Big shocker yesterday

[Tinkerer]

We had a fleet (12) of Polish truck brokers hauling stone to one our jobs. None of the drivers could speak English. Their boss rode around in a car and told them what to do.
I watched one of the drivers raise his load (a semi) with the tailgate latched. A small amount of stone came over the top of the tailgate. He lowered the trailer box and left the job for what I guess, was another load.
How in the world did he ever get licensed ?

 

[Nige]

Around here we have a load of Polish guys working as electricians. Every sparky company wants to hire them because they are such good workers. The younger ones have good English, the older guys not so much but they get by.

Regarding the Sikhs, I worked in India for almost 4 years and the Sikhs were the best, most hard-working Indians I came across in all that time. Even today their effect on Indian society is totally out of proportion for the percentage of the population that they make up. They have a major presence in the Indian military, engineering, and IT sectors for example. It would kinda surprise me a Sikh not speaking English, especially in the US, because from my experience they seemed to do education for fun (one translation of Sikh in Punjabi is "learner") and they picked up information like sponges. Today's factoid that may interest only me - All Sikhs have the name Singh (lion) as part of their name, as do a few members of other religions who are not Sikhs. An old Indian hand once told me "Remember that every Sikh is a Singh, but not every Singh is a Sikh".

 

[DMiller]

Not certain this one was a Sikh, the one in ADM either, they just wore head coverings wrapped around, could have been Pakistani for all I knew. The two of them were not too bright and I will wonder what illustrious politician set them up for success as the one could NOT back a trailer and the other would not accept safety as a rule.

 

[Nige]

You may well be correct DM, and I agree that the lack of English makes it more likely that they weren't Sikhs. In a similar fashion to my comment above "All Sikhs are turban-wearers (it's part of their religion) but not all turban-wearers are Sikhs"......

 

[Wes J]

The two of them were not too bright and I will wonder what illustrious politician set them up for success as the one could NOT back a trailer and the other would not accept safety as a rule.

I've met many class A CDL holders who could not back a trailer. Could not do it. Period.

I figure they went to a truck driving school years and year ago and got their license that way. Then they worked in another field or drove a straight truck and never had a chance to practice backing. If you don't use that skill, you lose it.

I grew up on a farm. We were backing up tractors with wagons and manure spreaders and any other kind of implement from the time we could reach the peddles. I could back up double gravity wagons for short distances. One time I watched my grandpa back a hay baler onto a deckover trailer. The trailer was 8' wide and the centerline of the tires on that baler were a few inches over 8'. He did it in one shot. You do something for 70 years and you get pretty good at it.

But, 99.99% of people don't own a trailer or ever practice backing one. If you don't believe me, hang out at the local boat launch ramp. I've felt so bad for guys before that I backed their boats in for them.

Same with shifting gears. I didn't drive a non-synchro transmission for about 10 years. When I got back in one it was like Swift driver training. Took me a good week to get the hang of it again.

 

[ianjoub]

One interesting feature of their belief system is the Kirpan. It is a serious dagger carried on the belt in plain view and all the old men in the grocery store or wherever wear it. It is always to be worn in order to be able to defend the oppressed and defenseless.

You can imagine this does not meet with the approval of modern governments very well.

That sounds like our God given right to protect ourselves that the 2nd Amendment is supposed to uphold.

 

[ianjoub]

I watched one of the drivers raise his load (a semi) with the tailgate latched. A small amount of stone came over the top of the tailgate. He lowered the trailer box and left the job for what I guess, was another load.
How in the world did he ever get licensed ?

Maybe he went to have the yard fix the tailgates so they would open again...

 

[Kiwi-truckwit]

Around here we have a load of Polish guys working as electricians. Every sparky company wants to hire them because they are such good workers. The younger ones have good English, the older guys not so much but they get by.

