(Links to other parts, as well as TL;DR at bottom.)

I worked for a transportation contractor outfit that specializes in construction (meaning, I drove dump trucks and related) for a decent sized company. For what it's worth, I probably took more bullshit than I deserved. To start, I was primarily assigned to a flatbed transporting monstrous steel slabs from the shipping terminal to the receiving plant for processing; before long, I was operating various other equipment such as bottom dump, demolition trailers, and more, but that's for later.

The company I worked for itself was pretty solid in it's daily operation: customers working on construction projects called us to move material such as dirt, rock, asphalt, debris, you name it. We had our own mechanics and repair shop in a separate lot a couple miles away, a sizeable fleet, and then some. That aside, our vehicles were not in the best shape by any means, and it didn't matter if you pointed the blame to the drivers or to the mechanics, both fell short in one way or another.

When I started, I took over the aforementioned flatbed assignment  from another driver as he was being reassigned. The truck I, "inherited," was, to say the least, not great. Over the few short months driving it until I was, "upgraded," the truck put me through so many electrical issues and breakdowns that all the mechanics finally had to step up to the company owner and tell him, against his own order, that they're refusing to keep the truck. The final break that put it out of our misery was the steering column completely collapsing into my lap immediately after navigating a curved bridge - had it happened sooner I wouldn't have been able to steer through and could very well have crashed through the railing into the crick below. I had to pick up the wheel, weight of the column and all, rotate as much as I could while holding, drop it into my lap to regrip, and repeat.

The truck I was reassigned to was some 90's green Peterbilt that, for some strange reason that not a single person was able to explain to me, started in limp mode until the engine was adequately warmed up. To the common tongue, after idling for the first 15 minutes for the mandated pre-trip and air brake test, I had a top speed of 10 miles per hour. If that.

After getting onto the public road and limping down to the shop, holding up traffic no less, I pull in and explain the situation to the mechanics. Apparently the truck is well known, and no one bothered to inform me when I was reassigned to it that it requires no less than 45 minutes to warm up to negate the limp mode. So on top of coming in early every morning to confirm my assignment, to begin paper work, to clock in and do my 15 minute pre-trip and start my DOT Hours of Service clock, I had to wait for another half hour before I can even properly drive the truck.

So, that's exactly what I did. For the next two weeks, I began my log with a 45 minute pre-trip. For those two weeks, no one was the wiser, at least until the company owner took notice. He came down into the truck yard and right up to me, screaming that I'm stealing his time and money. I tried politely to let him know the situation with the truck, but he kept interrupting me and told me that I can't be doing that; all he is going to pay me is the time spent for the customer, 15 minutes in the morning for the pre-trip, and 15 minutes in the afternoon for the post-trip. He finalizes his statement by storming off.

Anyone else with a lick of salt would have told him to shove it up his ass, that any time with the vehicle should count and that I'm being robbed of my time. That's not a wrong way to go about it either, in fact most MCs here seem to go that route. However, being young and relatively naive, I went another route, as if this being Part 1 would have told you otherwise. I decided to take that compliance to the fullest. I'm only getting paid for the 15 minutes out of the 45, then by golly that's how it's going to be.

I revised my morning routine. This time, the very first thing I did was to start the engine, go get started on my paper work, and come back to my truck and enjoy a full breakfast while I wait for my 30 minutes to expire and I can then start my 15 minute pre-trip. Sometimes I would come in, start the vehicle, and leave to get breakfast before coming back, taking however much time I wanted before actually charging the company, without being late to my assignment of course.. I knew the results wouldn't be immediate, but soon my first TWO malicious compliance moments with this outfit came to shine.

The first one, I completely expected, I just didn't know how soon it would occur. The fleet supervisor is making rounds for whatever reason, something tipped him off. He takes note of me starting my truck relatively early on in his rounds. He goes around, inspecting all the trucks that are still there (reminder, I have to plan ahead for the warm up routine and travel, so I'm typically one of the first drivers to show up). Clearly, he wasn't filled in on this particular truck, and close to finishing his rounds he finally notices that I'm still there, in an idling truck. He comes up to me and asks why I'm not working. I flat out tell him, as matter-of-factly, "I'm waiting for my truck to warm up." He was completely taken aback, that I just gave him a completely rookie answer. "Why the fuck are you wasting your time," he switches to a mockingly-condenscending tone, "waiting for your truck to warm up, that's complete fucking bullshit, get to work!" I tell him, "this truck caps out at 10 miles per hour if I don't let it w--" He quickly cuts me off, "That is a total bullshit excuse, we are not paying you to sit around with your dick in your hands!" "You're right, you're not." "Then the fuck you doing here wasting our fuel?" "I'm not charging the company for this time. I already had that talk with the owner. You go talk to the mechanics and find out why this truck takes so long to warm up, it's not my fucking problem." He scoffs and glares, trying to call the foreman, but couldn't reach him, so decided on demanding I'm not around in the yard and that I'm working by the time he gets back, hops in his SUV, and peels out of the yard.

