Profile For Grumpy Old Man

This is exactly what I had to do.

Just got moved into a new truck and I can't get the inverter to work.

It's a Cooper-Busman 1800 pure sine inverter.

It'll power up and shows good input volts, but I can't get it to output anything.

Has a status light that's on yellow (which maybe means battery?).

Does it just need to charge for a while? Is it busted? Y'all have any thoughts or troubleshooting tips?

(I would just wait but I have food that should be cold so I'm antsy.

Have you tried resetting the breaker? Trip it then reset and see if that fixes it. It should be on the inverter between the 110 plugs and look just like a houshold GFI outlet often seen in the bathroom.

If the card is actually cancelled, just answer the questions truthfully about whether you have used drugs in x number of months. Don’t volunteer info and don’t lie.

I forget the time frame they ask but I’m sure someone here knows.

Hey guys, been lurking on here for a few months reading and watching you tube etc. I have been waiting for Oct for personal and professional reasons to start applying to trucking companies. I was going to check with Roehl, Knight (close to me) and CFI for starters and branch out depending on the answers I get etc.

One question I do have. My record is clean and my driving record is very clean but earlier this year I tried a medical marijuana card to see if it would help me sleep. It did but I didnt think the benefits were significant so I cancelled the card and it has been close to 4 months since I tried it.

I didnt know if this is something that I should mention when I call or not? With it being Medical I didnt know if that would be something they could even check or not? I am not ashamed of it ( it is legal here and I didnt do it very much) but I dont want to alarm them or scare them out of hiring me.

A lot of medical stuff is private because of the HIPA laws etc so I wasn’t sure what to do. I was planning on paying for my own follicle test before I make any decisions

Thanks for the help.

RIck

Don’t forget contact tracing apps on your phone so they can track you even easier than before.

Watch the Australian government official (prime minister?) video where she openly discusses the new world order

If my job depends on being vaccinated, I will get vaccinated

I have something for you to check out. Read this Facebook post by a local news station. They tried to set up their classic narrative by asking if you know anyone who was unvaccinated and died of COVID. The responses they got were not what they expected!

WXYZ-TV Channel 7 survey

Have you guys given any thought to what kind of future we will have if we all cave to their demands?

Have you given any thought to the idea that this entire COVID thing may have been nothing more than a way to implement vaccine passports, which in turn would give them fine-grained control over every aspect of our lives? Every step of their plan furthered our conditioning:

mask is a small ask [which leads to ->]
social distancing if you love your grandma [which leads to ->]
close your business if you care about others [which leads to ->]
get the vax if you want to work [which leads to ->]
vaccine passports to make sure you get the vax [which leads to ->]
tie your bank account, employment status, and ability to enter public spaces to the vaccine passport [which leads to ->]
totalitarian control over every aspect of our lives.

Each "small ask" further conditioned us to accept the next bigger ask. If they get their way, we cannot own a house, work, have access to our money, enter public spaces, travel, or do anything else without complying to their every last demand.

Do you want to live in a society where you only get the "privilege" of making a living, owning a home, owning a car, having access to your own money, getting an education, and going out into public places if you meet the never-ending and ever-changing demands our of government?

The government is now saying we must get the vax if we want to make a living. Do you think that would be the end of their demands?

Was two weeks enough to "flatten the curve?"

Were masks the end of their demands?

Was social distancing the end?

How about getting two shots? Was that enough? Now there's a third, with daily pills soon to follow, followed by an endless array of boosters every few months.

Now it's about making a living. But hey, that has to be their last demand, right? Come on, just this last one. It's just one more "small ask."

Do you think we "earn our freedom" by doing exactly what they say? Or do you think they will further expand their newfound powers and take more and more from us?

If you know your history, you can't sleep at night knowing what they're doing to us. For 18 months we've endured a series of ever-increasing "small asks" that has culminated in our ability to leave our home or provide for our families. Their playbook is well-known because they have used it throughout history to gain control over populations.

At what point do people wake up and finally see they're leading you further and further into the abyss?

