There's always something

My wife would have loved this.

She loved animals. She would take her dog with her anywhere she went, given a choice. And she loved gadgets.

A rest-area water fountain with a built-in fountain for your pet? How could she resist?

I can see her now, grinning from ear to ear and saying “Awwwwww!” And running back to the car to get the dog and let him enjoy it.

The things you see just driving.

The things they remind you of.

I spent the morning in a fog.
Literally. Hundreds of miles driving through the mist. South from Pennsylvania and into Virginia. Through the Shenandoah Valley, where the fog finally lifted, bringing blue skies and the smell of silage everywhere.

At least I hope it was silage. That would have been an awful lot of fresh manure.

And then over the Blue Ridge Mountains and into Tennessee. Where the fun stuff happened.

The fun stuff
Ahead I saw a sign, telling me there was a weigh station ahead. Happens all the time, of course, especially when you've just crossed a state line. I moved into the right lane, where the station's electronics could query my PrePass* transponder. And I kept driving, waiting for the little beep and the green light.

Different beep. And a red light.

Still not unusual. They do random weight checks. Just drive across their GOOD scales, slowly. I knew I was legal, so it was no big deal.

So I pulled onto their scales. And they told me to set the brakes and bring my papers in.

Joy.

So I set my brakes and brought in my log. And my license. And my truck registration. And my bills of lading. The gentlemen looked them over quickly and asked for a few more things. After I'd parked my truck.

Gulp.

There are a lot of rules that cover the operation of commercial vehicles. I won't say it's not possible to comply with all of them, but—well, you know how your shoulders tense when you see a patrol car by the side of the road. Even if you're doing the speed limit and everything looks fine. “There's always SOMETHING,” you think.

Double for us.

If they want to look closely...

And sure enough. My personal papers (license, medical certificate,** etc.) were all in order. My bills of lading, likewise. The trailer was properly registered, and the inspection dates were in order. Ditto for the truck.

Except...

The Company changed insurance companies several months ago. They'd sent out memo after memo, telling us to get the new insurance card. I had done so. On at least three different trucks. I hadn't been in this one until this week. But by now, surely every tractor in the fleet had the new card, right?

Not this one.

Trouble.

And then there was the fellow looking at my log book. Checking it against his computer. Big Brother hasn't taken over the trucking industry completely, but there are things they can check.

I hadn't faked my hours. I wasn't worried. Much.

Until he turned and pointed at a page from the beginning of the week. And said, “See this date? You don't have any entries for the next three or four days.”

Uh-ohhhhh.

I looked at the book while he looked over my shoulder. And eventually I figured it out. I'd written down the wrong date on the first sheet for the week. I showed him where I'd made the mistake, and where the paperwork was that filled the gap. After some dubious looks, he decided he believed me.

Not that that got me off the hook. Falsifying Federal documents? If you do it on purpose, screwing up a log can put you in prison. Even doing it by mistake is good for a hefty fine. Not to mention their shutting you down until they decide you're legal. And if they were in the mood, it was a perfect excuse for them to carefully inspect the truck itself—and shut you down, fine you, or both, if they found ANYTHING wrong.

For some reason, they decided not to do that today. I don't know why. Maybe because I didn't talk back or try to dance around anything. I'd even written up that after-hours drive from yesterday (boy, wasn't THAT a nice thing to have them looking at?).

In the end, they wrote me up for not having proof of insurance. If the company sends them a copy of the card, they won't have to pay a fine. They gave me a written warning about driving after hours yesterday, but they didn't fine me. They let the date mistake slide. And they didn't take the truck apart.

I thanked them politely and walked back to the truck on wobbly knees. Half an hour later I parked for the night. Suddenly I didn't really feel like pushing my luck, for some reason.
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*PrePass(tm)
is a service that lets you pass weigh stations under certain conditions. Basically, a state that has a contract with the company will install weight sensors in the road just up from a weigh station. A trucking company that has a contract with the company will install a little transponder gadget in every truck's windshield. If the weight looks good, the weigh station's computer will frequently make a note in its log and tell you to keep going.
But not always. Sometimes your weight is close enough to the limit the computer says “double check.” Or the crew decides its your turn for a random sampling. Like today...

**Yeah, I have to have one. With me. All the time. Just like a pilot.