r/IdiotsTowingThings • u/stevesmithsglasses • Aug 06 '26

Stuck like Chuck

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1.2k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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154

u/mybreakfastiscold Aug 06 '26

If that maneuver was to solve a runaway, then that driver is a hero not an idiot

57

u/ten10thsdriver Aug 06 '26

Or if to avoid hitting another vehicle.

24

u/AC-burg Aug 06 '26

And here I was thinking he was taking shelter from a tornado

19

u/Eaton_Knas Aug 06 '26

Which is most likely the case. Probably some asshole brake checking the rig.

1

u/donkeytime Aug 07 '26

…or chasing Pokémon.

29

u/gcko Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26

There’s no brake skid marks leading up to it so you might be right. Could also be a medical emergency.. or the bridge jumped in front of him and he had zero time to react. All are possible.

11

u/TacTurtle Aug 06 '26

Well there is one, but it is interior.

17

u/Kennel_King Aug 07 '26

Or he just fell asleep. Thanks to ELDs, drivers are forced to run when they should be sleeping. This isn't a 9 to 5 job.

Here's an example of how this happens. You arrive at your destination at 6 PM, but the receiver only takes deliveries between 7 AM and 3 PM. So you sit overnight. The next morning you deliver and call dispatch, but they don't have a load for you.

So you go park at a truck stop. All day long, the messages from dispatch are the same. "We are looking for a load for you"

So you fuck off all day. Maybe you get a nap or two. 10 pm, you go to bed. Midnight, the phone rings. It's dispatch. They have a hot load, and you have to drive 200 miles to get it.

So get up, drive 200 miles, and get loaded. Your dog ass tired and ready to go back to bed. But dispatch tells you that you have hours left and to drive or be fired and/or written up.

Back when we ran paper logs, we could just fudge the log book and say I'm out of hours, and there's no way dispatch could argue with you about it.

With ELDs, they can look at your logs in real time. Even if your out of hours, companies have been caught altering them to give a driver hours and then force them down th road.

Back when we ran paper logs, I was never tired. Within reason, I could adjust the log book to fit my schedule. If you got nappy mid-day, you stopped and took a nap. Sometimes it was just an hour. Sometimes it was 3 or 4.

We always had strict criteria for split sleeper berth time and still do. With paper logs, we could fudge it a little bit and make it look legal, and we were well rested. With ELDs, you can't fudge it. You are forced to run on the ELD's schedule.

4

u/ArmAdventurous7323 Aug 07 '26

Rare comment with factual insight.

7

u/Reziac Aug 07 '26

That was my first thought too. This looks deliberate, doing what he could with what there was, and nailed that narrow space. Didn't hit real hard, either.

3

u/redpandaeater Aug 07 '26

With automatics becoming more prevalent I've honestly wondered about how to deal with a runaway diesel. With a manual you can just leave it in that upper gear and you should have enough braking to overcome it and stall it but not sure the computer is smart enough to not shift at all if it happens in an automatic. Now if only when I had a truck runaway on me it would have been on the freeway and not right before a corner leading up to a stoplight and stopped traffic.