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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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Trip 62 - Used Volo - Semi Tractor ... from Fargo, ND to Kansas City, MO Fairly quiet here ... only short run available was Fargo to Kansas City, don't usually do the short ones but wanted to be home by Saturday ... which by leaving Wednesday noon should have given me enough time to get just about anywhere. Asked for a 'Weds PM or Thurs AM run' they come back with a run set to leave at 10 AM Weds ... ??? Guess even though it's slow they must be hurting for drivers 'cuz they moved the run back to 2 PM to fit my schedule. 11/3/04 - I manage to get there a little before two and the other two drivers I'm supposed to run with aren't there yet ... turns out they were one step ahead of me and had already gone to pick up our rental car so at 2 PM we get our paperwork and are ready to go. Last things dispatch say is ... 'Don't forget to get your SD permits' and 'Drive safe.' One of them already has the keys so he's driver one ... half way to Fargo they switch and I stay stretched out in the back seat. With a short run like this I had no idea if they thought they were going to hop in the trucks and run all night (we all have the hours available) and then head home ... 24 hours driving time, but I've already been up since 5-6 this morning. When I took the run I had decided that if that's what the other two were going to to ... we could go our separate ways and I'd catch the bus. Didn't sound to promising for a while, they were talking about how they could 'back their log books up' so we could take off and go ... not sure what changed, but finally the older of the two suggested we get an early start tomorrow ... and that he was going to get a motel room for the night ... even though there were sleepers on these trucks. Sounds good to me, told him I'd split the room. When we get to the customer we drive past four nice looking Volvo's ... but there were only three of us ... turns out those were the trucks and they had the paperwork ready for all four ... not sure if dispatch couldn't find another driver or what ... she did change everything around to get me on this one ... We follow the rental car to the airport with one of the tractors ... the really small airports and the really big ones are good for this line of work. The really small ones 'cuz you can drive right up to the door with anything and the really big ones, because most of them now have their rental cars in remote lots. Fargo is a small airport ... but they still have security, so as soon as I see them heading toward our parked truck I hop out and let the guy know what's up ... then I head inside to see what's taking so long to return the car, the only clerk is on the phone ... and here walks up the third driver. Rather than chew him out, I quickly head out to the truck so it doesn't get towed ... People get real nervous when they see unattended vehicles in front of an airport, especially big vehicles. About three miles from the customer is the Fargo Flying J with a motel where we can fuel, eat and spend the night. Good news, bad news ... one of the trucks is almost full ... 100+ gallons, a second shows half full ... the bad news is neither of those is mine. Mine shows 'E' and looking inside the tank confirms it. Don't know what those two were thinking, they both top theirs off ... I only put in 50 gallon, which does get it off 'E' ... why fill up the tanks on such a short run before you know what kind of milage you are going to get? Next we check into the motel ... the third guy had said he'd sleep in his truck, but decides to get a clot and share the room ... brings it down to under $20 ea. Now for some food ... not my favorite, but Flying J it is ... breakfast for me, salad bar for the other two. This place had both a restaurant and a bar, as we are paying a gal stopped behind us waiting for someone, who looked like she'd had a little two much ... and not just because she had all but the bottom button on her blouse unbuttoned. Told one of the other guys this when we walked out, he was paying and hadn't seen it ... as I'm telling him we walk around the corner of the building, right past her and the guy she was with ... not sure how much he heard of what I had said. That gets us to a little after 8 PM and time to hit the sack, wake up call is set for 3 AM ... rolling by 4 ... which will make it all legal ... we were in Fargo before 6 so we even have receipts to back it up. 11/4/04 - I'm awake before 3, I hear of the others looking for his glasses so he can see what time it is and then the third guy gets up to shower and is done by 3 AM when the wake up call comes in ... As everyone is getting ready the guy who'd spent the night on the cot, sat down, then laid ... "Glad I got the cot, it was better than these beds ..." Glad he said that, I was feeling guilty about him paying the same price as the other two of us ... The older guy used to live and work in KC so he gets the lead, knows right where the drop is ... awful quiet this time of the AM ... An hour on the road and we cross the SD scale ... the guy in the lead gets the red light for a little bit ... then leave's ... they flash the green at me so I keep rolling, wondering what the guy at the scale told the lead driver / why he didn't stop ... I leave the scale slowly expecting the lead guy to stop and walk back ... he doesn't. Down the road a bit we stop at a rest area where we get a chance to ask him what happened ... 