When Murphy Decides To Go For A Ride Along

Good ol Murphy decided to come for a Ride this weekend. I had three trailer breakdowns in a 24 hour period.

About 0200 Sunday morning I had a piece of tire tread that was laying across my entire lane. With a truck to my left and a soft shoulder to my right I decided to take my chance and run over the tread. It was the least bad of the bad options I had. Unfortunately the tread caught my airlines on the front left trailer brake and snapped them off the break chamber. That turned into a three hour wait on the side of the interstate.

I dropped that load and went and picked up the next load which was a meat load. We pre tripped the trailer, good to go, went to the scale and the reefer lost a gear and wouldn't start again. Another four hour visit with a mechanic.

We hooked back up to the trailer and I do another brake check using the trolley bar and now I have almost no braking power on the trailer. I carefully made my way to the Petro in Salina KS and waited for their mechanic to get in. He ended up being the only guy there with four trucks needing help. 14 hours later we departed with a new ABS control valve.

Things happen out here. You need to be able to take a breath and relax.

Oh and then you have the good times like today. Despite the breakdowns, I made it to the delivery an hour early. Was out of there within 90 minutes. Next customer told me I could park on site and they would load me early if my order got ready early. I was back on the road seven hours before I was supposed to pick up.

Just some real life examples of how to deal with the good and bad that can happen out here.

Next time tell Murphy that your company doesn't allow riders.

I think his brother has been with me this week. Monday I made it back with minutes left on my extension because of traffic, getting sick and slow customers. Tuesday was supposed to be an easy day but took 6 hours to unload what usually takes an hour because of the customers filter and while unloading I developed a crack in my windshield. Hoping I covered the 3 and the rest of the week goes normal.