EC's Going For It

[Electric Chicken]

All said and done it cost me right around $2100 for 4 new tires and one pair relocated.

With inflation taken into consideration (no pun intended), I didn't think that was too bad.

 

[Rigjockey]

I reported a pot hole on my state's website on Friday. I'm disappointed that it's now Monday after 8AM and it hasn't been fixed.

Here they would show up a month later with a 4-man union crew and some cold patch.
Only one guy can shovel the cold patch, and only the tamper can do the tamping, as per union rules. - probably

 

[Electric Chicken]

Here they would show up a month later with a 4-man union crew and some cold patch.
Only one guy can shovel the cold patch, and only the tamper can do the tamping, as per union rules. - probably

I don't actually expect anything to ever happen. I live in a blue state. My area is red but we have two huge cities.

 

[Rigjockey]

Speaking of tires, I was beside this Brampton based truck. Almost all tires were mismatched tread styles. The thing that struck me was the two brand new tires on the left rear drive wheels the other side was some old worn-down tires.
I was thinking this is going to cause some premature wear.
They just do band-aid solutions that will cost them more in the long run.

 

[Electric Chicken]

Speaking of tires, I was beside this Brampton based truck. Almost all tires were mismatched tread styles. The thing that struck me was the two brand new tires on the left rear drive wheels the other side was some old worn-down tires.
I was thinking this is going to cause some premature wear.
They just do band-aid solutions that will cost them more in the long run.

I ALMOST did that for the extra worn set. Just put something that's the same depth/circumference to get me by but I couldn't go through with it. And I needed to move the other side up to check if the cupping will keep happening anyway.

I can't do the typical can hauler stuff. I just can't. Lol. Same reason I don't put their mailbox stickers on for my truck number.

 

[Hillbilly Canuck]

I reported a pot hole on my state's website on Friday. I'm disappointed that it's now Monday after 8AM and it hasn't been fixed.

Our road is about a mile long crescent off and back onto the same provincial highway. It's full of truck breaking craters as are a lot of the highways on the island. Last year they had some guys out laying cold patch in them that was pretty well gone in a few weeks.

This year by the time the snow was gone at the end of May the holes were all back and most of them were a lot worse. A couple months ago they put down a temporary "Potholes Ahead" sign where you turn in from the highway. (a lot of roads and highways have those signs on permanent posts as their solution) A couple weeks ago they threw loose gravel in a bunch of them so that's nice when we come and go on mororcycles.

 

[Electric Chicken]

First day on the new tires in the books. Definitely made a difference. I don't really know how to put it into words other than there's more stability with both sides matching in height.

I still haven't replaced the front shocks. They're gonna be the same rigamarole with the bottom bolts as the rears were. So I'm not super excited about it. My kingpins are also on a "grease and monitor" status
The alignment shop is looking up the parts to do the job ASAP. It's not a dangerous emergency or anything like that but it's not something I can or want to put off forever either. I'm thinking in the next couple weeks or so.

I'm pretty close to getting it all buttoned up nice and tight so it can do another 580k.

Also temps were around 100 today, and I actually had to turn the AC down so it wouldn't freeze me out. That was impressive.

 

[Electric Chicken]

How do y'all OTR peeps find parking on the Eastern seaboard? Do y'all cut bait at 5pm regardless of your HOS?

Reason I ask is I was crawling down 95 to l Richmond today and I thought I might have to find parking somewhere.

Fortunately I didn't, and if I cut SUPER early I could have stayed at the pickup.

But as I drove up 95 I was thinking where would I go if I ran out of hours.

I'm pretty good at trip planning the time it takes without finding parking but I'm clueless when it comes to putting up for the night.

 

[Hillbilly Canuck]

The best option is to stay the hell off the eastern seaboard and not work for people that go therer egularly. Being as you live there and own the truck I guess that isn't really practical. The scattered time I've been jammed up on the east coast I've stayed at pickups and deliveries more than anything else knowing I would be headed back to civilization within a day or two.

 

[Rigjockey]

How do y'all OTR peeps find parking on the Eastern seaboard? Do y'all cut bait at 5pm regardless of your HOS?

Reason I ask is I was crawling down 95 to l Richmond today and I thought I might have to find parking somewhere.

Fortunately I didn't, and if I cut SUPER early I could have stayed at the pickup.

But as I drove up 95 I was thinking where would I go if I ran out of hours.

I'm pretty good at trip planning the time it takes without finding parking but I'm clueless when it comes to putting up for the night.

I did the east coast for three years. Parking is fucking brutal down that way.
I would have to shut down early just to secure a spot. Losing time and money.

Go west young man, go west. The parking situation is much better in the mid-west.

 

[Electric Chicken]

I did the east coast for three years. Parking is fucking brutal down that way.
I would have to shut down early just to secure a spot. Losing time and money.

