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Troy: Alright, hello and welcome. Today is May 1st and it is 28th episode of Big Rig Banter. Lenay, how are you doing today?
Lenay: 29, Troy.
Troy: Oh yeah, it is the 29th.
Lenay: And can’t you sound a little more excited to be here? Like it’s May 1st!
Troy: Alright, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you’re right. It is May 1st, the weather’s warm, I am feeling good. Lenay, how are you doing? Are you enjoying the summer weather? You seem to be in a chipper mood.
Lenay: Yeah, I’m pretty excited because travel season officially starts in like 2 weeks. I leave for Utah and then I have a bunch of trips planned.
Troy: What else, where do you plan on going? And I am I included in these travel plans?
Lenay: You can drive if you want. No. I’m flying to Utah for a few days, one of my best friends lives out there in Salt Lake City, and then the next weekend, I’m going to Pittsburgh, then I’m driving from Pittsburgh to Woodstock, New York. Have you ever been there?
Troy: I have not, but I heard there was a big festivity that went down there, not too long ago.
Lenay: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Woodstock New York is actually where the Woodstock Music Festival was supposed to happen, but they ended up actually having the festival on a farm in Bethel, which is like an hour, maybe 45 minutes away. But anyway, the town of Woodstock is, you know a cute little hippie town, lots of shops and stuff. And of course, the festival still put the town on the map so it’s a cool place in the, I guess it’s the Catskill Mountains of New York so it’s beautiful up there.
Troy: Nice, that sounds exciting. I’m not gonna do much traveling, I’m gonna be doing a lot of wedding planning still.
Lenay: Oh yeah, that’s right. You are still going through with that.
Troy: Yeah we are, yeah she didn’t run away yet.
Lenay: I don’t know how.
Troy: I know, early September’s the wedding, so we’ll be doing a lot of planning. I might take a beach trip or hang out with some friends. I do have some off days planned, but I don’t know exactly, we’re gonna be doing a honeymoon up to Maine shortly after the wedding so that’s gonna be really exciting. That’s the furthest I’ll ever have been traveled.
Lenay: Oh my gosh, well Maine will be beautiful in the fall, hopefully, you can plan it out where you’re there while its peak foliage.
Troy: For sure, I’m excited. But truckers, we have an exciting episode for you today. We’re doing some safe driving tips for summer, you know, we’ve covered winter driving tips before, but summer actually has some different hazards to look out for, that’s for sure.
Lenay: Yeah definitely. So Troy was able to get an interview for everyone listening and that’ll-you know that interview will kind of discuss the different things you might encounter in the summer. And I don’t know if anyone saw on YouTube, but Troy and I published last week a video where we went of some ways to protect your skin from the sun, so you can check that out as well. And feel free to share it, tag us #BigRigBanter on Twitter so we know that the conversation’s starting. But that’s just, you know, some tips to avoid that trucker tan. I know one time I was driving through the Mojave Desert and that was the first time I realized that you could actually get sunburned in the car. My whole left arm was exceptionally tanner than my right side, so I’m sure you all can relate to that.
Troy: Yeah, and we also wanna know what you thought of my glorious outfit in that video, I know Lenay was a big fan of it. It was her idea.
Lenay: Yeah right, I really wanted to give him some Willie Nelson braids, but he wouldn’t go for it.
Troy: Yeah but we definitely enjoyed filming that video, truckers we hope you enjoy it, we wanna see what you guys think of it. But let’s jump into the interview. We’re talking with Pax Rolfe from Melton Truck Lines. But let’s give that a listen.
Troy: Alright, I’m here with Pax Rolfe, the Safety Generalist at Melton Truck Lines. Pax, how are you doing today?
Pax: I’m doing very well, doing very well, thank you.
Troy: Good. You know so, the weather’s warming up, you know, and how does summer driving differ from winter driving, you know? You know, obviously there’s no ice or snow to worry about, depending on where you are, I guess. But there’s still hazards while driving in warm weather, are there not?
Pax: Absolutely, I think unfortunately one of the–people don’t think about summer driving as much as they do about the winter driving. Again, the weather changes and you know, you’ve gotta–probably the first thing that comes out, we start talking about winter driving, and I do our publication, a safety topic guide that we put out and this month’s article, getting ahead of it, is on hydration and summer issues. We really, we just start diving into heat injury because that’s the, probably the biggest thing that’s going to affect drivers as we go into the summer, as they are exposed to high temperatures and being able to recognize when they’re in danger and take action, or recognize when other drivers are in danger and take action and also the things that they can do to help prevent those heat injuries.
Troy: And what’s the biggest misconception about summer driving. You know I think a lot of truckers realize, it’s summer and they can either just roll the windows down or crank the air condition up. But it’s definitely more dangerous than, I think, people think.
