and chips at the counter while leaving the truck idling in the fuel lane. Even when there was time to sit down, most of the restaurants were fast food or burger joints without good food, but with expensive prices. I will have to work on this. With the extra stress of the job and poor sleeping, if you add poor diet to this as well, it's a recipe for running yourself down and getting sick.
Poor hygiene - I normally like a shower every day. With Jimmy, by mutual agreement, we managed to get a shower every other day, and this required some effort to arrange. With Carol, showers were catch as catch can, and were sometimes rare. The situation was the same with Mike - we didn't plan shower stops rigorously, so sometimes we got them, sometimes we didn't. This is something I will work on when solo. There's no reason to be dirty or smelly, so with proper time planning and trip planning, I hope to get showers more regularly.
Low-ball mileage figures - The Swift routing computer is very good at routing the trip for the minimum number of driving miles, which determines your pay (since you're paid according to the computer-routed mileage). Unfortunately, the routes are frequently contorted and inefficient, using U.S. highways and even local highways if that manages to shave a few miles off the route (and a few dollars off your pay). We saw many examples of trips that would be very efficient to run on the interstates, but the routing computer would send you through the middle of a city or through a suburban shopping area on a local or U.S. highway. This is completely foolish, since those highways would take much longer to run and would probably burn more fuel (with all the stops and starts) than running the slightly longer but more fuel-efficient interstates. It's quite annoying to look at the route and realize that the routing computer gave you a route that's not only more time-consuming but also a shorter distance. The route simultaneously cuts your pay and makes you waste time. We eventually decided to treat the computer route basically as a pay statement: "this is the route with the minimum number of miles, so that's all you're getting paid". As the person in the driver's seat, you have to look at your motor carrier's atlas and decide if there's a more efficient way for you to run. You need to take all things into consideration (time, fuel, safety, driving stress, truck stop and rest area availability, etc.), not just minimizing driving miles (and pay). After carefully considering all the details, you come up with your own route, and that's the way you drive it. It might be a few miles longer on paper, but it might save fuel anyway and take less time, and produce less wear and tear on the equipment and the driver.
Bad directions (occasionally) - Maybe 10-15% of the time, the Qualcomm directions would be wrong, or leave out an important detail, such that if you followed them verbatim, you'd get lost. And you didn't even know that you were getting lost, so by the time you finally figured it out, you were REALLY lost. This was extremely frustrating, since getting lost in a big truck is a big deal. You can't just do a three-point turn in the street, or pull into someone's driveway. Swift has a process where drivers can submit corrections, but like many other theoretically helpful processes, the driver doesn't get paid for participating. After the company has wasted your time and effort by having you follow bad directions, the least the company could do is to pay a small "bounty" for correcting the bad directions.
Financing the company's business - The driver has to pay out of his pocket for all fees and tolls, then submit the receipts in a Trip-Pak envelope, and hope that the company keeps its promise to reimburse those expenses. For example, if you don't have an EZ-Pass and are driving from, say, Richmond up to Connecticut, this can be a lot of money. For bridge and turnpike fees, it can add up to the better part of $100 for this one trip. This money comes out of YOUR pocket, until the company reimburses you. This is one of the times when you must HAVE money to MAKE money - if you start out flat broke, it will be very tough to handle these situations. I took $400 cash with me for a four-week training period, and it was barely enough.
Home time - Swift gives you one day off for every six to seven days out, so at the end of two week of hard running, you might get two days off. This was hardly enough time to even catch up on sleep and do accumulated chores. It wasn't enough time to really unwind and enjoy being home, or to do anything significant while home. Over a long period of time (like a year), this has got to become rather arduous and stressful. Sure, after a year, you get a week's vacation, but even that would probably seem way too short.
Mediocre terminals - Swift has some decent terminals, like Phoenix, AZ, Edwardsville, KS, and Greer, SC. But they also have some piss-poor terminals, like Martinsburg, WV, South Plainfield, NJ, or even Richmond, VA. In some ways, Swift is its own worst enemy. They have such a high turnover of drivers that they are constantly bringing in hoards of new trainees (including me). This has got to be a costly and inefficient way to run a company. If they would improve some of their facilities and treat their drivers better, they could be much more efficient.
