Trucking in Springtime

Just a quick post since I hadn't put anything up for a few weeks again.

I do love this time of year, the flowers along the road give color and contrast to our other wise drab existence.

I have been noticing some realy unprofessional driving out here these last few weeks. Come on guys and gals you hate the hours of service regs but don't you realize it has been our unprofessional behavior that brought it on. Tailgating is stupid yet I see you all doing it every day, so is passing when you can only go 1 mi per hr. faster than the guy in front of you.

Oh and to the flatbed guy that doesn't like refers parking next to him in Little Rock, Ak., Petro, easy to solve don't park at a truck stop, park at your yard and stay there. You like to eat, reefers get it to your store without spoilege.

Well loaded and ready to roll so keep the rubber side down till next time.

Les

Dealing with Family Emergencies

Hi all' been a few weeks since I wrote last because I had to deal with a family member emergency and while I did have some time to write I just couldn't get my mind around to it.

Family emergencies are in fact one of the biggest problems truck drivers have on the road. Life is filled with all kinds of surprises but one of the worst is medical situations.

The picture above is of my wife's arm on Sunday morning after the dressing had been removed. She had had an emergency procedure to remove blood clots from a vein after a scheduled procedure to reopen stents in her chest that had closed. I had to schedule some time off for the initial surgery and then the following day we had to return to the hospital for more test as she began to experience coldness in her hand. To make a long story short I went home on the friday before her scheduled surgery and will be returning tomorrow (tuesday) 10 days later. Not a problem says the employer, most are understanding. But, what about when something unplanned happens while you are on the road?

What happens when an accident occurs with your wife or child and you are a thousand miles from home under dispatch? What happens if there is a sudden unexpected death in the family? What happens if you are suddenly taken sick or have a heart attack?

It happens.

I personally, had the experience of my step-daughter die while I was 250 miles away delivering a load. You will have to get and read my book for that story.

Most employers are really great about working with you when there is an emergency at home. I have heard a few horror stories where the employer was a real SOB, but I suspect it had more to do with the lack of professionalism on the drivers part than any truly cavalier attitude on the employers part. Remember, you agreed to do a job, it is assumed you know the difficulties in scheduling and the liabilities involved in doing your job. Sometimes it just isn't possible for the employer to allow you to immediately duck out and go take care of things at home, thats when your professionalism matters most.

Like everything in life emergencies at home must be prioritized. The flooded basement does not take as high a priority as an accident with injuries. The death of Grandma doesn't rate as high as a child being admitted to the hospital with an unknown illness. While setting these kinds of priorities for yourself will help to keep you level headed when the unexpected happens, you may have fall out with your spouse or other family members.My wife still hurts 13 years after the fact, that it took five hours of her dealing with her grief alone after losing her daughter for me to be by her side.

I think it is important that we try to have a discussion with our loved ones about this very real problem and try to have some kind of understanding of what can be done and what expectations are realistic when there is an emergency.

Make sure your family members know who you work for, what truck you're assigned to, who your dispatcher is and any after hours phone numbers they may need in order to get a hold of you in an emergency, don't rely on your cell phone alone, coverage is still spotty in many areas.

And if you really want to be prepared set up an emergency fund that will cover an airplane flight from anywhere in the country as well as enough money to pay your bills for at least three months.

Well, as always, keep the rubber side down and may God bless you
Les

Dispatchers - Angels or Demons?

Hi all, havn't been writing much lately since with this new company I don't sit very often. I Love it.

I have been thinking about dispatchers since so far the dispatchers I have had with this new outfit have been wonderful. Problems are addressed quickly, dispatches are nearly simultaneous with empty calls, and all have been thoughtful and respectful. Without a doubt this is the best crew I have worked with in my 20 years of driving.

So, why write about dispatchers on a trucker health blog? Answer, it's hard to want to eat right when your pissed off, that chocolate bar is just the thing to take the edge off, right.

Dispatchers can make life heaven or hell for us out here on the road. They can ignore us, leaving us to hang out at the truck stop when we would rather be working. They can want us to work when we have asked for time off. They can wake us from a dead sleep with dumb questions. They can put us on runs that will make sure we can't get home for that ball game or anniversary we told them about last week. Yes, dispatchers can make life Hell.

I have heard and experienced many horror stories regarding dispatchers. I had one dispatcher that would always deadhead me back to the yard after every load knowing full well that I got paid on loaded miles only, his reasoning "You make more money this way", I had one thing to say to that BULL###T! It didn't take long to straighten him out when I got to talk to the owner.