Pax: Yeah, absolutely. One of our terminals at Melton Truck Lines is down there in Loato, Texas and it’s funny I think probably if I looked up the temperature, today’s temperature for Loato, it’s probably in the 90 degrees, might be touching 100. So, as you get down into those Southern states Florida and Texas and Arizona, the temperatures can come up real quick, even in early spring. So, you know, you got to be prepared, you got to–I mean hydration is one of the biggest things. If you know the weather is gonna be hot that day, and you’re gonna be out there working in it, you gotta be you know–thirst is your guide. If you’re feeling a little bit thirsty than you should probably drink some water. You also want to alternate some sports beverages in with that. Some Gatorade. Avoid caffeine, which for truck drivers is gonna be horrible because you can’t get me without my coffee. And you know, I may be an office guy now, but I’ve got four or five years of flatbed under my belt, so I’ve been out there and I’ve done that and experienced these things. I can remember a time when I worked a day and helped a couple other drivers get their loads secured because they weren’t experienced with the flatbed and so, helped them get their loads secured and then I ended up having to do my load, and then hit the road. And I probably got no more than an hour or two into that drive and I just felt, I didn’t feel well. And it was almost like I was, I wasn’t tired but I was still kind of just really drained and so I pulled over and I just stopped for the night and I mean, I can’t tell you that when I woke up it was just, it was really odd and I recognized it at that point that I had been suffering from heat exhaustion. And so, when you get to that point, and it’s not hard to do because it kind of sneaks up on you, you really gotta kinda be aware and be prepared for those things. So, you know, we put the pee charts up every summer in the bathrooms so that you can detect the color of your urine and tell what your hydration level is. Hopefully guys don’t turn that into too much of a competition. Just how clear they can get.
Troy: Yeah, and you know before drivers hit the road what are some things they should be expecting? I know obviously with the hot macadam they can put some wear and tear on the tires for sure. What are things drivers should definitely keep in mind before they even head onto the road?
Pax: Absolutely because you know driver’s a big part of it, but the truck is the other part of the equation, and you know, tires is the first thing. That’s your contact with the road, during the winter months, you might actually get away with, a tire that’s not inflated as much as it should be, and the danger there is an underinflated tire is going to get really hot and eventually blow out. In the winter, it may not reach that temperature to have a blowout, but when you’re in the summer and the hotter temperatures, absolutely an underinflated tire, especially on your steer axel, is gonna be a huge danger. So, you want to pay attention to tire pressures, checking those on a regular basis. Pretty much I tell the guys, every time you get fuel, you need to check those tire pressures. And I think there’s truck stops that are doing tire pressure check stations, also as a service. Yeah, you know and every evening when you finish your day, or at least that’s what we teach you here at Melton, is you know, you do a really good post-trip. A lot of guys call it the pre-trip, we do it as a post-trip, and you know there’s 120 inspection points that you do just on the cab of the trailer, but the main ones in the summer, you’re really wanting to make sure–does you air conditioning work, that’s what you’re going to be using to cool off, and then from there you’re looking at your hoses, make sure those are in good condition, and that they’re not cracked and that the clamps are tight, you know they look okay. And then your coolant level, do you have some extra coolant? That’s something that you might want to consider, you know putting in your side boxes. You know, you got an extra jug of coolant and water to be able to you know, replenish it if you lost some. You know, it’s a good spring-cleaning thing, it’s nice to just get the truck washed and get all that winter salts and stuff and you know get the inside of the truck cleaned out and just kind of generally make a healthier environment. Particular to flatbed, we’ve got some freight that tends to be temperature sensitive, that we’ll warm guys about. You know, not that it makes it dangerous, but it’s a concern that you want to be able to pay attention to. Say this freight reacts to temperature, rolled roofing and plastic pipe come to mind as stuff that we talk about. And just having some emergency supplies, you know, couple extra gallons of water, because it the truck was to break down, you may be in some areas kinda on your own for a little while. You have to be self-sufficient, and I think most truck drivers are kinda of that mindset, that they like to be out there by themselves, open road, and self-sufficient. So, I think a lot of you guys think about that.
Troy: And you know, recently we just put out a video talking about that driver’s tan that some of you guys get where you kind of have the one arm sunburn going on. Do you have any other tips for driving in the sun? I know that’s a big issue, I know that there’s the photo circulating around online of a driver that actually half his face you could tell that the wear and tear that the sun did on his face and it was really drastic.