Other Comments
Dealing with fatigue - Fatigue is an ever-present demon, always lurking in the background, looking for a chance to sneak up on you and send you to la-la land. I've tried staying alert by drinking coffee or Mountain Dew, and they work for a while. But it takes more and more caffeine to stay awake, and finally, it stops working altogether. I've also tried staying alert by reading aloud every road sign, even the mile markers and reflectors, to keep my mind occupied and alert. Again, this works for a while but finally stops working. I have the most trouble with fatigue from 2:00 AM to 5:00 AM. Many times, if I was on-duty driving, I would just pull into a rest area or on-ramp and shut the truck down during the wee hours of the morning. There was no point in trying to fight fatigue - the urge to sleep was just too strong. Almost always, a three-hour nap would turn out to be extremely refreshing.
Logbook advice - Make an effort to keep your logbook current, correct, and neat. You can be stopped by the authorities at any time, and if your logbook is a mess, you're in trouble! You can also be called inside at any weigh station and asked to hand over all your paperwork for inspection (this happened to Mike, my co-driver). If your logbook is way behind, you'll have to really scramble to fix it up in a hurry, which GREATLY increases the chances of making a mistake - a mistake that could prove very costly! (Mike passed his paperwork inspection with flying colors - he was actually complimented by the DOT inspector for having everything in perfect order.) Another bit of advice: During our last training class (before going solo), we were admonished not to do clever (but illegal) things like speed averaging. A company can potentially get into a huge amount of trouble with the DOT, even to the point of being shut down, if a DOT audit finds too many drivers obviously fudging their logs.
Practical logbook details - In both truck driving school and Swift orientation, we were told to log our time the way it actually happened. In the very beginning, I tried doing this rigorously, but it caused a few problems that I learned right away to avoid. For example, when running as a team with my trainer, let's say my trainer was driving while I was in the sleeper. Sometimes when we stopped for fuel or to handle freight, I would help out with the chores and log it as on-duty/not driving. Unfortunately, this would break up my sleeper berth time with an on-duty interval, and I'd have to restart my eight-hour break time. I quickly realized that the person who's officially in the sleeper (or off-duty) must STAY THAT WAY for at least eight hours to recharge his driving hours. If you happened to get out of the sleeper for a moment or two, you just don't bother logging that little bit of time if it doesn't really affect your break. Also, be careful about switching between off-duty and sleeper berth during your eight-hour break. Your eight-hour break can only have two portions, and each must be at least two hours. You don't want to dither back and forth betweeen off-duty and sleeper berth, because you can chop your break into more than two pieces, which causes a problem. Another logging detail: In theory, if you're running as a team, you can't be off-duty when sitting in the passenger seat of a moving truck (see FMCSA guidance at www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rulesregs/fmcsr/regs/395reg.htm). Technically, you should log it as on-duty/not driving. But there are times when the off-duty driver just isn't tired and wants to sit in a seat and look out the window. This is hard to do legally without messing up your eight-hour break.
Scale your loads - It's better to be safe than sorry. Use your truckstop guide to find a nearby scale, or at least someplace before the first weigh station. The company reimburses scale fees, but does NOT reimburse overweight fines - the driver pays! Some Swift terminals have simple one-axle scales, as do some customers (like the Costco warehouse in NJ).
Getting lost - Try real hard to avoid getting lost in the first place. Work out detailed directions for the entire trip, write them down clearly, and check them through twice for correctness. It's so important not to get lost in the first place, you have to pull out all the stops in the preparation and execution of your trip plan. If you're having trouble navigating (for example, having trouble seeing road signs in the rain or darkness), slow way down or even stop (use your four-way flashers if necessary). If you miss a turn, keep an eye out for a turnaround but make sure it's safe. Make sure that by attempting to turn around, you don't get yourself into an even bigger jam, such as causing an accident or heading into a residential area (which is guaranteed to try your patience and skill). Think like a truck driver, not a car driver.
