I don't know what rabbit hole you're talking about. Amazon. Well, yeah. Well, yeah. That's a big, that's a big rabbit hole That can elephant hole. That that is, that's a, that's, that's about as big as a Grand Canyon.

Welcome to the 18 Wheel Talk podcast show. Yes, welcome. Hey, we're a podcast for truckers about truckers by truckers. By truckers. We're coaching generations of drivers while guiding them on their path to success. Oh, yeah, yeah. We also fuel fueling them with knowledge and passion for, for trucking, and we're navigating the industry one mile at a time.

That is so cool. What gives us the right to do that, Patrick? Well, well, people might ask themselves, why you two? Hey, you know what, you wanna know why us? Yeah. A, we're funny. B, we're two we're we're two retired truck drivers. Yeah. And C combined we have over 40 years experience in the industry. That's why this is true.

A, B, C, Uno, Dos, Tres, you don't get, you don't get D, you don't get di di diddley.

Everybody knows a bus. A plus B equals E kitty cats. Okay? Yeah. Woo-hoo. Woo-hoo. What are we talking about today, Patrick? What are we talking about today? Knowing your load? Okay. My mind just went in the gutter. Sorry. Your trailer load? Trailer load as in what you're hauling behind? No. No. What's in your damn truck when you're driving down the road?

Yes. No, I've never, I've never done this load. Yeah, I know, right? Or more of a Yeah. Yeah. Laid back. Yeah, laid back my hand. Always. You, speaking of which, do you, when you, when you drove, do you, did you hand on top of the wheel or down, down? At the bottom of the wheel. You mean when I actually gripped it? Yeah, when you actually at the bottom.

Yeah. Always. Yeah. I always have my hand at the bottom. Coup two fingers. Yeah. You had two fingers on the wheel? Yeah, something like that. Like a little two. Two finger grip. Yeah. Yeah. Like a tiger clock. It was like that. Yeah. You know who taught me that? Who? My aunt fern. Oh, she did that when she drove? Yeah.

She wasn't a truck driver, but she taught me that. So, so the trucks that I drove mm-hmm. It was either, if I was left-handed, it was like on the left side, cuz I had my elbow on the on the door. So I was holding the left side of the wheel. Mm-hmm. With, with the, with, with the, with the, with the claw hook.

You didn't have an armrest on the left side? Some did, some didn't. Oh, okay. If I was in a day cab, it was the hand on the window edge. Yeah, I know. Yeah. My face just went all I know. Right. A day Caber what? I drove that for a while and then if I had my, if, if the left arm got tired and I switched over, the right arm was on the armrest and, and holding the right side of the wheel, it's kind of hard to hold the left side of the wheel, but I could do it.

Oh, drive like this.

Hey. Hooo. Hey, hooo. Yeah, I know I went there. Yeah. Hey, I like this new ticker tape we got going down here. Yeah, I do too. I typically had my seat all the way up. No, because I, I like the cush, not me. I'm low and slow. Two fingers left hand because I had a good armrest. Yeah. And. Right hand was either resting on the armrest or resting sometimes on the shifter, and then you had your left foot up on the up on the windowsill.

Airing out? No. Have you seen? Nope. Have you seen people drive like that? Yes. I don't know how they do it. Well, I know how they do it. I will sit in a parking lot at a dock like that. Yes, I can't, but I will not drive. That's easy. Pilates, baby. Pilates. I'm not a Pilate kind of guy. Well I tell everybody when they first meet me, I am, you may think I'm a nice guy now, but Wait, wait a minute.

Wait, wait. A few times you, you find out I'm an asshole. I'm not going down this, this road with you, but we, we both know that I know Pilates and can put my feet on the dash. Yes, dear. Anyway, yeah. Yeah. You've left footprints on the, on the moving truck. Yes. And on the windshield. Anyway. I know people who drive.

I know, I know. People too Barefoot. That's yeah with one foot on the dash. That's a pet peeve of mine. Yeah. Anyway, I will not discuss her, I will not discuss her in this podcast show. Yes, it's a little, at least not this episode. Yeah. I gotta do this right now, Lord. What. The fan's off. I don't know if I want the shirt on or off.

So it's Halfsies halfsies in and out by the way, I do have another shirt on. If you're not watching. If you're listening, Janet is dressed. Yeah, it does sound like Janet took her shirt off, but no, no, there's, Hey, if you wanna find out, just go to 18 wheel talk.com/youtube and you'll see my shirt and my manicure, and I believe this is episode 66.

Could be. Maybe it's 60 something. It's a high 60. There we go. So high sixties. Back to the subject at hand. Anyways, don't forget to, follow us a little on social media. We got, we got a new little ticker. Ticker here. We're everywhere. Like savoir-faire. Just follow us on social media everywhere at the at sign one eight wheel talk and look for the logo. Upper little, upper right-hand corner. Yeah, upper, upper. Yeah. I always, why do I always do that? Cuz I'm right-handed? Probably. Well if look for that, if it was mirrored, you would've been right. But. I'm left. We don't have it mirrored because that would make everybody, everybody be like, what's going on?

No, it's, it's right there. Yeah. I mean, it is over there. This logo right here, it's over there too. But, but I always point with my right don't hand and I should be pointing. I don't know. But anyways, the logo's in the upper right hand corner of the video. See? And look for that logo everywhere you. Are on social media, Twitter, Instagram, book of Face, Facebook, YouTube, or is my dad called it Tweedy?

Yeah. And book of face. Yeah. Tweet tweetsville. Tweetsville and book of face. Port Favo. And I believe we are on LinkedIn at Yes, we are. I just haven't gotten my yet together. Yeah, the LinkedIn, the LinkedIn page is something that we started and it just kind of faded. It's just there. It will be updated. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We just gotta update it. We just, we we're, we're behind on time, my honor. I swear. Yeah. As a girl scout. Yeah. You're brown. You're, I was a girl scout. Yeah. But you started out as a brownie. I was a brownie. I was a girl scout. I. And I'm a veteran. I promise to get that shit together this year. All right. Get your shit going.

