I really need a break.

Its summer and I really need a break from all the crazy drivers out there playing chicken with their lives and mine.

So I am on vacation and going camping. Not too far from home, and just for a few days.

Post: The camping trip was the perfect get-away for me and the girls.

Justice will not be mine?

Biggest pet peeve of most people is those who you think cut you off in traffic. Well it happens way too much to us professional truck drivers out there. The typical driver in a car or small truck don't see what we do, and we don't see what they do. OK. But if you are driving where a truck driver can't see you, then well you are in a blind spot and we couldn't have cut you off if you were driving in that spot.

So leave 3-4 car lengths of space when passing a in front of a truck to ensure that they see you and can have time to react if you need the space. That's the space you need to be safe.

So this week, and wonderful little Infiniti G35 passed be to an on ramp to the 401. He left only inches between himself and the wall to slip in front of me. Well that same driver was pounding the trunk of his car about ten min later when I passed him... He had TWO flat rear tires and was stuck on the shoulder of the 401 WB.

Giving out parking tickets???

So this past week I was getting more and more annoyed with 4-wheelers who parked in and around loading zones which would make it impossible for me to get loaded and unloaded at the shippers .... So I found online a site which you can get funny tickets to use for jokes... The ones I found were very insulting and nasty. I didn't want to be that mean. So I made my own tickets up and had them printed on neon orange paper at the local copy shop.

Friday I used 6 'tickets'. Four at a grocery store downtown Toronto. This store has a very narrow ramp for the trucks to back down to get unloaded. At the street level there is just enough space to back the truck into and open the rear doors before backing down the ramp. The truck and the ramp are very visible to the car passing that area. The problem is that there looks to be enough space for the truck to get out from the vantage place of the 4-wheelers who decide that they can park in the loading zone... marked by paint and sign age on the wall that its a loading zone and they can be ticketed for parking there. Yet people park there. Its not very close to the store entrance.

So of course while I was trying to back off the street and into the Loading Zone. two cars tried to park in the spot where I needed to go. I just pulled the horn and starting to back up. They moved away. once in the dock I walked back up and told two other cars that it was a loading zone and to find parking in back (which is closer to the store than the parking in front) they moved. I had grabbed a bunch of 'tickets' from the truck knowing that I would have to use them when I was trying to leave. After unloaded for all of 10min. I found three new cars parked in the loading zone. I walked up to each and made a show of witting the 'ticket' and then placing it under the wiper. By the third ticket was being issued. A lady with bags of food came running up to me and starting to plead with me about the ticket. She has no clue that its only the city parking authority who can give out tickets. She was freaking about another ticket which she could not afford.

I took pity on her, and told her that it was a joke ticket and that it is how I vent when people block trucks and myself from working.

What a great laugh!

police on their cell phone

Howdy,

Just wondering if anybody else has seen a cop on their cell phone while driving? I see it far too often on the roads, esp in Toronto, Ontario. I am concerned that their might be a double-standard when it comes to the anti-cell phone laws. I don't understand that with their union that they can't find a way to have a hands-free device mandatory on their cars.

Should I report their usage to the police? Of would cops policing cops be a bad idea?