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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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Trip 36 - Used '99 IH - Tractor w/5th wheel
... to Plymouth, IN w/ New GMC - Refer ... to Kanakee, IL AND Used '99 Izusu with box from S Holland, IL Had been wanted to run from the day I got back from AZ ... nothing ... nothing leaving over the weekend ... nothing on Monday, not even going to be a shuttle run ... then a frantic call mid-day to do a 4 hour shuttle run. Tuesday ... nothing at all. Finally on Wednesday there is a short round trip, with a lot of chasing, stated out I was going to do it solo ... then they decided to run someone with me to keep me off the bus. 3/3/04 - To stay on schedule with the other driver I'm not going to be able to leave until almost noon, but dispatch has asked me to come in in the morning to get my paperwork and meet the other driver ... as usual, lots of new faces. I'll be picking up my truck about an hour from my house, and dropping our return truck in the same lot ... the other driver has to take our two-hour shuttle to pickup his truck and we agree to meet at the South Beloit Flying-J ... he wanted to meet sooner ... I wanted to meet at the motel tonight ... we split the difference. Been to this customer a couple of times before, easy to find the second and third times ... good news / bad news ... the good news is that the truck has over a half a tank of fuel ... the bad news? It only helps the boss, not me ... this is a fuel paid trip ... does eliminate the fuel stops though. Busy day, had to stop a couple of times to make phone calls ... quick stops, not logged. My first real stop is the Flying-J ... thought I had timed it so we'd get there at the same time, wrong, he's an hour behind me. Normally I wouldn't have eaten this early, but I had an hour to kill ... also picked up one of their 1/64 toy trucks ... had seen it before, but didn't want to drag it onto an airplane or bus. He finally shows up, fuels ... and I'M ready to go, so he says he'll eat later ... it's looking good for the boss, doesn't look like I'm going to have to fuel the whole trip ... Forgot to ask the other guy how fast he drive's, so I try to gage it by how far he falls behind ... and then the fun of watching someone follow you through Chicago ... in rush hour. And me ... I was not driving like a pro. For some reason I was now having a problem shifting this truck ... no problem earlier today, but now ... on every toll booth. Think it was because I would drive at very low RPM's while I waited for the other guy to get through the toll booth, then try to shift at low RPM's ... worked much better when I did petal to the metal. This was definitely one of those trucks where it was easier not to use the clutch to shift. Not a bad rush hour, told the driver we'd stop at the first IN rest area ... that would be about 3 hours later, and we still had an hour plus to go. I wanted to be in Plymouth tonight so we'd be ready to roll in the morning. Originally I had wanted to drop tonight and be back to Chicago before we shut down ... go thing I had called and told him 'no' ... we were running a couple of hours later than I had thought we'd be. Would have nice if we could have ... the Super 8 Motel in that town cost us $60 ... less than an hour west was a Motel 6 for $29. 3/4/04 - The other driver suggests we stop for lunch instead of paying for breakfast ... does sound like a good idea, might as well make use to the 'free breakfast.' Turns out we are only a mile or so from my drop ... easy to find. Started chatting with the guy who signed for the truck, so he showed me through his shop ... they 'chop' down used trucks and convert them to ones that pull the mobile homes ... add all the extended mirrors, adjustable hitches ... the one I brought down is a duel axle and they are going to add a bed for hauling a small dozer ... so they driver can finish the yard work when he drops the trailer ... this is an interesting line of work, had never thought of all the work that goes into one of those tractor's. We're off ... now I'm riding with the other driver ... seems he wasn't told, and didn't ask ... about all the chasing on this run. He has had to go a couple of hours out of his way to give me a ride, and I'll be going a couple of hours out of my way ... have a real good idea that it's not all going to be worth it. The only slowdown we have this AM on I-80 is where one 18 wheeler rear ended the other in the center lane ... could see skid marks for 60 ft ... not sure how that could happen. Picking up the second truck is no problem, right off of I-94 in Chicago ... we are paying the fuel on this one ... and it's flat on 'E' ... Gave our last business card to my drop, now this guy wants one ... I have to write the companies info on the back of one of my cards ... if these guys don't have any driveaway contact by now, they probably aren't big shippers, but it all helps ... (now I'll have to watch for my commission on those two accounts ... yeah, right) Not only does this thing not have any gas ... the closest station is $1.83 ... O - u - c - h ... and the $10 I put in didn't get me very far. As we are heading west out of Chicago in I-80, a pickup loaded with 'stuff' passes me at a good clip and I noticed something in the back bouncing around ... by the time they were a few car lengths ahead of me it bounces out ... a shop-vac, thought I'd have to swerve to miss it, but after it shattered on impact, the few few remaining large pieces rolled out of my lane. The other driver who was following me at the time, said that a semi hit some of the debris then pulled to the side of the road ... the driver of the pickup never did stop ... either didn't know what happened or didn't want to deal with it. Finally when we exit the Interstate for Kanakee, I waved the other driver ahead ... he had the map, it was time for him to lead. Thought the reason dispatch had paired us together was that there was no way out of Kanakee ... wrong, the Amtrak stops there. We got a nice tour of this town ... glad the other driver hadn't been leading the last two days. When he stopped for the third time, I looked at all the directions and realized we were supposed to be a couple of miles south of town ... and we were circling the downtown area ... We're off ... and its raining, and will be raining for the next eight hours. Stopped at a Flying-J on I-80 for food ... breakfast / lunch / supper ... he had been commenting about how good the buffet looked at one of the other places, so I guessed that's what he wanted ... but all he'd say was ... "I'm following you" ... "Doesn't matter." I'm not a big fan of their buffet, in the past haven't found the food that good ... and I never eat enough to get my money's worth ... actually their breakfast buffet is pretty good, it's the PM menu that doesn't interest me ... but this place had meatballs sauted in inions and mushrooms that were really good ... that plus the salad bar, and I had all I could eat. As we were leaving the other driver offered to drive, I declined ... I didn't want to get stuck drive the last 4-6 hours ... split it up a little. About 5 PM we are low on gas again and tell him he can drive for a while ... he comments again about wanting to have driven earlier. On the road, I close my eyes and relax ... once it's dark I'm it feels like we are driving slower ... and I watch as that white line moves farther away from the truck ... the highway is empty and he has barely driven an hour out of this eight hour run ... I keep watching as he slows down and speeds up ... a little at first then more and more ... he would vary from 50 to 75 MPH ... OK time to keep this guy away, so I started asking 50 questions ... and we made it the rest of his two hours. Tomorrow I would tell dispatch I wouldn't run with this guy again ... nice guy, but we have two completely different ways of running. Now I find out that he shuts down at 8 PM ... (although tonight he shouldn't have been driving past 6 ) ... and I had kept him on the highway until 10 last night. He doesn't drive over the speed limit ... ??? ... stops ever couple of hours for a 15 - 30 minute break (we didn't) ... and doesn't care if the run takes 2 days or 4. All of this is good ... highly recommended ... by doctors / chiropractors and others, just not the way I like to run. Even without making any extended stops, we are still pushing our 14 hours by the time we drop, I'd thought we'd be done in 8 ... but with this rain ... and the wind, it was hard to keep this truck on the road ... at every highway overpass and with a few gusts of wind, this truck would down shift and was very hard to keep UP to the speed limit. Not a very profitable trip $220 for two days / 22 logged hours. |