I suppose that it doesn’t quite match the stereotypical criteria for a truck driver, but I’m sitting here relaxing and watching the miles go by, listening to some smooth jazz on the mp3 player, and sipping on some chai tea.
Yes, I make coffee in the Kcup machine that my older boy bought me for Christmas, (thank you Matthew), but it gets old after a while. You can make all kinds of things in this machine these days. Coffee and tea of course, but soups, hot apple cider, and even oatmeal. Amazing machine. It’s probably the best thing I ever installed in the truck. I’m a firm believer in maintaining my creature comforts while on the road. Life on the road is hard enough, to go without them. I made it clear from the beginning that when I take over a truck, several things are going to happen. Its going to look good, it’s going to be clean, and I’m going to be comfortable. And I’m going to have some fun doing it, else there’s no point. Fortunately, the company I work for is down with that.
My uncle, who used to drive for Refrigerated Food Express out of Boston, would be amused at the stuff I’ve got installed in this thing. I sincerely wish he was alive to see it. (Shake of the head)
And yes, I like country music too, I listen to it frequently and have quite a bit of it in my mp3 player, but unlike the stereotype, I have probably the most esoteric collection of music you’re ever going to find. I suppose that’s because of my former career as a DJ. There’s an awful lot of drivers that you will find that don’t meet the stereotype. And I’m learning more about that every day as I ply my, no, our trade.
Tonight I’m a little angry for a friend of mine. He’s going through a time just now, in my opinion through no fault of his own.
Honestly, I’m drawing a blank at the moment on who it was who suggested that you could generally tell how corrupt the government was by the number of laws that it creates. I would agree with that, but I would also conditionalize it with how many secret laws it passes.
Case in point…. This friend of mine was driving his tractor trailer up in the Syracuse area, and was pulled into a DOT checkpoint. The ticket he was issued was for driving a 53 foot trailer on a prohibited road. Now, there are no signs on this road denoting that prohibition.
Now this is where the fun begins. First of all, keep in mind that we’re talking about the possibility of $2000 fine for driving on this prohibited road.
Of course, my friend asked the officer politely if there wasn’t any postings on the road how was he supposed to know that it was prohibited? Well, it turns out that there is a website which lists the roads that you can drive on. If the road is not listed on that website you can’t drive on it. Of course, it should be noted that the majority of the roads in New York State are not on that list.
Somehow, the state has decided in its infinite wisdom that it would be better for drivers to check the website to see whether or not they can actually drive on a particular road. As opposed of course to actually posting signs with weight limits or length limits or what have you.
This situation is more than faintly ridiculous. Allow me to demonstrate.
Imagine a series of streets let’s say, in New York City.. Some streets are one way in one direction, some streets are one way in another direction, and a goodly number of them are designed and allowed for traffic in both directions.
Because of the cost of signage, the city fathers decide to not put one way signs up, but rather create a website for the purposes of informing drivers which way they should drive on any particular street.
If that scenario doesn’t sound even remotely plausible to you, congratulations. You understand the problem that I’m describing here. Except that in the case of the truck restrictions, it’s directed at a particular class of driver. Thus, making truck drivers criminals in the eyes of the law.
This strikes me as totally outrageous and an abuse of power the level of which I would not have believed existed previously. If I were more cynical, I would suggest that the lawmakers decided to do it this way so as to be able to raise more money in fines from drivers who are simply trying to do their job.
Oh, hell, Who am I kidding? I’m as cynical as they come. And I’ll suggest that’s precisely what the lawmakers had in mind.
As it stands right now, I don’t even know if roads that I’ve been driving a full size tractor trailer on for years now, are even legal for me to do that. I’m not even sure what the website is that they’re talking about.
I think it’s time the drivers demand that roads that are prohibited be clearly marked as such. This will do two things, it would limit the number of roads with such prohibitions on cost factors alone, and it would also inform drivers of where they should and should not drive. I certainly obey all restrictions which are posted, but I cannot be expected to obey provisions I don’t know exist.
New York legislature are you listening?
By the way, a note of sadness to close on tonight. Sympathies to the family and friends and coworkers of Lisa Colagrossi, who worked at wabc-tv in New York, and who at the age of 49 died of a brain hemorrhage rather suddenly the other day.
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