The Madcap Advenures of A Writer and Her Trucker Part Eight

by: C.J. Galaway

February 8, 2016
Hurry up and wait is one of those phrases most people associate with the military. The running joke is they make their people hurry as fast as they can from point A to point B only to wait around for heir next set of orders.

That also applies to the trucking industry as well; a point I’m quickly realizing is more like a way of life.

You have x amount of hours to reach the pick-up location and don’t you dare be late. If you’re lucky it is what is called a drop and hook. You drop the trailer you brought in, hook up to a pre-loaded trailer and roll to the delivery location. If you’re not so lucky it is a live unload. Then the fun begins…
You are either old to pull into a numbered load and wait to be loaded or you pull into a parking area and wait for a door to become available.

Either way the fun begins.

Depending on he type of load this waiting process can take hours up to days (one or two at the most) but wait you do. Thanks to the new trucking regulations your time ticks away while you wait. Which leads to the net fun part of this dilemma; either you have enough hours left to roll to a safe location or you sit for ten hours until your time resets for the new day’s work to begin.

Some people think all a truck driver does is hold a steering wheel?

Now let’s talk repairs to either the ruck or trailer. Same concept except you are at a truck stop or one of your company’s terminals waiting for the repairs to be made. These locations are a bit more comfortable, but still time ticks away never to be regained.

Either prospect isn’t fun and requires the driver to be able to adjust their route to reflect the time available to deliver he load on time and safely while keeping an eye out for traffic and people who don’t seem to care about their safety or the fact that the driver is delivering the goods that people have come to take for granted are readily available on the shelves of whatever store they walk into.

Still think all a truck driver does is hold a steering wheel all day?

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