Look at you swearing on this ep on this episode. You said shit, shit, shit, you even went all Southerner. Oh, all shit, that was southern shit. That's cuz I was talking about my aunt Fern and my dad, both of who had, had a drawl. A drawl. Hey, eh, all like I do is talk to my cousin Mikey, you wanna hear me? Yeah.

When I talk to him, get off the phone with him, I'll be like, yo, how y'all doing? Hey, by the way, I don't know if this is gonna work. I don't know if this button's working or not, but let's try, we, we got a new Yes, it is. We got a new email. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So if you wanna email the show, email us your question at, email us at the, the hosts, that's H O S T S, the hosts.

At 18wheeltalk.com. You know what that means, right? What's that? I'm finally official. Oh, you've been, you've been a host. Well, but I didn't have my email connected. Yeah. Well, now we have the hosts, t h e h o s t s at 18wheeltalk.com. Wow. Bless your soul, Patrick. I do appreciate that. Hey, I got off my ass and did something.

Just took me a little bit You do a lot. It just, that one was like a little, I, I wanted to make sure you really wanted to be a part of the show. That was like a spur. A spur. Like a little thorn in your side. Thorn in my saddle is what it was. My horse didn't appreciate it either, that was a burr. That wasn't a, that was a burr You're gonna have a burr, it was in your saddle.

It was a burr. So any who back to know your load. All right, so, so we're talking about your load, all right. Trailer load. And if you're, and if you're unsure about the kind of load, it's the one coming out the back of your trailer, of your trailer. Sweet baby. Jesus, please help him. Oh, this could go a hundred times sideways.

Anyways, we're talking about your trailer load. What are you hauling? Do you know? Yeah. What? What is your capaci ty ty? Do you know how much you can haul? Do you know how to figure it out?

How do you do it? No. The weight of your truck. That's the first step. Okay. And that would be full of fuel, full of D E F fluid if you got one of those. Mm-hmm. With an empty trailer. Yeah. Little bit of simple math. Yeah. A little bit. However, you, you know, maximum weight truck, trailer fuel and everything, you cannot exceed 80,000 pounds.

That also includes you. Yep. You any pets you have with you. Mm-hmm. Food, clothes, extra coolers, refrigerators, TVs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et etcetera, et cetera. So anyways, there's a thing called a cat -scale at just about every truck stop in America. Yeah. And that's how you weigh, you know, roll up on it, get yourself emp, get an empty weight.

So you know that if you're finding yourself a load and you, you're, you're say at 36,000 pounds, simple math is 36 minus, you know, from 80 out. 80 minus 36, you're allowed X, Y, Z.

Two equals pie squared. I'm not doing, I'm not doing the math. You're the math. Go ahead. Nope, not me. Today. 36 minus 80,000. Minus 36. Come on. What's 80 minus 40? Come on, do it. 44. All right. There you go. So you can haul 44,000 pounds worth of stuff in the back of your trailer unless you have an overload.

Yeah. Unless you're permit. Permits. Unless you're permits. And then it's a whole new game. Then you got a whole special route and yada yada yada, special extra axles, and sometimes you got flagmen ahead of you and people with signs, escorters and escorts and polizei. Oh really? You're going foreign on us. Sorry, policeman.

Anyway. Anyways, so, so, so, so go to a cat scale. Get your empty weight. This way. You, you at least know how to weigh your home. Hey, look, I know this is how much I haul. I know, I know roughly. All right. If I had a full tank of gas, a full tank of fuel, excuse me, it's not gas, it's fuel. I almost spit out my hot tea, which is a little too hot.

If you had a full tanks of fuel and every, all, all your, all your liquids are topped off, that would be if you're hauling a reefer, make sure your reefer tanks full. Yep. Because that's gonna count towards your empty weight. Even though as you go down the road, you're gonna burn that off. Okay? So you can kind of play it around, you know, you wanna stay, start with it full, especially if say you're in.

Erie, Pennsylvania on I 90. If you fill up there and you're going westbound, there's a cat scale right inside or a D O T scale, right inside Ohio. Always. And they're always open. I never saw 'em close, ever. Those, the lights are always open. Wait, no, no, no. I, I did, I did go through there once, I think it was closed once.

I never did. And once I hauled a reefer and I pulled in and used the restroom and I was like, damn, it's closed. Yeah. And I hauled a reefer and fueled in eerie. So it was like, oh, I always made sure that my load wasn't over a certain weight because I always knew I was gonna get scaled right there. I always hated those, the, the, the chicken coop there and right as soon as you cross into Maryland, That huge mother man, they had three, three garages.

They'll tear your truck apart then, then tell you all right, you're good. Put it back together again. You know? So let me tell you a quick story. Okay? All right. We got time this is story time. I think we got time. So I happened to comment to my father one time, okay? He says, what are you gonna do if your say a thousand pounds over?

And I said, well, you know, flash a little t n a, not the truck stop. What are you talking about? Little t and a. Titty and ass, you know? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. Flirt a little. I told my dad, I'm gonna flirt a little. We're, we're, we're explicit. We're not X-rated. Oh, you're X-rated all the time. So I told my dad this, you know, my father doesn't swear, doesn't cuss, but he is sorry, was the biggest flirt on earth.

The only person I know that flirts as much as him is probably my brother, John. Huh. He was like the epitome of my dad. But anyway, anyone, any who? My dad, even in his eighties, could pull into a truck stop. Yes. He drove that far up in his life and flirt with every waitress, whether she was 16 or 60. And they all appreciated him.

Hey. So I told him that. So he says to me, he looks at me, we're eating dinner at a truck stop, and he says, what are you gonna do if it's a woman, a female cop? I said, flirt harder. Make sure my nipples are hard. I didn't say that. I said, I said Flirt harder and longer. I'm just gonna flirt a little harder, a little bit more, a little more.

