Today's drive went smoothly until I got to Joplin, MO.
Yesterday, when I picked up the already loaded trailer, I noticed that the last annual inspection on the trailer was done in October, '03 which meant that if the DOT (or a state law enforcement officer) noticed this as well, my company would have to pay a sizable fine (not to mention the trailer would be put out-of-service immediately until it could have an annual inspection done to it. My fleet manager OK'd me to pick up the trailer and drive with it (my cell phone had no signal and there wasn't a pay phone in sight) as long as I would call maintenance at a truck stop to see what they wanted to do about the situation. Well, when I parked for the evening at the mini truck stop, I still had no cell phone signal the truck stop's one pay phone wasn't working. So off I went this morning and stopped at a truck stop in the morning only to forget that I needed to call maintenance. In the afternoon, I remembered that I still needed to call maintenance about the trailer. So, instead of calling on my cell phone which now had a signal, (didn't want to go through the hassle of submitting a phone expense report for business calls via the cell phone; heck--my cell phone bill was $100+ for 2-consecutive months. I ain't using the cell phone for business purposes again unless I'm in an emergency situation. But that's another story for another time) I stopped at a truck stop in Joplin, MO. Maintenance told me to go to another truckstop 8 miles down the road to have them look at the trailer (miles I ain't paid for there and back to my original destination). So, now I'm waiting for about 2-hours before they can get to me and look and inspect the trailer. If all goes well (I.E. they don't find minor or major items needing repair on the trailer) I should be back on the road in time to make Kansas City where I planned to stay for the evening.
I find it interesting that maintenance doesn't do a better job when it comes to keeping track of which trailers need inspections by which date. I mean everything is in the computer isn't it? All they need to do build into their existing computer program a way that flags when a trailer's annual inspection is coming due one-month before it expires. Then they start bringing that trailer towards one of the maintenance facilities so that it can be properly inspected (if they even do the inspections there). If they don't (or can't because of DOT regulations), then that leads to the second thing I find interesting about this experience.
I'd be willing to bet nearly all of the drivers doing a pre-trip inspection on that trailer in October realized that it needed to be inspected by October 31st. I'd also be willing to bet all the drivers in November who had that trailer (before I got it) also realized that the trailer was now running illegally beginning November 1st. So drivers essentially ignored the fact that they were running illegal and passed the problem on the next "unlucky" stiff who then passed it on, etc., until I got stuck with the problem. When I see a trailer that is coming due next month for an annual inspection, I'll send a message to Maintenance letting them know (I'm not sure that does any good, but at least I've done my part in the process). It could be that both the veteran and newbie drivers of the company simply don't want to waste any time out of their driving schedule to take care of the problem (I doubt this but ya never know). At the very least, a driver should send an FYI message to the Maintenance Department after he's dropped a trailer that needs something done to it. That way they could start the process of getting the trailer to where it needs to be.
At any rate, I'm still sitting here waiting for the trailer to be looked at. We'll see how much further (if at all) I get down the road today.
Talk to my wife briefly. She's got a bad case of laryngitis. She had to cancel some of our business appointments today. I'll have to tell the kids tonight to make sure they listen to their mom and not make her tell them to do something twice.
Hey, They just motioned me over to the shop. Cool! Looks like I will get on the road soon!
miles driven = 541
PostScript 1: The trailer was inspected in 15-minutes and nothing was found wrong. Hooray! I was able to hit the road and make the Kansas City area before my hours ran out for the day.
PostScript 2: Tried to log on to Flying J's wireless network this evening in Peculiar, MO for one hour. Only I couldn't. It seems that they no longer (?!) allow you to log on for a period of one-hour (if they do, they sure have that option buried somewhere). However, they still have the following paragraph in their help section:
Subscriptions are deducted in continuous blocks of time. The subscription starts at log on and ends at the end of that actual time period. You cannot use time purchased intermittently (i.e. stopping and starting at intervals). You can log on as many times as you want until the subscription expires.
Example: If a customer purchases 60-minutes and let's say they log on at 10:00 a.m., Their subscription will end at 11:00 a.m. If a customer purchases 24-hours and let's say they log on at 10:00 a.m. on January 01, their subscription will end at 10:00 a.m. on January 02.
Earth to Flying J: Make one-hour increments of time available! Ain't no way I'm paying for 24-hours worth of time and only using an hour's worth of service. (If you couldn't tell, I did not log on to the Flying J network)
3:47:04 PM
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