Swift training - I have read some critical comments on the Internet about Swift's policy of pairing two trainees as a way of training them. I have found this training technique to be very useful. After a month of driving with an experienced driver, if you have any wits or skill, you have begun to figure things out and you probably think you're ready to "spread your wings and fly". That's mostly true. You could probably handle most of the driving situations safely and without too much difficulty. However, there will be some times when it would be a very great help to have a second person on-hand, to help figure things out or to assist in a particularly difficult situation. You don't necessarily need a full-fledged driver trainer (they are a scarce and valuable resource). A trainee will do just fine. And if you need further help, call your driver manager or send a Qualcomm message.
Cell phone usage - If you use a cell phone while driving, get a good cell-phone holder and a hands-free headset. Put your most common numbers on a "one-push" speed-dial.
A sad fact of life - It's almost impossible to keep a stop sign standing up anywhere close to a Swift terminal. Invariably, some nitwit driver runs it over. The same is true for practically anything in a Swift terminal yard - sooner or later, a driver is going to hit it and break it or knock it down. Light poles, fences, concrete barriers, the electric entrance gate, the electronic box for a single-axle scale, the corners of curbs (broken off), trailers, trash barrels. I'm surprised I haven't seen any wrecked fuel pumps at the terminals, it would seem like a natural that these would be run over, too. I've even heard about Swift trucks crashing into each other at terminals. Section 3 - Solo Driving Introduction I am keeping a journal to document the whole process of becoming a truck driver. Instead of posting new information week by week, I will try to post the journal in three sections. I wrote the first section in late December 2002 after completing truck driving school, but before starting a real driving job. I wrote the second section in April and May 2003 after I found a driving job and completed the additional company training on the road. The third section follows, below. I wrote this section in June 2003 after completing one month of solo driving. Hauling Regional Freight As I explained in the previous section of my journal, I had spent many weeks driving as a team to complete my on-the-job training. I had driven with two different experienced drivers and two different trainees, hauling loads all over the country. I finally reached my goal of becoming a solo driver on April 15, 2003 at the Swift terminal in Richmond, VA (my home terminal). As a new solo driver, it quickly became clear that I wouldn't be hauling any plum coast-to-coast loads. I suspect that most of those loads are reserved for drivers with more seniority or for teams that keep the truck rolling all the time. Most of the time, I hauled regional freight, traveling within a few states of my home terminal in Richmond. The trips tended to be of short to medium length, so there wasn't much variety in the scenery. I'll give you the rundown of my month of solo driving: Trip 1 - Richmond, VA to Little Falls, NY (32,924 lbs of medical supplies) - I was dispatched on this trip the same day I went solo, after my last co-driver packed up and left: Take a trailer of freight from the Swift terminal in Richmond to a customer in central New York. This load was a "T-call", meaning it was transferred from one driver to another. Sometimes a driver doesn't take a load all the way from the shipper to the receiver, but instead will drop the trailer at a Swift terminal along the way. A common reason for doing this is when the driver is being routed to his/her home terminal for "home time". The dispatchers can't always find a load to be delivered in the driver's home city (in this case, Richmond). Instead, they assign the driver a load that passes through Richmond on its way to somewhere else. The driver drops the trailer at the Richmond terminal and heads home; then a different driver (me, in this case) hooks the trailer and takes it to the final destination. The trip started out OK, but I soon noticed a problem that became more and more serious. The truck handled OK on flat roads, but whenever it went up a hill, the engine lost power and began "missing", as if a cylinder wasn't firing properly. On slight hills, the problem was annoying but tolerable, but on the steeper hills of Pennsylvania, the problem became quite troublesome. I had to downshift more gears more than usual, and had to crawl up the hills with the engine throbbing and vibrating. I was concerned that the vibration under load might damage the drive train, so after delivering the load, I reported the problem to my driver manager. He said to send a Qualcomm message to the Swift "On Road" service department, and they directed me to the Swift terminal in Syracuse, NY. At this point, I was a little distraught. I had recently endured a lengthy (and unpaid) delay waiting for the truck to be fixed at the Richmond terminal, and now the truck was back in the shop again, in Syracuse. Boy, it can be pretty hard to earn a living