I said, I'm just gonna tell her maybe she goes that way too much and maybe her hair looks great and Oh my God. Talk about her shoes. No, make sure. Talk about how hard women work to keep up with men for less pay and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. Preacher, sister, I was, anyway, my dad laughed at me. Yeah. So anyway.

That's allright, dad. D O T story, story, story time over. Yes. Nice. Thanks dad. Thank you, daddy. All right. So where were we? All right, so we did cat scales. Now we're gonna talk about how to find a load. Yeah. So, so, so now you have your empty weight and now you need to put something in the back if you're, if you're an owner op and you gotta find your, your own load.

Otherwise you've got a dispatcher that's gonna tell you, Hey, go here, pick up a load. Or say you're a company driver and your dispatcher says, Hey. You're gonna go empty for 600 miles and you're not gonna make diddly squat. Some companies will, especially if they're small, they will allow you, if you can find a load, they will allow you to give the dispatcher a call and say, Hey, can you get an authorization so I can pull this load to that town instead of going empty there?

Right? I can, it's available. I can pick it up in a couple hours, and I can still be on time for my next load. I was lucky enough to have one of those companies. Yeah, if you, if you do, if not, well ehhh. So anyways, there, there's, there's ways to find loads most, at least back when. We, we were driving, you could walk into a truck stop and they'd have a load board.

But we've got an upcoming episode specifically on yeah, how to find loads. We're definitely gonna, you know, touch base deeper into this, but there are apps out there that you could use that'll help you find the load and track loads. And there's, like I said, load boards at. Truck stops. There's, yeah, there's all sorts of other, there's everything.

I'm not gonna go into it right now though. We not. We have, excuse me, I bought my camera so a whole different thing. I apologize. The horror. I know. But yeah, we got one. Once you got your load tune in. Be Be sure to subscribe to our show. Sub scribble. So that way you don't miss out on any of this new stuff we got coming out cuz we are for truckers about truckers by truckers, you know, and we're two retired truckers.

We've been in it, in, in the industry for combined 40 plus years. So at least four or 500 or something like, like that we, we know a little about a little. Mm-hmm. So, so, so we're spreading our, now you got your load. What is your load? How do you, how do you know what your load is? Well there's a thing called you know, a bill of lading Really?

Yeah. You got a bill of lading over there. What? Did you drill on your thing? No, I had a hair on it. I got a bill. I got a sample bill of lading. See, yeah, I got one too. Wonder where you got that from? Okay, look at Bill la. It has, yes, has the shipper's name ship, where you going? It? Ship two, who's, who's carrying it, and third party freight charges are billed too.

So that's just, it has things like your're bill of lading numbers, carrier name, have basic information that you're gonna need. That, that if, if, heaven forbid you get D O T'd, they're gonna wanna see your, wanna see your bills. So some of the. Things about your bill of lading. Mm-hmm. Don't skip, don't cheat. Don't abbreviate in abbreviations that only, you know, right.

If it's common abbreviation like the ampersand or the the @ sign. Yep, that's fine. But if it's some squiggly little that you only know, or your family's the only one that know that doesn't work. Yeah. You look at that, yeah. You want something that D O T will definitely, D O T can look at it and say, oh, you know, Janet @ 18 Wheel Talk or Patrick @ 18 Wheel Talk, authorize this load. Yep, yep, yep. And quantity. Make sure the quantity is legible. Make sure the units are legible. Make sure the weights, if it's need, fill it out in your best handwriting, your best printing. Most, most of the time they're prefilled. Most, most of the time the bill ladings pre-filled out because they know what's going in that specific order Block.

Correct. So usually if you're gonna get 40 pallets of something, Make sure you got all 40 pallets on your truck. Yeah. Don't close the doors and then find out you were missing two, I know someone that you know. Of course same. Somebody get up in the back of that before you pull away from the dock. When they're done loading, they, they're gonna hand you your papers, hop in the back, you gotta secure it.

Check your load. Check your load. Yeah. There are actually people that think that the dock workers are supposed to check your load and secure your load. No, no. That's, they get paid to load it and unload it. That's it. That's it. You, you secure and unsecure it? Yeah. End of story. So do you wanna read the FMCSA rules States?

All right. The fm. The fm, the Federal Motor Courier Safety Association. Okay, that's F M C S A or D O T. Okay. Well, department of Transportation is part of it. They're, they're part of it all right. So they state that there must be one tie down for articles, five feet or less in length. Mm-hmm. And 1100 pounds or less in weight.

Okay. All right. There must be two tie downs for articles greater than five feet and less than 10 feet, regardless of weight. So, so I held, when I held flatbed, I held coils. That's a whole different strap down. Okay? And then there was two ways you could, there was two ways you could situate 'em. On the back of your trailer, there's suicide the wrong way.

Where, where su there's suicide and shotgun suicide is if I, if I don't secure it right, and I stop quick, it rolls over the cab, all right, front to back. Shotgun is, rolls off the sides of the truck the right way. I always, I always loaded suicide because I could strap it better. I could lock it down more.

So if I got a 50 thousand 50,000 pound coil, I can put eight strap downs. That's true. I mean, I, it's the easy way to get things locked in, but if you don't lock it down really good, it's called suicide for a reason. Now, one of the guys that I. Got to meet through the company I worked for I'm not gonna say the name because they're no longer around anyway, anyways he, he was in an accident and ended up in an embankment, but the way, because of how secured he secured his coil, he might have been leaning on his side, but the coil was still on the trailer when they stood that sucker up. Well, he even showed me pictures. I was like, how the. And he says he's, it's just the way I secured it and this is how, and, and I learned from him. He was one of my trainers. That's just like when my trainer, when I hauled oil and gas, got cut off on a downhill curve and rolled into the ditch on a downhill curve with six oil oof.

