Getting The Wrong Trailer.

OK. It has been one of those kind of days.

Who here has had "those kind of days"?

Maybe it is more appropriate to ask who hasn't had.

With all the bad weather and everything to go with it, what more could happen. I shouldn't have asked that question.

Well, in actuality, I didn't get into any of the actual storm. Now the cold temps. That is a different story. I didn't think TN got that cold.

Anyway. On with my day. Up, bright and early at 5AM. I slept in because my drop wasn't till 8AM and I am about 30 minutes away. I get there, and I am looking where a truck is parked. I keep saying to myself, no, that is not where I will have to park. If it is, how in the heck do I get in there.

Well it was, and I did. Finally. After about 10 tries and ripping a mud flap off on a fence I had to back next too. I won't bore you with the details about the backing. Only to say, it was the highlight of my day.

I go to fuel up. My fueling stop is 10 miles past my next pickup, but it is the closest T/S to fuel. So, I contact my DM tell him about my mud flap. He tells me to get it fixed when I can. They don't want me to get a ticket.

When I got to the fuel pump, only one side was working. The passenger's side. Wouldn't you know. Well, I had to turn the pump on and put the driver's side hose in the tank, went around to the other side and started fueling. I come back, and I find a puddle of fuel on the ground. The hose that doesn't work, but has to be turned on for the pump to work... leaks.

It is blue cold and I need fuel before my pickup. So I keep fueling. Lucky there was a bunch of snow to catch the fuel. And I am glad DOT wasn't around. Or EPA. But anyway. Got fueled then went to the garage. 1 to 1 1/2 hour wait to get a mud flap put on.

I would do it, but I don't have the right tools. Plus it was -5 degrees at the time. I have worked in colder, but I had the right kind of clothes on at that time.

Here we go again with another close day in hours because of one reason or another. I have to be in Indianapolis tonight.

I go to my pickup point. Go inside. They hand me paperwork. Said he had just finished up loading the trailer. So I guess it all worked out in the end. Spending that extra time getting my truck fixed.

Drop my empty trailer at door 5 and hook to door 4. Well, you would think that door 4 was right next to door 5. Am I right? Well, guess what. Not always.

I dropped my empty. Hooked to the one next to me in "door 4". Or so I thought it was door 4. I went back inside for the rest of my paperwork and my trailer seal. Put the seal on. Maybe I should have known something was wrong when I put the seal on the door. This trailer was in BAD shape. I mean real bad. But, I have seen worse out on the roads before.

After my pre trip, I sent my Qualcomm message that I was loaded and heading down the road. I am about 3 miles away and get a message on my Qualcomm. We can't dispatch you, the number you entered is the wrong trailer number. I took the number off the BOL.

I get to the next exit. Pull over, get out and check the trailer. No numbers on the trailer. None. But old, faded, worn off numbers. Yeah, I know. I should have double checked before I pulled away. But by that time, I was losing feeling in my fingers. All I wanted was the warm cab, so I took all the info off the paperwork.

Yeah, mistake. Don't believe anything you read and only half of what you see.

I am now about 10 miles down the road. So I cross over and head back. I get there and find out. The trailer parked next to Dock #5 was not at Dock #4. It was parked in Spot #4.

The warehouse has 4 dock doors then 4 "storage" spots. 4 more docks then 4 more storage spots. So while the trailer I got was in spot #4, it was not in Dock #4.

OK. Be honest. Who here has picked up the wrong trailer before??? Come on be honest. No one huh. Well, I guess, I have to special.

Well I finally hit the road with the right trailer. I get to within maybe 100 miles of Indianapolis. I find out the road is closed. Due to the cold temps and ice on the road, I-65 is closed south of Indy. Great. So, I am now parked in a Pilot for the night. Hoping they open up by morning.

The harsh problem to this issue. My physical goes dead 1/7/14. Tomorrow. My DM says it is midnight tomorrow night. I thought it was midnight of the date on your card. I am hoping he is right. Or if not, due to the weather conditions, I hope DOT will overlook the expired card. If not, oh well. We shall see what happens.

Keep it safe out here, the life you save might be your own. Joe S.

Well sounds iike a fun day. I had them give me the wrong trailer once but they caught it it time. Yea IN is bad doesn't appear to be getting better anytime soon. As for as your med card its supposed to be renewed 30 days before the exp date to allow time for it to be filled with the state. We had a guy lose 30 days because of that.

Joe, you are really getting the advanced crash course into trucking! I appreciate you sharing all your adventures with us, it helps the other future drivers see the kind of things they are going to get into out there.

I'll tell you about the time I picked up a wrong trailer. We have a US Gypsum Interiors plant that we pick up pre-loaded trailers at in Ohio. The trailers are loaded during the day and they expect us to come and get them at night. They park them out in an empty lot behind their building, and after we pick-up our trailer we go to a mail box on the wall of the building and find our bills in there. These trailers are pre-loaded and tarped for us so we leave two tarps with the trailer we are dropping and a certain amount of bungees and straps for the load that will be put on that trailer. There is usually no more than 10 or twelve trailers out there at a time. Last time I had to go there my qualcomm instructions stated that I was to pick up trailer #540113 and take it to North Haven CT. With these instructions we always get this terse little message stating if we pick up the wrong trailer that we will be charged back the miles we drive it on our paycheck. Of course no one wants that to happen to them.

Well, this time when I get there I find that there are only four or five trailers there and only one of them belongs to my company and it is trailer #540131. That's funny, the number doesn't match what's on the qualcomm, but it's too close to be a coincidence. It's Friday night so I know that weekend dispatch isn't going to be any help. So I just assume (my first big mistake) that my dispatcher has transposed the last two numbers of the trailer. That's so like him to be in such an all fire hurry and mess something up like that, or at least I easily convince myself that has to be the case. So I drop my trailer and equipment and quickly hook to the dyslexically numbered one and go ahead and kind of re-do the tarp job so that I think it looks better and will ride a little better running at highway speeds. I also pre-trip the trailer and take the time to fix a couple of lights on it that aren't working. (I always have a few spare parts with me so that I don't have to sit and wait on breakdown to help me out) Now I'm ready to roll so I pick up my bills from the mail box, climb in the truck and start to review them when I see the yellow sticky note on the top page saying that my trailer #540113 is inside the building because the driver who dropped that trailer only left one tarp and they couldn't let it sit outside and possibly get wet.

Long story short, I had to get them to let me in so I could tarp this load with one of the tarps that I was supposed to leave for the next guy! Ended up spending way too much time there, but at least I didn't haul the wrong load to Connecticut. That would have been a disaster!

Now I look at my bills first and check them against my qualcomm message and then I hook to my trailer. Ahh, the life of a trucker, what do we do but laugh and make sport of our companions, and they at us in our turn. We live and learn, and then once we think we've got it figured out they change it all up on us again.