Profile For andhe78

I have a question for any driver out there. Do any of you use a Teflon disc for lubrication like we do on our 5th wheel rv trailer? We have seen them advertised but we have not seen one in operation anywhere. I would think that they would not hold up long because of the weight on the 5th wheel. Thanks for any replies as I am just curious.

All our trucks run Holland fifth wheels with the teflon plate inserts. Most of our rigs stay hooked so they hold up well, even considering that our New York fleets run grossed at either 107k or 117k. The real issue you have to watch for is the plates sit down in a shallow channel on the fifth wheel, and if you happen to lose one, the trailer pivoting will grind the edge of that channel right down, ruining the fifth wheel in less than a hundred miles.

I have seen some slick plates on flatbed trailers, drivers seemed to like them.

Ah, I gotcha. I'm sorry, but what is the rack?

Loading rack. For fuel haulers, it's where petroleum products are loaded onto trucks. There are top loading and bottom loading racks, and we load at racks located at refineries, tank farms, ports, and rail yards.

I didn't know they had that knick name...

It's a nickname given by fuel haulers to themselves to make them seem tough for doing a dangerous job. Use it at the rack, and you'll be laughed out of the county. About as bad as "tanker yanker."

Really uncalled for to say my comment was dumb. I was only talking about one particular roll over on one particular ramp that there was video footage of. It was a cautionary comment made to a new driver in the same vein as the comment G-Town made.

There is a reason that tanker drivers are sometimes called suicide jockeys. I respect tanker drivers greatly but I know it’s a dangerous occupation.

I don't think it was uncalled for at all due to this line

Had he been driving a dry van or reefer , he would probably have survived a roll over.

You don't know that, and I feel you're minimizing the seriousness of a rollover in any truck with this statement.

Justin, did you hear about that terrible tanker roll over and explosion under I95 in Philadelphia recently? That driver very likely burned to death. Had he been driving a dry van or reefer, he would probably have survived a roll over.

Really??? Good to know that the several hundred roll-over deaths that occur every year primarily happen with tank trucks. (Just in case my sarcasm isn't recognized, this is a dumb statement from BK.)

Justin, I pull hazmat tanks for a living. I know that not everything requiring hazmat means an instant death from fire and explosions. Also know that a fully loaded tank or baffles really minimizes the surge. However, a story for you-couple years ago I'm 80k gross, pulling hot wax in a smoothbore tank that's only 70 percent full. I'm running up a two lane road through PA/NY (219, some may know it), middle of the night when a freak snow storm hits. Whiteout, I've got to turn on goggle maps just to tell where the turns are on a road I've traveled dozens of times. The only way I know where I am on the road is by listening for the rumble strips. Fighting the surge in those conditions made me realize that that load would have ended up in a ditch my first two years driving. Fortunately, it wasn't my first couple of years driving, and managed to safely crawl north for four hours until I ran out of the storm.

I'm not as adamant as some here about new drivers staying away from tanks-because I know not all tanks are created equal, but I will agree a new driver, handling surge, in bad conditions, is a great recipe for losing his job, or his license, or even something more valuable.

My least favored three are Dallas, Boston, and Buffalo, NY.

Lol, surprised to see Buffalo on your list, gotta be a story there. Or maybe it’s just because I’m local there, but the city is tiny.

I’ve really begun to hate Toronto, and I used to do nyc regularly.

I think the bigger question is are you getting paid by the hour or by the mile? While I don’t like a company editing logs, I can see where they are coming from. You left a ton of drive time on the table which in the end, is money out of your pocket. I used to log on duty for 30-45 minutes while securing/tarping, then go off duty for the rest.

Bryan Cranston. Malcolm in the Middle and Breaking Bad.

While it's not technically hand unloading, have you looked into fuel hauling/delivery-most outfits here are paying over $30 an hour. We've also got some owner operators in our fleet that seem to be doing very well (petroleum hauling fleet.)

We've got an outfit around here that hauls trailers similar to what you describe-they use them to haul coils.

Heard about this and was wondering what happened to the driver-so sad.

Man, there are some aspects of this job I just don't tell the wife, but incidents like this do stay in the back of my mind. It's a good reminder that no matter how badly I annoy drivers behind me, there's a reason I don't go barreling down off ramps or interchanges.