I just watch my cab extenders in the mirror when I turn. 🤷‍♂️

If you have time to kill at a drop lot you can practice until you’ve got it down.

If I have room to Make a U turn, then I have enough room to do what I started doing.

I used to always set myself up for a driver side back at an angle. Then I saw guys doing a blind side back and watched what they did.

I get my truck over parallel to the docks about 3 feet in front of all the trucks waiting at a dock. I drive past at about 5-10 mph noting what truck or trailer is to the left of my spot, and when my passenger door passes the edge of the trailer or truck to the right of my spot, I turn hard left until my cab extenders are about to hit the trailer and keep going at max turn, looking back on my left side until I see the trailer or truck to the left of my spot come into view.

When it does, turn hard right, and you should end up right in front of your spot ready to back in with a minimum of adjustment.

If you are off a bit and have room, you can pull forward and adjust as you back in. If space is tight, make a u turn, go back and start over, varying your starting point for the turn to find the spot that works for you. Once you get the right reference point it is simple.

It also works starting on the driver side but you can’t watch for your spot as easy.

If I have room to Make a U turn, then I have enough room to do what I started doing.

I used to always set myself up for a driver side back at an angle. Then I saw guys doing a blind side back and watched what they did.

I get my truck over parallel to the docks about 3 feet in front of all the trucks waiting at a dock. I drive past at about 5-10 mph noting what truck or trailer is to the left of my spot, and when my passenger door passes the edge of the trailer or truck to the right of my spot, I turn hard left until my cab extenders are about to hit the trailer and keep going at max turn, looking back on my left side until I see the trailer or truck to the left of my spot come into view.

When it does, turn hard right, and you should end up right in front of your spot ready to back in with a minimum of adjustment.

If you are off a bit and have room, you can pull forward and adjust as you back in. If space is tight, make a u turn, go back and start over, varying your starting point for the turn to find the spot that works for you. Once you get the right reference point it is simple.

It also works starting on the driver side but you can’t watch for your spot as easy.

I will not be vaccinating, and most likely will not be testing.

IF I can do the mouth swan, and IF the company pays (that is not the case currently with companies already mandating vaccination, EVEN the ones that have their own testing equipment. The employee has to pay) I MIGHT do the testing.

I already tried to sign up for social security but the site was down. Going to go try again now.

I’ve done a LOT of research on covid and vaccination. The CDC treatment protocol is to send the patient home and “monitor” until breathing is difficult, then treat with remdesvir, then intimate, then most likely death. Despite monoclonal antibodies being available and on hospital shelves, they are rarely being used for early treatment which would prevent most hospitalization. Also despite doctors around the world having success with a drug ****tail which includes among other things Ivermectin and hydro chloroquine. But if you mention either of those on social media it is deleted or you are banned, and the FDA, media, and CDC are all purposely misleading people into believing it is only a livestock medication (Ivermectin).

That is how my old truck worked. With this new one, you can’t override it. Nor can you go faster downhill by holding the pedal down, it just ignores the pedal and applies the Jake brake.

I guess I’ma little confused? I thought those systems were only active in that sense when cruise control was being used?

Nope. I almost never use the CC and these "safety" features will still kick in sometimes. The Collision Avoidance warning is the message I get most often on the dash, usually in construction areas, or in tight alleys behind some Walmart stores

I guess it depends on how each company sets up the system then. Our trucks have it but if you’re on the pedal, you only get lights and buzzers.

There really is no way to outsmart it. Some shadows it slams on the brakes, some it doesn’t. My old truck I could simply override it with the accelerator, but that doesn’t work now.

And when I say slams on the brakes, I mean so hard it bottoms out the front springs. The first time it happened I thought a caliper ripped off or something.

But yes, the system will save your ass in an emergency. If you haven’t heard the horn start blowing on its own, you’ve never experienced its full power. It’s pretty impressive.

I've hated the collision avoidance systems from day one, for the same reasons you mentioned. Seems to me that an accident is bound to happen when the brakes are applied at the wrong time, and unexpectedly.

Having them recalibrated will indeed help. Sensitivity levels can get out of whack, causing false alerts. My Prime truck had to be recalibrated twice. Luckily, the trucks at my current gig have never hit the brakes on me.

