Sunday Morning Coming Home

MyHusbandTheTruckDriver has been on the road for two weeks, but he'll be rolling in about dawn. Sunday morning and he'll be home for two days, then off again on Tuesday morning to pick up a load in Knoxville going back up north.

This run he's been to Florida, through the Carolinas, into Pennyslvania, then Chicago and Wisconsin, and back again. He was able to see his daughter in Georgia and his mother in Pennsylvania; I'm glad for that.

He'll be glad for two days without hot dogs or potted meat, and grateful for a king-size bed. Otherwise, his hometime will be uneventful by many standards. We'll run errands, do a little necessary shopping, see our children and grandchild, and rest. He won't have time to work on his project car or finish the new floor, and the weather is still too bad (too muddy) to work in the yard. We'll try to hold on to the next 48 hours together; they have to last us for two weeks.

March is here and winter will soon be behind us for another season. He keeps promising me I will go with him in the spring.

My One Car World

With my son’s car still on the outs, we remain a one-car family and this is my one-car world. My son Aaron has the privilege of using the family van since he goes to school all day and works all night, and I “borrow” the van when I have to go somewhere. Although Aaron hates the van, and definitely prefers his small, fast car to an old-people’s vehicle, he will deign to use it under these dire circumstances. He does feel that I am putting him out, however.

Tomorrow is a must-do-errands day for me, and I have a doctor’s appointment as well. Since Aaron doesn’t have school on Fridays, he works all day instead, so my first chore is to leave the house at 7 am and take him to work in Oak Ridge, some 35 miles away. Too far for me to return home (think gas prices!) and do my errands locally, I will spend the day in Oak Ridge and Knoxville. Maybe I’ll take in some thrift-store shopping and wander through Stuff Mart. Plus side, see my other son before he goes to work and have lunch with a girlfriend, get all the errands taken care of in one day. Downside, all day till Aaron’s quitting time at 6:30 p.m. away from home, and I’ll probably have to sleep most of the day Saturday to recover. (Of course, a lot of people would finding sleeping half the day on Saturday a blessing.)

Trucking News

My husband was home last weekend for 3 full days after having been out for 20 days. It was good to have him home, although he spent most of his “down time” trying to repair our son’s car, which still does not run and now sits. At least dh is heading south this run, to Central Florida, away from the icestorms and snow. He passed through Savannah yesterday and was able to have dinner with our daughter and son-in-law. We haven’t seen them in almost a year, so he was glad to be able to visit, brief as it was. Today he is heading back the way he came, and it’s getting colder by the mile.

Big Blue Truck

My husband has been an over-the-road trucker for a long time. He’s away more than he’s home, and we’re glad to have his infrequent off-times. We place our faith in God for his safety and also trust his exceptional driving skills.

If anyone was born to be a truck driver, it is he. He has driven hundreds of thousands of miles over the years, to every state in the continental United States except California (I don’t know why). Yet, he never seems to grow weary of the drive—always alert and with rapidfire reflexes, I have seen him avert accidents that less conscientious drivers surely would have suffered.

Sadly, though, there have been times when he has encountered tragedies on the road. It happened just yesterday afternoon as he was headed northbound on Rt. 27 outside of Blakeley, Georgia, on his way to today’s Cincinnati delivery. The driver of the big blue rig carrying a load of hot dogs apparently fell asleep at the wheel. Either he hit the pickup truck who hit the backhoe, or the other way around, but the big blue rig ultimately hit a tree and turned over on its side.

My husband came upon the wreckage just as the dust was settling, with cars and trucks and cops and ambulances in a huge bottleneck in the middle of the freeway. Concerned with the two vehicles that were hit, everyone was crowded around the pickup and the backhoe, and the driver of the big blue rig was still inside. My husband quickly grabbed the tire thumper from his own truck and broke the driver’s window to help him out, without pulling, only supporting him, to prevent any possible further injuries. Fortunately, the driver appeared to be okay, and despite his protests, officials insisted he be transported to the nearest hospital. The pickup driver was also uninjured, but it was unclear at the time if the backhoe driver would survive. With traffic tied up for 2 ½ hours, my husband could do nothing but wait and silently pray for the welfare of the other drivers.

One hears so much about truckers failing to use safe driving procedures and causing accidents due to negligence, fatigue, or worse. But as a trucker’s wife who has heard years of first-hand experiences from her husband, I am certain that trucker-caused accidents, like this one, are not the norm. While twelve percent of all traffic fatalities in the United States are caused because of truck accidents, the truck driver is not usually the one who is mainly at fault. On the contrary, more than 75% of all truck accidents are caused because of an error of the driver of other smaller vehicles involved in the crash. In fact, take a look at truck accident statistics here.

Still, with 4669 fatal big truck accidents in 2003 (out of 58,512 fatal auto crashes), 25% of the 12% is still way too high. I pray daily that my husband will never be one of those statistics. In this case, foregoing safety precautions such as downtime and sleep, nourishment, speed limits, and preparedness in an effort to “go the extra mile” just isn’t worth the risk.