In the wake of the Convoy for Freedom, another metric has been proposed: "How far out in your immediate social circle do you need to go to find someone who can legally operate a dump truck?"
I myself own a Ford F-150, so I am zero steps removed in the first metric. I am not too much farther in the second one. I can myself drive a fire truck, which in North Carolina is legal for volunteers without a CDL provided they take an annual weekend certification course. Professional firefighters require a CDL. Since several of my friends are professional firefighters -- the county has a few slots for them, in addition to the volunteers -- the distance is one.
Back in Georgia my next-door neighbor was a big rig driver. He retired after being hijacked and shot, though he managed to wreck the truck to prevent it being stolen (and to allow the police to capture his hijacker). It's a hard job under the best of circumstances, and can be dangerous as well.
20 comments:
I also have an F-150. Have mostly had a truck my whole adult life. I can also drive a dump truck, as long as it's under 26,000 pounds gross weight without a CDL.
My late brother was a big rig driver and for a few years, had his own trucking company with three semis and two other drivers.
My late grandfather ran a service station for long-haul trucks off I-75 near Knoxville. Dad and he both drove occasionally when they were younger, though that may have predated the CDLs of today. I grew up eating in truck stops, which Dad preferred to other sorts of gas stations when possible. I still maintain the habit of stopping at them when on interstate trips, as they're easy to get into and out of and prevent you from having to fight city traffic (or getting lost, as they are always well marked and right by the interstate).
I have an F-150. I ordered a hybrid Ford Maverick small pickup last June. Is was due to the dealer at the start of the model year -- around October.
The political party most deeply, seriously, severely committed to the electrification of personal vehicles has botched the US supply chain so badly that all remaining 2022 orders have been pushed back to this coming MAY. If then.
So, I'm driving the F-150...
My brother and my cousin's daughter and her sons all drive pickup trucks. My mother's oldest friend (in both senses of the word - she's 99) has a son who drive a big rig. Her other son drives a pickup truck.
Smaller pickup, a Toyota Tacoma, with a proud 190,000 miles. My son was a driver in the USMC and can drive all sorts of crazy stuff, though I imagine ten years in Norway have expired his legality here. I do volunteer trash pickup and that's a dump truck, which I drive on occasion, but only allowed to in the park. I drive a box truck to pick up food for a charity every week. Not much. Regular license.
I'm betting they wouldn't get any more hands raised if you said a school bus. Way too middle-America
I've never had a CDL but my father taught me how to drive an 18 wheeler some 50 years ago. His mantra was that no daughter of his was ever going to be "stuck" somewhere because she didn't know how to drive whatever was available. He wasn't entirely successful as I never quite got the hang of a bulldozer. Papa tried.
I've had several pickups since then and my sons-in-law drive them now (an F-150 and a Dodge Ram). My late husband was a long-haul truck driver when I met him.
My oldest granddaughter will be getting her learner's permit this month and I'm proud that her father has already acquired a vehicle with a stick shift for her... though that old jeep won't be her 'everyday' driver. While he's not quite as adamant as her great-grandfather, she will be able to drive a stick.
As for me, I now drive a minivan because it's easy to get my walker in and out of.
We own a pickup truck and can both drive a firetruck. We can even back it into a station bay with no more than a few inches of leeway on either side, though it gives me the willies. My usual car is a Toyota RAV4.
I drove a deuce-and-a-half while towing a radar shelter module while I was in Germany, no license other than my issued international license. Never drove without a tow. I didn't drive it often, though; my Sgt wouldn't let me. Officers don't drive trucks; enlisted do. Sort of like we were issued pistols, not rifles--officers can't handle complex weapons.
Once when we were deployed for a REFORGER, we had an officer TDY to us for the exercise. Squadron rules required every member and everyone TDY to us longer than a minimum period to learn to drive a deuce-and-a-half. She'd grown up in NYC; the truck was the first vehicle she'd driven in her life. She got the hang of it.
Eric Hines
I live in the rocky mountain west. Of the seventeen houses on my street, only three of the owners don't own a pickup (and two of those have owned one in the recent past). Of the remainder, almost half have more than one truck. I don't think this street is that different from most others in town.
It's hard for me to imagine even the possibility that someone could not know anyone that owned a truck. The sheer distance between that person and the rest of their countrymen is astonishing.
A lot of the people in my life beyond my inner circle of friends almost all of whom are white collar professionals), I don't even know what they do.