Regarding the Sikhs, I worked in India for almost 4 years and the Sikhs were the best, most hard-working Indians I came across in all that time. Even today their effect on Indian society is totally out of proportion for the percentage of the population that they make up. They have a major presence in the Indian military, engineering, and IT sectors for example. It would kinda surprise me a Sikh not speaking English, especially in the US, because from my experience they seemed to do education for fun (one translation of Sikh in Punjabi is "learner") and they picked up information like sponges. Today's factoid that may interest only me - All Sikhs have the name Singh (lion) as part of their name, as do a few members of other religions who are not Sikhs. An old Indian hand once told me "Remember that every Sikh is a Singh, but not every Singh is a Sikh".

I saw writ somewhere else: Sikhs are the 7/11 guys, not the 9/11 ones."
I got a chuckle out of it.

 

[DMiller]

Reminded me of the Old Days for Garrett Motor, Freight Pig Iron Express and Roadway, ESPECIALLY for Roadway. The old hit on the doubles draggers is they thought the Big "R" on the Shift knob was for Roadway, never tried to put the lever to that gear!!

Easiest way to lockup a Roadway Dragger was to park in front of him, could not go anywhere!!

Watched the Yard Boys at Garrett in SLC back triples into parking slots for the draggers to haul out from, pretty much same for the PIE yard men, could make monkeys of almost anyone backing full sets up.

 

[RZucker]

Reminded me of the Old Days for Garrett Motor, Freight Pig Iron Express and Roadway, ESPECIALLY for Roadway. The old hit on the doubles draggers is they thought the Big "R" on the Shift knob was for Roadway, never tried to put the lever to that gear!!

Easiest way to lockup a Roadway Dragger was to park in front of him, could not go anywhere!!

Watched the Yard Boys at Garrett in SLC back triples into parking slots for the draggers to haul out from, pretty much same for the PIE yard men, could make monkeys of almost anyone backing full sets up.

I used to haul dry fertilizer to an outfit that had their unloading pit in a blind alley. Easy for me with a 40' hopper bottom, drive in, back out.
But... there was a guy that used to come in there with a set of doubles... and back them out. he did have a lock on the turntable, but he got out almost as fast as I did. I think he had a bit of practice.

 

[Nige]

Back in the day at one of the local factories the entry to the loading dock was a bear, especially seeing as you were driving a 40-ft tri-axle curtainsider trailer equipped with super-single tyres. It was reverse in, drive out and started with three 90-deg turns all on the truck driver's blind side. Then down a ramp and into a 60ft-long loading dock with no more than a couple of inches clearance on each side of the trailer. You had to put the trailer in until the bumper hit the dock at the far end even though all offloading was done from the side. The loading dock guys used to run a book on how many shunts a new driver would have to take before he finally hit the buffers ......

This photo is pretty much exactly the same setup, but my weapon of choice in those days was a Volvo F12 rather than a Scania 113.

 

[digger242j]

Just a reminder of these Forum Rules:
No discussion of politics unrelated to the heavy equipment industry should be made. Slanderous references to political beliefs or parties should not be made within these posts, such as flaming lefty, right wing zealot or other similar type label.

No posts of religious or racist content may be made.

There are good reasons those rules were written, and they have served us well over the years. This thread certainly tiptoes along the edge of those rules, if not occasionally past the edge.

I appreciate the fact that the discussion has been reasonable and balanced. The last thing the Moderators want to have to do is actually moderate...

 

[Crummy]

How is it they can barely speak English and still get licensed?

but as far as I know, there's no requirement to speak, read, or write English to get a drivers license, or a commercial drivers license.

Actually, there is a [loose] CFR reg on that for CDL's (see below).
I know a guy that was a creeper cop and that was a really frustrating part of his job working the fixed scales-
'where are you going?'
'Apples'
'what are you carrying?'
'Atlanta'
And then hit speed dial and try and hand him their cell to talk to someone at the mother ship. I asked if he ever wrote a citation and got "Pfffft! Yeah, right...."
I still think that the reason I got so many Level 1 & 2 inspections is that I was profiled (0 driver & 0 vehicle violations showing on their screen for the past 5 years as I rolled through). Got to adjust my tinfoil hat, hang on a sec....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
§391.11 General qualifications of drivers.
……….
(2) Can read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, to respond to official inquiries, and to make entries on reports and records;

 

[Old Doug]

The sad truth is if it wasnt for foreighners things wouldnt be as cheap here. Truckers are like everyone these days alot know just enough to get by and dont care about bettering their skills.

