Curious about how to keep your trucking game strong and safe this summer? Join me, Walter Gatlin, on a special episode of Rollin' 18 Podcast where I share some essential road safety tips and discuss the importance of standing your ground against unreasonable dispatcher demands. Plus, I'm excited to announce a brief hiatus to indulge in some summer fun and introduce an exhilarating new 24/7 radio station that will keep you entertained with my favorite tracks from classic rock to hip-hop, all with minimal commercial interruptions.
Ever wondered about the logistics of transporting a colossal 916,000-pound air processor through Ohio? We'll break down the challenges and traffic implications of this monumental task. Also, stay informed about the upcoming CVSA Operation Safe Driver Week, dedicated to curbing unsafe driving behaviors and improving road safety. And let's not forget the crucial topic of fuel island etiquette—learn how being considerate can make all the difference. Tune in to stay safe, informed, and entertained, and don't forget to check out more content at MediaIowa.com and Rollin18Podcast.com.
Text me anytime with news, suggestions, and stories at (641) 990-5641. God bless, be safe, and keep it between the lines drivers.
Curious about how to keep your trucking game strong and safe this summer? Join me, Walter Gatlin, on a special episode of Rollin' 18 Podcast where I share some essential road safety tips and discuss the importance of standing your ground against unreasonable dispatcher demands. Plus, I'm excited to announce a brief hiatus to indulge in some summer fun and introduce an exhilarating new 24/7 radio station that will keep you entertained with my favorite tracks from classic rock to hip-hop, all with minimal commercial interruptions.
Ever wondered about the logistics of transporting a colossal 916,000-pound air processor through Ohio? We'll break down the challenges and traffic implications of this monumental task. Also, stay informed about the upcoming CVSA Operation Safe Driver Week, dedicated to curbing unsafe driving behaviors and improving road safety. And let's not forget the crucial topic of fuel island etiquette—learn how being considerate can make all the difference. Tune in to stay safe, informed, and entertained, and don't forget to check out more content at MediaIowa.com and Rollin18Podcast.com.
Text me anytime with news, suggestions, and stories at (641) 990-5641. God bless, be safe, and keep it between the lines drivers.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to Rollin' 18 Podcast. This 40-year veteran is here for anyone wanting to stay up to date with the trucking world. Grab your coffee, hop on board and let's get on down the road with Walter Gatlin.
Speaker 2:
Hello drivers, this is Walter Gatlin with Rollin' 18 Podcast. I appreciate you folks listening to and or downloading my podcast. I did forget to mention last week, though I was only doing one podcast last week and one podcast this week, because I'm taking a small hiatus in order to enjoy my summer activities. It's like when I take vacation, I try not to work. During vacation, try to do things that are fun and things like that. I mean, this is fun and it doesn't take a whole lot to podcast, but it does take a lot of research and editing, so I apologize for not bringing that up. Another great additive we're going to have with Roland 18 is the fact that we are going to start a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week radio station. That's right. If you go to Roland18radio, you'll go to the website that shows that it's coming soon and one day it's going to pop up and that player is going to be on there and you are going to listen to the tunes that I love to listen to when I go down the road, and you're also going to be welcomed to challenge me on some of them tunes and say hey, you know, can you add this or can you delete that? I really don't care for that and I'll take that into consideration. But it's going to be Walt's playlist. It's going to be something I enjoy listening to and I believe that a good portion of you drivers out there are really going to enjoy the music that I play, because a lot of the stuff that I do play has a great beat for everybody Everybody. Because a lot of the stuff that I do play has a great beat for everybody, everybody loves it. You know, I'm talking some classic rock, I'm talking some classic country, some regular country, some regular hip-hop. Whatever beats my fancy I'm going to put on the playlist and I'm going to shuffle it up real good and make everything just play at random and we're not going to have any sponsors right off the bat. I'm not going to treat it like a regular radio station. I'm going to. If I do have sponsors, it's going to be some other way other than breaking in the airwaves. We're going to figure all that out. So far I haven't had to have sponsors on the podcast.
Speaker 2:
I would love to figure out a way to do things that would not interrupt things as much as possible. That way you can have a great listening experience. But then again, eventually we're going to have to start making money, I'm pretty sure, but it's not going to be in your face in a whole bunch of extra time. I listened to a video podcast where they also do audio, but I listened to their video portion of it and within the first seven minutes there was four commercials, four sponsors, and I thought man, that's extreme. I would never do that to my listeners. If we're lucky, I'm only going to have like one throughout the entire podcast and, like I said, the first podcasts are going to be 15 minutes and then after that I'm probably going to bump it up to a half hour twice a week instead of three 15 minute ones. So I figured that would be fair. And you know we're rolling as we're going, trying to figure out the do's and the don'ts of this. So far I'm getting nothing but positive feedback. So if you guys want to contact me, you can go to rolling18podcastcom, check out my contact information. Go to my website at mediaiowacom. I've got a phone number on there. You can text me anytime. Let me know what you're happy with, let me know what you'd like to see improved, all that good stuff, because you're the reason I'm here.
