PSA: Look out for large chunks of snow/ice coming off of big trucks

[mtngirl79]

cause people are skeerd of trucks

In Washington cars can go 70, trucks 60

[BmillsSkier]

I'm all for equal speed limits. Just get the fuck to the right if you see someone in your rearview.

[ill-advised strategy]

The entire transportation industry would change if drivers made a living wage for a normal workweek.

Every time trucking is seriously discussed it turns into nibbling around the edges, mandatory break here, log book change there. The whole system is fucked because all of society runs on trucking, and trucking is budgeted around a 70 hour workweek for drivers, and whoever owns the trucks you see cannot afford to let that truck sit, so everything is built around working a 70 hour week with odd, varying hours each and every week for the duration of a drivers career. It's fundamentally unsafe, and it's fundamentally abusive to the workforce involved, and if you dig into trucking accidents almost every time you eventually reach an impasse where we either have to rework the entire industry from the ground up (which involves reworking everything in society...fuel, food, housing, roads, healthcare, every kind of commerce) or deal with the fact that the most dangerous vehicles on the road are piloted by haggard, tired, irritated people with almost nothing in their life besides work and generally no other options.

Nibble around the edges all you want, this isn't going to be solved until everyone is prepared to spend a lot more on everything that touches a truck and spend a TON on infrastructure to have trucks parked while drivers do something besides drive all day and night.

[mtngirl79]

About 80% of the time, when trucks and cars crash into each other, it us the cars fault.

http://www.ccjdigital.com/80-percent...a-report-says/

Often times, news headlines will read as if it's the truck's fault when it's not, "truck crashed into car, killing family of 4" but when you read the article, the car crossed the center line and hit the truck head on.

In this case, it sounds like drugs were involved, and the truck driver was driving carelessly and will be charged with vehicular manslaughter.

What I don't understand is the way people will play chicken with trucks, do an thing they can to get around them in any circumstances and generally treat them as if they aren't huge 80,000+ missiles that will crush them at a tiny mistake or miss judgement on the fault of either party. I just told you about truck driving being difficult. About the pressures and the long days. Yetiman will back me up.

Stay the fuck away from trucks. It doesn't really matter who is at fault when you are dead.

If a truck is acting weird, or driving like a dick get the fuck away... call 911 if ypu think it is warrented, but don't play chicken with trucks.

Snoqualmie is a shitshow when it snows a lot with cars and trucks fighting to get over it. Increase following distance. If someone is coming up on you from behind like an idiot, give them all the space you can. Move over if you can. Slow down. Be patient. Give yourself every advantage to be able to avoid a wreck...

In this recent accident, the truck lost control and crashed. The other vehicles then crashed into him and the mayhem that was caused... give yourself every advantage because, again, at fault does not matter much when you are dead and people make mistakes all the time.

[ill-advised strategy]

Stay the fuck away from trucks. It doesn't really matter who is at fault when you are dead.

If a truck is acting weird, or driving like a dick get the fuck away... .

That's what she does, it's what I do. We were both truck drivers. Read and learn.

It's going to be sketchy until a massive, super-expensive, multi-national effort is undertaken to completely rework how freight transportation is budgeted and conducted---and if you're waiting for that, fucking settle in because it's not coming any time soon.

[mtngirl79]

The entire transportation industry would change if drivers made a living wage for a normal workweek.

Every time trucking is seriously discussed it turns into nibbling around the edges, mandatory break here, log book change there. The whole system is fucked because all of society runs on trucking, and trucking is budgeted around a 70 hour workweek for drivers, and whoever owns the trucks you see cannot afford to let that truck sit, so everything is built around working a 70 hour week with odd, varying hours each and every week for the duration of a drivers career. It's fundamentally unsafe, and it's fundamentally abusive to the workforce involved, and if you dig into trucking accidents almost every time you eventually reach an impasse where we either have to rework the entire industry from the ground up (which involves reworking everything in society...fuel, food, housing, roads, healthcare, every kind of commerce) or deal with the fact that the most dangerous vehicles on the road are piloted by haggard, tired, irritated people with almost nothing in their life besides work and generally no other options.

