Things I Wish 4-Wheelers Understood

How I wish I could add an addendum to all Driver's Ed classes.  Alas, I am too busy driving and blogging, so I'll utilize this forum as my soapbox instead.

THINGS THAT I WISH FOUR-WHEELERS UNDERSTOOD

(Not that I'm ranting or anything......much.....)

• What we are driving is equivalent to steering an 80,000 pound elephant.  There's a lot of strength power in the engine, but it moves very slowly.  We cannot go from a dead stop to 55 or 65 mph in an instant like you can.  Have a little patience and breathe; trust me, we want to get through that light just as quickly as you do.  
• In the same manner, we cannot stop the charging elephant on a dime either.  So when you zip up in the merge lane on the highway and dart in front of us and slow down, we have to slam on our brakes and endanger the traffic behind us.  If some other brilliant 4-wheeler has decided to "draft" behind us at an unsafe following distance while texting or Facebooking on his/her smartphone, they may crash into the back of our trailer and decapitate themselves.  I don't know about you, but I'd rather not turn my rig into a rolling guillotine.
• We are not out here to make your life miserable.  On the contrary, we make it our duty to do all that we can to protect you, even when you put yourself in harm's way.  We feel a great responsibility for the civilians of the road.  Please, please, don't take unnecessary risks just because you want to "teach us a lesson."  You put yourself and everyone around you at risk when you do so.
• If we don't let you in on a merge lane it's because we can't safely do so.  Sometimes the jerk in the left lane won't let us over, sometimes the road is so rough or slippery it's too dangerous to change lanes, and sometimes there's just way too much traffic to be able to move anywhere but forward.  If we're able to slow down and offer you an opening, GRAB IT WITH GUSTO and put some speed on.  If you languish and hesitate, we have no choice but to accelerate and keep moving, leaving you on the side of the road.  
• Speaking of which, we HAVE to get over for emergency vehicles on the side of the road.  If you see us suddenly put on our blinker to move over to the left when there's no one in front of us, chances are there's a cop up the road who's pulled someone over and we need to move out of the way.  Not only is this the law, it's an important safety protocol.  Officers have been killed by vehicles that didn't slow down or get over.  The last thing we want to do is to hurt anyone.  So please, give us some space and let us get over.  As soon as we pass the stopped vehicles, we'll return to the right lane and let you get on your merry way.  Honest.
• Speaking of passing, if you're going to go around us, please do so with enough distance between the back of your car and the front of our truck.  One truck's length should be the minimum you aim for.  If you do pull over pre-emptively, step on the gas and get out of the way.  Put that distance between us as soon as possible so we don't have to slam on our brakes and become a road hazard.
• If you slow us down on an incline we may never recover that momentum.  Some loads are so heavy that we can only do 20 mph going uphill.  If you cause us to drop a gear, that's 5-10 mph we've lost and can't gain til we go downhill again.  Really, not nice.
• If we're going slowly in town, we're really close to our destination and want to make sure we don't miss our turn.  A semi is not a vehicle that can easily be turned around, so it's far better to take it slow and not miss our turn.  Please be patient and don't be afraid to go around us if there are two lanes.
• If you see us backing into a dock at a store, please don't dart your car behind our truck/trailer.  Yes, we're backing slowly, but that doesn't make it safe for you to be back there.  It's a big parking lot; go around elsewhere, please!
• If we have our right turn signal on but we're blocking part of the straight lane also, it means we need extra space to safely make our turn.  Please don't sneak up on the right side to turn before us.  That's our blind side and we may or may not be able to see you before we make our turn.  If we don't see you, chances are we'll hit you, and neither of us really want that.
• Speaking of the right side, please, please, PLEASE!  Don't languish in the right lane next to us on the highway.  There are areas where we cannot see you AT ALL and we may try to change lanes without realizing you are there.  Stay behind our trailer or quickly move in front of us, but don't linger on the right side.
• We're not mean old grinches when we don't blow our air horn for your kids.  We love the air horn, it's tons of fun; but it's also hazardous to other drivers who may be startled by the sound, so unless we're on a nearly deserted road, we usually can't oblige your kids' requests.  Sorry.
• Yes, we CAN see into your car, so please make sure you're wearing pants or other appropriate attire before getting into your car and hitting the highway; I really don't need to see your batman underwear on my driving shift.

Realities of the Road

The road is a harsh mistress.  She demands complete loyalty, keeping us out for weeks at a time, away from the people and places we hold dear. 

