The good old days again !

                                                               

The picture on the left shows how we used to do our paperwork in a cabover, spread out across the "dog house".

The one on the right is what Consolidated Freightways ran all over the east until they declared bankruptcy and shut down in the "90s then reopened as CTI and is now XPO.

When I first started out of Columbus, Oh. C/F had a terminal there and sent several sets of doubles like that to their St. Louis terminal everyday. It was an 8 hour drive each way so the driver would layover at each end for their 8 hour break as they didn't have a bunk to take that break in.

At this time there wasn't many conventional tractors east of the Mississippi so most everybody drove cabovers or "COE", cab over engine. Eventually owner operators started buying the bigger "Large Cars" so that now even the fleets use them and you hardly ever see a cabover.

That just reminded me when I saw the pictures on the news the other night of the big pileup on I-80 in the snow. Going from Columbus to St. Louis and return on 40 and I-70 used to be treacherous in the winter and a lot of times those doubles would be loaded light so that the wind blowing out of the north, when you were running east and west, would blow you right off the road.

Many times their would be C/F, Roadway or Yellow trucks parked in the median all over the place.

Thank GOD that's over !   Keep on trucking, Dutch  

The Late Great U S of A

This post will be a little different .  

It has elements of trucking and things I have experienced in my career but it addresses something that I see wrong with my beloved country.

Back when I started driving being a truck driver was nothing more than a dock worker that drove a truck to work. You manually loaded and unloaded your trailer some times several times a day and then got to drive to a different destination and do it all over again.

You really had to want to be a truck driver and you had to have help to get a good paying job in that industry. Therefor most of the drivers where born and breed American males who spoke English and lived  in cities, towns, and farm communities with shared likes and dislikes with others in that area.

With few exceptions, when you stopped at a T/S for fuel or food you usually had no problem at all communicating with the help and other drivers and finding decent facilities as everyone respected the other people they had to interact with, it was just understood.

That slowly changed as the truck builders improved the ease of driving of the rigs and the demand for drivers approached the critical point. Then the "driving instruction schools" started popping up and the Government started to take able bodied men from the unemployment roles and taught them how to be productive and tax paying drivers.

These people came from all walks of life and some had no desire at all to be truck driver but they couldn't draw unemployment any longer so they became the "NEW BREED" of truck driver and some realized that they had more money than ever before even though they didn't like the job.

This opened up a new opportunity for people from different countries to find employment here in the U. S. and several got licenses under questionable circumstances with little to no experience driving trucks on the highways of this country or having any idea of the common sense protocols that had been taught from men who started the trucking industry to begin with.

It didn't take long for these short cummings to appear as first with our neighbors to the south and the equipment that they drove into the states and couldn't pass safety inspections and some of them had trouble managing winter weather in the mountain states. This soon started showing up with Middle Eastern drivers as there was a large population in California that started to haul produce to the east coast which is also hard driving in the winter.

This brings me to the crux of this post.  The Mexican drivers new there place and that they would have to prove they could operate safely among the rest of us on the highways to gain our respect and that would take time but as more and more young driving school graduates entered the ranks we started getting more and more drivers that had no concern for their fellow drivers, that coupled with an increase of Middle Eastern trucks on the road with drivers that seemed like they didn't want anything to do with the rest of us as witnessed by some things that happened in the rest rooms and parking lots most of us truckers have all encountered, makes me worried that the America I've known and loved is slipping away.

And a final point I would like to add, we have before us a serious situation in 2020.  It appears that the elections have now changed from differences between two parties to the difference of the old style of common sense Republican conservatism and Socialism and I for one don't want Socialism !

I look at what we have in the President now. A person who works hard every day to make changes to better our country for it's people, minorities included, improving our standing in the world and our future. Even though their are those who would have you believe he has and is doing something sinister, but as I see it, isn't doing anything that most all politicians have done, do and will continue to do no matter what side of the isle they're on.

Then we have the Democrats, [read Socialists] that have an X Vice-President who had shady dealings over seas, a Hispanic, a Muslim, a admitted Socialist, a Gay and a want-a-be Indian squaw just to highlight a few. It looks like the Democrats have the minorities covered pretty well.

 I myself am going to vote Republican and hope we can hold on to the country I love and help Mr. Trump to continue to make America Great for us all. [Democrats included]

Distracted Driving !

Back in the good ol' days there wasn't much to distract you. The radio in the truck usually would only pick up country western channels on the am side, we didn't have CB's until the late 60's and no mobile phones.