Nibble around the edges all you want, this isn't going to be solved until everyone is prepared to spend a lot more on everything that touches a truck and spend a TON on infrastructure to have trucks parked while drivers do something besides drive all day and night.

This. Truck drivers use to make a good wage, but as the small owner ops have gone under to huge companies and cheap freight they are stretched thinner and thinner.

Most OTR truck drivers get 1 day off at home for every week spent on the road. That's 4 days in a month to spend with family, rest, do chores, pay bills, home manteince, etc.

It's near slavery, and those guys are not making a lot of money.

[ill-advised strategy]

Most OTR truck drivers get 1 day off at home for every week spent on the road.

1 day a week: I caught up on sleep, paid bills, bought things I needed for the next week, and did laundry....then back to work. Living the dream.

Here's a video of a guy calling dispatch to let them know he's too tired to continue and needs to stop and sleep....and how that goes. There's a lot of detail (dude takes mandatory 10 hour break, dispatch has him take another, then go drive...so you're now driving overnight after being up all day, and when you tell dispatch you're falling asleep and can't continue this video happens), but if you want the short part it starts around 11:00. This is typical, not extraordinary whatsoever...it's how the industry works:

[grskier]

What scares me are the big snow boulders that are full of gravel that come from the underside of truck trailers and their landing gear. That crap will make it all they way up here when it's snowing somewhere.

There really isn't a lot the drivers can do about it, either.

That's what I was talking about, the crap out of the wheel wells... You need to go self spray car wash to get it off

[mtngirl79]

You do realize that trucks are too big to fit in most car washes and that shit builds up in like 20 miles.

Increase following distance so you have time to avoid them.

Once, I delivered a load in Kalispell, MT late in the evening and was suppose to deliver sometime early AM in Havre. It was dumping snow, but nice, cold, dry snow that wasn't a huge deal. I got to Browning and a state trooper asked me where I was doing. I told him and he said there were 4 foot snow drifts, and nobody would be patrolling that road until morning, there was no cell service and do not go.

I called dispatch and told them what he said and they said go. Same basic deal as the video that Yetiman posted, except I went, busting 4 foot snow drifts with the hood of my truck. It was negative something out. I would have probably died if I wrecked or broke down.

Gotta get the load there. Its horrible.

[ill-advised strategy]

You do realize that trucks are too big to fit in most car washes and that shit builds up in like 20 miles.

Increase following distance so you have time to avoid them.

Once, I delivered a load in Kalispell, MT late in the evening and was suppose to deliver sometime early AM in Havre. It was dumping snow, but nice, cold, dry snow that wasn't a huge deal. I got to Browning and a state trooper asked me where I was doing. I told him and he said there were 4 foot snow drifts, and nobody would be patrolling that road until morning, there was no cell service and do not go.

I called dispatch and told them what he said and they said go. Same basic deal as the video that Yetiman posted, except I went, busting 4 foot snow drifts with the hood of my truck. It was negative something out. I would have probably died if I wrecked or broke down.

Gotta get the load there. Its horrible.

Yup...state police urging people to stay off the roads, people driving with their hazards on, drifts across the road. I white-knuckle to a place to stop, get chewed out by the owner of the lot for stopping there, call dispatch and tell them the road is deserted and with blowing and drifting I can't tell where the road is and I'm stopping for safety and I'm ordered, not asked, ordered to continue.

You people have literally no idea how this actually works, the decisions are being made by people in remote offices who assume no danger or liability, then when things inevitably go wrong everyone points at the driver.

When you guys talk about stopping, you realize the company sets up loads that have no time set aside for stopping, and if you stop --even for safety---they see you've stopped moving and you may have a problem getting paid for your work or lose your job, or lose the next day's work. You guys have no idea...no idea at all.

[Thaleia]

You guys make it sound as though you were forced into driving.