80,000 loaded, overweight. Yeah. But you guys are permitted for overweight. Yes. But he still got cut off by a guy that passed him downhill on a curve, duh. And then stopped to make a left hand turn. Of course. Yeah. Everybody's, everybody's in more of a hurry than the big truck. Anyway, he ended up going down into the ditch on the side, and you would think there was six oil everywhere.

Nope. But because he knew how to lock everything down properly and not all the drivers did, nothing went anywhere. And road was two lane Highway. Right. Backed up for 10, 20 miles each direction. They just had to get 'em out of the ditch. And the cops came looking for me cuz I was on the way back from where we were loading and unloading.

I mean, came looking for me and I'm like, why do you want me? You're gonna unload the trailer upside down. What? That's what I said. I'm gonna do what? Well, and I mean, you guys knew what you were doing. We knew what we were doing. And three, tow trucks picked him up and started lifting him from the side as I was hooked to the back.

Oh, draining it. Oh, yeah. And draining it. Pumping it. Pumping it in yours, pumping it into mine, using my pump and Oh wow. And the lighter it got, the more upright his truck got. Wow. That's why they needed to get some of the load off so they could stand him up. We got most of it off. About 85% of it off. Yeah.

To get him towed back to the terminal. But it was a Wow. So anyways. No, no. You gotta know your load. Know how heavy you are. Know how big it is. Usually, you know, pallets are what? Five. Five feet? Yeah. Just about, they're about four and a half by four and a half. And, and the rule, I, I think the rule is for every, every six, six every six pallets bar.

Oh, it just depends on your load. Yeah. Well, like I said, if you've got 40 pallets going in, Yeah. No, we, we did it a lot shorter than that. Every company I was with wasn't, I used, I used to do every two. I see. I wasn't with a lot of companies too. Too deep. Yeah. So, so every four pallets there was a load bar.

Yeah. Two. So we didn't, or something. It was too deep cuz we were, you know, too wide. So too deep. And it was the same one I haul cherries. Yeah. In barrels. We did too deep in straps because they were barrels. Double high. Like I said, it it, most of this is common sense. Some people don't have it, but most of it is common sense.

If you feel safer, more putting more on, put more on you got 'em. Use 'em. Yeah. That's the way I look at it. Well, and to give you an idea of when I hauled with the over the road company. Mm-hmm. Because sometimes I, I usually hauled pallets, but sometimes I hauled like barrels of mar or not marish, you know bing cherries, bing cherries from Michigan.

Oh my God. Anyway I went out and bought six load bars of my own, painted them pink so everyone knew they were mine. And I, we still have 'em, and we still have the straps about, I bought a bunch of extra straps Yep. To strap loads down because. I wasn't gonna be the one that, you know, lost all their cherries on the whole road.

Yeah, right. Because they did not supply you with enough, because they did not really have enough, because we had a driver that worked for the company that lost everything. No. And every time I would come out of my truck after sleeping at the terminal, I would have to go back into his truck to his trailer and grab all of my pink handled straps and pink load bars.

Son of a bitch, the guys at the dock would refuse to load him and strap it down with my stuff. They're like, no, that's Janets, leave it be, yeah, no, that, that don't belong to you. That's not yours. She paid cash for that. It's her money. Those are hers, so not yours. Make sure you're strapping and if you have to buy your own, some companies reimburse, some don't.

But if you have to buy your own, it's worth the money if you're in it for the long haul. The company I worked for did buy my load bars from me. Gotcha. I didn't give up my straps though, so, so in addition, the Federal Motor Courier Safety Association created requirements for securement for the following commodities.

Okay. And I believe you got this from their website. Yeah. This is straight off of their website logs and dressed lumber, which has already been cleaned and right formed. All right, so then you got metal coils, paper rolls, and concrete pipes. Mm-hmm. I did metal coils. I, you know, yep, I did. I did all sorts of metal coils.

I did, I did upright suicide. I did flat on pallets. I, I had. Doubled coils. You know, I've always loaded you know, if they were up, up and down, you know, not on a pallet. Yeah. I always loaded my coil suicide. Yeah. I didn't do any of those three items. The only reason why I did it that way was the fact that it was the eas the easier it was the best way for me to be able to add securement to it.

To keep it from moving. Yep. And the ones on the pallets. Kind of, you know, when they're on a pallet, you, it's a little easier strap over the top of it. Yeah. And, and wrench, you know, and, and, and one, one behind the pallet to keep the pallet from moving. Yeah. Because they were banded to the pallets. Next is intermodal containers.

Rest world knows 'em as shipping containers. They're the ones that can go from the land sea containers. Yeah. They go from cho cho train cars. Yeah. They go from a ship, a bar, you know. From, you know, container ship that goes from, you know, China to here or wherever. Yeah. The ones that were stuck in the port of LA for how many years?

Yeah. Right. Go ahead. During, during Covid, the ones that were stuck out in the big boat. Yeah, those, those, but those go from there to sometimes a train yard or to a semi and then a train yard. Right. And I hauled those around the Port of Philly. Yes. There was another name for those. That we used to call 'em well, shipping containers, what most people called them.

Yeah, I, we, we had a nickname for it. Cuz most flatbeds, you know, usually are, you know, come up and they, they got the lock special locks. Yeah. That, that would lock 'em on their flatbed. But we, we used to call 'em a different name. We just called 'em shipping containers. Yeah, I hauled them. But anyway, anyways, that, that is the, they go on those, they're special trailers.

The, the rail trailers? Yeah. Yeah. Rail trailers. They just have rails, nothing else on them. And they lock, they lock into the little divots rails, axles, and, yep. Wheels and God, thank you. Brakes. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, oh my god. Automobiles, light trucks, vans, and flattened or crushed vehicles. Yep. There's a, that's a whole new ballgame.

And I hauled those for Jerry. That I met down at Christie's. They, they they had The crushed ones there. You gotta have special netting over the top of 'em. That was a lot of fun. Yeah. I've, I've, I've helped, I've helped put some of those on. No, thank you. I actually enjoyed it because I could monkey up on top of those trailers and net those suckers.

