Idle talk

"Well tonight I got the front door cant always have the rocking chair..Pig Pens got that back door closed just told me on the air. Just checked out the westbound and Road Hawk says shes clean! Looks like a money making run for me and old CB"

I have a CB radio installed in my truck.

Now please: just forget everything that you think you know about CB radios. This is not the 1970s. Whatever phrases that you picked up after watching "Smokey and the Bandit" are long gone, Daddio. 

First, a little nomenclature: The accepted name for a Truck Driver is simply "Driver". So don't ever call a Driver "Good Buddy" unless you want a sock in the nose. (Also, while I'm thinking of it, never ask a Driver who they "work" for, only who they drive for.)

Anyway, it is now the 21st century and even with ubiquitous smart phones and WiFi, the CB still has its place. For now, anyway. Admittedly, a very, very limited place. (Their usage is on the decline, to put it kindly. Maybe one in twenty Drivers uses one nowadays. If that.)

Drivers still need to be able to communicate with the other truck drivers in the immediate area. Usually we don't actually personally know each other (so we haven't exchanged phone numbers) but we do need to talk to each other and the CB still has its place. It's kinda quaint, actually.

I bought my CB with Pilot Points. I saved up my points for about a year and then traded them in for a shiny CB radio that looks a lot cooler than it really is. It truly is impressive-looking with its blinky lights and chromium switches, but most normal CB radios are "all show and no go": they're really only effective to about five miles. They're not HAM radios; you cannot talk to Tierra Del Fuego, but you can communicate just fine to the other trucks within the immediate area.

When there is a terrible accident up ahead around the bend, the Truck Drivers immediately warn each other. We have already thrown on our four-way flashers, have started to gear down and have moved out of the affected lanes well before the Prius drivers have the slightest clue what is going on (which is when they immediately cut over to the right lane, endanger lives and jam up the traffic even more).

When the traffic is jammed up for miles, the local truck drivers helpfully advise us "Over The Road" drivers the secret detour around the traffic jam (I have taken advantage of this and it has saved me hours of time). Also, certain Shippers insist that the Drivers communicate with them over the CB. They glare at you if you say that you don't even own one.

We warn each other when there is a State cop sitting at the bottom of a steep grade with a radar gun, advise each other whether or not the scales are open and we warn other drivers when they have a light out on their trailer out (a simple burnt-out bulb could get us fined at the scales).

There are serious drawbacks to CB radios. Any idiot can broadcast whatever they want over one, and believe me, they do. If you believe everything you hear on the CB, then apparently all truck drivers hate our President, Sikhs and all Swift Drivers. (It's only true about the Swift drivers)

Sometimes, it is just to talk. Last week the Driver up ahead of me called me out on the radio. "Hey Market!" he said. "Look over to your left! There's a big herd of elk over there". And sure enough, there was. I thanked him for pointing them out to me.

If you need me, I'll be on Channel 17, most likely, since I only roll on I-5.
It's channel 19 everywhere else.

The mysteries of the orientation

Once you get hired at a new trucking company, they don't just hand you some truck keys and pat you on the butt before sending you off, you have to go through company orientation first.

Market Transport flew me up to Portland on a Sunday afternoon and put me up at a hotel at a truck stop. Monday through Thursday was spent going through orientation.

Orientation for a trucking company involves, among other things, a D.O.T. physical, a driving test and a drug test. They had already looked at my driving history (good), my accidents (none that involved school buses) and my speeding tickets (none). My urine didn't have any sticks or stems in it, and on Thursday afternoon I was issued keys to a new truck.

The new truck is a shiny new Volvo with an automatic transmission. Brand new with only 25 miles on the odometer. Number 4475.

I climbed inside for the first time. I was in unfamiliar territory. The seats still had plastic on them. I now was tasked with figuring out what all the strange knobs and switches did. Most things (such as the yellow and red brake knobs) were the same, but some stuff was now placed in odd locations.

My stinky old Peterbilt was nothing compared to this new truck. The Volvo is a lot more modern and is chock full of computer-assisted everything. The fuel mileage is supposed to be a lot better. (I am still breaking in the engine, but right now it is at 6.5 mpg) Happily, it turns on a dime (the old Peterbilt needed 40 acres to turn that rig around).  

Instead of the endearing Eaton-Fuller 13-speed manual transmission that was in my Peterbilt, there is an automatic transmission controlled by push buttons (just like a Desoto). Apparently, the microprocessors controlling the automatic's shift points react faster than this old coot can shift gears. I'm OK with that. In addition, my left knee greatly appreciates not having to wrestle a clutch repeatedly in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

All of the newbies were released from Orientation and we were all were issued an initial load to get us out of there. Most of us were given paper loads; giant rolls of brown kraft paper, loaded on end (and prone to shifting enroute). These were to be loaded down in Springfield, Oregon. We were leaving from Portland.

Up until then, I hadn't actually driven my new truck out on the road.  I had only moved it around in the yard at five miles per hour. It was all new to me: what the power and acceleration was, how noisy it would be, and I was fretting about it. Fretting about the unknown. (Fretting about known things simply doesn't take up enough of my time, I need to fret about the unknown as well to get my fretting money's worth)

I shouldn't have worried: the truck drives fine, it has plenty of passing ability, it is sufficiently comfortable and the radio gets all the NPR stations.