[BmillsSkier]

Mtngirl, did you or Yetiman ever listen to America's Trucking Network? Opened my eyes to the issues you guys bring up.

That and I learned that there is apparently no call screener on that show. Obviously cracked-out-tired truckers with hilarious handles calling in allowed to ramble for 10 minutes at a time.

Really helped kill that long drive I had.

[mtngirl79]

You guys make it sound as though you were forced into driving.

I wasn't forced, but I didn't have many other marketable skills. It was trucks or minimum wage. And I don't have a family. I was able to stand up for myself and call their bluff. People with dependents kind of ARE forced into driving trucks because if they don't have other skills, how else will they support their families?

Nice Alias, though. I'm pretty sure who you are. You are the same person who will tell someone who cannot make a livable wage that they are a terrible drain on the system and the country because they need public assistance to support their family, even while working over 40 hours a week at a non livable wage....

We are just telling it like it is.

[mtngirl79]

I didn't listen to that very often just because I didn't want to think about that shit and be angry about it. I mostly listened to music or books on tapes.

[ill-advised strategy]

anyway, it's not changing until all of society reworks pricing on everything and we build massive amounts of parking and pay drivers a living wage for a normal workweek.

If we're talking reforms, my reform would look like this: federal registration for all semi tractors working across state lines, part of the registration requires the tractor to be remotely monitored by the federal DOT, each tractor is tied to a specific driver or pair of drivers and the tractor is available for use 12 continuous hours a day for 5 continuous days a week, to start and stop at the same time each day. So if you start at 6am monday that truck can only be operated until 6pm and it's 6am to 6pm for the rest of the week until Friday. You could reset that by taking at least 48 off. Minimum wage for driving time is $15/hr, non-driving available hours are the federal minimum wage, OT for 40+ hours per week.


There would need to be a lot more parking to make this happen, and a lot more personnel at the DOT level. Simply put, the relationship between trucking and the DOT would be like the relationship between aviation and the FAA. It's doable, but people have to be ready to spend more on everything....and that's a tough sell.

[ill-advised strategy]

You guys make it sound as though you were forced into driving.

Yes, that's essentially how it worked out. I bailed as soon as I could, but yes, I was essentially forced into driving. It was a choice between driving and homelessness.

[mtngirl79]

Yup...state police urging people to stay off the roads, people driving with their hazards on, drifts across the road. I white-knuckle to a place to stop, get chewed out by the owner of the lot for stopping there, call dispatch and tell them the road is deserted and with blowing and drifting I can't tell where the road is and I'm stopping for safety and I'm ordered, not asked, ordered to continue.

You people have literally no idea how this actually works, the decisions are being made by people in remote offices who assume no danger or liability, then when things inevitably go wrong everyone points at the driver.

When you guys talk about stopping, you realize the company sets up loads that have no time set aside for stopping, and if you stop --even for safety---they see you've stopped moving and you may have a problem getting paid for your work or lose your job, or lose the next day's work. You guys have no idea...no idea at all.

Or in California where there literally is NO WHERE to stop. Seriously, this is why truck drivers love Walmart. Nobody will let you park in their parking lots, the truck stops are full, they ticket you on off ramps, the rest areas are full of RVs...

but, get off the road.

[mtngirl79]

anyway, it's not changing until all of society reworks pricing on everything and we build massive amounts of parking and pay drivers a living wage for a normal workweek.

If we're talking reforms, my reform would look like this: federal registration for all semi tractors working across state lines, part of the registration requires the tractor to be remotely monitored by the federal DOT, each tractor is tied to a specific driver or pair of drivers and the tractor is available for use 12 continuous hours a day for 5 continuous days a week, to start and stop at the same time each day. So if you start at 6am monday that truck can only be operated until 6pm and it's 6am to 6pm for the rest of the week until Friday. You could reset that by taking at least 48 off. Minimum wage for driving time is $15/hr, non-driving available hours are the federal minimum wage, OT for 40+ hours per week.