Yeah. And I made a lot of good money for him doing that. Well, yeah. I mean, you, you can make a, a decent living. Yeah. You know that was fun. Heavy vehicles, equipment and machinery. Now I hold, I held, I hauled a lot of machinery type equipment. Yep. Wasn't like bulldozers or anything like that, but I've hauled like big bagel conveyor belts, you know, for like a, a bagel shop.

All these, some of the machinery I hauled was like, I was like, I was like, what? I've hauled some heavy equipment. My dad hauled a lot of stuff for the military, including some missiles. My neph. That that would've been cool. Mine. I bet he loaded that shotgun. He loaded it and they straight up they, they told him it was a fake, that it wasn't right?

No, they did Uhhuh and he kept getting followed by these guys and he stopped at one truck stop and he grabbed one of 'em by the neck and he is like, I don't know why you're following me, but knock at the. Off, and he's like we're, we're your security. And he is like, I don't need security. This shit's fake.

And he is like, no. They're like, that is an armed warhead. Actual one buddy. Okay. But my, my, my nephew, when he hauled, he hauled heavy equipment. He, at one point owned a truck and a. Back ho, one of those great big caterpillar backhoes. Right. And did construction. So he would haul it to the site, take it off, do the work.

I wanted to get into doing the heavy hauls like that. Yeah, that was pretty, pretty cool. There was, there was a company that hauled from Texas to Florida. Oh, that'd be cool. That would've been, i, I, a nice route. If I could have got onto that, I probably would've done that instead of 21 years at the medical waste company.

I did. I got you. So, but it fell through and it's okay. So. Mm-hmm. Roll off containers those are like, you know, the, we use 'em to throw garbage in. Yeah. Those are the ones that they deliver to residentials sometimes, or apartment complex or. Construction workers use them? Yeah, a lot. A lot. I, I hauled a lot of roll off containers.

Did you ever haul boulders? No. I hauled, I hauled burlaps sacks full of alloy nuggets that I used to take to the Ford dealership in Michigan. Why? Cuz they used them to make their alloy rims. Oh, I never thought about that. Yep. Little alloy nuggets. I had some around here, there some, there's some kicking around in a box that just ended up, you know, one or two fell out of the bag.

And miraculously no. When I got done unloaded, I'm like, Hey, when you're on these Yeah, keep 'em. Oh, I gotcha. You know, so I got a couple of souvenirs somewhere. I, I gotcha. Like, oh man, I used to love going to the Ford dealer when you, when you drove in. Mm-hmm. There, there, there was this big. Huge parking lot right alongside the rail.

Rail track. Mm-hmm. And they were loading, depending on the, the day of the week, depending on the type of cars they were, they pushed out. At one time there was like 300 mustangs they were loading on the railroad. Cars, horses, or cars. Cars. Bardumpump, bardumpump. That was a sight to see any color of the rainbow you could think of was there.

There was. Oh, gazillion. I mean, there was a lot of mustangs going in there. Then they had a lot of, a lot of the pickup trucks. It was fun. I feel like What was be, what was your favorite load? The, to haul of everything you ever hauled? I think, I think it was the, the, the machinery. I haulted a bagel factory in, in a New York City because I had to, I had to go in at night.

I had to call them when I was I got, there was a pull off that they, the, the direction said, pull into a pull off, call the company and then, and then proceed. Okay. And, and there was a pull off two, two blocks before. This, this bagel company. Mm-hmm. And so I called them and they said, okay, you can, you can head on out.

We, we, we got guys waiting for you. I said, okay, I'm my way. And they pulled up and the guy, the guy was standing out there with a, with those flashlights and they, they had traffic all stopped and they said, they said, he said, pull up back in under the building. I was like, do what? He said, don't worry, we got traffic.

Stop. We we do this all the time. I said, cool. That was like the best. I walked out of there with like a dozen flavors of bagels. I'm just giving 'em away. That was, that was the best because I got the tour a place. Well, they unloaded. I was like, yeah, this is awesome. Well, That was one of my favorites. Yeah.

Samples. I definitely liked Ben and Jerry's ice cream when I, oh God. Cause I bring home those little containers and fill my cooler and give them to my neighbors that took care of my house when I was gone. Yum. Yum. And I also delivered to Godiva chocolate and got samples of that. I like chocolate.

Yeah. But, so yeah, I've done some, but no, I've never hauled large boulders. Have you? No. Oh, well, I makes two of us. Never did boulders. I a little bit of, I've heard livestock fun. Like I said, I drove flatbed, so anything that can get put on a flatbed, I, I pretty much hauled it and I worked for www we tarp everything.com least that was the joke going around with the company I worked for because they tarped shh, I mean mm-hmm.

There was stuff sitting in a snow bank that got put on my truck and I had to tarp it because, They paid for tarping. I went, bullshit. They did. This is rusty. Old fucking crap. Stuffed in a snow bank and you want me to tarp it? You got it. I tear the tarp. You're buying me a new one. Yeah. I definitely had favorite locations.

Yeah. Yeah. There was a few locations I liked. Definitely favorite locations, but, and I definitely liked pulling a reefer the best, simply because. The, the rhythm of the engine running? Yep. Just there's something about that. The hum of the motor. The hum of the motor. And I would wake up in a heartbeat when it, like the couple times something went wrong.

When it stopped, well, it cycles. And I would always know if it was cycling for some reason, even in my sleep, I'd know if it was cycling or if it. Failed. It's, it's either cycling or it says not happening. Well, and I seem to know that instinctively cuz I would Yeah. Cuz you know you're vehicle. Something, something went wrong, you knew you're vehicle.

And I would get up, get dressed, pop out with my toolbox off the side. And because you don't like climb that ice cream melting climb up there. Well, it's good for a while. Oh, I know. Climb up there and see if it's something that I could fix myself, which. Most of the time I could, or if I had to actually take it somewhere to get it worked on.

