Legal in Canada

A couple of uneventful runs passed by this week, and I was wondering what to write about. Perhaps I should devote a blog to how bizarrely complex the paperwork is, considering we live in an electronic age…and I will sometime because it is all truly odd but another issue overtook the mental ramblings in the end and that is the insane hours truckers are expected to work. I don’t think of myself as lazy, but yesterday’s 16 hours seemed excessive, even if it is legal in Canada.

The rules go; you can work for a shift of 14 hours at a time, so long as only 11 of those hours are actual driving. In the US that is. Over here, 13 hours out of 14 can be behind the wheel. In effect, what with loading, unloading, vehicle checking, strapping things down and fuelling etc, it’s not easy to drive for 13 out of 14 hours, which is just as well, one needs to get out and jog round the truck from time to time just to keep the blood pressure up.

However, in Canada, you can extend your work shift to 16 hours if you take 2 hours off for rest sometime during the day. Or, you can pretend to. This is how the day went…

I got back to dispatch on Thursday at about 4 in the afternoon. I was quietly hoping there would be no work for me on Friday, quite often there isn’t. I’d been up since 4 that morning, just the 12 hour shift, and wanted a decent night’s sleep.
“There’s a load for you leaving at 2 in the morning.”
“What? I can’t do that, I need to sleep.”
“There’s no-one else, and your log finished at 3, so you can drive from 1, you’ll have had your 10 hours.”
“Legally, but not really. I’ll not get home til 5, I need to do laundry, sort out the cats, buy food…”
“That’s trucking.” My dispatcher says that a lot. It makes him feel clever.

They called the customer and got a delay on the delivery time, so that I could start 2 hours later. Gee, thanks. I dashed home, showered, made an omelette I didn’t really want, ate half of it and headed for bed about 7, to try and get some sleep before getting up at 3 in the morning to start driving again at 4.

It wasn’t a bad start to the day. I’d pushed the start round to after the 3 in the morning dip that everyone gets, and only drove a couple of hours in the dark. I always perk up when dawn begins and it turned into a happy enough drive to the same suburb of Detroit I’d been to last week. The one with the nice guards, the handy loos and the easy docks. Knowing where I’m going does help significantly with the anxiety levels, I found it, parked up an hour early and looked forward to a nice drive back in the daylight. I called despatch when I was unloaded and they sent through a drive round Detroit to a more northerly suburb to collect a load to return with. Excellent. Half an hour to the next customer, an hour to load, on the way home by 11 in the morning, an early finish. I looked the new place up on the map, plugged it into the GPS, decided I liked the route the GPS had chosen and set off.

Of course, some familiarity with Detroit would have helped. The route Betsy selected for me took us around a ringroad that wasn’t quite a freeway, it had lots of lights, lots of traffic and lots of road works. Lanes were coned off and shifted about here there and everywhere, cars and bikes were weaving in and out around me and the drive got a little stressful. All of a sudden the satellite went off and started making urgent beeping noises. We’re not supposed to read messages while driving so I left it. Then my cellphone went off as well, someone wanted me urgently. I picked up the message at a set of lights (still illegal but at least I was stopped) they had changed their minds, someone else was going to the customer they’d sent me to and could I pull in and call for a new assignment. Well the short answer was, no I couldn’t pull in. I was in the middle of Detroit in road works. You can’t just park a truck, it’s illegal and dangerous.

The only way I could stop was to find the nearest freeway, head out of town until the traffic thinned a little and pull onto the shoulder of an off-ramp. It’s still illegal but less dangerous. Michigan police patrol the roads very efficiently, I wouldn’t have long but I pulled over a junction past someone broken down with a patrol car in attendance, hoping their attention would be held by the ‘bear bait’ for a minute or two.

I had no idea where the new destination was, no time to look it up properly, so I punched it into Betsy with fingers crossed, she may not take me the best way round but at least she’d get me there. Of course, first I had to turn round and go back the way I’d come, and I’d driven quite a long way out of town to find a stopping place, so I was looking at another hour at least.

I don’t think, judging by the number of ‘Michigan turnarounds’ I ended up performing, that I took the optimal route. But perhaps it was a classic case of ‘if I were you I wouldn’t start from here’. The Michigan turnaround is an over-complicated way of turning left, that involves driving past the turning you need, taking a filter lane into a small u-turn crossing in the median, coming back the way you came and turning right instead. It’s not so hard in a car. Most of the little u-bends are built so that trucks can just about make it round but you have to be spot-on, remember to take up a lane and a half to start with and ‘bend the traffic’ as you complete the turn. All very well when you know where you’re going, but lost, late, sweating and trying to quell the panic, they are no fun at all.

