Eyewitness

I’ve heard about it, read about, but never witnessed it myself.

It was Friday night on March 4. We had stopped to eat in E. St. Louis, and when we headed for the bridge into St. Louis, we were hoping rush hour traffic would be gone. Instead it was stop and go. It’s a little complicated there. There are 3 major freeways converging there. There’s I-70, I-55, and I-64. For those needing to stay on I-70 you need to be in the far right lane. If you need to take I-44,(the south route to Oklahoma) you need to be in the second lane. All others need to stay in the left lanes. Right before the bridge there are only 2 lanes. We were in the 2^nd lane creeping and crawling almost to the merge point where we meet the other lanes on the left.

As we were creeping along, I noticed a black Lincoln Sable, 2 cars ahead of us, veer into the right lane, where a Landstar truck was moving slowly as well. At first, it looked like maybe someone wasn’t paying attention to the road. Mind you, we were not going very fast, probably 10 mph. It got back into the lane and then seemed to slow down a little bit and I watched in amazement as I realized that this car was driving into the back trailer tires of this truck. Larry was sitting in the passenger’s seat and saw it as well. Then the car pulls away and pulls up to the truck driver’s window, stops the car and a black lady jumps out of her car and starts yelling at the truck driver. She was screaming at him that he had ran into her car!! We could hear her even back where we were. I said to Larry, “ You need to go tell that driver that we saw the whole thing and it was her that ran into him.” So Larry jumps out of the truck and runs up to the driver and says we saw the whole thing. Well, that did not make her happy and she started screaming some more, then must have realized that there wasn’t anything she could do about it and jumped back in her car and took off.

Larry came back to the truck and quickly wrote his name and our phone number on a piece of paper and we eased up to the Landstar driver and gave it to him. We told him if he needed a witness we would be there for him.

He just took off. We never saw him again, and we made it passed the merge point and were almost to the crest of the bridge and saw that the Sable was still 2 cars ahead of us, so we were keeping an eye on her. What we saw next was absolutely incredible and we realized she was up to no good.

Traffic in the right lane was almost at a complete stop. It was bumper to bumper. There was an Atlas Van Lines truck, with cars in front of him and cars in back of him. The Sable tried to nose her way in front of the truck. I got on the CB. “Atlas, Atlas, watch out. She’s going to hit you. Back off. She’s going to hit you.” I mean, we knew what she was up to. He saw her and laid on his horn, but she knew what she was doing. As she was trying to maneuver her way in front of him, she hooked her back bumper onto his left front and shredded her back right quarter panel, pulling off the bumper half way. Damage was done, so she stopped and got out of her car screaming at him that he ran into her.

Again, we were right there and we stopped next to them and Larry was out there telling her that he saw her run into the truck, but she yelled back that he didn’t know (….) and that the truck ran into her. Larry then pulled out his little phone camera and started taking pictures. She jumped in her car screaming racial slurs and got on her phone screaming at someone on the phone. Since I could see that my truck was blocking traffic I pulled up in front of the car, but really wanted to be back there with the drama.

Finally a traffic response vehicle came and told them they needed to get off the bridge so Larry and I took off. We figured if they needed anything, they had our number.

About an hour and half later we got a call from the Atlas driver. He said that the cop that finally showed up, gave her the ticket for failure to yield the right of way, he was not convinced with her story, especially, since the damage did not show what she was trying to say happened. At the point, she had four different stories going and tried to say that the Landstar truck had jack-knifed and hit her. He also said, that she was on the phone and the officer asked her who she was talking to and she said, “My Attorney. I’m going to sue this driver.” And the officer said, “Why, he didn’t do anything wrong.”, which made her angry at the cop. She got her ticket and took off.

He said we may get a call from his insurance company, so this might not be over.

I don’t know her motive, but I wonder if she’s tried this before. And I know she doesn’t even realize what consequences her actions have. Because of her own selfishness, she could ruin someone else’s life, and livelihood. It could mean that this driver could lose his job. Maybe no one got hurt, but any accident involving a truck has many consequences in terms of insurance, and a driver’s record.

Obsession With the Weather

I have to admit it - I've been obsessed with the weather lately. We've had 2 weeks of snow, ice, blizzards, and below freezing temperatures. I've snarled, griped, whined, moaned and complained. I know it doesn't change anything - the weather is still going to be bad. I think what it is with me, is fear. It really does scare me to be driving in it. I feel confident in my ability to drive, I feel confident in Larry's ability. We drive slow when needed, and park it when needed. We do all we can to be safe.
But there's always the unknown - that patch of black ice around the corner, or breaking loose going down a snowy hill. There's the car in front of me that just did 2, count them, 2 - 360's right in front of me. Or the ice built up on the windshield so bad that we need to pull over to scrape it off.
Usually by February I've driven in enough bad weather that I'm over the jitters and get through the spring nonsense just fine, but this year is proving to be very difficult. Maybe I'm getting too old for this, or maybe I've just seen too many trucks jack-knifed, in the median, in the ditches, and being hauled away this last month and have had enough for one season.

