Profile For Plumcrazy Preston

Depends. Are you one of the protestors?

No, I'm a motor vehicle operator. Cars can run into such troubles just as well as big trucks. I don't want to do something that could send me to jail for many years. By the same token, I don't want to be killed or threatened by idiots on the ground outside my vehicle.

Here are a few video links regarding various vehicle drivers who've encountered idiots on the ground (the roadways):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKQaPowMQmU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg7FXmMPhAQ&t=857s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cF9dngn8ZA

Stupid people on the roadways obstructing traffic on purpose and/or threatening drivers seems to be a new "hot fashion" these days like "mass shootings". Do truck driving schools these days even address this issue for driver training? Does your employer address issues as this? This poor James Alex Fields man may die in prison of old age. He claimed that a protestor pointed a gun at him and others were beating on his car with objects as the reason he panicked and speed off killing a woman in a crowd ahead. This is a very sensitive issue. In all seriousness, drivers (car and commercial alike) really need to know what to do in case they should encounter such stupidity on the road. Truck drivers can't always control what happens around them: they can't control the actions of others: they can only smartly or prudently react. Isn't funny that protestors don't seem to be standing on RR tracks to "stop trains".

What should a driver do if he/she should encounter people in the road who are obstructing traffic on purpose such as protestors or rioters? What should the driver do or not do so as not to get in trouble with the law?

I would not purposely plow through people who were blocking my truck. I would let the police deal with those persons who are unlawfully obstructing traffic. I would only use my truck as a defense weapon if somebody on the ground pulled a gun on me standing in front of me. Running a gunman down would then be justified. A peaceful and even idiotic protestor blocking a truck is not in itself a threat to justify use of deadly force.

I did a quick YouTube search to study up on the live animal transport industry and found this odd video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFWjAHXv75g

The pig stock truck is trying to run down animal rights protestors right in front of police. The protestors are indeed goofy but the driver could face severe felony vehicular assault charges.

OOPS, PETA

https://support.peta.org/page/27010/donate/1?utm_source=PETA::Google&utm_medium=Ad&utm_campaign=0321::gen::PETA::Google::SEA-P::eg::searchad&gclid=Cj0KCQjwrsGCBhD1ARIsALILBYrQ4p8BuM2afaH33a8YYVtwPT0R_xrxokcRY7fWsEmLwza_j6dyVHQaAox8EALw_wcB

Oh, by the way, has any driver here done live wild animal transport in a big-rig before? How about cattle-hauling? Did you like it?

PITA would have a field day with that giraffe.

See the end of Smokey and the Bandit II for details.

It certainly can't be a black 1979 Trans Am.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwN-6JvgHgI

Thanks, Steven. I once worked as a temporary USPS postman during the holiday season, 1995, and the local post office supervisor gave me, the newbie, the most physically-demanding walking-loop delivery routes in town. It was often challenging because sometimes I would have a different route everyday and go into unknown territory. I did not get the preferred driving-only rural/semi-rural routes much: the seniors with union representation got those cushy routes where they just sit in the delivery truck or jeep and drive up to the mailboxes.

I could probably do Regional for some time before graduating to Local then going onto a non-driving job as Dispatcher, Load Planner or Logistics Manager. Will major carriers generally require any OTR (long-haul) experience at all for hiring non-drivers as Logistics Managers?

Is Regional to Local to Logistics Manager a possible carrier path?

How about just regional directly to non-driving?

Non-driving jobs are most desirable for the natural homebodies like me. They seem like the typical 9-5 daily local commute jobs. I love the simple pleasure of hiking on the local hillside trail with a dog after work. Some here are romanced by the adventure of dieseling in a big rig all over America in many different adverse conditions. Wondering if you can pull that heavy load up a steep grade and get back down safely. Sometimes this lifestyle entails the horror of trying to find safe parking places overnight, dealing with low bridges, being in unfamiliar crime-ridden areas or getting totally lost. For me, being based in Texas and doing no greater driving ranges than Regional routes would keep me out of those congested and crime-ridden big cities of the ocean coastal areas and of the Great Lakes areas. There are seldom mountain driving, desert driving and severe winter driving conditions in the south too. This latest Texas Big Freeze in one notable exception. The warm and flat south, think Get My Kicks on Route 66, seems to be the most desirable or favorable trucking territory in Lower 48 America. I've driven to California to Georgia a couple time over Route 66 even in the dead of winter. A cake walk in a car of pickup truck with a landscaping trailer even. There were a few mountains in Flagstaff, Arizona and in New Mexico but nothing major. I doubt if a Regional driver out of Texas would ever have to drive in the Rockies of Colorado

I view the prospect of driving as an experience ticket to get to those more desirable non-driving motor carrier positions. My mother once had a real estate man would drove a fancy 1976 Cadillac Seville. He told us he drove trucks for a while then got into the real estate business. I suppose he was more financially successful as a realtor than as a truck driver back in the 1970's. He,age 45 back in 1981, had a wife and three boys.

Truck driving is/was a stepping stone or a way to make a living on the way to to something else for many. Many young and new celebrity rock and roll musicians did heavy road touring early on then graduated to the more comfortable home life of a recording studio or solo career later on. People can get totally burned out being on the road too long. Prolonged road life whether being a touring rock star or a long-haul trucker has been the substance-abuse death of some too. The road life can stand in the way of other human endeavors as family life or taking Rover to the local dog park after work each evening. A truck can be a rolling jail sentence for some.

As the Jody cadences we used to sing in the army, leave that toughest stuff (airborne ranger, long-haul driver) to the young and the bold.

Plumcrazy states:

Don, nobody is asking you to read my stuff. Don't you have some money to make, sir?

This is an asinine statement. Why do you post things here if we don't need to read it?

Plum crazy reveals:

US Army, 8 years

Must be all that saltpeter.

This is why I'm not wasting my time with trolls like this.

I should have said "nobody is asking you to respond to my stuff". Can't we all get along?