Vanishing LED's

  DATELINE: GLENDALE, KY         DATE: 4/9/2009            PLACE: PETRO TRUCK STOP
 Stopped at the Petro to spend the night on our way up up Louisville, KY. Went to the truck wash and afterwards backed in next to this dropped step deck trailer. As we were wiping down our equipment of water, I looked at the step deck and thought "this guy is missing a couple of lights in the front corner."  
 While walking down the side I noticed that the side turn signal was also missing. "This is not going to be good."
                                                     And as I rounded the back.......
   BAM!!!  Every light on this trailer was GONE!!!!  I figure that all the lights were LEDs and some low life saw an easy way to make a upgrade to their own equipment by stealing the lights off of this dropped trailer.  I estimate the loss at about $300-350.00.  lights missing are: 8- 4" round,  9- 2" round, and 2- oval side turn signals.  I called the owner of the trailer (phone # was on the inspection sticker) and gave them the bad news and they could forewarn the driver before he came back to pick-up the trailer.  Lowlifes like this give all truckers a bad name.......

More "Sticking it to the trucker"

  Here is a little surprise to any one stopping at the Mid-Tenn truck stop at the junction of I-40 and hwy TN-111, exit 289, Cookeville, TN.  Based on the way the sign reads, there is no free time allowed

but after inquiring inside, pony up $5.00 upon arrival, if you stay less then 4 hours, come back in and get a refund.  NICE!
 Look how nice and busy this place is.  It is amazing how much traffic signs like this bring in...
 About 6-7 trucks on a lot that can hold 40-50 trucks. Maybe it will be busier when the sun goes down and people get tired and our willing to pay to park.
 Leave your truck on fuel island too long and the management will impose (or at least try) a $50.00 fine for parking. Asked about this too. "If the fuel nozzles are not in the tanks and fueling your truck, it is considered PARKING"  Walking around the store or grabbing something to eat is not allowed....
 If you are caught parking and did not purchase the required amount of fuel, store items, or shop services and display said permit in truck, the truck stop will place concrete blocks around the vehicle and will not remove them unless you pay $100.00!!!!   Talk about highway robbery!!
  This is the free area to park, the HUDDLE HOUSE truck lot. The owner here said the jerk from the truck stop has tried to coerce drivers parked here to pay up and once even placed concrete blocks over here to force trucks to park in the truck stop lot.  He was not happy about it....

   Times are tough for every body but tyring to rake truckers over the coals for parking and imposing outrageous fines and blocking a truck with concrete blocks and demanding $$$!! I would call this EXTORTION!!

 I would put $$ down that this truck stop will be out of business before the end of the year. word will get around and truckers will just start bypassing this place altogether, including me.

  

escaping chicken leg

  On Wednesday morning at about 8 a.m., I stopped at the Travel Center of America (AKA: T/A) at Lake Station, Indiana to top off with fuel before heading east across Indiana and Ohio.   The place is needing some TLC and upkeep desperately, but I did not expect to see a RAW chicken leg trying to escape from the Popeye's chicken!!    This chicken leg was about 20' from the fuel/service desk door and maybe 50' from the side door to the Popeye's vendor. While fueling I must have watched 4 or 5 T/A employees walk past it while I was there.  
  This is just one of those things that is kinda bizarre in trucking. When I first saw the leg, I thought it may have dropped or fell out of someones lunch, but it was not even breaded or cooked!! So it is obviously escaping from Popeye's.........(talk about fast food....)

Driving blind

I remember when I first started riding with my father and watching him flash the headlights on-off when a truck had passed him on the highway to signal the "all clear". Something has gone wrong......
First, a little history about this concept......Back in the golden age of trucking before the mega truck stops and interstate highways, the trucks were equipped with a small round mirror on a straight stick mounted off the roof line. These were nick named "lollipop mirrors" because it resembled a child's lollipop. Now these mirrors were just about useless going down the road because they vibrated so bad there was no way to see what was behind you.
So, to combat this problem, the drivers came up with an unwritten code to help each other out when passing. During daylight switch the headlights on, then back off. At night, turn the headlights off for one second and then back on again. This did wonders because the passing driver could see a vague shape and might not have been able to see the truck being passed or the end of his trailer, but could see the flash off the lights on-off or off-on.
Who is the idiot that decided that flashing the high beams at a passing truck was O-K?  Is this being taught at truck driving schools? Company traing schools? (It seems like 99% of the time it is a company driver doing this).This is so dangerous that it is hard to belive it actually happens every night. When some moron does the high beam flash to a passing vehicle, the passing driver is now "DRIVING BLIND" because the driver being passed just blinded them with the high beams. Let me explain, when night driving the pupils in the eyes are widely opened to allow the most light in (like a cats eye), when a bright light hits the eye, it causes the pupil to constrict very rapidly and the brain has to play catch up before the vision comes back into focus. During this time the driver might travel 200', 500' or more completely blind!!! HELLO!!!! THIS IS A STUPID THING TO DO TO YOUR FELLOW DRIVERS!!!
IF a truck is equipped in such a way that the headlights can not be switched on-off, or off-on. PLEASE, DO NOTHING !!!!! I can see the end of my trailer and I can see your truck in my mirror. I do not need your help when passing your truck. I have come to the point that I no longer even flash my lights at other drivers and ignore them when I am the one doing the passing. AND to the idiots that keep flashing the lights at me if I do not switch lanes when they think I should, "I am driving my truck, I will decide when it is safe to come back into the lane in front of you. AND I am responsible for the safety of my truck, not you....."
This "High bean flashing" has got to STOP!!!! Even though you drivers think you are being helpful, your not. Some where down the line someone is going to die because of this practice......HMMMMMM, maybe I could get a grant to study this problem.