We were bobtailing back from a local truck stop in southern Georgia when my co-driver's cell phone went off.  An older brother in southwest Michigan was in ICU on life support over 1,000 miles from our current location.

The load we were under was not yet ready and had to deliver in southeast Chicago before we could route towards home.  The soonest we could get there was 30 hours after receiving the news.

As you sit down to dinner this evening, take a moment to be thankful that your life's passion brings you home each night.  As you take a bite of the delicious meal sitting in front of you, take a moment to be thankful for the sacrifices truckers make to bring those things to your table.

*This post is dedicated to WC and all those who knew him, both on the road and off.  May your memories live forever.*

Primping on the Road

Much like camping, one thing that definitely takes a beating on the road is personal hygiene.  As a solo driver, I was often faced with the choice of getting a shower or getting some sleep.  Sadly, more often than not, sleep won out over the luxury of a shower. 

Now that I've switched to team driving, I get a lot more time to focus on self-care. When we're not running JIT loads, we can usually stop and shower every day.  The trick is to try and shower at shift change (after one driver ends his/her 14 hour day and before the other driver starts) so we're not eating up the other driver's 14 while we shower and eat.

Very few trucks have showers installed in them.  Most of us are relegated to truck stops and service plazas to keep from encompassing the image above.

The most common truck stops are Pilot/Flying J, TA/Petro, and Love's.  Less common, but still well known are Sapp Brothers, AMBest, and Mr. Fuel. 

Whenever we fuel the truck, we use a rewards card to notate how much fuel was purchased.  Purchasing 50-75 gallons or more usually results in a free shower being placed on the card.  That shower is generally valid for up to 7 days and can be redeemed at any other location of the same type (ie, fueling at a Pilot in Indianapolis, IN can get us a free shower that we can redeem in Denver, CO at a Flying J or Pilot). 

The fuel tank on a truck generally holds about 200 gallons, so a typical fill-up is anywhere from 75-150 gallons, depending on the gap between fuel stops. When I was a solo driver, my loads often ran heavy, so I usually only fueled 50 gallons at a time.

At Pilot or Flying J, a shower costs $10.  At TA/Petro, a shower costs $12.  Smaller chain truck stops like Mr. Fuel only charge $5 for a shower.  (I love the prices at Mr. Fuel, but parking can be hard to find sometimes.)

A shower typically consists of a room set up like a hotel bathroom, with a sink, toilet, and shower, freshly cleaned, with clean towels folded and placed on the sink.  Liquid soap is usually provided in the shower, and some places provide a travel size bar of soap along with a breath mint. 

I have a pink gym bag that is stocked 24/7 with my preferred shower supplies.  Items such as eyebrow wax, razors, liquid soap, bar soap, face scrub, tweezers, nail clippers, and all other sundry items are packed into the end caps of my bag.  In the middle of the bag I pack clean clothes to change into after my shower.  The side of the bag holds my shower shoes in a netted pocket that enables them to air dry after each use.

A typical truck stop shower is at least an hour for me.  When it's cold out, I languish in the hot water even longer.  By the time everything is scrubbed and plucked and dried, it's fairly time consuming.  I don't bother with curling irons or any heated rollers, but I do have a large supply of ways to pin up my hair if I don't want it down.

Hair removal is a challenge on the road - with prolonged sitting, exfoliation is a must to avoid painful ingrown hairs.  I'm currently using a combination of the sand paper method and an electric razor to remove hair and exfoliate at the same time.


I'm still working on the logistics of painted nails on the road.  There isn't really time to do a proper mani or pedi in a shower, and the bouncing of the truck on the road makes a manicure en route next to impossible.  For now, I've had to say goodbye to my long nails and just try to keep them trimmed and clean as possible.  Even with a myriad of gloves to choose from, it's hard to keep the road dirt out from under my nails.

Facial care is extremely important.  Road dirt gets in the pores of the face even worse than it does on our hands, and I've been disgusted more than once in seeing the gray that comes off my face each time I scrub in the shower.  I like to use a liquid scrub like St. Ives Green Tea Scrub (it's gentler than the apricot scrub that I used to use in my 20's) or, when I can afford it, L'Occitane Immortelle Exfoliator.

Staying Fit On The Road

It's no secret that most truck drivers are stereotyped as grossly obese, lazy males who stuff their face with junk food as they mosey down the freeway.  The image for females isn't much better when most of us are classified as wannabe males who fall under pretty much the same categories.