And maybe it's spring fever.

Needless to say, I was excited to get home this time - only to be met by - you got it - snow. Living in western Washington significant snowstorms are a little unusual for this time of year, and the fact that the snow stayed on the ground for 3 days is also unusual. I'm happy to say that today it is raining and that the snow is melting. And we are going back to work tomorrow. The forecast for next week for the upper United States? You got it, snow and cold. I can only pray to the dispatch gods to send us South!!

At Least It's Warm

Another day of sitting in the truck waiting for a load. At least we are in Southern California, where it's windy but the sun is warm and we can do away with coats and jackets for awhile. I'm not feeling too bad about the wait today, because according to the weather report it is snowing and cold on our route to Ohio. We'll just wait until things move out, thank you.
We try our best to avoid the storms, and we actually can do it to some extent. However, despite all our efforts, we still ended up going through 2 major storms this last week. I don't want to have to admit this, but I slept through both of them, because it was my sleep time, and it was Larry's turn to drive. So, I heard the stories the next morning, and gasped and oohed aahed appropriately. I mean, I went to bed with a starlit sky, and woke up to sunshine. Not that I didn't believe him. The evidence of snow and ice, and sand from the sand trucks, still covered much of the truck and trailer. But it was nice to be oblivious, snug under the covers. In a way it also means that I trust him and I trust his driving, and I am grateful that he got me through it safely,

Color Changes

So I looked at my blog and thought, "Why is it in blue? I really don't like blue all that much." So I changed it to green. But wait, I really don't like green either. But I do like green trees and the green of spring and summer. And since we are in the midst of winter where colors are white, brown, and white, maybe it is a way to feel a little bit hopeful for spring to come. I know it's still January, but one can hope, can't one? I was amazed at how green California was after all the rain they had in the month of December. It almost did look like spring there.
We've already done a good share of snow driving this season. Before Christmas we had to chain up three times in just one week. It is not my favorite time to drive. And since my black ice scare last March, I'm a little more hesitant about driving on snow and ice.
Last week we drove through Missouri, Illinois and Indiana through a significant snow storm. The temperature was in the low 20's and teens so the snow was very dry and, in a lot of ways, safer to drive on then the wet stuff.
We made it through fine, but our truck is covered in salt and dirt from the salt and sand solutions that is put down. Today it we were in Arizona where the temperatures actually warmed up into the 40's so that the last of the ice still on the grill, trailer, and the back of the mirrors, was able to melt. The highlight of our day!

Regulations

I have to believe that this is the most controlled/regulated/watched over by big brother job in the whole entire world.

Once a year we have to have a physical to make sure our blood pressure is at an acceptable. Do they (and here I am referring to all the politicians/bureaucrats not realize that part of why our blood pressure is so bad is because of all the job requirements we have?

We need a special Commercial Driver’s License, which isn’t hard to keep up once you got it. However, if you want to do something special, like pull doubles, or haul Hazardous Materials you have to take an extra test. With HazMat, you have to take a test when you renew your license, and because of 9-11, you have to have a background check, which includes fingerprinting.

Then there’s all the fees, licensing, IFTA, fuel taxes, permits, etc., just for the truck itself. Thankfully, being a company driver we don’t have to worry about that.

Then there’s all the DOT rules for all aspects of the truck, the company, the drivers, how you run, how you operate, how you take care of business. It fits into a nice 3-5 book that’s about 2 inches thick and can be real fun to read when you have nothing better to do with your life.

The log book is a real joy. We have to mark every stop we make, all the miles we do and show pre-trip inspections of equipment. There’s even a protocol on what needs to be checked during that.

We have a Driver Tech on our truck which is like a mini-computer, which is our little tattle-teller. It records when we stop the truck so we have to be pretty accurate on our log-books because this will be used in an audit to see if we were telling the truth.

Then there’s all the hoopla about distracted driving and all the laws they want to impose on us about that.

We are seeing more and more states not letting trucks idle, which just makes me mad when they have more regard over animals being left in hot cars than they do for drivers needing to survive in hot trucks. One driver (and there’s many stories about this) watched an officer sit in his nice air-conditioned car while he was writing out a ticket for the driver who was idling his truck trying to stay cool. Something morally wrong with that.

Then we have CSA 2010 that is supposed to keep better track of infractions, tickets, rule breakers, etc., and weed the good companies from the bad companies. It’s to make companies be more compliant and if not then they have more repercussions, such as more control and possibly even, closing down. I guess it’s good to get rid of the riff-raff, but it puts more stress on us to make sure we don’t get any tickets and pass all roadside inspections.

So, no, it’s not just driving down the road. And being legal is just part of it.