In listening to many of the horror stories I began to see a come thread. Yes, there are bad dispatchers, no doubt, but are you a good driver? Do you take every load that you can do legally? And if you can't take it are you respectful in your response? Do you inform your dispatcher in plenty of time when you want home time? Do you give respectful reminders concerning home time? Are you argumentative or are you respectful at all times? Are you considerate of the dispatchers time or are you chatty, telling war stories instead of business? When there is a problem do you call with an angry or hostile tone? In nearly all the war stories I have heard the driver had not been professional; at some point he had become hostile or belligerent, forgetting his manners and demanding his way.

Yes it's true we are the backbone of this industry, without us trucks don't roll and dispatchers don't have a job, but, they are people too, with feelings and problems just like the rest of us, so bottom line, if you want your life behind the wheel to be a good one, then treat your dispatcher with the dignity and respect that a professional gives. And if they are still A**holes then talk to someone over there head about changing dispatchers if that don't work, then there is always the next job.

Keep the rubber side down
Les

Please check out my website at http://augerles.wix.com/be-a-truck-driver

Healthy Eating on the Road

Hi all, pictured on the left is my typical lunch. As you can see it's not a small amount of food. Eating this way initially gave me a weight loss of 160 lbs. I got a bit lazy last summer and began adding some foods that weren't on my food plan and put about 60 lbs back on.

The good news is I have gotten back on the plan and have already dropped 15 lbs in about 3 or 4 weeks.

Since I began this journey into healthier eating (Feb. 2011) I have managed to reverse my type 2 diabetes and have not had to take any drugs since July 2011, I still test 2 to 3 times a day and have a A1c test done twice a year. My lowest A1c was last July(2012) at 5.6. This past January even with the weight gain it was 5.8 still well in the normal range. All without any regular exercise, nor have I quit smoking or drinking coffee. If I had perhaps the results would have been better, faster.

I have learned a few new things about eating healthier on the road that I would like to pass on to you.

The first is the importance of eating your meals 4 to 6 hours apart.

I have learned a bit about how our digestive tract works and why this spacing between meals is so important.

Our bodies are much like our trucks in that they require a consistent amount of fuel and raw materials be delivered to the intake manifold, meaning our small intestines. This is done through our stomach where the food is broken down into a slurry and extruded slowly into the small intestines where the different types of fuels are then routed along with minerals, vitamins, and other nutrients to the blood stream. Here they are then sent to where they are needed most.

When the stomach is empty and the fuel requirements are no longer being met, the stomach begins to spasm informing us that we need more fuel. This process keeps our bodies fueled and happy. When we space our meals too close to each other we throw this system into confusion and it doesn't know if it should pull some calories from the warehouse, ie, fat cells or store some. Too far apart and the system thinks we are in a state of famine and therefore when calories are once again present it will delivery some of  them to the fat cells for storage.You can see it's a logistics problem.

Eating on a schedule can be a problem for those of us who make our living driving truck. While the latest HOS rules have made it better, there are still some times when it becomes necessary to flip our schedules, for those times what I do is eat my first meal, breakfast, within the first hour I am up regardless of when my last meal was and start my clock from that point. It's not a great solution and still causes the body some confusion but the impact seems to be minimal. I also use my snacks to fill in those times when it is just not practical to stop and fix a meal, again not a great solution but it does work.

To those people who think "grazing" (eating small bits of food many times a day) is a good solution please hear me, it's not a good solution for many reasons but especially these two. First you really can't keep track of just how many calories you are eating this way. And, second you are short circuiting your bodys normal hungary/full response, hence you never know when you really do need food or when you are full.

There is a third and critical reason, balanced nutrients cannot be obtained when eating like this, therefore some part of your body is always in a state of famine. Eating this way will cause you to fail at any attempt to lose weight.

A practical tip that I learned from my wife and was surprised to find worked so well is that you don't have to have a microwave or stove top to fix wonderfully tasting oatmeal, just put the uncooked oats in a bowel ( I use a closable soup cup) with the proper amount of milk or water, mix and let sit overnight. By morning it will be the same as if you had cooked it, room temperature of course, but still very edible. Also, I now use almond milk in my oatmeal, it adds sweetness without adding as many calories as cow milk and far less than adding sugar or honey.

You can find the food plan I use at this link http://truckershealth.blogspot.com/2012/04/numbers-are-in.html
I did have a Nutritionist go over it with me and she liked it and thought it to be a great way to meet our bodies needs and lose weight. I received it for free so I am passing it on for free.

'Till next time keep the rubber side down and God bless.

Les

Who Represents Us???

I made a disturbing discovery this morning.