in this business! It wound up taking three full days for the repairs (a fuel injector had to be repaired, plus the alternator was replaced to fix an unrelated problem). To his credit, my driver manager paid me for three breakdown days, so at least I got some compensation. But breakdown pay is only $40 per 24-hour period, so it's hardly more than pocket change. And now another problem reared its ugly head - it was now the weekend and there was no freight heading out of central New York. I had heard of this problem from other drivers, where they got a load into New York but no load out, and had to endure lengthy delays. In my case, the dispatcher ordered me to deadhead (that is, haul an empty trailer) all the way to the Swift terminal in Columbus, Ohio, with the expectation that a load would turn up by the time I got there. I deadheaded to Ohio, but then had to wait an extra day for a load (I received $40 layover pay). As an aside, Swift pays for deadhead miles at the same rate as for loaded miles. I never minded deadheading - in fact, I preferred it. I got paid the same amount and got to enjoy the peppy acceleration and easy hill-climbing of hauling an empty trailer. (Stopping distances are longer when empty, though.) As another aside, when you read about me encountering delays - three days here, one day there - it might not sound too bad. But keep in mind a couple of things. First of all, you don't know in advance how long the delay will be. When you show up at the Syracuse shop with a broken truck, nobody comes out and tells you, "OK, that will take three days, go off and have a good time while you're waiting". In fact, nobody tells you anything. You fill out a form describing the symptoms, drop off your keys, then retire to the driver's lounge and wait. Several times a day, you plod over to the shop and ask, "how's it going", to get a status update. You do this day after day, until finally when you ask, "how's it going", they say, "it's done", and you get to leave. Personally, I find this very frustrating - after all, I'm trying to earn a living, and "time is money". But there's nothing you can do about it, so you just have to endure an impediment of unknown (and frequently lengthy) duration. My second point is that waiting can be very, very boring. Since you don't know in advance how long it's going to take, you can't plan on doing anything else other than waiting. This is especially true when waiting for a dispatch. You sit there in the truck waiting for the Qualcomm to beep, indicating a pre-plan has been received. It could beep in the next five seconds, or it could beep two days from now. Meanwhile, you wait, and maybe read a book, do company paperwork, or catch some sleeper time, etc. Trip 2 - Blacklick, OH to Bronx, NY (4,850 lbs of empty plastic bottles)- Oh joy! I get to drive not just THROUGH New York City, but actually INTO New York City. And not namby-pamby Queens, but the South Bronx, one of the toughest areas of the city. As I pondered the load assignment message, I was kinda hopin' the Qualcomm would beep again, and say "sorry, we sent you that assignment by mistake, please ignore it", but no such luck - I would be worming my way deep into the rotten core of The Big Apple. To start with, I knew the load would be carried in a 53-foot trailer, and I knew that 53-foot trailers weren't legal in New York City, unless you were just passing through on an interstate. If you wanted to take a 53-foot trailer on local roads, you had to contact an agent and get a special permit that was so fussy and nit-picking it would be prohibitively annoying to get. (I learned some of this from my driver trainer and learned more on the internet.) Since Swift trucks couldn't get the permits (due to logistical difficulties), I could use this legal restriction as a "get out of jail free" card to avoid New York City if I wanted to press the point. I could call my driver manager and refuse the load because the trailer wouldn't have the required permit. But on the other hand, I don't like to turn down assignments, and I had heard that many drivers take 53-foot trailers into the city - indeed, Carol and I did just that during my training. It didn't seem like a major risk, so I decided to accept the assignment even though technically it would be violating New York City trucking regulations. I found the shipper in Ohio without difficulty, picked up the load, and started heading east. The route included a stop at the Swift terminal in Jonestown, PA, for fuel; I stayed overnight so I would be properly positioned to make my run into the city the next day. While passing through New Jersey, I stopped at a truckstop and bought a street-level map of New York City (the motor carrier's atlas didn't have enough detail). I made a point of writing out detailed directions, especially for the route through the city, to minimize the chances of getting lost. Despite my best efforts, I still wandered off the route in the Bronx. When I exited the highway on to local roads, I didn't realize I had to immediately move left several lanes to make the correct left turn. I didn't even realize I had missed the turn until I had gone a few blocks, but after I realized my mistake, I pulled over, turned on my four-way