'He gave me the green light and didn't say I had to come in ... and that's the only scale in SD.' ... OK, but the other two of us didn't have a good feeling about this ... By 6 AM the lead driver was wanting breakfast ... why not we have 13 hours to cover less than 600 miles and the trucks will do 70, but we have been holding them at about 65. There were four girls in the restaurant that seemed to be under the influence of something, they even stopped and told us that one of the other guys in there had been bugging them ??? ... one of other drivers had commented that one of the gals was eating salad with her hands, not a leaf at a time, hand fulls at a time. Wow ... the cops are thick, have seen six within a mile or so ... Major Opps !! A few miles after that we hit an 'inspection check point' all trucks must exit. First things they ask for are our log books and trip permits. "Trip permits?" This is not going to be a good day ... They have us all pull over to the side and one officer takes each of us ... $144 for the fine, plus $15 for the permit ... Don't remember the guy ever even looking at my log book ... Driver three was not a happy camper ... He'd ended up making around $50 a day on his first three runs ... had been hoping for a little better on this one until now. This was also a major delay, I'm watching the clock and starting to get nervous ... We stop at the next exit for a bathroom and I add another 20 gallons of fuel, should be way more than enough ... the truck shows a rolling average for MPG, earlier today I was running at 9+, since I re-set it at breakfast I've been averaging 11+ MPG. Based on this milage, this should leave about 15 gallons ($30) in the tank ... but it will still be showing 'E.' No major events for the next few hours ... a little after noon the lead driver stops again and this time wants to eat lunch ... "Not a problem, but just so you know, if we do we are going to have to take a cab to the airport we won't have time to shuttle the rental car down there." He doesn't look happy but says 'We're not spending $60 on a cab, so lets go ..." I had also told him that if we didn't get to the airport by 3 PM we'd better plan on taking a cab ... Not only does the lead driver know the KC area, he's done this run before ... knows where to stash the trucks, where to pickup the rental cars at the remote site and knows which end of town the drop is at (I thought it was west, it was east). By the time we get to the airport it is 3 ... 3:30 by the time we get the car ... Earlier we had questions the lead driver about if we had enough time for this, neither of us wants to spend the night in KC ... but the lead driver insists it can be done so we follow his lead (and with the rental car in his name, it will be his truck that doesn't get delivered if we run out of time.) Traffic is light but it still takes us until 4 PM to get from the airport to the customer and a few minutes to find the right person, then we leave one driver to check the trucks in while the other two are on our way back to pickup truck three ... "It's a good thing we looked at the paperwork closer and found that they are open until 6 instead of 5 ..." I told him. 'Open until six, but the guy who signs the paperwork is only there until 5' Ouch. The two of us get talking about all the truck companies he used to work for and all the ones who have gone out of business over the years ... and headed back to the airport ... problem was we were supposed to be going back to the truck. More precious seconds lost. Once back at the truck he hit high gear before he got to the bottom of the ramp ... and we are still 15 miles from out when its 5 PM ... good thing we left a 'hostage' ... 5:15 we are back, the guy isn't happy but he is still there and signs without looking at the truck ... finally ... on the road home ... NOT. Now we have flat tire on the rental car, we use the air hose at the customer to fill the tire and it gets us a mile down the road to where he knows of a repair shop. "Wait is a half hour .." Had hoped we'd have time to grab a bite to eat before we headed out tonight, but the only thing close is to us is a 'Juice bar' ... not quite what we were looking for. It was less than 15 minutes until we were on the road, all they do is shove a plug in with a 'screw driver' and pump more air in ... and we are rolling ... But we are all hungry ... the local guy doesn't want to suggest anything and the only place I know is 'Strouds' ... and I have the keys so we that's where end up. There is only one group ahead of us so it is a short wait for Stroud's ... two of us get the chicken, the other gets steak ... there are two things I remember about Stroud's, the chicken and the mashed potato's ... but when I ordered, I must have blanked out ... I ordered a baked potato instead ??? Food was great and too much ... two of us took doggie bags ... lucky it was cool out tonight, that food was going to be eight hours before it got to the ref tonight ... I take the first ... 3-1/2 hours ... of driving, they split the next 3 ... I took the extra hours to cover for the driving I didn't do on the way to Fargo. We look at all the possibilities of returning the car ... I don't feel like spending another hour in the car, it's already going on 2 AM ... been up the last 23 hours ... I finally offer to do it tomorrow ... one guy lives a couple of hours away, the other was supposed to be heading out at 8 AM to Orlando ... and I ... had nothing lined up ... |