10-4 Magazine - For Today's Trucker

JULY 2006 TRUCKER TALK
STORIES FROM THE DOT
By Writers and Owner Operators Rod & Kim Grimm

Last month I wrote about stories from truckers. This month, a few DOT officers were kind enough to tell me some stories about their experiences with some of the drivers they’ve stopped over the years.
Before you complain about these men and women who do inspections, think for a minute about what kind of equipment you might be forced to drive, if not for them. Let’s face it, we try to take the best possible care of our equipment, but none of us roll under on a creeper every morning as we do our pre-trip. If you’re an owner operator, you know that if you don’t take care of your truck and trailer, it will eventually cost you plenty. But some companies wouldn’t care what the rig was like if they could find someone to drive it no matter what shape it was in. I’ve known drivers that were happy to talk to the DOT when their company wouldn’t make needed repairs. With the ticket, the company is forced to get the work done (that’s pretty sad).

One officer told me what he tells company drivers: “We both drive vehicles owned by someone else and we both represent someone else when we’re out here, whether it’s a company or state.” I thought that was a great comparison. Some tickets are given at an officer’s discretion. Think about this the next time you feel the need to give an officer grief instead of respect and proper paperwork. We all want the same thing – safe equipment and safe highways.

This first story started out with a quote from the DOT officer that I loved: “I was there and I don’t believe it!” The officer had pulled over a driver with long blonde hair. The hair was not unusual, but some of the things found were. Inside the truck was a checkbook with a woman’s name and women’s clothing. Thinking something bad might have happened, they searched further. They found the evidence that proved the driver hadn’t done anything illegal – the proof was in the pictures. This male driver had an “alter ego” and pictures of himself striking sexy poses while dressed in women’s clothes. But you still have to check out things like this – it’s how the bad guys get caught sometimes.

Here’s a case of never knowing who might be in the truck you’re stopping. One early morning this officer stopped a driver to let him know that his trailer lights were not on. The driver pulled over and then jumped out of the truck dressed in a white leisure suit, beads and sandals (mind you, he was driving a Frito Lay truck, and I think they have uniforms). Turns out the driver was manic depressed and had left his mental health institute, stolen the truck and didn’t know how to turn on the lights. If he didn’t know how to do something as simple as that, it’s scary to think what might have happened if he’d gotten in a lot of traffic.

I’ve often wondered what officers think as we pass along the information about their location or talk about them to others on the CB. Here is a classic case of this. In the dark of the early morning, a couple well-lit big trucks almost pulled right out in front of a DOT officer as they were exiting a truck stop and entering the highway. As the officer rolled by he heard, “Oh crap!” come over the CB. He kept cruising along at 65 mph until he heard, “I wonder where that DOT went?” The officer saw two sets of headlights coming up behind him at a pretty good rate. When they were almost up to him, he turned on his lights for a second to give them a little warning to slow down. Then he heard, “Oh crap, we found him.” They slowed down and stayed behind – the radio went silent. Being smart, the officer switched over to channel 13 and found them again, saying, “I wish he’d stop.” As the officer turned north, the drivers again complained, “Oh crap, he’s going north too. He sure is screwing up our time.” Passing an exit with a truck stop, he heard them say, “He’s not getting off. I wish he’d stopped for coffee.” The officer got off at the next ramp and heard, “He’s getting off, but watch him, he’s a sneaky one.” Waiting about thirty seconds, he came down the ramp behind them. Again, “Oh crap, he’s behind us now.” Rolling up beside them, the officer invited them to stop at his scale a few miles up the interstate. Their trucks were in good shape and their logbooks weren’t too bad, but they’d been trucking right along through the night. Thankfully, these guys had not said anything nasty on the CB like some drivers do.

During another stop, this same officer was giving a trucker a ticket for being overweight and for some logbook violations when a carload of men pulled up and started yelling at the officer and making obscene gestures. The guy getting the ticket probably thought this cop was going to really get nasty with him now. But what the guy didn’t know was that the car was full of the officer’s buddies (off-duty officers) who were on their way to play golf. The officer had a hard time to keep from laughing. He didn’t throw the book at the driver he had pulled over, but instead cut him a couple breaks.

