Anti Idling Laws

Now I get into some things that stick in my craw. I'm afraid when I do that, if you are interested then grab a pot of coffee and read on. If not, quit reading at any time and I will return to normal in 24 hours.

Most everyone has pre-conceived notions of truck drivers. Most of them are from the ones who are tailgating you or speeding. The ones that fall out of their truck and don't look like they have taken a "poly coated rinse" shower in 3 weeks. And when they open their mouth...well

No matter what the opinion, most are hard working good people. They keep the nation going. Nothing you have in your home, wear, eat, etc, did not come most or part of the way to the store but by truck. Even if you grow your own veggies out back and save your seeds, unless God dropped the first one in your back pocket the initial one got to you by truck. I know the hoe did.

This is a rough life. You deal with traffic, some of the hardest traffic laws and parking restrictions in the country. How many times do you see no truck parking signs on mall, department store, grocery store parking lots. The result of those is the only place you can park is at a truck stop where the prices for lousy food is a good 20% or more than you would pay at a good decent restaurant. They know they have you over a barrel and can't park elsewhere so they charge top dollar.

Truck stops are failing because of the economy and states are closing rest areas so they don't have to pay to maintain them. As a result there are fewer and fewer places to park at night to sleep. One of the deals with pre-planning your trip is where you get to, and at what time of day to get there, in order to have good chance of finding a parking place. I have stopped way short of my delivery point when there was another truck stop closer in, only because I knew that the other one would be full by the time I got there. Northeast is a bad place because there are few truck stops to start with and the population makes it very crowded. Real estate is at premium price, well used to be.

When it comes to parking, your truck turns from your office to your home. I spend 300 to 320 nights a year in this truck. Seven feet wide and approximately 9' long. It is what they call a condo sleeper with an overhead bunk, plenty of room to stand up. Lot better than what I had in 1976 when I first crawled into one. The cab was so short my knees touched the metal dash.

All the states in the northeast and liberal nuthouse California, have put in place anti idling laws where you can not idle your truck to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The extremes in most places is 32 deg or below you can idle, and when it gets to 80 or above, I think, because every state is different. In California the only option is dying in your sleeper.

Now don't get me wrong, I am a supporter of cleaner environment. Trucks on the road today run so much cleaner than even 5 years ago it is a big change. People like Al Gore preaching to the rest of the country about saving the planet and doing without, the whole time he lives in million dollar mansion with every light burning, driving SUV's and flying around the country preaching to the rest of us in a gas guzzling private jet. I don't care for hypocrites very much.

The truck I drive has an Opt-Idle system to save fuel, and cut down on idling time. It keeps the truck from idling all the time in extreme weather. What it does is works by computer sensors. In the bunk you have a thermostat much like the one you have at home. You set the temperature to say 68 deg with a 4 deg spread, then set heat. When the temp in side the cab gets down to 64 deg, it will turn the engine on automatically, run until the cab is warmed up to 68 and then shut it off. In the summer you set it to 74, and it will cool it back down to that temp automatically. It saves fuel and cuts down on idling. It normally doesn't idle more than 3 mins at a time unless you are in extreme conditions. Only exception is when the battery charge gets down to 12v, it will turn the engine on and idle for 2 hours to recharge batteries. This happens a lot in cold weather. The short idle times are manageable, it is the 2 hour one that will get you in trouble if the PC police are out roaming.

In northeast you can usually get by if not in a populated area. In California, opt idle is not acceptable and neither is APU's (auxillary power units). These are small engines that set behind cab and runs off diesel, it cools/heats your cab and keeps your batteries charged. Gives you AC plugs in the cab to run TV, Computer and small fridge. Mine doesn't have that. Company gave out list of trucks that were going to get one installed last summer, and it would go on all trucks with less than 225,000 miles on them. When the notice came out, I had 225,001 miles.

The whole point of this is, with all the preaching on the environment, all the things that the industry has done, money spent to comply, it is never enough. The driver suffers. The driver gets a $300 fine in California for idling his truck so he can sleep, the driver pays it. If the driver complies with the law and can't sleep as a result, he then goes out and runs down a family of 5 because he falls asleep at the wheel, the driver goes to jail. You don't have the option of telling the dispatcher you didn't sleep and not going to make your appointment. What is the use, you are still sitting in extreme weather and you are not going to sleep anyway until you get the heck out of that state.

Even at 35 deg, the cold eventually seeps into your bones, and you start shaking and can't stop. The temp outside can be 60 deg with sun shining, the skin on this truck is so thin it will be up to 90 deg in the sleeper within a hour. I can roll down the windows, turn on the little fan, open all the vents, 70 deg outside and I will be sweating up a storm in the sleeper and unable to sleep. I have seen temps outside in 70's and check the temp in the sleeper and it will be up in mid 90's. If it is humid outside then it is worse. You ever been to California in the summer time when the normal temperature is 100+? Even 120. You turn your a/c off and sleep in that. I know Al Gore won't, and you won't either. I am forced to.

This is why there are more and more drivers beginning to quit and do something else. Think things are bad now, wait until you really have a driver shortage. Food on the shelves will disappear. If you don't think about that much, look at what the high diesel prices did to prices on the grocery shelves, that cost is passed on to you and me. They didn't bring the prices back down much either when the prices dropped $2 per gallon. But hey, won't be able to get anything to eat, but boy it will be clean air to breath. Until the smut from China and Mexico blows in to the atmosphere.