I found the new shipper just as they went to lunch. There were two trucks in front of me waiting to be loaded. It wasn’t going to be quick, although in a way that helped me with backing into the dock. It was a setup where the docks are under cover, which means that although the yellow reflective marks which delineate the dock edges are there, you can’t actually see them until you are under the roof. When it’s too late to use them.

I called despatch.
“I’m waiting for them to finish lunch and load 2 trucks in front of me, it’ll be at least an hour.”
“That’s ok, we don’t need the load back until 9 tonight.”
“But if I don’t leave by 1 I’ll be out of hours, I started at 4.”
“You gain 2 hours when you cross the border, cross at Sarnia, you’re only an hour away, then you can drive 2 hours longer.”
“I can drive for longer but my shift won’t extend unless I take 2 hours off.”
“That’s trucking.”

In the end I left at 1.30. I could just make it if I made no stops and had no delays at the border. But Detroit had other plans for me. Betsy directed me, via another half-dozen Michigan turnarounds, to the freeway which would take me to Interstate 94 and the border. Road works had closed the ramp from one road to the other, and tiny orange detour signs funnelled everybody off onto a small local road to pick up the Interstate about 10 miles further north. It took an hour and a half to get round the detour and onto the Interstate. By which time the Friday afternoon tourist traffic had piled up heading for the border. I finally crossed into Canada at 4 in the afternoon, with two and a half hours driving to get home, and only two hours left in my shift.

Fortunately I’d wasted so much time driving round in circles in Detroit that I could rewrite my driving log and pretend that I had had two hours off in the middle of the day without making my driving hours conflict with the distance driven. Thus, suddenly, a 16 hour shift became legal because I’d crossed the border.

I delivered the load at 6.30, drove back to the yard, dropped the empty trailer, parked the tractor, finished off my paperwork and delivered it all to dispatch at 8 in the evening, having started work at 4 that morning. Maybe I’d have felt better if that mythical 2 hour snooze had been real. This is in no way remarkable, it’s the standard expectation. Now, I’m doing this for fun, out of interest, because I can and until something better crops up or the book is finished (whichever happens first) and I’ll survive it if I can and stop if it looks like my health can’t take it…but people do this for a lifetime’s work. These people work bloody hard and think nothing of it. I’m tired and I’m in awe. Off for a nap.

 

A trip of two halves

Finding a place for the first time only happens once. So some stuff will get easier as time goes by. When dispatch called to ask if I’d go out on Friday night it was by way of asking a favour, Linamar’s drivers appear to expect to have their weekends off. I could do with the Brownie points though and it didn’t sound too bad a run, drive over to some suburb of Detroit, sleep, deliver in the morning, collect a new load at lunchtime and be home before dark. Ok then. 

Then of course I thought it over. There are no truckstops or rest areas in Detroit. I called the company and asked whether they had any areas I could sleep. “Oh yes” the lady in the office told me, “just ask the guard, he’s very good, he’ll show you where to park.” I am realising that most of the anxiety around finding new places has less to do with getting lost than it does with not knowing where you will sleep.

I found this one after a minor panic trying to read unlit road signs on a small trading estate in the dark and the lady had been as good as her word. The guard at the gate was charming, directed me to a big ‘holding pen’ for deliveries that was easy to get into, easy to park in and easy to get out of. He showed me where the ladies’ loo was. Luxury. It was about 1 in the morning.
“What are you delivering?”
“Empty cartons, they’re due in at 8:00.”
“They get in at 5, they might unload you then.”
“I’d rather sleep until 8.”

I settled in for the night. I’m starting to sleep quite well in the cab. As you can see from the pic it’s a ‘bungalow’ with only one bunk level. I thought this might make for a bit of claustrophobia as the windows tend to be on the upper level of two-story cabs, so mine doesn’t have any. But once I’m locked in and curtained off it’s positively snug. Either that or I am so dog-tired that I’d sleep anywhere.

At 5 in the morning there was a hammering on the door. I peered blearily out of the window.
“What are you delivering?”
“Empty cartons.”
“They won’t be unloaded until 8.”

Apart from that minor annoyance it was a great place to deliver to. The icing on cake turned out to be big wide easy docks with loads of space in between, masses of turning room and yellow lines on the ground that were freshly painted and easy to see. Most warehouse docks have them, they make it easier to line the wheels up, but most are so faded and old they may as well not be there. I was offloaded by 9 and had been given permission to spend the next few hours back in their holding pen before setting off for my 1:30 pickup down the road. This was turning into a good day.