Speaker 2:
A short reminder to you drivers out there that when you're out there driving that truck, that is your ship. I went to Smart Trucking and I was kind of browsing through the Facebook pages and I seen a question pop up with a truck in the snow and ice, would you drive in any weather conditions, if your dispatcher insisted, and my comment right off the bat was whether I was an owner operator or I worked for a company. They all understood one thing I am the captain of my ship. It gets steered only by me. If they don't like my decisions, they are more than welcome to fire me. If they don't like my decisions, they are more than welcome to fire me. A truck driver may be a dime, a dozen, but I can get two dozen truck driving jobs with the same dime, and that's been my motto since 1984. So you guys out there make the wisest decisions. They scream and yell on the telephone. Whatever they text, you all caps. Whatever you do, what you have to do to make it home safely, even if it means losing your job. That's just all there is to it.
Speaker 2:
I know how difficult those difficult decisions can be, especially if you're brand new. You're wanting to impress them, you're wanting to be there. On a good note, let me explain to you something. If something goes haywire and something bad happens, you're gonna be the first one they look at the. If something goes haywire and something bad happens, you're going to be the first one they look at, the first one that they fire, the first one that they possibly sue. Whatever the case may be, you have to make decisions that rely on safety. Safety is number one, and even their book tells you you need to do the right thing in order to make at home alive, in order to keep that load from you know ending up all over the interstate, and in order to maintain stability in your life for your family and everybody else. That's all there is to it. That's the bottom line. If they ask you something that's totally unreasonable, you have every right to say no. Now I hope everybody out there that has children had a great Father's Day. I hope you had good experiences with your kids and with your dads, and if your loved ones are no longer with us, I'm sorry about that. I have read some posts that are pretty sad as far as that goes as well, but I hope you folks enjoyed your Father's Day.
Speaker 2:
I want to remind everybody that they've put out a lot of notices about a huge transport of super loads across ohio and it's prompting a severe congestion warning. Carriers in ohio would transport a 458 ton super load of heavy equipment across several major roadways to Licking County's new Intel chip manufacturing plant, starting on Father's Day. So it's already started. Ohio Department of Transportation announced that the move is expected to take more than a week, starting from a dock on the Ohio River near Manchester and ending in New Albany with neighbors Licking County I guess that's the name of the county. I, yeah, I don't want a county name like that. Anyway, the bulk of the route will be northbound on US Highway 23 toward Columbus.
Speaker 2:
Due to the size of the load, the slow speeds of the convoys, this portion of the route will take several days. Stops will be made along the route in West Portsmouth, lucasville, waverly, chillicothe, rickenbacker, groveport, pinkerton, patascala, before the load is delivered on June 25. The load, an air processor known as a cold box, used for silicone chip manufacturing, measures approximately 23 feet tall, 20 feet wide, 280 feet long and it weighs 916,000 pounds. It is the 12th of the nearly two dozen loads to be delivered to the Intel plant and the first of four loads that will exceed 900,000 pounds. I have a challenge for you. If you guys have any way to make up a swift magnetic sign and could sneak up to one of the trucks and put those swift signs out the side of their door, that would be awesome. I'm just kidding, don't get in trouble. Anyway, it says here we see dozens of super loads move in Ohio each year.
Speaker 2:
Ohio DOT Press Secretary Matt Bruning told FreightWaves in an email statement what we don't usually see is this many, this frequently on the same route. That's what makes it unique. So it's going to be a real cluster out there. They're going to start in Manchester, go down 52, go up 23,. Go up looks to me like 104, end up on 40, 75, 373, whatever that map is showing, you guys get familiar with it. I'm sure there's going to be some highlights on Google Maps or if you have a GPS, check with them. Check with Ohio Department of Transportation. I'm sure they have an app that you can go to as well there.
Speaker 2:
If you're going to be anywhere in that area from southern about the southwest part of Ohio up to the middle portion of Ohio near New Albany, hebron you're going to want to check locations. You're going to want to check to make sure where that transport is, because they will shut everything down the minute it starts to go through. There is no ifs, ands or buts. You could be sitting there for hours, I don't know, but usually they're going to take all the room they need, whether you like it or not, and it's going to be frustrating for people to have to travel that route. Luckily, the only main artery that they're going to disturb is 40, and it's going to be for a short while, their most length they're going to have as far as this 916,000 pound load from south to north below Columbus. So you definitely want to keep an eye out for that, that's for sure. Okay, just so you drivers know, there's another blitz coming. It's not an inspection blitz, it's a safe driver blitz and it's going to be from July 7th through the 13th of this year.