I went to high school with a guy whose dad was a truck driver- he always had 'breakage' stuff he'd share with us- candy, Binaca breath spray... (for some strange reason). For my kids today, in the same neighborhood and High School, I don't know if they would be within three or four, but I'm just not sure.
Only 2 members of my immediate family HAD pickup trucks. They traded them off for multi-passenger vehicles. Babies, ya'know.
However, I am intimately acquainted with a blogger who has a CDL Class B.
My dad and all his brothers have CDLs. They all run their own little trucking companies. My brother and a number of cousins have CDLs, as well, with most of them making their livings that way. I got my learner's CDL twice and drove with my dad on a couple of long hauls. He usually does short haul stuff, so those were both instances of extenuating circumstances.
Back in high school, my dad was running logs off the La Sal mountains in southeastern Utah. He'd take me up there to change tires as flats are a regular occurrence when you're driving on roads carved out with a bulldozer. These rough, little logging roads were connected to gravel county roads leading down to the saw mill.
The operation usually consisted of my dad running the log loader, one driver taking the logs down the mountain, and me fixing tires etc. We always had two trucks, so while the driver was taking one load down my dad would be loading the other. My dad would get finished loading before the driver got back, so he'd have me take the loaded truck and meet the driver at the county road. I'd usually end up waiting some time for the driver to get back, and my dad eventually just told me to take the truck down the road until I met the driver. A few times that turned into driving all the way down. So, I did a fair bit of driving without a CDL.
I think that puts my distance at about a half. I'm working on finishing a PhD in Mechanical Engineering right now, and I get a lot of people asking what I'll do when I graduate. My joke is to tell them, "Get my CDL and drive truck."
I'm at 1 for both categories.
Sort of like we were issued pistols, not rifles--officers can't handle complex weapons.
Officers with rifles start thinking they're supposed to be shooting things instead of running the show. That makes everyone nervous.
Officers with rifles start thinking they're supposed to be shooting things instead of running the show.
My Sgts mostly ran the show. I just stood around with a clipboard and looked official. And kept headquarters off their back. I was, and am, though, a good shot with a rifle and a pistol, the latter not a peashooter like those .38 sissy pistols the USAF used to issue. At least they weren't nickle-plated, though.
Eric Hines
I've driven a 3/4 ton pickup for about 24 years now, and 4WD trucks as a preference for 47.
I remember taking my cultured Yankee mom to her first truck stop, in Texarkana about 30 years ago. She was all Big Eyes as we were seated. We had ordered and were waiting in the booth when I heard her say, softly, "Oh my God....". She was looking over my shoulder, so I turned a beheld a ~300lb trucker, overflowing his booth seat, viewing with gusto as the waitress set down a plate full of chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, fried okra, and greens and a 1/2 gallon or so of iced tea. It was one of those large, truck stop plates - and it was filled nearly to the angle of repose. The look on my mom's face is one of my most treasured memories.
My Sgts mostly ran the show. I just stood around with a clipboard and looked official. And kept headquarters off their back.
Yeah, I was joking. All the units where officers direct a fight they have rifles. This is why my stand-up career failed. :-(
Yeah, I was joking.
I knew you were joking. But it was a running joke for us, along the lines of a common jape toward pilots: "Stay away from that wheelbarrow, pilot. You know you don't understand complex machinery."
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was when I was starting out as a brown bar was, "Tie on in close trail to a Sgt, and listen to him carefully." That was from a grizzled L/C.
Eric Hines
I own a pickup. I know people who drive dump-trucks and the like for the city and for private contractors. I was a "blue collar" pilot for the better part of a decade. However, I can't drive a "heavy" vehicle, despite what my driver's license says (when I changed states, Texas inadvertently upgraded me.)I'd need extra training, per the insurance companies.
LittleRed1
I have a pickup (Chevrolet Silverado 1500) that I got for casual local use. But one of my best friends drives a Silverado 3500HD with a 6 L diesel, a full-length bed and a double cab that can apparently tow the Empire State Building (he does elevator and overhead crane repair and often has a ton or so of steel in the back) who has a CDL.
My daughter went to college on an Army ROTC scholarship, so entered the Army as an officer. She once said that she was grateful her father and father-in-law were sergeants, so she knew who to listen to. She was smiling when she said it, but I don't think she was kidding us.
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