So the other night, we get a phone call to pick up a “High Value Load” from a pharmaceutical company. I don’t want to spell out the details of what’s involved carrying these loads for obvious reasons, but it’s a pain in the butt! When we got to the shipper, they checked over our log books, checked how much fuel was in our truck, made us fill out a questionnaire that was as long as a book, made copies of our drivers licenses and our work ID’s, took pictures of the load, our truck, and even my trainer and I. I’m surprised they didn’t take a blood sample too! Insane!
To anybody who may ever consider stealing a truck with a high value load, I’d think twice about it. Again, I can’t get into all the details, but basically we are being watched constantly and we do certain things to make stealing a truck or breaking into a trailer much more difficult. Further, if we go out of route by just a very short distance, the police are called and they track us down. Anytime we stop, we have to check in and tell them what we’re doing or else the police are called and they track us down. It’s insane! I still have no idea what we were hauling. They only used codes on the shipping papers and sealed our cargo doors without us being able to look. Luckily, this was a short run, otherwise it would have been an even bigger pain!
The trip went without a problem though. My trainer was about out of hours, so I was in the drivers seat. It’s a weird feeling hauling cargo that could be worth millions of dollars. I don’t know what the exact value was, but my company is known to haul million+ dollar loads from time to time. My biggest fear was getting lost or taking a wrong turn, but my trainer was with me just about every step of the way.
Everything else is going great. My shifting has improved 110%, I’m really learning how to handle this truck around curves and am getting much more comfortable. My trainer is still awesome too. We get along great. The next thing I really have to start learning is backing into docks and parking spaces. Starting with our next load, I think my trainer will be having me do all the backing. I’ve only backed into 2 docks so far and it was pretty much straight line backing. Time to mix things up! We’re also going to be heading deep into the Rockies on our next load. The last time we went through them we hit the southern edge. On this load we’ll be going right smack through them. My trainer wants me to drive through them for the experience which is fine by me! I’ll be sure to write all about it.
Until next time, drive safely.
TruckerMike
About Author TruckerMike
TruckerMike embarked on a career in trucking late in 2008 after deciding that life in a cubicle might not be where it's at. He's been trucking since early 2009 and is TruckingTruth's most popular blogger. You can find more at
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Hopefully you’ll get to keep this truck after training, since all trucks handle a little different. It’d suck to get used to this one only to have to start over on another one. Kinda like getting a new girlfriend/boyfriend right after being dumped when you thought the relationship was going great.
When I first entered trucking, there was a brief article about a driver who hauled MONEY in the trailer. He had someone ahead of him and behind him and also in the air. The only time he could stop was for fuel/bathroom. Like you say, its unreal.
I never had to deal with your experiance with the logbook and picture taking, but I did have serveral loads where you could not tell what was in the trailer. The papers were marked in a code. Since some drivers are involved with the theft of the product/truck that is why its done. Having a load like yours or one with papers marked in codes made me more alert of my surroundings.