Speaker 2:
In the US, mexico and Canada regions During the CVSA Operation, safe Driver Week, law enforcement agencies will patrol for commercial motor vehicle drivers and passenger vehicle drivers engaging in unsafe driver driving behaviors, such as speeding, distracted driving, following too closely, drunk or drugged driving, etc. Violators will be pulled over and warned or ticketed or arrested. So, guys, keep an eye out. And you know the fatality rate's going up too, which means a lot of drivers are not buckling up their seatbelts. I'm telling you, you don't know when a situation is going to happen and nine times out of ten it's a four-wheeler to cut you off. You hit a bridge embankment, you flip over, you go halfway out that truck, you get smeared onto the interstate and people are staring at you dead. They're waiting for the coroner to get there to collect your remains so they can send you home to your family. You don't want that.
Speaker 2:
Operation Safe Driver Week aims to improve the safety of our roadways through proactive driver safety outreach and education and by addressing unsafe driving behaviors. You know what they are. You guys get on the radio and scream about it all the time. You've seen those drivers out there. And another thing that can help DOT as well especially if you're a safe driver and you have a camera and you see a company truck or an owner-opener doing something really stupid, send that video to DOT. They may not be able to ticket them, but they can certainly contact their insurance company, they can contact their brokers, they can contact their company and say, look, this is what your truck or the person leased onto you did. What are you going to do about it? Because most officers, especially in the state of Iowa, they have to see the crime, even if you've got it on camera, unless it's a shooting or something. If you've got it on camera you know they can't just go out and write them a ticket. There has to be a big investigation and a lot of times they just won't mess with it.
Speaker 2:
But the focused area of Operation Safe Driver Week 2024 will be reckless and careless and dangerous driving, and we know how we all hate that. We all know how you know we're cruising down the road and we've got some jerk off doing something stupid. We don't want that to happen, whether they're driving a truck or a four-wheeler, and nine times out of ten, like I said, it's usually the four-wheeler. We do have another problem with drivers driving way too fast in the cities. These trucks are usually locked down at 65, 70 miles an hour and in order for them to make up a few seconds, they'll end up busting the speed limit, which usually drops to 55 or 60 or 65 in the city, and they'll pass all the trucks that are doing the right thing and then those trucks that come out of the city have to pass them again because they're locked down. You guys really shouldn't do that, because you're not saving any time, and you know you're not saving time because the truck you passed in the city by driving crazily ended up passing you again just outside the city. So, come on, do the right thing. Drive the speed limit or a little bit less in the city. Be careful. There's too many problems that can happen, too much safety problems that can happen, and we all know this to be true.
Speaker 2:
But some of us just get in a big hurry. And why? Why do you get in a hurry? Does that load belong to you? No, it doesn't. Take it easy. Drivers, let's make all of us look good. Let the four-wheelers and everybody else do what they got to do, and I bet you they'll be a lot happier. Problems Am I saying? Submit to the four-wheeler? No, I'm not. You're going to have a jerk out there no matter what.
Speaker 2:
But the thing of it is, we've got to start being better. They've got drivers and a lot of people say it's because of training. They're not getting the proper training or they're coming from other countries and that's the way they drive in other countries. That all could be true, but I don't know how to combat it other than to start reporting. These people start letting the companies know, even if they don't care. Let DOT know, let the commercial police know this stuff, and they'll be able to do a lot more than we ever could Just keep reporting them every single day. It takes five seconds to download that video and just show it to them and say this is what I saw. And generally a video has a GPS stamp, a speed stamp, a date stamp, a time stamp. All that can help them as well.
Speaker 2:
If you really want to stop this stuff, stop it. And if you see a lot of people parked on the fuel island, do something about that too. Go in there and ask for the manager. And when the manager comes out and says Look, they're parking on the fuel island for 30 minutes, can you please stop it? This is your business. And if they refuse to do anything, you can refuse to go in there and buy fuel from them. All that makes for a big help.
Speaker 2:
You can also contact me if you have a place that just flagrantly does it all the time, and I will constantly report them every single day, bombard them with emails, bombard them with phone calls and say enough's enough, it needs to stop. You can have a guy like me that works during the day. I've got a day job, so when I get home I've got plenty of time to get on the phone every single day and contact these people. I will bombard them with phone calls every single day until they decide to do something. When we can get a group of drivers together, just keep sending them messages, keep calling corporate, keep filing complaints and eventually they're going to do something. Because I know how unhappy the majority of us drivers are when we get stuck on a fuel island because drivers are not doing the right thing, and I appreciate you folks listening to and or downloading my podcast at Roland18podcastcom. God bless, be safe and, as always, keep it between the lines. Driver.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to Roland 18 Podcast. Please visit my website at MediaIowacom or the podcast page at Roland18Podcastcom. Breaker one nine.