Go west young man, go west. The parking situation is much better in the mid-west.

I had more of the same today. Fredericksburg VA with a load, Richmond VA with an empty to bring back a load.

Takes extra time in Richmond these days because they've been having a local carrier down there pull them to their yard for us so we don't have to try to hit the tight service windows.

We have to drop the empty at Amazon then bobtail over to the yard for our load.

The yard is only a couple miles around the corner so not a huge deal but it's still a thing.

Ironically it was my suggestion because I sorta set it up myself. They sent me down to check it out and drop an empty and I noted their yard is extremely small, meant for short sea cans not 53 footers.

I told my company it's gonna get super cramped in here super quick and there's a big risk of not being able to park the empty at all. I told their manager the same thing. And I said why don't we just drop out empties at Amazon so they already have them, and your drivers can simply bobtail in, grab, and go.

We get paid for the bobtail from Amazon to the carrier. It's not much but it helps boost our gross without much fuel cost.

Pretty much adds half an hour to the day unless you're like me and you nuke lunch and take more time on purpose.

Anyway, everyone was excited about my idea and they didn't hesitate to say heck yes let's do that.

 

[Electric Chicken]

Also today went surprisingly well. I brought extra meals in case I had to sleep in the truck fully expecting a mess worse than yesterday. But traffic was a lot lighter the entire way up and down.

The only hangup all day was about 10 minutes of sitting a couple miles from the Richmond Amazon. There was a wreck but they got it onto the shoulder super quick.

Sure was hot though. Grateful for a truck with strong AC.

 

[Electric Chicken]

I recently discovered a pretty neat Android feature. Maybe apple already does it but I don't own any of their products.

If I copy, say, a chassis number or a seal number (or anything really) on my phone, I can immediately paste it on my tablet. So when I type a chassis number into the company dispatch app on my phone, I can select it and copy it then paste it into my ELD app on the tablet.

Yeah it's been what 5 years and I just discovered this.

 

[Electric Chicken]

Monday looks to be a repeat of this past week. Down to a Richmond loaded, back from Richmond loaded.

Maybe I'll start later like I did today because it seemed to work trafficularly.

My regular dispatcher told me her dispatching was farmed out to another girl who's calls I've apparently been ignoring. I might have to pick up the phone and start squealing. I'm cool with occasional BS but a daily shit show for what this company pays is out of the question.

 

[Electric Chicken]

Never would I ever have thought I'd be excited to see one of my regular roads closed but on my way to CSX this morning, they had that one shut down where I reported the potholes 11 days ago and were milling it. So it's going to get a new surface sooner than I thought would happen.

 

[Electric Chicken]

Tomorrow was going to be more of the same. Another trip to Richmond VA. At first I thought okay no biggie because Friday was actually decent. But on my way down today I was stuck in 4 different stop and go segments and I got triggered.

So I kicked it back and called the new girl and told her I need a break from all these Richmonds. It's a heavy customer location but still day in and day out isn't for me. If it paid more or on an hourly basis that would be different but like lives its a chart based on mileage with zero other considerations. Lives at least pay you detention after an hour but you don't get extra pay for sitting in traffic and burning your brakes up for every BMW or Nissan Altima.

Instead of a Richmond tomorrow I'm doing the formerly usual Harrisonburg area then a formerly usual Tyrone PA paper load. I don't love the paper loads since they stop paying that big premium but for now I'll take it as a last minute alternate. I had previously sworn them off and will probably swear them off again, but it's been long enough since my last one.

I'm probably going to have to so some serious looking for another gig because of how heavily this company is leaning on Amazon these days and how it seems to be mostly these Richmonds. I don't hate any part of it other than the major city traffic and I feel the exact same way about the Upper Marlboro MDs when I have to run the DC beltway.

Pay me a shit ton extra for what it entails and I'm game but when it pays the same as the gravy runs that are far easier on the truck and your time, I get annoyed.

On the plus side, doing this stuff makes me appreciate the easy stuff even more. I just haven't seen it in a while.

 

[Rigjockey]

Never would I ever have thought I'd be excited to see one of my regular roads closed but on my way to CSX this morning, they had that one shut down where I reported the potholes 11 days ago and were milling it. So it's going to get a new surface sooner than I thought would happen.

We are going to have to start calling you "The Big wheel" you got pull with the city.
Cool they are doing a "shave and pave" rather than just cold patching a few spots.

 

[Electric Chicken]

We are going to have to start calling you "The Big wheel" you got pull with the city.
Cool they are doing a "shave and pave" rather than just cold patching a few spots.

I'm more influential than I thought.

 

[Electric Chicken]

It was literally like 3 lines on the website so if that's really all it took I'm gonna be prolific. I'ma be a pothole Karen.