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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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Trip 1 - My First ... a two truck
convoy Delivering both a GMC single axel with a refer box to PA ... and a Peterbuilt twin-screw with a tank to PA Today is May 19, 2003 .....My first day of work involved moving one truck about a hundred miles. Four of us rode together to move them from the mfg to our office where they will be picked up by other drivers. Today was mostly going through the motions so the company knew that I was doing the paperwork correctly, etc. Trip 1a - May 20, 2003 ...This was going to be a LONG first day ... About a half hour after getting to the office, we get our dispatch and should be ready to leave ... that's when our shuttle drive realizes they have no money ... and no gas. 45 minutes later we roll out. The good news is that this company does have a shuttle to their main customer. A few hours later we are there, we get our vehicle's and are ready to roll. Stop one is the closest fuel station, where I get behind someone else who has no money ... and is waiting for the money to get into their ComData account. Two delays already today because people are using ComData instead of a credit card or cash ... and it's costing them money. Finally we are ready to go. Two hours into the run, we make our first fuel stop, the driving I am running with had not fueled up when we picked up the trucks. Sounds like the 'Flying J' will be our frequent fueling place. I've stopped at a few over the years, the food has always been good, and the place is always clean. About another two hours we stop again, last chance to fuel before we get on the IL toll roads. If all the delays today have any bright side, it's being late enough to miss the Chicago rush hour. In IN, more toll's, and my first scale. The sign said open, so everyone was pulling off. Once I am off the roadway and can see the second sign, it now says closed and the truck(s) behind me pull back on the highway. But I'm stuck, not a big deal for us though, they flagged over someone ahead of us and were heading over to his truck with their gloves on ... and waved the rest of us through. The other driver I was running with had picked up their truck from another location, and ran out of hours. They were going to sleep in their truck, I thought I would find a motel ... Ouch. I need to find some cheaper places to stay. The EcoLodge was still $65 bucks after the 'driver discount.' Not sure why they had a driver discount, there was no place for a truck, hardly enough room of the single axle I was driving. Good thing it was the other driver who was out of hours ... It took me a while to find this place. At one intersection, I hit three of the clover leaf's before deciding which direction I really wanted to go. May 21, 2003 There was a McD's right next door to the hotel, so I was able to get some food before having to log in. Guess it's been a while since I've been there for breakfast ... when did they stop making the McMuffin? Only out on the road for a couple of hours, and we see someone waving all traffic over to the left shoulder. After about a mile, we get to an accident. As we get close, another emergency vehicle is coming, the other driver makes it through. They flag me to stop, there is a second emergency vehicle coming so they keep me stopped. But they stop and talk to the emergency crew on the other side of the freeway, so someone waves me through. WRONG choice, they got told by the one in charge that I was to STAY. It didn't make sense to me, I was right next to the accident vehicle, looking right at the driver without enough room to get any equipment in and out between us. It was a UPS truck, don't remember what he was pulling, but did see his drive shaft laying on the other side of the highway. He was crunched in there fairly good. I only looked over a couple of times, I don't have much of a stomach for that kind of thing. The first time I looked, they had him all wrapped up in a blanket, and he was sort of slumping over the steering wheel, the second time I looked over, much later, they had the door cut off and were jacking the door frame open so they could get him out from under the steering wheel. By now he was sitting up, mouth wide open as if he was screaming in pain. The transport helicopter had landed on the oncoming lanes of the freeway, so now both directions were completely stopped. I would guess they were going to stay stopped for another hour. Someone finally decided me and the two trucks behind us were in the way ... and I watched as they asked the one in charge if we could go. We could, so I was out of there in about a half hour. I'm sure it'll be months before that UPS driver is movin' on again. On that stretch of I80, east of S Bend, IN, about 50% of the trucks we were meeting that morning were UPS trucks ... most either pulling a set of 40' doubles or the shorter triples. It was fuel time again ... for what ever reason, some of these trucks we are running, run on propane ... definitely a pain. This exit we were able to find some at a campground/bait shop ... for $2 a gallon. The guy who fueled us was a retired UPS driver .. 20 years of running up and down the same interstate. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, until we needed fuel again. We pulled of the tollway, and headed a couple of miles into an old steel mill town. Old buildings that cover acres, good sized trees growing everywhere ... and an old FOR SALE sign. But there wasn't anyone in this town that could fuel our trucks, or so we were told ... but we should try a town about 10 miles west. By this time the other driver was running on fumes .... We found the town, Darlington, and they not only had fuel, they know how to fill the trucks ... and what CommData was and how to process it, all this and a good attitude. All from a gal that looked like she should have still been in high school. Good customer service isn't dead, just had to find. Finally at 9pm we are delivering our first to trucks ... But our day is not over yet, we need to pick up two more trucks outside Atlanta tomorrow AM. We talk one of the employee's into giving us a ride to the airport to pick up our rental car ... guess his work vehicle wasn't road worthy, he had to go home and get a different car, everything takes time. We will have enough hours off duty tonight, but I wouldn't call it a good nights rest. No