Correct me if I am wrong, but, it seems that the three million Commercial Drivers or so here in the good ol' USA are being regulated without due representation.

There seems to be only a few players that have been showing up at the public hearings and that are being heard by the FMCSA and non of them have the company drivers intrest at heart.

Those players are the OOIDA, (Owner/Operator Independent Driver Association) and the ATA, (American Trucking Association).

The OOIDA has a membership of approximately 150,000 or about 15% of all drivers and most of those are small company owners. The ATA has 37000 members who are all corporate size truck company owners. I didn't check any of the roll calls on the various regulatory hearings held by the FMCSA but did do a search for truck driver associations and didn't really find any that appeared to represent the company driver. Of course there is the Teamster who have branched out into other industrial divisions and boasts 1.5 million members but who really believes they are interested in the company driver.

You could say that the OOIDA members interest are similar to ours and in many respects you would be right but, it's still all about profit for their members. Of course the ATA is worse. They don't care about us company drivers trying to make a living, I do believe they are the ones promoting the lie that there is a driver shortage, there is actually far more drivers than the market can support which is part of the reason wages have fallen so far behind inflation.

Non of these organizations as far as I know have ever considered trying to get us reclassified by the government into our own labor class, consequently we are still treated as day labors as far as the labor law is concerned.

Meanwhile our wages have not kept up with inflation and now we are being saddled with Government regulations that makes it even harder for us to meet the demands of our jobs and the needs of our families.

I got no answers.

Wish I could retire.

Please visit my site and consider buying my book by clicking HERE

Minimum Wage? For Who?

Hi all, been thinking and getting a bit pissed, so thought I would vent here.

Ever since I heard that President Obama by Presidential order granted Federal Employees a minimum wage of $10.75 an hour I have been pissed. I am pissed that he and his cronies believe they can pressure the Congress into passing a similar minimum wage bill for private employees by such a stupid move. It's stupid because everyone knows their are so few minimum wage jobs in the Federal Government that it was a nothing action. Its only purpose was to start an outcry by the uneducated masses to put pressure on Congress to act in a way that would be very bad for this country.

Why is a minimum wage of $10.75 an hour bad for this country?

Answer : higher cost equals higher prices, and that's inflation, period. Sorry, money doesn't just fall out of the sky.

And, guess what, truckers are not covered by the minimum wage law.

In fact our wages have been the most depressed wages of any industry. Twenty years ago when I started driving truck I was making 28 cents per mile, today I am making 28 cents per mile plus 7 cents per mile per diem which means I am taking home more actual money but 7 cents per mile of that is subsidized by all of the rest of you tax payers. Now here is the real rub, 20 years ago the average cost of a house was $113,000 today it is $311,400 and that kind of inflation holds true for everything from cigarettes, to food, to cars, to; well you name it, you get the picture.

Last year I made about $40,000. That means I drove 114,285 miles at an average speed of approximately 55 mph. That means I spent 2,077 hours behind the wheel at an average of  $19.25 per hour.

Sounds pretty good to the guy or gal flipping burgers at Mcdonalds right? Twice the wage they are making, but if I got this figured right I spent 259 days on the road. Now that means there was 4144 hours I was not paid for but had to remain at work and because I eat and sleep at my work place and since I am responsible for that load even while not performing my job, meaning driving, that means the real hours at work was 6, 221. Divide that into $40,000 and the real wage is $6.42 per hour. Minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour, hmmmm.

But it gets even worse; since the FMCSA didn't take the forethought to require resets be done at the driver's home, I spent at least another 15 periods of  34 hours parked somewhere other than home, and was still responsible for my employer's truck and trailer, and still not getting paid. This now gives us a total of 6,731 hours at work for a real wage of  $5.95 per hour.

And I havn't even added up the extra cost of living in a truck and having a wife and kids; it's like having two separate homes. Nor have I deducted the payroll taxes which amount to around 35%.

So you still think you want to be a truck driver and earn those big bucks the school recruiters promise??? Better buy my book and find out about the other drawbacks to this lifestyle, you can get it by clicking HERE.

Death on the road

 A problem occured for a close relative of mine that involed his father dying of natural causes while on the road. 

This problem seems to be fairly common for the family's of truck drivers who die while working. Here is one other example when a driver died working for SRT. 

My family members father was working for CRST. The problem was made even worse by the company as the Sherifs office who had recoverd the body asked if the company wanted them to notify the family, CRST said no, they would. They did, some 24 + hours later. What's up with that? Then they offered no help in recovering the body or his possesions, and no bereavement funds or death insurance.