flashers, and consulted the street-level map. I worked out a plan to rejoin my route by making three right turns, at the correct places of course, picking roads that looked to be major roads. Surprisingly enough, the plan worked (although one of the turns was very tight) and I got headed in the right direction on the right road. (In retrospect, it was essential to have a good street-level map that I could use while driving, otherwise I would have had a much more difficult time. Don't leave home without it!) Once I reached the customer, I saw that they didn't have a loading dock; I would have to parallel-park along the curb and they would unload me in the street. There were other trucks in the street being loaded/unloaded, including one that was double-parked. It was a very tight squeeze getting past this truck - at one point, I swear I had less than an inch of clearance on each side of my trailer. To unload me, they used a forklift and a pallet jack (which is a small hand-operated forklift). The forklift placed the pallet jack in the back of my trailer, then a man climbed into the trailer and used the pallet jack to manually move pallets to the very end of the trailer. A second man used the forklift to pick up the pallets from the tailgate and transport them into the building. Inside, they had a line of packaging machinery that would squirt some kind of goo into the empty bottles and affix a "Victoria's Secret" label. Normally, once you deliver a load, you wait around until you get your next load assignment via the Qualcomm. I didn't want to hang out in the South Bronx, though, so I called my driver manager and asked for advice. He recommended that I "get out of Dodge" and hang out at the Vince Lombardi Service Plaza on the New Jersey Turnpike. This service plaza has some major advantages: it's convenient to New York City, it has lots of truck parking, you don't have to pay a toll to reach it, and you can head north or south on the turnpike when leaving. This turned out to be a good hangout, and I used it on other trips, too. Despite the scary reputation of the South Bronx, all the people I met were friendly and helpful; they even gave me good directions for an easy truck route out of the city. Trip 3 - Montgomery, NY to North Brunswick, NJ (30,770 lbs of office-supply merchandise) - I had time to kill, so I took an eight-hour rest break at the Vince Lombardi Service Plaza, then headed north for a 1:00 AM pickup at a Staples warehouse in New York . I got there early hoping the preloaded trailer would be ready, but it wasn't, so I had another two-and-a-half hours to kill. Once the load was ready, I had to hurry because there was barely enough time to make the delivery appointment in New Jersey. (As an aside, this is one of the more annoying aspects of trucking: Sometimes you have hours and hours to kill, and all that time gets wasted. Next thing you know, you're desperately short of time and have to hurry, hurry, hurry! And it's all beyond your control; you're just a pawn whose movements are controlled by others.) When I got to North Brunswick, I had trouble finding the customer. I had been driving slowly, counting off the street addresses, when suddenly the address numbers skipped a few addresses including the customer's address. It turned out there were several buildings set well back from the street on a long driveway; I didn't see them in the dark. I tried to get turned around but couldn't find anyplace good. To my chagrin, I wound up in a cul-de-sac residential area, and it was a real struggle to extricate the rig. You might think this would be easy to avoid, but in the pre-dawn darkness, in an unfamiliar area, when you're tired and getting desperate, it's pretty easy to make a little mistake that is very difficult and time-consuming to undo. When I finally got to the customer, they had a ridiculously tight loading dock that was recessed deep into the building and down an inclined ramp. It took me lots of pull-ups but I finally "got it in there". After being unloaded, I couldn't pull away from the dock in the desired direction, due to vehicles parked in the maneuvering space. I had to head in the wrong direction, then back-up all the way down the long driveway, and back-up out into the street. (The forklift driver walked into the street and directed traffic, which was a big help.) And I still wasn't done with the load. There was some returned merchandise, so I had to drive all the way back to the warehouse, drop the trailer, and hook an empty. Whew! What a stressful night! Trip 4 - Brentwood, NY to Savannah, GA (14,000 lbs of paper napkins) - Due to the difficulty I had with the previous load, I got a late start on this load. It started out stressfully - shouldering my way through morning traffic on the notoriously bumpy roads of New York City, then working my way out to eastern Long Island through miles of road construction. But the rest of the trip was much more relaxed. I managed to stop in Baltimore to pick up my mail and check on my boat (which is where I live). I can only stop there in the dead of night or in the wee hours of the morning, since I have to park the rig on the street and can only find enough consecutive empty parking spaces in the off-hours. I stopp |