Things took a downward turn at the next customer, a small foundry in a more cluttered part of town. I arrived carefully early, assuming that most people who work on Saturdays want to get home as soon as they can. Oh dear, blind-side reversing off the road, this was going to be fun. The shipping office was empty. I ambled about a bit, looking for someone to wave at. Eventually I found a forklift driver who said he knew nothing about any shipments going out. He told me to back onto any dock and he’d see what he could find out. I was going to have to do it, there was no-one around to laugh and I was early so I took a deep breath, scoped out the available space, pulled round and into a driveway on the opposite side of the road and somehow, bit by bit, managed to blind-side the trailer into an approximation of the right position.

With much getting out to check and plenty of toing and froing, I managed it. I was about a foot from perfectly docked when jobsworth of the day appeared.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m taking my time getting onto your dock sir, I’m very sorry if I’m in anyone’s way.”
“No, I mean why are you here?”
“I’m collecting a delivery for Hastech in Ontario.”
“That dock's are around the back. And you’re early. I’m not ready yet, I haven’t even started to sort it out. Why are you early? You should be here at 1:30”
“I’m sorry to be early sir, I didn’t mean to cause you any problems, I’m just very new and I didn’t want to get lost and be late. I have no wish to rush you sir, I can wait.”
He seemed slightly mollified by this and the body language became a little less antsy. 

He showed me a small, grubby map of the foundry and how to get to where I needed to be. Which was not only ‘around the back’ but down between two buildings, past a load of cars, around in a junkyard behind the foundry and into a tiny dock between two small walls. My time-consuming but beautiful blind-side manoeuvre had been pointless, and a sight easier than the next one was going to be. 

I continued to grovel. I told him that it would take me ages to get onto the dock so that I would most definitely not be early by then and that there was no need to alter his (clearly vital) schedule for the day. I am wondering how long I can keep up the hapless rookie routine, it seems to work wonders with inspiring assistance and cooperation from all and sundry. Jobsworth became positively helpful on the surface, although I do think he went for lunch anyway before getting anything ready to load. To be fair to the continent of North America, he is the first jobsworth I have encountered so far, they seem to be rarer here.

It took about 10 minutes in the end, to wiggle past the cars, turn avoiding the junk, miss the little walls and get approximated onto the dock. Then I looked at the way out. That was going to take some time too. I waited about an hour, calculating how late I could leave and still be home before dark. It was just about possible when I called the customs broker to see how fast they could expedite the border paperwork. “Our computer’s down, we’re going to have to walk it over physically, could you lose about an hour before you get there?”

Fortunately Detroit was being dug up that weekend and I was cleverly able to lose an hour and more driving round in circles trying to follow ever tinier diversion signs in rapidly diminishing visibility due to torrential rain. I was getting tired by then and wanted nothing more than to get home and start my Saturday. I decided to forgo a meal stop and head home as fast as I could as soon as the border was behind me, but the world had other ideas. More torrential rain, an accident closing off the highway and for the third time this week I found myself being diverted off the only road between the border and civilisation. The emergency detour route takes one on a charmingly pretty meander round farms and small Ontario towns. On a nice day, when you are not exhausted and desperate to get home it is probably lovely, but in the rain, after a day when you have done nothing but sweat and worry, and as the light is fading, it is pure torture.

I got back to Guelph about 9. It was still raining. Hastech happens to have a dock built at an annoying angle to the building. I can manage it in daylight.

Still tired.



.

Is it wrong to exploit the accent?

I’ve survived another trip, and the anxiety levels are decreasing slightly. As the list of things I’m not sure if I can do decreases and I relax a little more (for the most part of the day) everything fits into place better too. Being less exhausted before you start helps of course, and I seem to be getting a bit of my intelligence back now there’s room in my head for things other than blind panic. When the directions on my trip plan didn’t coincide with either the road signs or what Betsy wanted me to do (that voice on the gps has to have a name) what went through my head was “Ah, the directions must be from Southbound, not North and she’s trying to route me on a divided highway” which is a generally more helpful thought than “OMG OMG OMG I’m going to get lost!”

I have now approached and crossed the border at both of our usual crossing points enough times that I have lost the need to panic about diversions, paperwork and traffic. There are five main highway routes in and out of Detroit and I have found each of them from the Bridge without incident, and conversely found the Bridge from each coming the other way. Which means that the inevitable wait in a queue of other trucks to be processed has become a little rest, time to look around and think about the world, instead of time to be thinking “OMG OMG OMG, what have I forgotten?”

There are 7 or 8 commercial lanes usually open at the Windsor-Detroit border. That’s the crossing point that Michael Moore used in Bowling for Columbine, to see why people didn’t shoot each other so much in Canada. Windsor is a sleepy little town with one road leading to the bridge and lots of traffic lights and shopping plazas along the way. Detroit is, well, Detroit, with a tangle of Interstate connections, loads of construction work and diversions through deserted industrial wasteland; and panhandlers on every corner. The contrast is quite striking now that I’ve calmed down enough to look at it. The traffic is fairly manic, which unnerved me at first but I am learning now that the traffic is also used to masses of trucks, so has a pretty good idea of what you are going to need to do and how much space it takes up.

