I dunno I think that engineer should work on getting the bike riders over there to slow down and pay attention. There are some other things we should not import from them also.
They aren’t all bad. I appreciate a couple of them instead of waiting for a long red light but some of the recent ones seem to be a solution looking for a oroblem
Driving is something I want to do as quickly as I can safely do. For much of my life, the faster I went, the more money I made. That is a powerful motivator. When the national 55 speed limit went into effect instead of 65 or 70it it cut my pay about 17 percent. The DOT would np longer let you make runs of 600 miles a day, they dropped it tp 500 because you were only allowed to drive 10 hours before going tp bed. They have changed that to 11 hours now.
After working 10-12 hour days, all you want to do is speed home, very little traffic cause most everyone else is already home, as fast as you can so you can eat and relax a few with the fam, then you leave as late as you can the next morning and have to drive fast to get back to work so you are not late…
Be careful what you wish for, I can already see these young “street racers” using roundabouts for drifting…
Every once in a while, I see 18 wheelers on my local roads, which lack a shoulder, and have both narrow lanes and small bridges with low weight restrictions. Most likely those truckers are lost, but when they are present on local roads I have to wonder about the damage that they are doing to those bridges, as well as the potential for accidents where they shouldn’t be driving those rigs.
We had a full sized 18 wheeler with a huge trailer come down our street to deliver an ATV I ordered. Instructions were to wait at the street entrance and call my cell. This is a dead end New England road with no shoulders and huge trees lining it and he was half mile down it with hills and curves. I’m like, brother I hope you are the best at backing this rig up anyone has ever seen or you can manage to turn around in the neighbor’s driveway. He chose the latter but it wasn’t without some entertaining shenanigans.
Big rigs are supposed to transfer loads to smaller delivery trucks if they exceed local limits. Last time I moved, this gigantic truck parked out front on a rural road on the downslope of the big hill. Come over the crest at 40 mph and see this thing blocking half the road. They were told they would have to shuttle but figured the guys setting it up didn’t know anything? At any rate, they had to get turned around and go to a local business parking lot and rent a shuttle truck because the cops were not amused.
Last story. I was responsible for designing an equipment rack set up for this company in downtown Milwaukee. 9ft tall cabinets on pallets and boxed. The driver drove that monster rig to the front of the office building and was like, how do I get this in the underground garage to off load? Seriously? He blocked traffic for hours as they worked to offload these huge palletized cabinets with forklifts, drive them down the steep access to the garage and into the freight elevators. How he managed to get that truck even into the city in front of the building was impressive.
I don’t understand what is drfting?
It’s this extremely dangerous practice:
If it’s done on a closed course, that’s fine. But, on public streets and roads? NO!
Thank you I have seen it few times and did’nt know there was a name for it.
VDCdriver is 100% correct, non pros doing it on the street is stupid dangerous… and not what the sport is all about…
“Real” drifting to me is like making a vehicle dance and drift battles is like couples dancing, it is an art form and takes a very skilled driver AND modified vehicle to do it correctly…
Controlled Chaos…
Drift battles probably takes the most skill of any Pro on road type of racing out there and is very hard for most drivers to learn…
The history behind Drifting and the pro way of doing it…
Lane width? If you have a wind turbine blade attached to your truck, lane width isn’t your biggest problem … lol …
I remember a postcard of a tractor-trailer on Lombard Street in San Francisco.
Sorry but super hard on expensive tires. Probably do a little drifting in the winter going around that new round about.
Most of my life I was a freight hauler. We were not delivery men. Our obligation was toget it to your loading dock, tailgate or curbsite and the latter to were only if your item(s) were small enough for the driver to handle. If you did not want to arrange for unloading you could refuse the shipment and we would call the shipper and ask if they wanted the freight back. If they did, they had to pay for shipping both ways. If they did not we woukd send then send them an “On hand” notice and after a certain period of time, our trucking company would sell the freight for the shipping charges.
I once hat a 7000lb lathe that went to Warner Jewlery Case in Buffalo/ It was in the middle of my trailer/. To unload it they would need a forklift and a chain to get it to the back of my trailer. To make matters worse, the old wooden building was just parking on the first floor with all the machinery on the second floor with narrow wooden stairways and no elevator.
The nice old gentleman who answered the door asked me how I was going to get it up the stairs.
I asked him for a phone book and showed him the number for JC Higgings Rigging company.
I told him they would come with a crane and tak out the large bank of second floor windows and swing the machine in. For an additional charge they will even move it into place for you.
He wanted to know who was going to pay for that. I said “All I know is, it won’t be my company”
I never found out if it got delivered.
By the way, most freight today is hauled bu independent owner-operators. These guys don’t have smaller trucks or lift gates to make deliveries with.
If you order something heavy to be delivered by truck, make sure you find out how it will be delivered.
I’ve had a fair share of being on the receiving end of a shipment both professionally and personally. Your tales are entertaining and I’m sure you had your fair share of people who were not prepared or had expectations that far exceeded what you were responsible to do.
We often have to hire both trucking and rigging companies at work for big equipment. Neither are cheap but the riggers usually cost more than the trucking…
I’ve been fortunate a number of times to have truck driver help with an offload. It helps to be nice and not assume they will help. If you don’t ask, that is usually when they offer if they see they can help in some way that does not risk getting hurt or damaging the shipment.
It pays to read and understand the delivery conditions. Sometimes, you are responsible for offloading, other times, it may be curbside or to the nearest door.
I’ve had situations where it was my responsibility to get the freight off the truck but then the guy shows up with a liftgate and pallet jack. Seeing that I am going to struggle to get my hodgepodge arrangement working, he drops the load and even offers to run it down the driveway to the back door. Very generous.
There’s lots of entertaining youtubes of truckers encountering Karens and Kens at the point of delivery. One woman had the gall to ask this guy to run his forklift down their driveway (curbside delivery) when the last time, they made a damage claim when he was trying to be helpful and do the same thing they asked. Another was a woman insisting they deliver palletized 16ft lumber to the backyard. Same as you described- you want it at the curb or are you refusing delivery?
We had the raw materials for a 14’x25’ deck delivered to our house. The lumber company drove the flat bed truck up to the driveway and they unloaded everything with a fork lift. I had them place it lengthwise on the driveway so that we had at lease one garage bay unblocked. I didn’t want them to drive the load around back using any equipment lest they tear up the yard. I carried everything around back with the help of my neighbor. These neighbors had just moved in and I guess he wanted to get off on a good foot with me. It worked. Aside: I really like his shiny gold suit.
We were always requires to help unload if it was something we could safely do/ Ther was a steep charge no one wanted to pay for inside delivery and the inside delivery had to be able to be accomplished by the driver. I was not allowed to make free inside delivery by the old ICC because that would be rate cutting which was illegal/
Yeah just depends. If you order shingles or lumber or sheet rock, they have a truck with the crane and put the shingles on the roof or sheet rock though a window.
I ordered an air compressor and just did home delivery for simplicity. I met the guy on the street with my hand cart and the two of us just put it on the cart.
My wife was gone for a week and I was looking forward to a quiet week in the garage. A truck shows up with seven 8 foot long, by 1 foot triangular shaped display cases. I go what the heck is this? I got the trailer out and the two of us loaded them on the trailer. So much for a quiet week. Wife called and said oh yeah forgot to mention we will store them and be the distribution hub for educational sessions around the country. So I had to weld up a couple of storage racks. Went on for a couple years loading some on the trailer to take to the freight company. Finally the program folded and I spent hours dismantaling them so parts could be recycled. I should just delete this but too late now.
At any rate the truckers seem more than happy to help to just get the stuff off their truck.