Lot Lizards

One of the ways I have avoided Trump overload is watching YouTube videos of Indiana Jack

Some of the details I have gathered is he lives in Phoenix Arizona and is an owner operator working with Knight trucking. He drives all over the United States and he normally is hauling a trailer owned by the customer (Walmart, Target, Home Depot) or a trailer owned by his company. His truck is a Volvo with a Cummins engine. He used to drive this tractor as an employee, and then decided to go on his own and buy the tractor from his former employer.

The tractor has over 1,000,000 miles so far and is getting quite old – while being an owner operator and getting a gross amount per mile and paying your own expenses seems attractive, a $20,000 engine rebuild can make that incentive vanish quickly. Since he is not being paid a salary, he gets yanked around a lot with the loads that he is given – going to “problem customers” that take 13 hours to unload one trailer, sending him on a wild goose chase between different facilities, or give his load to a different driver after he has driven “bobtail” (tractor only) for hundreds of miles to pick up the trailer.

The magic part about “lot lizards” and his warning for children is that innocent children would have no idea that there is anything unusual in the video unless an adult points it out. If the child does understand what they are seeing, then there is no point to protecting their innocence.

The single most important thing that I have learned is if I see the name “Swift” on the side of a truck, treat it as if the sign says “student driver”. Depending on who you ask, there is currently a shortage of around 1 million truck drivers in the United States. Swift will basically hire anybody who can pass the CDL exam. Knowing how to actually drive a truck is not a requirement. Since they use extra long trailers, backing up can be very difficult if you have no clue how to do it. The tractor and trailer turn in opposite directions, unlike a car.

You may have seen stereotypical videos of women (usually Asian) who cannot grasp the concept of backing up a car, and end up spending 15 minutes trying to get in or out of a parking space, usually ended by ramming into several other cars to push them out of the way.

Now take that, and make the vehicle 1000% bigger