The second did actually take me by surprise. Since there was a week-long break for maintenance at the job I was typically assigned to, they reassigned me for another project with the same equipment. As the usual, came in and fired up my truck, deciding that morning I was going off site for breakfast. I didn't go far, just down the road for a notorious breakfast-themed fast food joint, dining in. However, when I returned, someone had turned the truck off. I hadn't given myself that much of extra time to accommodate for another round of waiting for the truck to warm up. I touched the hood and noticed it was cold, so it had been shut down almost immediately after I left. A bunch of drivers were in the office getting their assignments, so I stormed in and yelled, "Who turned off my truck?" Lo and behold, turns out the truck supervisor was guilty. "I did, you're burning up all your fuel! You don't just fucking come in here, start your truck, and leave!" I was a bit baffled and stared. "Do you not remember us talking about that truck needing that much time to warm up?" He rolled his eyes, "if your truck is running, you're working, and I didn't see you around." I stared at him before switching my eyes over to the dispatcher, who's pretty close with the supervisor and, if I may to really express my dislike for him, the supervisor's bitch. "Have fun explaining to the customer why they're going to have a truck coming in late!" "The fuck you talking about? Are you threatening me that you're not doing your job?” "No, I'll be there, but you all need to have a talk with the fucking mechanics and find out what the fuck is wrong with that truck, because I'm not driving it at dangerously low speeds. If you wanted me there on time, neither of you would have fucked with me like you did. Mind your fucking business and stay out of mine." I stormed out while they were yelling after me, got in my truck, and limped to the mechanic's shop to wait out the remainder of the 45 minutes, charging the company for once the full time, claiming it was being looked over.

I never did hear back on why it took that long to get out of limp mode, nor did it ever get fixed. As far as the mechanics were concerned, it worked. To be fair, once I had gotten used to the long startup, I bonded pretty well with the truck and learned all it's quirks, and other than it lacking A/C didn't have much to complain about. Not that I was going to hold on to it very long either; the real problem that I was facing from then on was, in fact, with the flatbed...

TL;DR Reassigned to a truck that takes 45 minutes to become operable. No one believes me.

PART 2 (I think I'm going to post the rest of this on that sub.) https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtheroad/comments/im7fr1/my_truck_saga_part_2_the_trailer/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

PART 3 tbd

(Links to other parts, as well as TL;DR at bottom.)

I worked for a company that contracted construction vehicles and drivers to other companies for projects. Workers for hire, if you will. To start, I was primarily assigned to a flatbed transporting monstrous steel slabs from the shipping terminal to the receiving plant for processing. It was an easy gig for the most part, usually yielding 70 hours per week and had a pretty good comradery of a coalition of workers from various companies to bullshit with.

I also talked with a few of the terminal and plant employees as well, and every now and then there would be a hint that the operation was going to change in a drastic fashion, but since it was in the planning phase there were no true details to relay. Regardless, each time I brought these up to the other drivers and to my own supervisor, I was always shot down, being told that these are nothing more than rumors, it's not going to happen, there's nothing that's going to change this, I'm just a, "paranoid kid who's young, dumb, and full of cum." Finally, the details started pouring in. The plans were being solidified, so I did my duty by reporting all of this to the supervisor so he and the higher-ups would take note and action. I even let the company over know a couple times, but even then I was told that I'm just spouting fairy tales and excused.

The plan itself was that the shipping terminal was effectively shutting down pending new ownership, and that the operation would start receiving the product from a shipping terminal directly across the river and state line. The difference this made was instead of sticking to commercial streets at low speeds, we now had to transport across interstate highway, public streets, avoid rush hour traffic and run operations at night to do so, and to handle the product weight at such speeds and length of travel we needed new equipment. I had already complained that the flatbed I'm assigned to isn't adequate for the job as is, that it's a danger in itself. Roughly every three months, the driver-side leaf spring on the same front axle snaps. I could count the seasons by it breaking, and the new route would only guarantee an accident.

Yet again, my comments, my warnings, were shrugged off. I was labeled as a paranoid youth admist a company of elders who knew what they were doing and how to get the job done. It wasn't until a couple months later when the transition began to the new terminal that other drivers weighed in on what was going on, throwing my company into a scramble to get proper equipment, to set things on track. In the coming month, things turned into a mad house because the higher-ups, claiming they had no notice, were not prepared. They rushed.

Unbeknownst to us workers, at this new shipping terminal, we already pissed them off. Some time ago, the terminal workers were on strike, and our dispatcher and another employee violated their strike conditions by entering anyway. They initially denied us entry when the day finally came, and the entire operation was delayed. It took an apology from our company owner to allows us to continue. With that, we were able to resume and carry on.