There would need to be a lot more parking to make this happen, and a lot more personnel at the DOT level. Simply put, the relationship between trucking and the DOT would be like the relationship between aviation and the FAA. It's doable, but people have to be ready to spend more on everything....and that's a tough sell.

I think someone should build a big co-op with drop and hook corridors all over the country set up for small Owner operators. Basically, there would be legs that took 7-10 hours round trip. Pick up a load, take it from one end to the other and swap.

improved efficiency, improved safety, better working conditions, better pay. A normal 8sih hour day, overtime allowed within reason, but never forced.

[ill-advised strategy]

I think someone should build a big co-op with drop and hook corridors all over the country set up for small Owner operators. Basically, there would be legs that took 7-10 hours round trip. Pick up a load, take it from one end to the other and swap.

improved efficiency, improved safety, better working conditions, better pay. A normal 8sih hour day, overtime allowed within reason, but never forced.

It would be the same kind of infrastructure build as the railroads or freeway system, or the electrical grid. It's eminently doable, it just takes a shit ton of money and political will. Very doable, and carries the potential to solve many of these problems.

[mtngirl79]

I don't even think it would be hugely impossible. What I would do is pick an area that is sort of a hub.. lots of stuff going in and out.

This would be your base terminal. Then, you would have drop yards/satellite terminals along routes about 4-5 hours out to places with a lot of to and from traffic to your hub. So drivers grab a load, take it to the hub, drop and hook and head home with a different load.

Expand that like a spiderweb. I think it could work.

It would be run like a co-op/union. Owner ops.. maybe allow people owning a few trucks, but no huge freight companies.

As it grew it could have shops, insurance, it could be awesome.

[ill-advised strategy]

could you imagine if you were getting near your duty day and needed parking if you could ping DOT and get help instead of enforcement? If they handled you like they handle aircraft, assisting with your problem, saying OK, you can take an extra 30 minutes and go to XXXX where there is space available. That stuff is more doable than ever with technology, it's just that the current system is so entrenched and a handful of corporations are making bank from it....just using people up, and killing people with impunity. It's all fixable for a price, people just need to demand it and pay the price.

[BmillsSkier]

I don't even think it would be hugely impossible. What I would do is pick an area that is sort of a hub.. lots of stuff going in and out.

This would be your base terminal. Then, you would have drop yards/satellite terminals along routes about 4-5 hours out to places with a lot of to and from traffic to your hub. So drivers grab a load, take it to the hub, drop and hook and head home with a different load.

Expand that like a spiderweb. I think it could work.

It would be run like a co-op/union. Owner ops.. maybe allow people owning a few trucks, but no huge freight companies.

As it grew it could have shops, insurance, it could be awesome.

I have no clue on the trucking industry, but do find it interesting because, as has been pointed out, it touches everything.

Isn't what you just described already in place? I think it's called Indianapolis, IN or Columbus, OH.

[mtngirl79]

could you imagine if you were getting near your duty day and needed parking if you could ping DOT and get help instead of enforcement? If they handled you like they handle aircraft, assisting with your problem, saying OK, you can take an extra 30 minutes and go to XXXX where there is space available. That stuff is more doable than ever with technology, it's just that the current system is so entrenched and a handful of corporations are making bank from it....just using people up, and killing people with impunity. It's all fixable for a price, people just need to demand it and pay the price.

My ex got a ticket for taking 10 at a closed dot scale..

[gravitylover]

I always thought of weigh stations as extra rest areas. Guess not.

[mtngirl79]

I have no clue on the trucking industry, but do find it interesting because, as has been pointed out, it touches everything.

Isn't what you just described already in place? I think it's called Indianapolis, IN or Columbus, OH.

Well, yeah one of those places would be a good start.

This coop would put out a ton of negative press about the trucking industry, but this system would be safer, healthy for drivers, etc so companies shipping their products through the co-op could put the safe trucking seal like non gmo, or organic or no child labor.

Consumers would be taught to look for the safe trucker seal...