Find a urinal, dirt bag!
I am starting to think truckers don’t know where the bathroom is anymore. When I go into a truckstop and me and someone from the truckstop have to get rubber gloves to pick up bottles of urine, the drivers who left it are dirt bags.
If you are using a bottle in your truck, you are a dirt bag. If a scale house has to get someone in to wash the lot as people can’t use the Porta Potties – those people are dirt bags. If you are at a rest area and you can’t walk 10 feet as you are parked right next to the building and instead relieve yourself next to your truck, you are a dirt bag.
If you are parked in a no-parking spot next to the fuel island at a truck stop and I am at a restaurant across from your truck and you relieve yourself next to your truck, you are a lazy dirt bag.
I am getting sick of this. This is bio waste, and if I see truckers doing this I will continue to call their companies, then the police, as this is so wrong, and it is indecent exposure for those who don’t know.
Chris Zondlo
Stanwood, Wash.
Industry Needs Help to Lower Prices
In response to a letter about lowering gas prices in your October issue: Charles, the letter’s author, thinks the answer is for the owners of trucking companies to join forces; this will not work, though.
I, a company driver, have been threatened with my job for wanting to participate in a strike or protest. It will not work unless I, the company driver, know I am getting something from it. Not a maybe. Also unless we, as an industry, include something for the people who are not directly associated with this industry, we will be a minority. If we want this to work, we need to find something the majority of the people, truckers and non-truckers, want.
Now, we are not saying this is the answer, but every time we at Trap Rats (groups.msn.com/TRAPRATS) have done this – and we have tried it several times – eight out of 10 people want or think we as a nation should have one voice, one vote, and let the American people vote on the laws they live by and where their taxes go. Then we as an industry can address our problems with the majority of the nation’s support.
Daniel Perry
Johnston City, Ill.
Always Be Alert
I was lucky enough to find a parking spot for my rig in the west-bound side of the Oasis Service Plaza on I-80 south of Chicago – the one that is built like a bridge over the highway. The food court is huge and serves both east and west drivers.
I woke up and was getting out of my truck to go in and buy some expensive coffee when a guy approached me with a worried look on his face. I thought to myself, “Here we go again.” Another stranded traveler wanting some money for gas. We’ve all met them before.
Well, it turned out that he was frantically looking for his missing truck. He asked me if I had seen any other Schneider truck parked out here. I pointed to the only one here, and he said that wasn’t his. He said he had only gone in the building to use the restroom and get some coffee, which he was holding in his trembling hand, trying not to spill it. Then it hit me. That big food court over the highway.
I asked him where he was headed today. He said he was headed for Indiana before his truck got stolen. Dilemma solved. He was out here in the west-bound parking lot. His truck was still waiting his return in the east-bound side. He asked me not to say anything to anyone about this as he was really embarrassed. I told him that we all are open to mistakes like that.
I drove over 50 miles in the wrong direction one night after leaving a truckstop before I realized it and turned around. Now that can get expensive on both fuel and being late. This poor guy was really awake now but relieved to find out his truck was right where he left it. I hope he didn’t lock his keys inside.
Scotty Simson
East Dubuque, Ill.
Write us
Send your letters to Randy Grider, Truckers News, 3200 Rice Mine Road N.E., Tuscaloosa, AL 35406, by fax to (205) 750-8070 or by e-mail to [email protected].
Letters must include your name, address and phone number for verification and must be no longer than 500 words.
Letters are subject to editing.