And I think there was like maybe three times in the whole time that I had to have someone else work on it. So I was pretty good with them, but kind of grew up with engines, but that's okay. Yeah. Anyway, that's okay. So now go ahead. You you got, we did large boulders. Yeah. The federal. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

They have specific instructions for everything on how they want it strapped down. And if you're ever in doubt, go on their website. Yeah. It's gonna tell you about it. And we'll we'll, we'll, we should be able to put a link in our show notes Yeah. For it. So they're gonna tell you how to secure your load.

What number of load securements, all they're talking about is how many straps, how many bars, how many whatever. Like some companies put plywood between separate stops. Like if you've got five stops, you might have plywood with load bars between 'em or netting between them that's stretched across and hooked to the sides.

You know, with the ratchet straps or, you know, Everyone separates their loads differently. You just gotta know the load and know the company, how they want it done, and how the Motor carrier association, you know, how they want it done, right? I mean, the way I look at it is if it's secured so it can't move, you should be good.

You should be fine. You know, I mean, do loads shift. Yes, yes, yes, they do. It happens. However, if you do the rule of thumb every so many hundred a mile, you know, I think it's every a hundred miles. Now if you stop the pee, check the load. Yeah, that's us. That's usually was my rule. Now, every time I stop to use the restroom, I check my straps, check my load.

Yeah. Check my straps, check my tarp. And now in a sealed trailer, obviously you can't do that. No, I will say if you're hauling liquid. Okay. Tanker. Okay. They don't, some places tell you this, some don't. And some people are just too stupid to realize common sense. What? If the speed limit going on a cloverleaf onto a highway, for instance, says 35, and you're loaded, you're doing 15.

You're doing 15. Because when you are in an 18 wheeler and you pick up nine of those wheels, You're gonna be really lucky if you don't roll down in the ditch. You're gonna be real lucky you don't poop your pants. Yeah, because now I, I've lift all it takes is a little breeze to take the other nine and go, boop.

Now I've, I've lifted the wheels off the ground on in a garbage truck coming around a little turn because it, it dipped down and then came right back up again and, I was like, whoa, I made that mistake I just talked about. Yeah. One of the first times I did a solo run after I learned to haul fuel oil and six oil and gas and, and I, I mean, it just barely started to pick up and I took, I was like, whoop.

Yep. Took my foot right off. I didn't care if I killed it. It's just like, oh, no, no. Right off the throttle and it's, it's scary, man. Yeah. And one of someone on a CB said, Hey, scared you there, didn't it, Blondie? I'm like, oh shit man. Made my, butthole pucker. Sure did. But yeah, there's some people that sit, they're like, oh, it'll come back down.

I'm like, yeah, it might not come down on the rubber, but it'll come down. It'll come down eventually. So yeah, just make sure you're using what's available to you to. The tools that you have to secure your load, but a load that can't be secured because it's already secured by you inside Uhhuh, like a load that has the zip ties that are numbered or the little metal ties, the seals, you know, the seals the door seal, or, or if it's a, a liquid load like milk or gas or fuel.

Yep. You just gotta be extra careful. There's no two ways about it. Yep. So, so now, now use, use ratchets straps and cargo nets. Mm-hmm. Ratchets straps allow drivers to achieve the amount of torque needed to secure the load. Yeah. If you break the strap, you over torqued it. Yeah. This is true. Mm-hmm. They're rated a particular workload, so which is one third of their breaking strength.

Yeah. So if they're gonna break at. 500 pounds or 450 pounds. That's called tensile strength. They're rated the, the F M C A SA calls it. Yeah. Workload. Yeah. Workload. Workload rate. Yes. Anyway, so if they're rated at 450, they, they're gonna give you 150 is the load, sorry. You're fine. You were still talking.

No, you're, you're fine. So tie downs for a 500 pound pound item should have workload limit of at least 250. Yeah. Well, snorted at our pug told us. Yeah. You're early, sweetheart. It's not, it's not time. We've got over an hour. Honey bunny. Yeah. Take a nap. Get over here and take a nap. Oh, there's what I just said, but I'll let you.

Make sure your load is, is balanced for hauling, turning high winds, and of course to the axle for d o t stops, you know, balance it by the axle. Yep. Yep. This is why if you're, when, when I hauled flatbed, we had to go, we had, once we got loaded, we had to go. And get it cat scaled. Mm-hmm. We had to, we had to go to the nearest cat scale, get it weighed, and if we had to be shifted, we had to go back to the shipper and have 'em shifted.

So what some people don't realize is when you pull across a cat scale, you don't just like sit there and then go, yeah. You pull up, you stop, you weigh, you pull up, you stop, you weigh, you know, by axle they, they tell you. Yeah. Cat scales though, I think have. The different sections. So it ways the older ones don't.

Yeah, there's still some old ones. I know of one that used to be in Springfield, Illinois. Yeah. At the, I think it was a Flying Hooked No, it's it's got a red pilot No old, old. Ranger. Ranger. No. Something like that. Anyway, it's on the south side anyway, anyways, it's off 55 and it's an older one. And their scale was old style, where you had to pull up and stop, pull up and stop.

Put your front axles on it, put your back back axle, the tractor on it, then the trailer on it. Yes. That's pain in the ass. But yeah, it can be done. It can be done. They know how to weigh it. Mm-hmm. So anyways, so the next part we're talking about is. Knowing your load, checking the height of your load, and everybody's like, well, it can be 13, six.

Yeah, well, especially, especially if you're pulling a flatbed though. Yeah. Well, there's, or a step deck. Yeah, A low boy. Yeah, there's all sorts of trailers. Everybody's like, no, there's just flatbeds and no, there's just flatbed. A step deck, a low boy, a gooseneck, a car hauler, a long hauler. TR a a a log, hauler, hauler trailer.

