The RV does'nt own the road, But truckers DO!

[Johno02]

As she knows that we drive a RV, My daughter, driving a BIG truck, privately posted this to my facebook. So for all others, be warned, do NOT EVER mess with a tired, sleepy female truck driver!!! Here is her post:

"I'm only going to say this once. Unless you like being visited by your friendly state trooper and threatened with arrest for a federal offense, do not park your little cheap ass motor camper beside a reefer trailer in a truck parking lot. If you chose to do that, do not bang on this driver's door at 0400, demanding that I shut my reefer off because its keeping you and your girlfriend awake. Then when I POLITELY (yes, I even amazed myself with that) advised you that you might want to find another parking spot and close my curtains, do not let me peek back in my mirror and see you staring at my reefer control panel. I will, and did, call the Kansas State Police. Guess you didn't know there was a Trooper in the service plaza getting coffee at the Dunkin Donuts. Thank you, unknown trooper, for explaining to the dumbass about the federal laws regarding the interference of tampering with an interstate commerce vehicle, carrying frozen food. And since it contained food for human consumption, had he successfully messed with the controls or load in anyway, that got into a domestic terrorism act through homeland security. Oh, and since this driver was on her federally mandated rest break, that the rv driver disturbed, well, he was quite sure there was probably a federal statute that applied to that as well. Now, please move your RV and remember these lessons, thank you very much.
Sometimes I love Karma. I asked the Trooper if I could buy him a coffee. He said no, but thank you, so I hand him one of my Milos sweet teas. I rarely part with those for anyone so I hope he understood what that meant!"

BE WARNED!! BTW, we are proud of her, and what she does. Many do not realize that her attitude is the only thing that makes the truckers life bearable, and we would all starve to death without them!

[Moderator]

Ok, time to move on folks. Drive safely.

[ReneeG]

dennis1949 wrote:
Rest areas are for going to the bathroom and stretching you legs. NOT FOR SLEEPING FOR HOURS

Not in some states. Sleep for hours is encouraged in order to prevent deadly accidents.

[ReneeG]

Gosh! Eight pages of responses and still growing. For once, I read every one. Kudos to Karynkj for her job and doing the right thing on how she responded to a selfish self-centered jerk. Hmmm, I would've thought the same about his long locks and smell. There's a lot of weird people out there who know no boundaries. Anger? I didn't see that in her. Tough? Yes, and good for her. As a solo woman trucker she has to be. We've stopped many times besides truckers to sleep, but that's why we have the unit we do, we can get to everything within, without extending the slides. The overnight truckers are most important. They need their rest, we're on vacation and in between stops, so we park out of their way and respect them.

Keep on truckin Karynkj and as a proud parent of a hard working son, kudos to your parents for raising a great daughter!

[dennis1949]

Rest areas are for going to the bathroom and stretching you legs. NOT FOR SLEEPING FOR HOURS

[Deb_and_Ed_M]

mat60 wrote:

Johno02 wrote:
Actually she was very restrained. called police rather than just shooting the guy and getting it over with. Only problem with shooting is all the paperwork involved.

..Shoot someone for that?? Are you joking? Be going to jail for ever. Im starting to wonder what really went down because it seems some are talking kind of out there.
.

I'm sure the shooting part was wishful thinking - but someone messing with her load could make her lose her job when she delivered a truckload of unusable product

[Deb_and_Ed_M]

Johno02 wrote:
She has been driving over ten years, coast-to-coast, with a perfect safety record, and hasn't killed but one or two dispatchers yet.

LOL!! Ed has been in the trucking business for decades - I understand what you are saying 🙂 And good for your daughter, she clearly deals with frustration all darn day, and then to have to put up with stupidity while she's trying to sleep..... ugh.

And as an RVer, I KNOW that trucks have to run reefers; so I'll park as far away as possible, from the big rigs.

[Ralph_Cramden]

cbshoestring wrote:
Wow....

So it is ok if I knock on the door of your home/ RV at 0400 and ask politely for you to turn off the porch light? As long as I am mistaken as to why you have it on, oh, and I ask politely!!!!

Do you people hear yourself?

This RVer was 100% wrong.

No wonder why so many think it is ok to squeeze their 20 foot vehicle into the 10 feet of space the trucker leaves in front of him/her at merge points. Apparently truckers have no right to be ANYWHERE, and should wilfully accept rude behavior.

KARYNKJ mentioned a camera, so I will share a word to the wise.

Cars are at fault for 80% of accidents involving a big truck. Thanks to cameras, that percentage is on the rise. The days of darting in front of a semi, assuming it is their fault if they rearend you, are gone. When the video shows they were keeping proper spacing, and YOU made an unsafe lane change in to that space, that carrier will go after you for damage to the truck and freight. Cause a big enough catastrophe...criminal charges that once were filed against the driver, may rest in your lap.

Some insurers are advising truckers to HIT you. Sound cruel....not really. If the driver attempts to avoid you, rolls the truck, etc...you go on your merry way, oblivious of what you caused. Driver may end up dead. Keeping the truck upright and on the road...is the best way for a trucker to survive.

Again, this may sound cruel...but if your dumb a** put yourself into a situation, better you die than me.