I would call this one nice try. At 4:00 am in a small town on a winter morning, an officer stopped a dump truck pulling a trailer with a loader on it to tell him that he had a chain dragging and sparking. Upon stopping him, he noticed that there were no chains holding the loader down on the trailer. Walking up to the truck, the driver got out, but didn’t see the car that had stopped him. The officer told him about the dragging chain and questioned him about the lack of chains holding the loader down. The driver proceeded to tell the officer that this loader had new tires on it that gripped the trailer and didn’t need any chains to hold it on. When the driver got back to the officer’s car, he realized that this was no local city cop, but a DOT Commercial Vehicle Enforcement officer. Trying to undo what he had already done, he said to the officer, “You didn’t believe that stuff I told you about the tires did you?” Oops!

Sometimes officers get to know drivers. Getting caught going around the scale with 110,000 lbs, the fine was sizable. The driver told the officer, “You just put me out of business. Now I have to go home and sell the truck.” One year later, working the night shift, the officer pulled the same guy over for going around the scale again. This time, weighing 95,000 lbs, the guy said the same thing again, “You just put me out of business. Now I have to go home and sell the truck.” Not yet learning his lesson, he went that way one more time and again said the same exact thing to the officer. After the third time, maybe he did go home and sell the truck – the officer never saw him again. But if he did go home and go out of business, it certainly wasn’t the officer’s fault!

Two officers were in the middle of the road talking when a U-haul truck went by. Four people were in the front seat (made for three) and the driver was smoking what looked to be a marijuana cigarette. When stopped by the officers and asked if they had seat belts to wear, the four people scrambled to buckle up with only three belts – it was like musical chairs with a seat belt. It didn’t really matter, they were already caught. As it turned out, the truck was a rolling meth lab, and because they had stopped something that didn’t look right, the officers got it off the road. I certainly don’t want to share the road with something like that!

We’ve always believed that it’s better to “keep your ducks in a row” all of the time, that way you never have to worry about crossing a scale or getting pulled over. We all know where the scales are, but you never know when you may be randomly pulled over for an inspection. I’ve always thought you’d have to be a moron to pull up to a scale with your logbook three days behind or obvious problems with your truck and/or paperwork. That kind of silly behavior just screams, “Pick me, pick me!”

Maybe you can look at officers in a different light. One said, “I’m doing the same job you are – just trying to feed my family.” Another said, “You look at things differently after you work your first fatality truck accident.” I can’t imagine doing that – cleaning up the mess after a bad wreck and trying to direct the traffic havoc they create. Some officers do double duty as highway patrol as well as DOT. It varies from state to state. Remember, your attitude, good or bad, will determine a lot of what happens if and when you get pulled over. In this situation, if you’re caught and you’re guilty, arguing isn’t going to help. You might as well be nice to the officer – you never know, maybe he’ll cut you some slack.

Another officer told me a personal story that is probably a lot like some of yours out there. His daughter was diagnosed with leukemia; luckily she was able to have a bone marrow transplant and lots of blood transfusions and was cured. Until this, the officer had never donated blood. Now it will take him 17 years to replace the blood his daughter received in 71 days from various, anonymous donors (you can only donate once every two months). He told me only 5% of the people donate blood. It really made me think. I’ve seen mobile donation vehicles at truck stops before. Blood has a short shelf life and when you think of all the surgeries and blood needed every day in this country, all of us that are capable should be donating. And for this officer, I’d like to ask all of you that can to go and give to your local blood bank or to one on the road. It might be you or someone in your family that needs it!

I would like to thank these guys for the stories they told me and, like the drivers, I promised anonymity. They see a lot of things on the road and if it weren’t for them our roads wouldn’t be as safe as they are. They also told me that they do appreciate all the accidents we (truckers) prevent every day by avoiding drivers who aren’t paying attention to what they are doing. So give these DOT folks a break, be nice to them and appreciate what they do. They are a lot smarter than you’d like to think, too, so don’t try to pull the wool over their eyes. They’ve seen it all and done it all. They help keep us safe – whether we like it or not!