And the list goes on and on and on and on. Curtain side. Covered wagon. Some people say that's the same thing. It's not they're similar, but they're not, they're not. The covered wagon is a flatbed with, with hard sides and a, and a tarped top like, like a covered wagon. Yeah. And a curtain side is, a curtain side is, looks like a, a dry van with soft sides that, that can be slid.

The curtains, yeah. Curtains pull back. It's exactly opposite of a covered wagon. Yep. So what do you want? So there are, there are plenty of different types out there. And believe me, it's like you gotta know your don't, don't just take that. You have to know where you're going. Exactly. No, you're bridge because you get out here and say Arizona, the desert, southwest Texas, New Mexico, et cetera, bridges are like 20 foot tall.

Mm-hmm. You go to Pennsylvania and you see a sign ahead that says bridge height, eight foot eight inches. It's not joking. It's eight foot, eight inches. It's eight foot eight inches. It's not eight foot, eight inches. The rule, the, and it really is 13. No, it's eight foot, eight inches. All right. Now the rule of thumb when I was driving was, unless it was marked, the bridge is 14 feet in height.

Ah-huh. If it was marked, then it's actual, otherwise it's 14 feet. Because I have, because I drove a lot of the, you know, north, north, northeast, Northeast. Of, of this country. And so a lot of bridges are marked in the northeast because they're, that's just how they do it. Well, and it's like you can be coming down a highway.

I'm thinking of the one that goes through Clifton Park and towards where I used to live. Yep. You're coming down a highway, it's four lanes. At some points it's wider. You come off the main road, you're coming down the highway, you're thinking I can go straight onto that other highway, route 50, and I'm all good.

And it says tractor trailers must turn in half a mile. Yeah. Low bridge ahead. Yep. And you're thinking, what do you mean? I gotta turn in half a mile Nooo You gotta go. I'm fine. You gotta go around the block. Yeah. A tall pickup. Can't make it through there. A a U-haul. Can't make it through there if it's got the mother-in-laws, although I think they've changed it.

I think they, no, I think they moved that bridge. No they didn't. I thought they did. There's two bridges there. Yeah. One bridge. They fixed the one with the railroad. Yeah, they raised it. They raised the one with the railroad. Okay. The one on the other side, the west side of the railroad, which is like maybe a hundred foot beyond it.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. They were going to, and then they realized that it was considered a historic bridge. Yeah. Oh, that's right. And they didn't. That's right. Because they couldn't, they can't do that. You can't change anything historic in the most states. So they left it be, and they didn't just put up and arounds.

Yeah, you can. They make you drive 20 miles outta your way. You can go 20 miles this way to turn and, and, and go 20 miles this way just to turn and go 20. It's like nascar. Yeah. So you can go one mile on the other side of the bridge. Yep. Yeah, I know. And it's a pain in the, you know, where, but, and I've got pictures like from downtown Schenectady, New York, down by the train station.

Mm-hmm. From a guy that didn't believe it when he saw the 12 foot bridge. And I happened to be in my car and I took a picture of him going under it, like 10 pictures in a row, and you could see him. Start to go, start to go. The cab, the fin on the top of the cab, you know the wind fin, huh? Starts to crush.

And then he gets that stuck and the trailer starts to squish now. Yeah. I've got like a, I ran across this about a week ago. Yeah, that's amazing what some people will do. It's absolutely amazing. All right, so where did we leave off? All right, so, so, so get it secured. Know your height. Know, you know, know where you're heading.

You know, know your route. Yep. So what we did leave off is I had two pages of notes about the bill of lading. Well, we can circle back to that. Yeah. Little, little. So it's like, just see if we missed anything. So, so where's your load going? You know, know where your load is going. Know your route. No, no. And we're gonna, we're gonna touch, we're gonna go further in depth into about some of some of this.

On on upcoming episode. Upcoming episodes. And so you don't wanna miss that because we're, we're two feet deep into the trucking industry. For truckers. About truckers by truckers, so yes, but it has to do with trucks. Guess what we're, we're, we're gonna, yak gonna talk about it. It might be an hour long episode.

It might be a 20 minute episode, but, We're gonna talk about it. Yeah. You know, we're gonna post a bunch of polls on our social media, so make sure you sign up, you know, cause we need fill out the poll. Tell us your opinion. We, yeah, we wanna know, you know, if you got a, you got a question for us, ask us, you know, go to our website, 18 wheel talk.com.

There's a tab right at the top of the page there. It says, ask the show. Ask us your question please. Hey, if we use it in a podcast show, I will be in touch with you and tell you, Hey, we got an upcoming episode. We used your question. Yeah. We may even give you a prize for your, for your, for your question. And if your question's good enough and you have a lot of information, we might give you a, we might have an interview, we might give you a phone number to call us for an on live or on or for a live interview.

New tongue. Just got it. We'll send you, we'll send you a link. You can come on the, we can come on the podcast show and talk about it with us. Yeah. So I wanna talk about the bill of lading. That'd be kinda cool, wouldn't it? It would be. Wow. I just wanna go over some of the stuff that we missed. All right.

Yeah, go for it. The one thing is we talked about making things legible and accurate for what you fill out, but I have picked up loads with the bill of lading where there was incorrect information. Huh. I've actually had a dispatcher give me someone else's bill of lading, and if I didn't know enough to check it, I would've been driving to the wrong spot.

Yeah. But I knew where I was supposed to be going. I'm like, I'm not going to Kansas City. I'm going to LA Why are you giving me Kansas City paperwork? Oh, oh, sh we, we put, we put the wrong load on your truck. Oh, no. Which, no, I had the right load. I had the wrong paperwork. Or they put the wrong address in.

Yeah, and that's how, because they have more than one address. Yeah, more, more than one facility. More than one facility. I've, I've come across that where, where I'm, I'm going, I, I picked up a load in Pennsylvania. I'm supposed to go to Ohio, but they were sending me to Maine and I'm like, you know, they gimme the main address, but that was the main office.