Now however the phones are as bad as drunk driving. And the silly thing is the Government in it's ultimate wisdom made it illegal to hold the phone in your hand if your driving a truck but you can use handsfree devices to carry on your conversation while trying to negotiate rush hour traffic.

The problem isn't holding the phone so you have to drive one handed,

 it's being involved in the conversation at all. 

I know that many people think they can multi-task and do two or three things at once equally well but                                                                       they are wrong !

Just test it some time. If your on the phone while driving, pay close attention to the conversation and after you hang up try to remember your surroundings while you were on the phone, like what you passed on the side of the road or how many cares passed you in a mile, what song was playing on the radio, things that would have registered in your mind had you not been engaged in a conversation.

That is why it doesn't register that you may have changed lanes unsafely or you probably slowed or speed up without even knowing it while other motorist adjusted to keep from having a problem with you're erratic driving.

I not only see a lot of people talking or worse texting [were they take their eyes of the traffic in front of them] but see them putting on makeup, brushing their hair, tuning the radio, adjusting their cloths or a myriad of other things that could cause them to loose that split second of stopping time to keep them from that accident that could take their life or someone else's.

What really bothers me is seeing truck drivers doing it when it's so much harder to change lanes or slow down rapidly to avoid a wreck of a serious nature.

I was taught to keep your eyes moving from out the windshield to each mirror so you can know what is happening around you all the time, always have an out, and pay attention to what the 5th vehicle in front of you is doing and react to him and you will be one step ahead of the rest.

                   Until Next Time, KEEP ON TRUCKING  

  

More Good Ole days

I'll try to share pictures of some of the trucks I've driven as I write about the events.

Back in the fifties and sixties Mack had a series of trucks that came with two stick transmissions which were a carryover from the beginning when all trucks had manual transmissions and a lot of them were 2 stick setups. 

There was due-plex, tri-plex, 4x4 and the most popular roadranger 6,7,9 and 10 speed which was 1 stick with a high and low button on the stick, and a few more depending on make, model and year of the truck. all were non synchronized and required double clutching or learning how to shift without the clutch altogether, which was a real trick with the 2 stick trans and many found out the hard way.

I learned to shift a due-plex while working as a local union driver in Ohio but I never could shift it without the clutch and sometimes couldn't get it right with it, and if you get both sticks in neutral at the same time you just about have to stop and start all over. It really was fun in Florida hauling liquids in bulk tankers when you would get a lot of slosh, even to the point of almost stopping your forward movement. I was the only driver that would use the B model Mack on that job.

Again, keep on truckin until next time

The good old days

I just retired from trucking after 55 years of beating around the USA in a big truck and I have seen a lot that I would like to share.      

  

When I started at 17 years old, I just road along and help unload, but the guy that I went with thought I would make a good driver so he took me under his wing and taught me everything he could about being a SAFE and PROFESSIONAL driver.

Back then the only way to get a good paying driving job was to pay your dues and drive for some small outfit that didn't pay well and worked you as hard as you would let them until you got 2 years experience then you could apply at a big company but you still had to have someone to put in a good word for you or you probably would not get hired.

I started driving a cabover GMC with a 238 Detroit engine with a 5 speed trans and a 2 speed axle giving it 10 forward gears and if you didn't load it real heavy you might get it to 70 on the flats with no headwind. Along with very few interstates, it made for a pretty tiring day especially with no air ride suspension or air ride seat or air conditioning or power steering and a radio that would only pick up country western channels.

BUT, in my opinion those were the good old days !  Everybody acknowledged other drivers, there was a comradery that has been lost in the last 20 years that the current group of drivers will never know or understand. There used to be mom and pop truckstops that offered real home cooking in a downhome atmosphere that the corporate chain stops can't come close too. but then they didn't have all of the amenities that the current stops do. I can remember when Jim Ryder started the T A truckstops. At that time it was Truckstops of America not Travel centers of America and was touted as an upscale rest/fuel stop with modern facilities for TRUCKERS that the traveling public could share.

To be fair there were other truckstops on the roads like Union 76, Standard oil, Skelly oil and the like but I truly feel that the T/A was the best for it's time. All offered fuel, parking, food and showers in varying quality but T/A was just a little better until it was sold, then it started down hill and hasn't stopped except for some who have slowed it's demise a little.

In the next few months I will try to recall some of the more interesting situations I've found myself in so all may get a laugh at some of my mistakes and luck.

Keep on truckin 😁