Of course most drivers will still try to miss you...to much paperwork. However, I have seen multiple dash cam clips where ignorant cars have been pushed out of the way. In some cases, I think the driver could have done a better job at avoiding the accident....they didn't bother to because they got fed up with STUPIDITY. and felt no obligation to risk their truck/freight/LIFE in an effort to protect someone else from their entitlement attitude that disregarded the truckers safety.

Rant over...happy RVing.

Can't wait for the end off month vacay when I will happily be driving with TT in tow...
Wait, what....pull a trailer on vacation. What was I thinking!

Well said CBS!

[valhalla360]

Johno02 wrote:
BTW, when the original interstates were proposed and built, they were NOT for public transportation, but for military and materials transport in a timely manner. Check your history!

The official name: Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways

There was specifically a military purpose called out but no where does it say "truckers" highways. Public passenger transport was always one of the primary purposes.

[valhalla360]

Johno02 wrote:
valhalla360 , Here I go defending the truckers again, but they DO Pay (A LOT) for the roads, and they DO pay for parking in most but not all, truckstops. The amount that one truck pays each year in road taxes,(added to fuel costs) special licenses, and road/bridge tolls far exceeds what most drivers and RVs will pay in their entire driving life. .... Check your history!

You might want to try a history lesson. I used to do pavement design.
An FHWA study from the 50's found that your average semi did 10,000 times the damage to pavement relative to your average passenger car. Since then cars have gotten smaller and lighter and trucks have gotten bigger and heavier...and probably more important, the tire pressures have gone up.

The reason you see roads being rebuilt every 20yrs is not because cars are beating them up. It's the trucks. We don't even consider passenger cars and pickups when doing pavement analysis because

While each truck does pay more taxes than each car...the trucks to many many times as much damage to the roads far beyond the extra taxes.

As far as cost getting passed on...we pay that either way. At least if the trucks paid relative to the damage they are doing, it would get assigned to those who buy through the truck companies doing the most damage.

[valhalla360]

cbshoestring wrote:
Wow....

So it is ok if I knock on the door of your home/ RV at 0400 and ask politely for you to turn off the porch light?

Yes, if I was inconsiderate enough to leave the porch light on, that's on me, so yes.

If I had some reason unknown to you, I might be frustated but again, that's on me. If you don't like it post a big sign next to the porch light as to why you are leaving it on.

[pnichols]

We sometimes overnight in the large lots where truckers overnight.

We don't mind their refrigeration units at all ... in fact their noise gives us leeway to run our generator a bit to charge batteries or if the night is hot ... run our A/C a bit. Also, we feel that security is superb in those places as I always assume that since "ya don't mess with truckers", it's probably pretty safe overnighting where truckers are.

I also like to follow along behind them in our RV on the open road so I can go a slower speed like many of the trucks wisely do ... without speeding jerks around us blaming/fingering us for the "slowness".

[rhagfo]

Trekkar wrote:

Johno02 wrote:
valhalla360 , Here I go defending the truckers again, but they DO Pay (A LOT) for the roads, and they DO pay for parking in most but not all, truckstops. The amount that one truck pays each year in road taxes,(added to fuel costs) special licenses, and road/bridge tolls far exceeds what most drivers and RVs will pay in their entire driving life. BUT, that is a minor thing, what is major is that all these taxes and expenses are added on top of what WE (all of us) pay for food and other goods. Its is called transportation costs, and is a good part of the prices we pay every day. Especially for food products. Ever consider how much just salad stuff is consumed in somewhere like New York City?? And where it comes from?? (California and Mexico), and hot it gets to the consumer from the field?? Yes, the truckers pay for the roads and parking lots, and all the rest of us are lucky that they even let us use them. BTW, when the original interstates were proposed and built, they were NOT for public transportation, but for military and materials transport in a timely manner. Check your history!

The Interstate system WAS developed for the public: Some of the reasons were in fact military, but not many. HOWEVER: The trucking industry DOES NOT pay their share for the roads! Trucks cause roughly 99% of the road damage, yet only provide about 35% of funds to repair and maintain.

It is called the Eisenhower Interstate system for a reason. Seems that the military took a convoy across the country as quickly as possible, and it took over a week to cross the country.
To those of you on this site that were born after the 70’s don’t truly understand what it was like to drive 100 miles on Highways that passed through the heart of every city on the way to your destination.

[Johno02]

Just one more post on this, which I hope will be informative to both RVs and Truckers. The Sam's Club and Walmart in Jackson, TN has just posted signs stating "NO RV/Semi_truck overnight parking. Violators will be fined up to $500 and towed." So for the many RV's that have stopped to restock supplies and spend the night in an unused parking lot, be warned, and plan on stopping somewhere else. I personally plan on complaining, and doing my shopping elsewhere. If they don't want my business, there are a lot of other places that do.

[johnhicks]

Speaking of truckers...

We just tootled from Florida to Indiana on mostly US highways and other back roads; we're so slow that today we got passed by a house. Well, half a house.

We saw the back end of LOTS of trucks, and at least 99.9 percent used their turn signals. And perhaps one percent of four-wheelers used their turn signals. Must not have filled up the blinker fluid.