And then you have to call, they say, well call our facility and they'll give you the address, and they give you the address or, well, I don't know, but we're just off of I 80 and this actually happened to me. And I said, okay. Okay. What exit number? How many, how many bridges are there? She says, I don't know. I said, well, how do you get there?

I drive. Okay. I said, where do you drive from? My house. Oh, okay. And I'm thinking, oh God, spare me. Did you put on the, did you put on the drool bib when you did this dentistry? I felt like, but anyway, I said, okay. I said, where do you live? And she says, I don't think I should give you that information. I said, could you tell me what town?

I'm trying to figure out where you're at. I'm at work. You know that you called me. I said, is there anybody else in the office I could talk to? Oh, I'm only supposed to forward very important calls. I said, this is, I have a load for you. This is very the truck driver delivering your stuff. I said, do you know?

I said, I know you're off I 90, but are you off of 90? And what intersection? What? Cross highway? Oh, I don't know. It's some highway. Okay. Well, I need you to kind of know that. That's what I told her. I said, You don't know the exit number, you don't know the highway, and you don't know what town you're in. No.

I said, do you know if you're north or south of Interstate 90? No. Can I please? Because somebody that knows that knows any, I said, as you're standing there or sitting there at your desk, I said, is there anybody with in site of you? Like where you can look and see a person. I said at this point, I don't care who it is, is there any other person in the room?

And she says, well, yeah, but it's just a visitor. I said, let me talk to him. So she says, okay. And she tells the visitor, you have a call. Do you mind taking it? And the guy's like, Okay. And he says, I'm just here to see a salesman. I said, oh, good. I said, because you know how you got there, right? And he says, yes.

I said, well, the receptionist I'm talking to doesn't, and I'm a truck driver trying to deliver a load. I just wanna know what exit number or an address, how about a town? Because the company messed up my bill of lading, and I don't know where I'm going except. Ohio. Except, except in this direction. Yeah. He gave me an address and exit number and directions.

Nice. I was there before he left. We had a very good laugh and that's back when I smoked and had a cigarette. I had a cigarette with him, had a cigarette with him. I'd had a drink with him, but you know, I don't drink and drive, so Yeah. Make sure your bill of ladings correct? Yeah. Oh yeah. You, because that will screw up your pay too.

Yeah. The people that. Fill 'em out in your office. They make mistakes. And if they go by mileage, yeah. If you get mileage pay and they put the wrong address in and you gotta go an extra 200 miles, it's not great. It's outta your pocket. Comes outta your pocket, you're eating it. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. Make sure your paperwork's right.

You always gotta make sure mean, I I I call it keeping your ducks in a row. It's like with hazmat. Yep. And that's another story that, that, that, that's another episode for another time. Mm-hmm. But it has to be on your bill of lading that it's hazmat. Yep. If it's hazmat, you gotta know how to, you, you put a, put a placard.

Is it, is it a placard or is it a place card? It's a placard. They have two different ones. No, it's a placard, but there's two different kinds. There's a placard and then there's a place card. They're all placards, placards. Are, are the diamond shape. Place cards can be regular. A place card is something you put on a table when you're having a big banquet and it has the person's name on it.

That's a place card. Okay? A placard is what you put on a tanker or a trailer. Or a trailer with with hazardous to stuff in it. So I really feel, I feel like someone that went to etiquette school and hazmat school well. Well, it didn't take long to burn that fire up, did it? To chrome or not to chrome. Oh, don't even get me started.

And that's another episode. That's gonna be another coming episode. You wanna see some flames fly out, Janet, that's gonna be a fun one. How much, how much more of the, the bill lading Do you want to touch or do you wanna, you wanna hold off on it and we'll just do an episode about it? No, I just wanna mention if you lose your bill of lading, It can not only cause you financial trouble, it can cause you legal trouble.

All I know is I know that when I was over the road, we had the, the company had Bill of ladings that they gave you. So if you needed to, you. You had 'em. Yeah. You could fill it out on your own, but don't lose 'em. And if you have to send it back to your company, send it express, make sure signature required, you send, you keep a copy for yourself.

Mm-hmm. Make sure you got your load numbers down. But I definitely wanna, you know, circle back on at another time and talk about these. We can do that. Because I know there's like A lot more information. Well, I know there's also on top of Bill, the, you know, papers, there's also some apps that can be used and, and all sorts of new things, new technology that's coming out that, that can be also be used.

This is true. So we can do, we can do an episode on, sorry, I'm entertaining someone who wants to bark at me. Yeah, I know she was trying to bark at me, but I rubbed her ear. Well, you should have told me your chin was wet. I thought she, she was making that pretty clear. No, she was making it clear that she was hungry.

No, I thought it was the, her mouth was wet. I got a wet chin. Mom, dry it please. You need your chin wet, please dry my chin for me. Now explain. We have pugs who drool and they have extra long tongues, especially one of them. And when she gets a drink, she takes a bath. So she comes over to get her face dried off cuz she doesn't like her face all wet.

And her neck. And her neck and everything else in between. You gonna make her infamous. I'm gonna make her infamous. Oh, and there she is. Everybody MaCushla, MaCushla everybody. This is our baby. You gonna lower the mic so she can talk? Say hi. Say hi. No. She's like, I'm with people with silent treatment. She's one of our babies.

Anyways, I, I, I wanna say thanks to everybody for tuning in today to our episode. I really appreciate it too. Now she's gonna talk. Yep. Now she's gonna get in there. She's like, oh mom, what's this?

Anyways, thank you for joining us today. We truly appreciate it. We, we hope you enjoyed the show and come back again. I forgot what we were gonna say. We had something that we were, we never wrote it down, so I forgot it, but, we'll, it was really cute, but we'll definitely catch on the flip side.

Definitely. Hey, rubber side now, but we'll catch you on the flip side. Bye. Okay, bye-bye.