HAZARD MARKERS

Can anyone guess what is wrong in this photo? No fair looking at the header...........could it be that there is a trailer on the shoulder of the road? No, this happens once in a while, all things mechanical do tend to break down. Could it be that this trailer is near what looks to be a broadcast tower? NOPE, (BZZZZZZZZZ) wrong answer, thanks for playing.........

  If you look really close at the deck at the rear of the trailer you will see the WARNING TRIANGLES on the deck and not on the ground where they are supposed to be.

It seems to me that according to the instruction  manuals and tests I have taken over the last 20 years to qualify to drive a tractor trailer,  ( started in 1989, shhhhhh don't tell anybody) that when a break down happens, the triangles are to be placed on the ground and spaced (1) 10'  BEHIND the stopped vehicle, (2nd triangle) at 100' BEHIND the stopped vehicle and (3rd triangle, which is missing) at another 100' behind the vehicle........

Not only does this driver not have the correct # of warning devices with them, (somebody didn't do the pre-trip inspection)  they can't follow simple placement on the ground. I remember this being on the test for the CDL so there is no excuse for this kind of laziness. And just to fend off any naysayers in the crowd, look up 392.22 sub-chapter B, part v, in the little green book from J J KELLER, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.  The placement does not have to be EXACT, but even putting these reflectors on the ground and spaced out a little bit would have made more sense. 

  And where did I see this wonder of the highways,  Maryland hwy 152 crosses I-95 at exit #74 and heading southeast  from I-95 near Joppatowne, Maryland.

C.A.R.B.

More on CARB (California air resources board), In January, CARB got the EPA waiver to enforce the new anti reefer laws, (not running near a school, not running while waiting to load/offload, no pre-cooling the trailer, unit must be a 2001 or newer model [phased out every year up to 2008 standards,'01 replaced in 2010, '02 replaced in 2011, etc]. anybody running anything older than 2001 unit has a choice, pony up 22-25k for a new unit or do not cross the CAL state line (I now call this the DMZ, demilitarized zone.)

They are also enforcing anti idle laws on all commercial vehicles, if a trucker idles their truck for more than 5 minutes, and a carb official sees it, the CARB official along with a CHP officer ( because you know if the CARB person tried to do this on their own they would get bitch slapped and pounded into the ground by the trucker)  the driver gets a nice citation with a $300.00 fine attached for the first offense. the fines go up for each infraction there after.  There are a couple of exemptions to go along with this. (in a traffic jam, rush hour, waiting in line to access a port, waiting in traffic at a signal, ETC.) This all sounds good on the surface,(clean air for little kids to breathe, not putting extra pollutants into the sky,) but what about the drivers health? Does CARB and EPA not understand that there is a human being inside of the truck? A person with family and friends, feelings, health issues just like the rest of America. Why should the drivers health take a back seat to anyone else's health?

Drivers like to stay cool during the heat of the day and stay warm at night just like all people, but because the drivers chose to live a nomadic life style, they are considered less human than the citizens of California. HEY, California is pretty much a desert, it gets hot during the day and cold at night. If the daytime outside temp is around 90-100 degrees, you can bet it is around 110-120 inside of a truck. Not exactly perfect conditions for resting while trying to comply with the HOURS OF SERVICE rules set down by the feds.

BUT WAIT, THERES MORE!!!! Why don't the drivers get a little APU? (auxillery power unit). I am sure every driver would love to have one, but company drivers are not going to drop 8-10 thousand dollars to place one on a vehicle that they don't own,and the company's that trade trucks every 2-3 years consider it a unjustifiable expense. The company's(not all but quite a few) do not care if the drivers freezes or get heat stroke while in Ca. The drivers are just a cog in the machine, as soon as one quits, another one will climb in the truck and replace them. ( any company with turnover rates over 50% does not give a crap about the drivers, if they did, APU's would be on every truck rolling down the road) I know, I know, it is an extra expense to add an APU to a truck that will get traded in 2-3 years. (driver would be happy, company gets a fuel savings, less wear on the main engine, and OMG!, it can be UNBOLTED and moved to another truck) THESE are great reasons not to add an APU to a truck.

What about owner operators you might ask? A lot of O/O's do have APU's or gensets to cut out idling and provide power for creature comforts. Those that have them are sitting pretty, those that do not are not looking so good. Again, in this rotten economy, who has a stack of cash laying around to purchase one? Get a loan? With the number of repossessions of trucks climbing, would you write a loan to add a 8k piece of equipment to a truck that might wind up back on your doorstep in 2-3 month's?

My advice is just stay out of California, there are 47 other states to truck in and out of. I am sure that they will survive with out the truckers of America crossing the border to their state. Look at East Germany, they were walled off from the rest of Europe and they survived. All we need is to add a red arm band with a SS insignia to the enforcement officials uniforms (CARB, EPA, CHP) for easy identification when the jack booted thugs are coming for you.......