Adventures, breakdowns, and other tales from the road. (Page 2 of 2)
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Originally Posted By Crazyascanbe: @Woodchuck1 It was in Binghamton NY I just left the truckstop and was about 2 miles down the road. Just washed the truck when it happened. @Crazyascanbe Thanks. Was curious as I was trying to place the terrain. Are you still in the dump trucking side of things? |
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@Woodchuck1 I haven't drove any sort of truck commercial in over 20 years. I still have my class A (I hate to give it up) I have been in the I.T. world for the last 20 years and am now Director of IT for a larger company on the east coast My driving career was as follows Garbage man: Class B Moving company Class B to Class A Flat bed: Class A Dump Truck Class A (I towed a dozer around from site to site) Computer helpdesk Systems admin Network admin IT Director The ironic thing is where I am now works a young woman whose father taught me how to drive Class A. |
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USA
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Really a great 10-ish years of work. Mostly boring, up and down I-5 in Western Wa with 105K commodity trailer. A little bit more variety in AK. Mainly local around Anchorage and in and out of Whittier, local work was more interesting. Not much nasty haz-mat, but I was licensed and moved smooth bore (no baffles) tanks with heavy liquids; that required a really smooth technique, and still jerked the truck around a lot! Time in Wa had me attending a couple of wrecks by co-workers. One guy said he dropped his phone and reached down to the floor and steered him self and the fuel truck into a large ditch. Rolled onto it’s back and spun a 180 across an elevated driveway. That crushed the cab roof and windshield onto the driver’s seat. The driver was somehow not crushed (?) Claiming that he “wasn’t using the cellphone” (illegal) and was wearing the seat belt (required by law also). Company had cameras in all the trucks shortly after that! Another one was a simple rollover like the Ohio film clip posted here. Though at a much slower speed. Ramp posted with signs for 15mph max; with 104-5K in the trailer, you could feel it trying to tip at about 13-14mph! I was called by dispatcher at both companies, first time to pump out the upside down fuel tank truck before the wrecker would roll it back onto its wheels, and second time to bring an excavator then haul away the salvaged product from the rolled heavy haul trailer. Western Wa doesn’t get much snow and freezing temps, so it’s a bit of a circus when it does snow. Watched a car haulin’ ass onto the highway from the on-ramp and spun a couple circles in pretty thick traffic before lightly bouncing off the guardrail on the far left of the 3 lanes he was spinning across. Still going along at 30-40 mph and got himself headed the right way and never stopped or really slowed down but for the spin! During the same snow storm I noticed an Italian supercar, maybe Ferrari(?) simply parked and left on the shoulder of the interstate for a day or two. The DOT had hosed it pretty hard with the big snow blade they use. Probably plows at at least 30mph  I had good luck, helped by an abundance of caution, and have not had any trouble while behind the wheel. Had a few close calls, and heard some bad stories from others.. |