Much like The People of Wal-Mart, these images capture everyone's attention, but don't really represent the majority of us.  Personally, due to the physical nature of the job, I have lost approximately 30 lbs since beginning driver training in August 2012. However, not everyone is as fortunate, and I think a lot of the choices we make on a daily basis affect our physical fitness on the road.

What I Avoid:

• Gluten - since I have to eat gluten-free, this removes a lot of the really "bad for you if eaten regularly" types of foods, such as Cinnabons, pizza, Little Debbie anything, etc.
• Sugar - although I don't eliminate sugar entirely (look in my coffee cup or soda and you'll find plenty of sugar), I do try to keep the glycemic levels down in most of my foods.  The sugar high and subsequent low without the presence of protein can result in a great deal of fatigue after just two hours of driving.  When your livelihood depends upon 10-11 hours of driving a day, 2 hour fatigue is just not acceptable.
• Excess carbs.  Again, not to the extreme of The Atkins Diet, but focusing more on protein as the main stomach filler and select carbs (such as potatoes) for starch.

What I Focus On:

• Protein - with the physical requirements of this job, I want my muscles to have every opportunity to grow and develop as needed to be able to perform properly. Protein helps this to happen.  I keep protein bars in the truck at all times (my favorites are Market Pantry Nutrition Bars - Fudge Graham flavor [Target's generic brand] - a whopping 14g of protein in every bar) and often purchase hard boiled eggs and cheese at the truck stops.  
• Mindfully eating out - when I go to McDonald's, I get a burger without the bun (best flavor is the double cheeseburger, which comes with onions and other goodies), and either a coffee or a soda.  I've had to start avoiding french fries on the road because the gluten cross-contamination has been too prevalent.  One cannot survive on the road if their food is causing them to run to the bathroom every 15 minutes.  At Subway I get the roasted chicken breast (2 in a salad plate with no lettuce, which always freaks them out) and add black olives and mayo.  At Arby's I get the Classic Roast Beef, no bun, and add extra meat for $1.  Up until recently I thought there was nothing I could eat at Taco Bell, but it looks like they have a new salad they've created to try to compete with Chipotle's - this is on my list to research and test soon.  At Denny's and other diner-style restaurants, I tend to gravitate towards the omelettes or the burgers, depending on whether I'm craving red meat or not.  I also take a multi-vitamin in case I'm missing anything in my ostensible lack of vegetables.  I do eat fruit occasionally, when it is available.
• Multi-purpose carbs - while sugar is technically a carb, it doesn't really do much except jack up your blood sugar and give you instant, short-term energy.  For this reason, when I look at carbs in my diet I try to find carbs that are also nutritive starches.  Potatoes are excellent in potassium and other nutrients, while also providing starch and carbs.  As a result, they are my go-to carb source, which is provided via baked potatoes, potato chips, and sometimes hash browns.  

Truckin' Terminology

Much like the days of yore when trucking consisted of "10-4 Good Buddy!" and other industry phrases, there are a lot of terms that will leave you scratching your head and wondering what on earth I'm talking about.  The following will help you decipher some of those phrases:

• Four wheelers: The civilians of the highway who are licensed to operate a 4-wheeled vehicle and cause us consternation on a daily basis.
• 10, 14, 11, 34 and 70:  Our lives center around legal limits of our time.  On a daily basis we are limited to 11 hours of driving, 14 consecutive hours of a workday, and a minimum of 10 hours rest to reset the 14 and 11.  On a weekly basis we are limited to 70 hours of on-duty and/or driving time in an 8-day period.  34 consecutive hours of rest (off-duty) will reset our 70.
• CPM: Cents Per Mile, our pay rate.  So much more factors in to a job decision than CPM, but once we find a company we want to work with, the CPM is important for budgeting and determining what our weekly take-home pay will be.
• Drop & Hook:  The ideal way to pick up and drop a load.  This means our load is ready as soon as we arrive at the shipper and all we have to do is drop our empty trailer and hook up to the new load.  At the destination, same thing in reverse - we drop our loaded trailer, pick up an empty and take off.  Time is money, and the less time we spend dinking around at a shipper or consignee, the better.
• Shipper:  Where the load originates.
• Consignee:  Where the load delivers.
• Live load:  A dreaded type of load due to the wild card nature of the beast and the inflexibility of the appointment time.  A live load means arriving with an empty trailer and backing it into a dock, then waiting to be loaded.  Live loads can take as little as 15 minutes or as long as 8-10 hours.  The unknown factor makes it a nightmare for most drivers.
• MT (Empty): An empty trailer.  Many shippers require us to drop an empty before we're permitted to pick up a load, so sometimes we get sent on wild goose chases to find an empty trailer before our pick-up time.  The miles spent chasing down an empty aren't paid, so this is not an enjoyable task.
• Tractor:  The actual truck, not including the trailer.  Also known as a bobtail.  To "bobtail" to a location means driving there without a trailer attached.
• Deadhead:  To drive to a location with an empty trailer.  Also known as "empty miles," this is often how we get from a destination to our next shipper.  These miles are paid.
• Steers, drives and tandems:  These are the three main axle locations on a truck.  The steers are the two front tires.  The drives are the 8 tires located on the rear of the tractor.  The tandems are the 8 tires located at the rear of the trailer.
• Sliding the tandems:  The tandems sit on a sliding track with about 20+ holes to choose from for the resting location of the tandems.  Depending on the age and condition of the trailer, sliding the tandems can be a simple maneuver or an exercise in frustration.  Basic operation consists of pulling the handle, locking it in place, getting in the truck and moving the tractor only (keeping the trailer brakes locked), then releasing the handle and sliding the tandems until they lock into place.  Realistic operation consists of attempting to pull the handle, getting in the truck multiple times to rock the tandems, having to use vise grips to hold the handle in place, and/or using the 3-lb hammer to pound the locking pins into their holes so the tandems can be slid.  This exercise in frustration can last anywhere from 5 minutes to half an hour or more.
• 12/34/34:  The legal limits for weight on a truck.  Gross vehicle weight cannot exceed 80,000 lbs.  Each axle is limited to 12,000 on the steers, 34,000 on the drives, and 34,000 on the tandems.  "Making a load legal" consists of sliding the tandems and/or the 5th wheel to adjust the weight distribution until it is within these parameters.
• Scaling:  Most truck stops offer certified scaling along with fuel, overpriced food, and coffee.  The most common and popular type of scale is CAT scales.  For heavy loads, scaling is the only way to certify that the load weight has been distributed properly and that the load weight is legal.
• Fuel:  We don't put gasoline in our trucks, we put in diesel fuel, so we refer to it as purchasing fuel, not gas.
• DEF:  This little acronym stands for Diesel Exhaust Fluid, a nifty invention that became mandatory circa 2010, supplementing an exhaust system which greatly reduces the carbon emissions placed into the air.  DEF is a fluid that is measured in green boxes on the dash, and referred to as having 1, 2, 3, or 4 boxes left.  Each box equals approximately 2.5 gallons of DEF.  Yet another fluid for us to purchase almost as often as we purchase fuel.
• Idling or Idle time:  Running the truck while it is sitting in one place.  Companies hate idling because it burns up fuel without running any miles and therefore costs them money without bringing any in.  However, sometimes idling is required, such as when it is 80+ degrees out and we need to run the A/C or when it is below 30 degrees and we have to keep the truck running so the fuel doesn't gel up and cause the truck to be unable to start.
• Lot Lizard: The preferred euphemism for "Ladies of the Evening" who focus their "street corner" on truck stops.  Pretty much bottom of the barrel for quality in this particular industry, they are viewed as only a step or two above crack whore.  Generally, it's known to avoid utilizing these "services" unless you greatly desire an unknown disease or deadly interaction with her pimp. 

Introduction

When I decided to become a truck driver the second time around, I was determined not to give up my feminine qualities in the search for respect and equality in a male dominated profession. This blog will take you through some of the trials and tribulations experienced by truckers as a whole, as well as the specific challenges faced by those of us who want to remain ladylike while living on the road.

For security purposes there will be a 1-2 day delay between real time and posting time of any load or location details. It's never a wise idea to disclose the contents of your trailer and a lady really doesn't need more stalkers than she already has.  So to quote Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, "I'm a safety girl!" and I won't compromise the safety of myself or my loads for the pursuit of blogdom. Sorry.

With that housekeeping out of the way, here's a little bit about myself:

• I'm 36 years old, female (obviously), almost twice divorced (second one in progress), and far too opinionated for my own good (see previous note re: divorces)
• I'm fairly antisocial, but will talk your ear off if I'm comfortable around you
• I've been a solo driver since November 2012, and recently teamed up with a very good friend to take on longer hauls and get better miles
• I really, REALLY hate bureaucracy
• I love shoes

 Drop me a line at TruckinLikeaLady@gmail.com and let me know what aspects of trucking you've always wondered about!