The best way to combat these problems, short of recalibration, is to anticipate when it will occur and outsmart it. When you're coming up on a curve, overpass, or shadow, slow and be ready for it.

In some ways it may even make you a safer driver by making you focus on even more potential hazards, even ones computer generated.

Like it or not, these systems are something we'll be stuck with. The accidents caused by false alerts are probably completely offset and outweighed by the amount of accidents avoided .

2021 Freightliner with collision avoidance.

Twice now I’ve had shadows set it off and it brakes so hard it would have put me through the windshield if not for the seatbelt.

Has anyone had this happen in winter? I’m thinking this crappy system could easily put you into a skid.

No need to mess with idle, it will do what it needs to do.

I meant to thank y'all for the help. I now use the Opti idle daily. I don't like leaving the key on but I can deal with it. I don't have the interior comfort setting so I start the truck, with front and rear A/C on I enable opti idle. The truck engine then shuts off with the EPU running until it drops to 12.2 volts then it starts up and runs for two hours then shuts off again. I haven't really paid attention to the idle when it starts up but I raise the idle to 900 rpm prior to turning it on. Hopefully it idles at 900 for the two hours but I'm usually asleep when it kicks on. Since I don't have the interior comfort mode I just adjust the front and rear settings to where it won't freeze me out when it starts. I like it cold though so I doubt it could do that.

They are actually low clearance on the shoulder.... not the main lanes. The bridges kinda have arches on the overpass.

Weird. I would swear the sign said trucks, left lane only

This has been bugging me for a long time now.

Somewhere in PA on a major highway, interstate if I remember correctly, there are at least two bridges that you have to be in the left lane to clear at 13’6”.

I saw them while in training and also in my first few months solo, and have never seen them since.

Anyone know where they are?

Hay, Grumpy.

Tom runs a PA load once in awhile, when Don takes a day off.. (seriously, methinks!)

There's TWO on the 'pike...he doesn't know exactly where; hasn't been for a long time.. Both are 'left lan'ers' .. but they're not to take the 'pike anyway, lest they pay the tolls themselves. Once, they routed him and paid for it....other time, not sure; he doesn't recall.

There's 'this' bridge cheat PDF he got years ago... don't know how accurate it is, but.. here ya go:

Low Bridges

It's our downloaded .PDF (from a membership) but pretty sure it'll work, since it's ours.

Hope this helps, a skoche!

~ Anne ~

Thanks. And that would explain why I’ve never seen them since, since I avoid the turnpike.

My condolences

In addition to taxes, if you get hurt on the job you will have no workers Comp.

This has been bugging me for a long time now.

Somewhere in PA on a major highway, interstate if I remember correctly, there are at least two bridges that you have to be in the left lane to clear at 13’6”.

I saw them while in training and also in my first few months solo, and have never seen them since.

Anyone know where they are?

Hi davy

, If you're driving in a shipper lot just use drive time, it's not like you're saving a whole lot by using yard moves.

If he has time on his 14 that is unused, he is saving drive time. Won’t hrlp his 70, but on a normal basis it is better than using drive time. If his 14 hr clock is the same as his drive time or Jess, then yes, it makes no difference

And I agree with a Donna. Edit your clock. Our company says yard move can’t be edited, but I found out it can. Though if I made a habit out of it they very well might edit it back in and violate me.

It depends.

I just found out there is an aftermarket copy of Freightliner’s system.

Guy asked me how it worked and he didn’t have an option for Interior Comfort. I went to look and his was an add on. The vents were on the back of the cab.

With mine when you enable Interior Comfort, it will start if the batteries are low OR if the AC can’t keep it cool enough using batteries.

I also have a factory inverter and Shore Power plug. When I go home I plug in, leave the key off and turn on the AC and it keeps the truck cool (or warm) and my fridge(s) doesn’t have to work so hard.

I saw a dry van crashed the other day that apparently had been carrying large coils of copper wire. From my quick glance going by they did not appear to have been secured at all, as they alllcame through the side of the trailer.