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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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Trip 11a & 11b - Two round trips ... lots of down time WI Date August 6, 2003 Usually there isn't much to write about on these short times ... which is the way I like it. I had taken the week 'off' so that I'd be home in the evening but picked up a couple of one day runs to stay in the good graces of dispatch. They called and asked if I could do a couple of 'shuttle' runs. I have done a few of these, a couple have taken all day, most only took a few hours ... have to ask more questions. Good news, they wanted us to start at 8:30, beats the 9-10 AM starts. The bad news ... I soon found out that I was to drive the shuttle car and tow it back. ... I have only told dispatch two things I didn't want to do. I do not want to deliver IN the cities of Chicago and NYC. The other was I didn't want to have anything to do with "tow vehicle's." They started using tow vehicle's about two weeks after I started ... and it took me a week or two two to decide to tell them BEFORE I was asked than to be refusing run's. I have my reason's including if I want to drag something around I will drive semi and get paid for it. They had called me when I was off so I knew they were in a bind ... so I let it slide, how bad could it be doing it just once ... The two guys who were riding with me to our first pick-up had towed before, so they were going to help. They checked out to make sure all the tow equipment was there, and we were on our way. The ride up was uneventful. When we got to our pickup spot, my truck wasn't there yet. We have a central drop site located between two of our big customers and a local driver who just gets them to the drop site. Two of us headed in the direction of the dealer and soon met my truck ... all the little things that take time, when you're paid by the mile. When we go back to the drop site, we started to hook up ... the hitch part went OK, but the wiring didn't work so well. First of all, the last person to have used the car must have let the wires drag, the pins and connector were worn to a point. Doesn't make for a very good connection. After about an hour we called dispatch to see what to do, at this rate we had three drivers on down time. They said to move out and they'd have the 'local' driver look at it. So time to inspect my first truck, it's another used refer truck, need to get it the last two hours to the customer. It's used ... VERY used, not sure how they got it here. Had to call dispatch again to see if they wanted me to run with it. They did. So I was to drive between the other two drivers, as to be less noticeable. The other thing about these old trucks, don't touch anything in the cab ... everything sort of crawls on it's own. Which I don't understand, I grew up on a farm with trucks that were 20-30 years old and they never had as many crawly things living in them as these do ... The main route between our pickup and drop has a detour, so we try an alternate route ... no detour, but five stretches were down to one lane for re-surfacing. Took us almost three hours instead of the usual two ... and we're paid by the mile, it's a great deal ... for the boss. We also hit some rain, only the trucks kept moving, the cars were all pulling off because they couldn't see the highway. For the trip back there was only one truck, a new one. We agreed to take a different route. If we go 30 miles out of our way, we have almost all four lane highway ... at 65 mph. If you do the math, on a two hour trip, we gain ten minutes each hour, so it only costs us an extra 10?? We made it back in the usual two hours ... I may just take this way more often. Back at our drop site, the 'local' driver had spent the better part of the last four hours working to get lights on my tow vehicle ... still no luck. Called dispatch again, "Do what ever it takes ..." was my cue to go buy a new set of wiring and lights. There was a 'farm fleet' store a couple of blocks away and for under $50 we had some new wires. But today wasn't going to be that easy ... still no lights. We finally headed out to the local guys house where he had a huge stash of wires, lights and tools. Meant driving a little outside the law again ... but what else was I going to do. I never had any interest in dealing with a tow ... and was not enjoying a minute of it. We ended up spending three hours before we finally got tail and break lights ... good enough? It was a looooong three hours, trying different lights, grounding arrangements, cables, bulbs. If the original connection hadn't been worn out, we might have realized that the major problem was that this was our first International truck we'd used to tow ... the rest have been GMC ... with different wiring. Remember this was my week 'off' ... 15 hours later I was back home. Not quite, when I went to unhook the tow car ... it was dead ... had to get someone else to help push it out of the way. The other two drivers did / got paid for an extra 200 miles while I was having my fun. Date August 7, 2003 8:30 AM, another 'short' trip. This time, no tow car. Two set's of drivers are supposed to make this run today with the trucks the drivers brought in last night. We get the one without all the lights working, the others get the one where the alternator wasn't working. Didn't start, so they tried the tow car I used last night, didn't start. They tried jumping it and then towing it ... nothing. Usually we would drive together. But we only waited until 9:30, when the last of our trio showed up. 3/4 hour wasted waiting for another driver ... reasons I travel alone. Later in the day we will end up spending another 1/2 hour waiting for her to get cash in her ComCheck account ... something that could have been done now, at 9:30 this morning. I finally ended up loaning her $20 so we could rolling. Route-wise, this was a repeat of yesterday. Shuttle to our drop site, drive truck #1 to customer, shuttle to our drop site, return with vehicle #2 to the office. Today we took the 'long way' both directions ... no problems ... one of yesterdays drivers made a big stink this morning about the extra time it took ... so we all got another $10 for the day. Lots of time with other drivers, lots of stories / tall tails. Seems the last trip I turned down would have been a good run, with one exception. I had needed to be home for a family gathering or I could have been one of the drivers picking up these trucks on our way back from Boise. It was a round trip, all the way to the east coast ... was hard to turn down. Going out was garbage trucks, I have gotten under 4 mph on those, but these turned out to be mounted on pickup chassis ... at 20 mph, so even with a 14 gallon tank they still had to stop every 3-4 hours. And on the trip back they got semi tractors ... with sleepers. The only down side of the trip was, to get from the first drop in NJ to their pickup in NH they had to get a rental car ... and while stopped at a rest area, the guy who was in the passenger seat didn't lock his door ... and about an hour after they stopped to get a little sleep, some male stranger opens the car door and offers 'his services' to our male driver ... and starts crawling in the car ... LOCK YOUR DOORS. That run I was offered and turned down, another run I wasn't offered because of being off looked pretty good too ... Down to TX with three drivers sharing the rental car on the way back, then leave a day later to Edmonton, AB. About eight hours in two days with three in a cab ... and a couple of drivers who are scared of silence ... yesterday two of the drivers had another 100 miles to go together after dropping me off at the tow car ... the one who wasn't the talker was almost begging me to switch so he wouldn't have to spend another two hours listening ... should have taken him up on it. Back to today's run, we get back to our drop site ... and my truck #2 doesn't start ... it is now after hours and dispatch doesn't answer. We try for about a half hour then I tell the other two drivers to head out ... nothing they can do. If dispatch doesn't pickup in the next hour I can either ride with one of the second set of drivers ... driver their tow car ... or one of the other dozen trucks sitting at the drop site. (We can't be too slow, this is the third day some of these trucks have been sitting here waiting for drivers.) The second set of drivers show up, still haven't heard from dispatch, so I opt to take the tow vehicle back so they don't have to tow it. ... and no-one told these guys that the wiring wouldn't work on the trucks they have ... more International ... with dispatch not picking up they could have been here for hours ... again. Yesterday I had four hours of truck driving out of 15 on the job ... today was two hours out of 12 on the job ... I'm going to be looking for some real nice runs from dispatch when I get back ... |