problems picking up the rental car ... sounds like this is a frequent mode of transportation for this company, haven't talked to anyone yet who has a bus pass. A couple of stops for gas, a little fog in the Smokies, and rain. Trip 1b - May 22, 2003 We pull into our next customer just a few minutes later than we had told them. Met another driver picking up a truck that was none to happy, seems between his ride getting into town, a night at the hotel and this mornings cab ride ... he had already gone through any profit on this run, or so he said. We pick up our trucks, Peterbuilt twin screw tankers. I've been driving farm tractor since I was about 10, moving trucks around the farm before I had a licence ... but it's been a few years since I've been on the road with something this big. Turns out they were a better right than the 6500 GMC's we had on the first let of the trip. No one has offered us a ride to get rid of the rental car and we aren't about to pay the fifty dollar cab fare, so we move one of the trucks out to the interstate, than go back pick up the other truck, and head to the airport. I was expecting this to be a bigger problem than it has been, driving these trucks through the airport. This wouldn't have been a problem at all if we hadn't forgotten to gas up the rental car. I didn't feel like following the car, so about a block from the airport, I pulled off the highway a little and put on my flashers ... time pasted, a couple of cops went by. Finally there was one coming from each direction and the one coming from behind stopped ... told me I needed to get off the grass, now. So much for airport security. He told me where I could park, and by the time I got there, the car was returned and the other person was waiting for a ride back to their truck. By the time we get back to the second truck, we have killed over two hours and haven't left town yet. Like most every trip, it starts with a fuel up. And we don't seem to be the best at time management ... I don't trust my truck to make it back to where the other one is parked, so we are going to have to make two fuel stops again. It started raining last night on the way into town, and it's still raining. It took us almost 2 hours to make our first 45 miles that day. Saw at least a half a dozen accidents that had just happened, including two jack-knifed tractor trailers and a semi rolled over. Great way to learn how to driver a new truck, water so deep on the roads that trucks are hydroplaning at 45mph and you can't hardly see your mirror's because of all the road spray. The rest of the day is uneventful, a couple of scales to cross, but no problems ... until I try to find a hotel for the night. We pull off the interstate, and go one direction and are unable to find anything. So we had back to the freeway, as we are getting back on we can see the hotels on the other side of the highway but it is to late. The other driver decides to head to the next truckstop and sleep in the truck. I keep looking, the exit for the next town shows six hotels, I can't go wrong, right? The first hotel is a ma/pa place that I can't see because of other building ... so I don't dare take the truck down the street. So I keep driving what seems like forever and finally find a second one, it's 10 miles out of town in a residential area with no place to park. Back to the interstate I go, and see a Hampton Inn just before the freeway. Seeing it and getting to it were two different things, but I finally parked in an adjacent lot, no longer caring what a night's sleep was going to cost. They were full. But said the Holiday Inn at the next exit still had rooms ... Well I finally found a room at the Day's Inn, for another $65 for less than an eight hour stay. But it was a bed, so I slept. May 23, 2003 Man, that 4am wake up call came early, no McD's next door today ... not that they are open at this hour. A quick inspection, and I'm on my way. At 5am I call the other driver on my cell ... can't wait to see what that bill is going to be ... and we meet at a truck stop about 5:30. We are back in PA, and back on the tollway. We make good time until we get to the town we are supposed to deliver in. Dispatch gives us a set of printed directions to get to the town, the kind you get from MapQuest or RandMcNally, and then a map of the actual location. Problem was, the last text directions said go south on ##, and the map started way north of that point. By the time we realized this and gotten to the customer, we had killed another hour. The delivery of my second truck goes off without a hitch. Now I am just along for the ride ... and actually get to look at some scenery. We take some non-Interstate so that we can get to I80 ... the view is good, but the mph sure drop. Lots of 'row houses' in this part of PA, something I have never seen in the Midwest. Houses built tight together like the stores on main street. This is the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, and we are starting to see cops everywhere. The person I'm catching a ride with has their CB on, and there are Smokie reports every couple of minutes, because the highway patrol seem to be sitting about every 10 miles. About every fourth one would have someone pulled over, but we would still see people go sailing by at 20 plus miles over and the cops would never look up. Today was a much better day, hundreds of miles and didn't see any accidents. By early afternoon we can tell we aren't gong to make the customers 5pm close, so we call ... the person we need to talk to is not in, so we talk the receptionist who tells us they will be closing for the weekend at five and will re-open at 7 Tuesday morning ... this is a problem, so she finds someone else for us to talk to. He's a little more agreeable, and we make our delivery a couple of minutes after 7. Picking up the rental car was easy again this time, the airport was about two miles from our customer. This time rather than stopping the truck, the other driving keep circling the lot until I had the car rented and was ready to go. The usual half hour to get the paperwork signed and we were on our way. This time we had a luxury car and when I wasn't driving, I slept good. Petal to the metal and 14 hours later we had the car returned and were on our way home. Dispatch didn't have anything ready for Tuesday AM, so I get at least a three day weekend. They had mentioned two more runs from the place by Atlanta up to MD for the weekend, but it didn't pan out. |