I was the last to get an upgrade. One of four new-to-us four axle heavy duty flatbeds.

It lasted four days.

The way the processing plant would unload the product was to lift it with a large magnet on a crane. It was well over 50 feet in the air above the trailer when there was a pause and everything around came to a halt. There really wasn't anyone around, so it's hard to say what happened, but immediately after the pause, I watched as the slab dropped from the magnet, and with a deafening crash toppled down onto the trailer, the boards flying off and away, the truck launching into the air.

Four days.

Returning to work the next day, I found I was assigned to the trailer I used previously. I immediately argued, the trailer is not going to be sufficient, the trailer is going to break, it's not adequate, an accident is going to happen. What it came down to is if I refused to do the job, I'll be fired. I'm just being paranoid. I took the trailer to the foreman, hoping he would agree with me and say the equipment wasn't adequate, but alas he too figured I was being paranoid. He did a look over and cleared the trailer for operation.

"Hold the light, will ya?" I was quoted as saying next week. A tongue in cheek rhetoric I called out over the CB to my friend in front, obviously knowing there's nothing he could do to alter the traffic light coming up after the off-ramp from the interstate. A quote the company's compliance officer and the project supervisor ended up trying to use against me. Immediately after I said that, I entered the off-ramp, significantly slower than the, "recommended speed," knowing full well the trailer could barely handle it. But today was different. Starting out at the rear-end of rush hour traffic, first lap of the shift, coming into the off-ramp. With a loud snap that had me fooled for a gun shot, I looked into my driver-side mirror and saw my trailer dip down from the sudden weight drop, the passenger side lifting up. Exactly what I feared came to light as the flatbed completely flipped over and took me with it. All I remember is looking out of my driver side window and seeing the asphalt racing up to meet me, and a loud thud. When I came to, I was almost completely upside down, people calling for me on the CB, and my leg pinned between the seat and the door. My friend was panicked on the CB, trying to get a response from me. I grabbed the handheld and, trying to make a joke to reassure him I'm okay, I hailed back, "I'm alright, just hanging around."

When I was finally cut free from the truck, I was thrown into the back of the meat wagon, where, despite showing no injuries other than my pinned leg and still showing 100% mobility; my clothes were cut and removed, I was strapped down, and subjected to CAT scans, alcohol and drug testing, and left in the emergency room pending all results, head still strapped to the table. I was left like that for hours, with just the ceiling to provide me visual entertainment. When everything came back, I was finally unstrapped and given the run down: Only possible injury I sustained was trauma to my left calf per the pinning and need to watch out for muscle strangulation. Otherwise they had nothing to hold me for, as my CAT came back clean.

I returned to work the next day and was endlessly harassed in an attempt to a false confession of speeding. I held my stance, I wasn't speeding; I demanded to be given a different trailer but was told that my options were either to take it or be terminated, and the foreman who looked it over agreed stating the trailer is in operable condition for the job; and if they're so insistent on the idea that I was speeding that they can go show me evidence. "It's fucking impossible to flip a god damn FLATBED, the fuck you mean you weren't speeding?" "What I mean is I told you to get a new damn flatbed and not stick me with that piece of shit I labeled as condemned!" "That was never your call to make!" "Then fire me. Fucking fire me if you honestly believe I caused that rollover." They had nothing and were forced to move on from it, covering all the damages to the roadway.

I also found out I was plastered all over the news - both television and radio, someone had filmed my yelling for help - and completely shut down the ramp in both directions for 6 hours. In the end, because of the accident, the company was forced to invest in black boxes to record all vehicle activity and speed. Watching the news coverage on it, reading the articles, seeing all the videos and pictures regarding it, it was extremely hard to figure out just how I made it out just about unscathed, let alone alive. During the recovery efforts, it was mentioned, the road crew had to cut all the chains and binders to free the trailer from the slab because of how well I secured it.

As a result of the accident and being reassigned, I was no longer making the money I was, and ended up moving in with a friend to make it more affordable. None of my mail was forwarded immediately as it was supposed to be, and as such some of the mail never made it to me until a few months later. One of which was from the state DMV, saying that because I didn't submit a report on the accident as required by state law, my license was effectively suspended roughly three months before I read the letter. On top of a $35 fee, I had to resubmit the report. I took the original with the time stamp by the DMV agent and had them make me a copy, had that agent time stamp it a second time, and submit it. I called the state DMV the next week to confirm it had been received; it hadn't. I went in again, obtained a 3rd timestamp and signature from another DMV agent, and told them that if this isn't sent in that I will start coming in daily until the state says they have it. The following week, still said it didn't come in. I took the week off and went in, daily, cutting in front of the line and being the epitome of a male Karen, demanding that my report is submitted with each agent's time stamp and signature being added to the page and that if my license is suspended again I would sue. I don't know on which of those attempts finally made it to the state, but I finally got a confirmation the following week.