So, as you can see you really are valued as nothing but property as long as you can drive their truck. But, develop a disqualifying health problem or God forbide, you should dare to die on their time, well that's your problem.

The good news is not all companies are like this but the bad news is far too many of them are.

So, wannabe truck drivers are you sure you want to join us; better read my book first before deciding, it could save you thousands of wasted dollars and untold amounts of time.
Leslie R Auger

Screwed

Last night I had spent just about an hour reading posts on an article about a report submitted to congress concerning updates on the HOS made last July. Congress wanted to know if the changes had any effect in improving safety and reducing drowsy driving. The report congress wanted and the report they got where two different things.

The sample of drivers was way to small to indicate anything except what the FMCSA wanted and less than 33% of the sample where over-the-road drivers.

The goverment will never be able to legislate away drowsy driving for the professional as long as they want to deal with only one small part of the whole picture. Here are some more factors for them to legislate if they can:

1. Shippers and Recivers.
This is an area that needs the most legislation. When you arrive for an appointment an hour early and six hours later your finally loaded, that's a problem. It's a problem because you can't rest or sleep during your wait because if you miss your call you won't get loaded until much later, then everyone is pissed at you, so you start your trip tired and angry.

2. Safe and Accessible parking
This is a huge problem and getting worse every year. More and more townships are outlawing truck parking.

3. Drivers Diet
I am not saying they need to legislate what we eat, that would be crossing the line far more than what they already have.

Take a look at the photo that is with this blog, this one shelf is the entire selection of groceries in a popular chain truck stop.

It is a well known fact that a diet rich in fat, sugar and flower adds to poor health and a state of perpetual drowsiness.

The other choices in this truck stop are preprepared foods that are several times reasonable cost and very few of those choices have any nutritional value. Or you could choose from one of the 3 fast food resturants.

We have to eat and the Corperate desire for profit has crossed into the area of greed and is out of control. The truck stops know they have a captive audience and they abuse it.

So, as usual, our wonderful goverment has once again screwed the working man by blaming him and burdening him with more regulation that restricts his income and the choices he can make while ignoring all the other factors that go into the problem they are trying to solve.

If you know some young person considering becoming a truck driver, buy them a copy of my book,"So, You Want To Be A Truck Driver" if I can't scare em off no one can. Get it here:

http://augerles.wix.com4/be-a-truck-driver

Spoiled

Boy,am I getting spoiled on this job.

The company that I now work for uses new Volvo Power units and just like the cars Volvo makes, this thing drives like a dream. Its got all kinds of bells and whistles including an automatic 12 speed transmission that really works!

That having been said, the living space, (ie sleeper) sucks. The cabinets are too small and of the wrong size to fit anything. The lighting sucks and even if I was allowed to have my inverter installed there would be no place to put my microwave, so back to cold meals and buying coffee.

Talking about getting back to things, I've had to get back to basics on my food plan. Picked up over 40 lbs in the last 6 months. It really is easy to decive ones self and think "awe this little bit extra won't hurt", and maybe once in a while it doesn't. But, when the once in a while turns into everyday, well that's a problem.

I did see my Doc just before going back to work and was glad to find out that even with the weight gain my diabetes hasn't raised its ugly head but my cholesterol did take a significant jump up to 208, yep back to basics.

So once again I will publish my basic food plan for those that haven't seen it before:

Breakfast :
1/2 cup oatmeal with 1 cup unsweetened almond milk, 6 ounces lean protein and a piece of fruit.

Lunch and Dinner:
6 ounces of lean protein,  2 cups salad mix with Italin dressing, 1 cup green vegtable and a piece of fruit.

2 snacks allowed of 3 oz. of protein or a piece of fruit. Keep meals about 4 to 6 hours apart. And ladies cut the meal protein down to 4 oz. for best results.

Finally if you know someone who thinks they want to join us out here on the highways, and you cant scare them off, then buy them a copy of my book, "So, You Want to Be a Truck Driver"
and maybe I can.

Back to work

First day back to work.

Took a position with another food hauler. Things haven't changed. Its been three years since I have hauled groceries and its still the hurry up and wait scenario. Oh, well it's a job
Somebodys got to do it.

It would be so nice if people would learn to just be honest or at least know how to tell time. Last I looked 1 hour is 60 minuets not the 4 hours I have already been sitting and still not empty.

Then the Feds have to come in and tell us that the second you move the truck you have 14 hours to get the job done. I couldn't park here last night so had to move 3 miles at 9 am is now 4:30th, 7 hrs lost time. Sucks.

At least I have my electronic toys to make it more tolerable.

The Feds need to start focusing on making shippers and receivers more responsible in this regard.

Finally done.