The accident in New Jersey

I suppose I should weigh in on the accident in New Jersey that was
allegedly the fault of a tired trucker. I am sure there will be calls to
restrict trucks even more than they are now in order to keep those big
dangerous things away from people. Reports are that the driver was
fatigued. It has been said that he had been awake for 24 hours prior to
the crash. It is possible. It is also possible that the driver of the
limousine was more at fault. It is also possible that it was unavoidable
by anyone involved.

I saw a comment concerning this incident, someone thought that the 70-82
hours a week that we drive is just insane. This person seems to think
that the maximum possible hours that are available for driving are
always used driving. I get a restart on my hours maybe once a month, at
the end of each day the hours that I either drove or spent otherwise on
duty from eight days prior are added to my clock. I very rarely end up
using every minute of that 70 hours during one week. As I write this, I
only have 6.5 hours left for driving. I must stop by around 7 pm central
time today because of another part of the rules that dictates how much I
can do in a day before shutting down for 10 hours. Most of the truckers
out here will follow the rules. Trucking is a very safe industry.

If the person who beleives we should cut back the hours we can drive
thought it through, they would realize that it would make the roads more
dangerous and more congested because we would need twice as many trucks
to deliver all the things that make the country go.

I feel that everyone who gets a driver's license should be required to
ride with a trucker for a week so they can understand just what it takes
to handle a truck. Maybe then, they would not complain about trucks in
the way and automatically blame the trucker in an accident.

The Wait

As Tom Petty once put it, the waiting is the hardest part. I am
currently sitting in Iowa waiting for a load of meat to be ready. This
is nothing new, most of the time when I need to pick up meat I have to
wait. The destination for this load is Boston. I have about 1200 miles
to go to get it there, and it needs to be there by 9 pm Sunday. It is
now Thursday.

There is not much to do while waiting for a load to be ready. It could
come at any time, and there is only so much sleeping I can do. I may
have to drive for six or seven hours after being up all day. I may get
to sleep all night then move out in the morning. I may get to sleep all
night then wait all day then drive for ten hours to get close enough to
make it to the delivery point on time. It is a lonely job sometimes.

I miss my wife

Trucking can be lonely. I just came back out from four days at home, and
already I miss my wife. I miss her smile. I miss the way she curls up
with the cat on one side and me on the other. I miss hearing her sleep
next to me. We spend hours on the phone every day just keeping in touch.

Trucking is definitely not for everyone. It takes someone very special
to put up with the long times I am away from home, and it takes a great
deal of patience to be out on the road. There are the stresses of the
job, from dealing with rush hour traffic in three cities over two states
in one day to waiting hours and sometimes days for your trailer to be
loaded or unloaded. Even with everything I must deal with on the road,
she needs to take heroic measures to maintain our home, from dealing
with all the bills because I can't get the mail to calling repair people
when things break. Too many things happen that would be easy if I were
there, but are difficult because I am out driving the truck.

Because she is so wonderful to me, I try to do little things to bring
out that smile I miss so much. One of my hobbies is knitting, and I
am making her a pair of socks.