Tl;Dr I was in a big accident that was cited as a mechanical malfunction and could have been avoided if my superiors listened to me. Equipment signed off as operational. No citations received. State DMV agent doesn't submit my report, license was suspended.

Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtheroad/comments/im96hb/my_truck_saga_part_1_the_truck/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Part 3: tbd

Submissions are no longer restricted. Feel free to post any stories from the road that might fit here, be you delivery driver, commuter, cyclist etc.

A few yeas ago I went on a Field Service trip to work on an MRI in the NW of the US. I flew into SeaTac and was supposed to have a connecting flight to a small town in the middle of now where. As I was waiting for my connection it go cancelled, so check to see what the deal is. the town in mountains and fogged in. They normally have 4 flights a day there but only one has made it in the last 4 days due to fog. Well I need to get there on time and don't want to spend the night at the airport. I look it up and it's about a 3 hour drive. Immediately I switch my rental car reservation and head to the counter to cancel my connecting flight. While in line I strike up a conversation with a guy (John) who seemed like he had a pretty good buzz on. Once he hears that I am driving to the flight destination he asks if he can hop in with me. I ask him if he knows the way, which he does, so I agree. As we are talking another woman (Mary) hears us and asks if she can jump in. It's not my car, my company is paying for gas and I am a nice guy so I say sure. Now the 3 of are talking and another woman (Sue) hears our conversation and she jumps in. Now I have 3 complete strangers taking a 3 hour drive with me. It will help me get around some of the mountain passes that are closed and keep me awake.

We make our way to the car and leave the airport. I haven't eaten for a few hours so I immediately find a burger joint. Mary gets out of the saying she is going to smoke(420) and John joins her. I ask Mary if she had it with her on the plane and she says yes, along with some pills in my bag. Now I am thinking great, this chick has a bunch of drugs in my trunk, if I get stopped I am screwed, but we are already on our way so I say fuck it, and head in for my burger. I eat, they smoke we get on our way.

Sue is in the front seat, Mary and John are in the back seat. As we hit the road John and Mary are having a conversation that I can't really hear, and Sue is very quite so I turn on the radio, but can find nothing but country. I am a 35y/o black male with dreads, I don't do country, but it's was a distraction so I left it on. About 45 minutes into the ride I check my rear view and see that Mary has moved right next to John. All I can see is their heads but I thought I heard a slight moan out of Mary, but I don't turn around to see what is going on, or make it obvious that I am trying to hear what is going on behind me. But I definitely heard a moan, and think that he has his hands in her pants.

Now I am trying to strike up a conversation with Sue, to keep my mind off what's going on behind me, and to keep her from hearing what I think is going on. We talk about her living in Tx and her kids, husbands business and whatever I can think of to keep the conversation going because she is not much of a talker and we have nothing in common.

At one point I look in the rear view and I can't see Mary's head anymore, but I can hear some ruffling in the seat behind me, where John is sitting. Now I am thinking that this chick is back there giving him road head. After a few minutes of silence from the back Mary pops her head up and asks if anybody wants a breath mint, Sue and I decline.

We are now about 2 hours into the ride and we stop at a rest stop. Mary (who throughout some conversations we had I knew was a strange bird) starts telling us about her 50th birthday and how her boyfriend took her to a park and nailed her in a rose garden. Her and John enjoy some more 420 and we hit the road.

45 minutes later Mary's head is gone and I hear ruffling from John's seat. Son of a bitch!!, this guy is getting road head again and I am the one doing all the driving. Again she pops her head up and asks if anyone wants a mint.

We make it through the mountain passes and reach the town we are heading to. Sue starts making phone calls and wants me to drop her off at a McDonald's where her family was going to meet her. It's 2am and I am not comfortable leaving her there. She insists and gets out of the car. As she is leaving she tells us that she didn't want to be a downer during the ride, but she is coming home to where she grew up because her father is not doing well, and they are basically on a death watch. Well that sucked, I wished her the best, she thanked me for the ride and left.

Now I know through conversations (when she wasn't going down on John) I knew that Mary was going home and lived in a trailer park. But when I got to the hotel John was staying at, they both got out. OK they are going to continue hooking up. Damn it, I did all the driving and this guy is going to get the ass. She did tell me that if I was in town long enough to swing by her place at some time. I wasn't that interested in her to drive out to her trailer park. They both get out thank me for the ride, I head to my hotel and never hear from them again.

TL:DR Picked 3 strangers at SeaTac, drove them 3-4 hours home. Guy finger blasts a woman in the backseat, then gets road head twice. Found out one of my passengers was on a death watch for her father. And I am not a taxi driver