 

[Tones]

I know India or Pakistan and many of the heritage Asian people are here in the US and working here. Have seen a few drivers at the grain depots picking up or delivering but yesterday saw one Full Turban wearing driving a YRC truck, Placarded for HAZMAT. I was under the impression had to be a Citizen be FBI vetted and Pass a severe written test for HM License, then as this guy got into a yard he got all afoul with his SINGLE trailer where he had to have someone else remedy the condition to move on, he could NOT back the rig.

Was at ADM St. Louis, another had left his truck on the grounds and was walking about where their safety man caught him No Hard Hat, the moron set the offered Hard Hat on top of his turban where he was explained to no value the hat needed to be ON his Head not his Hat and got banned from the site.

WHO licensed these morons? What test are they given that so many of us have issues passing? How is it they can barely speak English and still get licensed?

It's the same here in Aust, maybe worse. We have so many different nationalities who have been allowed to flood in over the last few years. The MOT even have a translater service so they can get a drivers license BUT all road signs are in English. I'm currently working on a motorway upgrade and the site has 5 No Entry and Road Closed signs and these buggers still want to drive through. They are happy to argue the fact that they need to drive through until it's pointed out that it's illegal to drive passed a Road Closed Sign and that I'm going to call the Police. Some have even offered a couple of hundy not to. I've been thinking that it could be quite a good earner standing there all day.

 

[old-iron-habit]

Don't know about much about CDL licenses anymore but there are plenty of immigrants working the ports in the northwest. From what I've seen the Sikhs are the quiet hard working group of the Muslim faith. There are some temples up here but you don't hear much from them.

The generation thing generally followed rich people who owned companies. I've seen several companies where that happened.

Took the words right out of my mouth. I'm third generation to hard working grandparents and parents, but not rich in all cases. The third generation rich of business folks has nothing to do at all with how long they been in the states.

 

[Wes J]

Truckers are like everyone these days alot know just enough to get by and dont care about bettering their skills.

There's no room for complacency in any industry.

Sometimes it's just a matter of being out of your comfort zone.

Today I was working a job hauling clay from a borrow pit to a job site with short dump trailers. Terrible sandy dirt roads that were way too wet. I did OK with full lockers and lots of speed. Guys were getting stuck left and right.

Poor kid in front of me had obviously never driven a big rig off road. He could not figure out how to shift the thing in the soft terrain. He'd be stopped before he grabbed the gear. So, he switched to trying to start out in a higher gear. He'd kill the engine 2 or 3 times before going back to low gear. But, you just can't make it out in a low gear. Not enough momentum.

It's a tough place to try to learn. Everyone is cranky from getting stuck themselves. Then this kid is holding up the show every time he comes through. I'm sure he was frustrated and having a dozen truckers watch you stall your truck will make you feel pretty low.

I thought about tossing him out of the truck and driving it out to blacktop myself. But, he's got to figure it out somehow. I don't know if I could teach him how to grab some gears without him stomping off the job. I might try.

 

[Birken Vogt]

Terrible sandy dirt roads that were way too wet. I did OK with full lockers and lots of speed. Guys were getting stuck left and right.

I'd like to think I can drive pretty well in bad conditions but I have little patience for this sort of thing any more.

If you want to run a job site then you need to improve the roads such that trucks can run on it easily in the conditions encountered, not make everybody try to be a big hero and risk tearing stuff up.

 

[Wes J]

Absolutely. We're not going back until they get their act together.

The job was poorly planned. Working in a sandy river bottom. Trying to move 35,000 yards of clay with no built up roads. I suspect they way under bid it.

But the other issue was the equipment some of the guys showed up with. Long sleeper cab trucks that could not make the turns. One guy had super singles. He was stuck on some wet grass.

 

[DMiller]

A great deal of 'Distance' dump truck operations here are going super single as seem to do better with the highway miles while less expense to maintain, outside of a improved work yard or roadway they are like hogs on ice and about as worthless. For running grain, clay or rock from a yard to a yard with great roads and sites they do well just NOT jobsite excavation areas and definitely NOT sand.