Hotel For The Night

I have been a trucker for many, many years. I've seen a lot happen in this business. I've driven in some very nasty weather and have been stuck in truck stops for a day or 2 waiting for hazardous weather and road conditions to pass. I've also seen many a tractor trailer end up in the ditch or median because of foolish thinking; Foolish thinking that has ruined careers or cost people their lives and left families without a mom or dad. People get pressured by dispatchers to get a load there on time when they've never even driven a truck in their life. Drivers get in a hurry to make up for lost time etc. You see, the problem with making qualified driver trainers out of drivers with only a year or less of experience is that they haven't learned to distinguish between what they see as urgent and what their dispatcher sees as urgent. As a result, they are not able to properly inform the student about this scenario. The road is filled with improperly trained drivers under a lot of pressure which are accidents waiting to happen.

Sometimes in this business we need to re-evaluate things and make important decisions that only we the driver can make. One of the best decisions I ever made was to budget my money so that I can grab a hotel from time to time; especially when weather circumstances warrant doing so. I've even done it for 2 nights. When it comes to making important decisions in life, I ask myself 4 basic questions.

1. What is the best thing that will happen if I do this? 2. What is the best thing that will happen if I don't do this? 3. What is the worst thing that will happen if I do this? 4. What is the worst thing that will happen if I don't do this?

One of my signatures below is taken from the aviation industry that I have also been a part of.

Let not thine confidence exceed thy abilities, for broad and vast shall be thy means of destruction.

Yesterday there was a bad blizzard rolling through Illinois. I was in the middle of it when I awoke from my 10 hour. I was only a mile away from my cons and was scheduled to drop the load and pick up another one at the same place and head down to St. Louis. I knew right away that the conditions were not good and immediately contacted my fleet manager to tell him I would not be driving in these conditions and would update him throughout the day. He took it very well and told me not to move an inch until I was comfortable doing so no matter how long that took. 34 hours later conditions were much much better and I called him letting him know I'm ready to move. I dropped the load and picked up. My first thought waking up though was toilet paper and paper towels getting to a SAMs club isn't worth driving in this at all. Today when I was heading down I57 I counted 15 tractor trailers in the ditch/median. 2 of them flipped on their sides. I was very happy I stayed in the sleeper for that storm.

Yesterday there was a bad blizzard rolling through Illinois. I was in the middle of it when I awoke from my 10 hour. I was only a mile away from my cons and was scheduled to drop the load and pick up another one at the same place and head down to St. Louis. I knew right away that the conditions were not good and immediately contacted my fleet manager to tell him I would not be driving in these conditions and would update him throughout the day. He took it very well and told me not to move an inch until I was comfortable doing so no matter how long that took. 34 hours later conditions were much much better and I called him letting him know I'm ready to move. I dropped the load and picked up. My first thought waking up though was toilet paper and paper towels getting to a SAMs club isn't worth driving in this at all. Today when I was heading down I57 I counted 15 tractor trailers in the ditch/median. 2 of them flipped on their sides. I was very happy I stayed in the sleeper for that storm.

Sound's like you have a good dispatcher. I've met a lot of good people like that these days. I guess things are changing because I remember when things weren't so nice. We sure took a lot of pressure when we got on the phone. Of course when you think about it, the only time we had to take it was when we called them from a payphone because we didn't have cell phones and QUALCOMM's like they have today. And there was absolutely no sympathy if you were late. To the back of the pack you went which usually meant the end of the day if they had time for you. It was not uncommon to have to wait until morning. That is why I became a car hauler. No appointments. Same way with piggybacks.