Pax: I can tell you that driver is not a flatbedder, we get outside the truck enough and work in the sun, so we get the chance to even out that tan. But I can see how that happens. You know, what comes is to mind is as predatory as truck stops can be with the stuff that they sell, the prevalence of cheap sunglasses, and you know having a few extra pairs just laying around at any moment, because we have cameras in our trucks and so we get to do a lot of after accident analysis and we really like it because in many cases the camera footage has exonerated our drivers and accidents that were initially being blamed on us. But I saw a couple accidents recently and I don’t know if it was due to the time change, but you could absolutely tell the sun coming directly at the driver was a factor in them not being able to recognize that–you know in one case a guy ran over a stop sign, just clean ran over a stop sign that was stranded in the middle of the road but he was making a turn and then you could tell how much the sun was a factor. And you know, and as you’re coming up to traffic lights with the sun behind them a lot of times it’s hard to tell–you know a good pair of polarized lenses can be really helpful and then I go back to a book I read a long, long time ago called Bah Bah Black Sheep, and it was about Pappy Blindson, the ace fighter pilot, had a TV show for a while, too. And a little trick that he wrote about in the book that he would spot in any aircraft coming out of the sun, was he would just close one eye and hold his thumb over the sun and he said you know, you could then see around and I’ve used that trick you know, pulling out of my driveway in the morning and trying to pull onto the highway when the sun is, you know I’m looking into the sun to see oncoming traffic, and I’ll just squint one eye and put my thumb over the sun and sure enough I can see what traffic is coming down the road at that point.
Troy: That’s really interesting, that’s definitely cool and if it works for a fighter pilot, I’m sure it can work for plenty of truckers as well. But what about storms, we’re actually in the middle of a flood warning today, up here in Pennsylvania, but what’s the protocol when driving during a storm or even worse, driving during a tornado warning.
Pax: Well unfortunately Melton has an unfortunate history with tornados, in 1993 there was an F4 that nearly missed our Tulsa terminal and then in April of 2011, the tornado that hit Birmingham was a direct hit on our terminal and we had a driver that was actually on premises at the time and was on the phone with our Tulsa dispatch extended coverage and talking through it with them and they told him that the shelter is the bathroom in there, and that was the only part of the building that survived and that driver was absolutely unhurt. So, that’s the main thing, you gotta seek out the nearest shelter and for drivers that’s a little tough. Personally, I was still on the road when the tornado hit Joplin and drove through there the night after and I was just amazed at the devastation that happens with those, and I saw the–I think it was Love’s or Flying J truck stop that was exit 11 there in Joplin and just that it was leveled, it was incredible. Many drivers survived that, because there was stories going around, you know how drivers are in the CB, going around the next day about guys that were in their trucks and were okay and then guys that you know — everybody got in the building and was able to cram into the shelter you know, places that they’ve got designated as shelters in there. I think a lot of lives are saved.
Troy: Yeah, and speaking of the CB, is that something that will get kind of relayed through the CB radio when there is a storm warning or is that more of something that truckers are relying on just the traditional kind of AM/FM radio to find out?
Pax: I would say that most trucks that I’ve been in have a weather capable radio and that would be the first place I would go to and of course in these days of the internet, everybody having a computer on their hip and in their pocket you know, you’ve got live radar with your weather app and I know I’ve been around here when there’s a weather alert and everybody’s iPhone just immediately goes beep beep beep and so it’s almost hard to not be aware of some of that stuff but as a driver we should be planning our day and you know your day can start out in one place and end up in another and you’ve gotta kinda you know, have an eye as to what my future holds, I’m gonna be 6/700 miles away from here today, know where that is and dig into the weather a little bit and see what the chances are that you are gonna be going through something like that. So, preparation always is key.
Troy: Well Pax I thank you for stopping by to speak with us on the podcast, do you have any other summer driving tips?
Pax: I would say, you know, in the summer, traffic tends to go up, a lot of people out on vacation and out on breaks and a lot more driving around goes on when the weather gets better, and I also say that you be aware that there’s gonna be a lot more construction because with the longer days and the better weather is gonna allow the construction crews to get out there and do their thing, so those are the other things that I think of.
Troy: Awesome, well once again a big thanks to Pax Rolfe from Melton Truck Lines, Pax thank you so much for joining us.
Pax: You’re very welcome, any time.
Troy: And once again a big thanks to Pax Rolfe, he provided a lot of great summer driving tips for you truckers, you know you’re not driving in winter anymore but there’s still tons of hazards on the road so make sure you’re keeping an eye out for that. Again, truckers, if you like what you’re hearing please feel to leave us a review on iTunes and any other place you’re listening to this, we really appreciate the feedback, whether it’s positive or negative, we wanna put out the best product for you guys but Lenay, what you got?
Lenay: I just wanted to chime in and say that anyone’s who’s listening for the first time, Big Rig Banter is powered by AllTruckJobs, AllTruckJobs is a job board, you can visit that website you’ll find tons of resources as far as where to find a job, maybe even just how to get your CDL and then a lot of blogs on there with all kinds of tips for driving.
Troy: Yeah, and we’ve got a lot of great content coming out, we’re working on a ton of different videos and animations as we speak so feel free to check out the website but once again I’m you’re cohost Troy Diffenderfer.
Lenay: And I’m your favorite cohost, Lenay Ruhl.
Troy: And this has been Big Rig Banter.