The 7 or 8 commercial lanes are generally full of trucks, lined up, waiting their turn to approach the border guards' booths. Everyone is quizzed. The questions vary but the intent is the same, to make sure you are who you say you are, going where you say you are going and carrying what you say you are carrying. With electronic pre-approval by customs, mostly they know the answers to all the questions they ask. They have on a screen in front of them who you are, what’s in the back and where you are going. But they expect you to tell them anyway. Allegedly, your demeanour while doing so will display suspicious signs if you are up to no good. Every so often the slow progression of trucks through the booths will come to a stop. A green light above a lane turns to red and the body language dance begins at the back of one of the trucks. Someone is being inspected. The trailer will have to be unsealed and opened. The driver must do this, observed by as many guards as can be spared to make sure he knows exactly how much trouble he is in. The uniforms don’t need the aggressive stance, the one person not in uniform may or may not have displayed the wrong sort of demeanour in his cab but is now moving in as passive a manner as he can possibly achieve. The hands still rest on gun holsters though. Just so you know. Sometimes they are sent on their way after a satisfactory search, sometimes they are sent for X-ray, sometimes (and this is what everyone dreads) they are turned back to their country of origin to start the customs paper trail all over again. This means someone’s freight will be very late.

That worry overlays the preparation for questioning every time. I am getting better at the ‘how to be ready’ routine; hat off, sunglasses off, light on in the cab, window down, papers and id card ready, turn off engine, don’t set brakes, make eye contact. And I even managed to remember where I was going and where I’d been the last couple of times, this is significant progress. I have been declaring my apples, but no-one else has wanted to see them. I think they just look for new and silly ways to rattle and annoy you, just so they can object to your demeanour while annoyed. My accent seems to upset some, they demand to know my citizenship. The first time this happened I told the truth…”British and Canadian.” This did not go down well. “You can only have one.” These are Yanks of course, it’s true for them. I go for the easy option now and tell them I am Canadian. This seems to satisfy, although of course my dual citizenship is flagged on my ID card. Go figure, as they say.

This trip went well. I think it has helped with a spot of optimism. I found the place I was looking for in Ohio in record time, was early, got onto the dock relatively untroubled and was loaded and ready to leave in good time to get home before dark. Famous last words. I called dispatch to let them know I was leaving.
“How much room do you have left in the trailer?”
“Lots, they only loaded 7 bins, about 40 feet.”
“We’ll find you something else to load on the way back, call in when you get to Michigan.”
This would be the first time I would have to find somewhere without printing off an emergency Googlemap as a backup for getting lost. I am trusting Betsy a bit more now but belt’nbraces makes me feel better. I dutifully set off, calculating how long my detour could take before I’d be parking in the dark again.

But despatch are good at what they do. My detour was on the way home, a suburb of Detroit. The nerves set in as I programmed Betsy to find it but she was a star and got me right there in record time. I still might make it home in daylight. Then I saw the dock. In a car park. It was a blind side reverse, I never did get any time to learn those with my trainer, she kept saying we’d work on it but then we rushed off somewhere else. And here, dear readers, just in case you still think I’m a bit intrepid, is where I let the side down on a massive scale.

A charming young man overheard my conversation with the shipper. “I love your accent,” he schmoozed. “What are you driving?” He looked at the highway cab which was too big for the carpark. “How’s your blind-side reversing?” I put on my best ‘Mary Poppins meets Maggie Thatcher’ voice, the one that makes everyone swoon over here and simpered disgustingly.
“Not very good I’m afraid, I’m rather new at this.”
“I’ll direct you in and show you how it’s done.”
“How lovely of you, thank you sir, you’re an angel.”
He smiled delightedly, I appeared to have made his day.

Now years ago I would have sent him off with a flea in his ear for daring to imagine that just because I was a woman my blind-side backing might be a bit suspect. Even though it was. But these days, now I’m an old lady, I’m just flattered that anyone would feel good about helping me and relieved that one more assignment worked out ok. I’ll have to reverse blind-side some day on my own, maybe I learned something from his instructions.

By the time I was trying to get back through Detroit I was trusting Betsy enough to take in my surroundings again. She directed me under and around the Breathe-Out Bridge and I knew we were nearly home. This bridge forms part of Interstate 94, which takes you out of Detroit to the west. It is formed from bright blue girders and roughly coincides with the traffic calming down and spreading out a bit. I didn’t realise it was the point at which I had been breathing out until my trainer said to me “I’ve never seen anyone hold their breath for the whole of Detroit before.” That was then though. I’m even breathing better this week.