BillyT

Wonder how much this silly bullshit will cost the taxpayers? Is anyone old enough to remember how the CDL was gonna get all of those "unsafe,unqualified" drivers off the road! Lol lol lol ! It sure did help the truck dealers sell all those under 26000 gvw trucks so the employers could avoid hiring anyone with the remotest knowledge of truck mechanics and safe operation(thus demanding a living wage!)Ill bet you could buy a good used straight truck for a song ( if it was over 26000 gvw!) Where I'm going with this is that any time a gov't agency gets involved with anything it becomes overly complicated. A laughable example is when this lady whose name I forget was at the helm of the ntsb in the late 70s she thought that the convex spot mirrors on commercial trucks should have a fluorescent orange ring on them,so drivers would know they weren't flat mirrors! Like the lettering on car mirrors saying objects in mirror are closer than they appear! This lady grew up on a farm in the Dakotas and supposedly drove trucks! A drooling cretin would know a flat,from a convex mirror😁

Ksb, my wife asks me" Did you hear about the self driving beer truck?" Obviously referring to my interest in trucks and beer!😁 The implications of this technology are many and varied! First thing thing I thought of was the last time I ran I 25 in a Rocky Mountain blizzard! Of course Otto (Uber) Carefully selected a sunny clear day to spotlight this "breakthrough" The commercial interests who promote this endeavor,(everyone but the driver) are careful to use buzzwords "won't affect income, safety,answer to the driver shortage" etc.😁 The last time I pulled one of my many loads of beer out of AB(Inbev) Their blue collar workforce was 100 percent union ,also neat clean and helpful! Wouldn't you love to be a "fly on the wall" at their local union hall when this technology was announced! I have many questions? Is the truck the "attendants" (the fellow cowering in the sleeper) co driver? Or vice versa? I noted the attendant couldn't ever reach the wheel in the event of the inevitable malfunction! Plus they are promoting this technology as an opportunity(one of corporate America's favorite buzzwords) for the driver to rest! I'd bet the biggest steak in Florida( sorry vegans) The unwritten, unspoken,intent of this endeavor is to fully eliminate the human component altogether! After all approximately one third of trucking company costs is driver wages! Keep us posted,gonna be interesting! Also saw in the news Joe Arapia is under indictment (are the local building contractors protesting his "open air" incarceration concept) Which could be built with a minimal level of carpentry skills (Perhaps incorporating an inmate training program!) Or are the local commercial food venders protesting his high carb/ protein, 4 star bologna /cheese weight loss program!lol A few years ago he claimed to have lost 20lbs by consuming the same " cuisine?" as his inmates lol If the driver is taking the opportunity to sleep or rest how could this possibly be added to his on duty hrs? The point becomes moot as the goal is to remove the driver from the equation altogether! You don't pay wages to a truck! I'm sure there are engineers with multiple degrees who buy into the corporate claims that this program they are perfecting is mostly for safety reasons. There is no question that a properly engineered self driving truck will get better fuel economy,less tire and powertrain wear etc. Playing devil's advocate let us say that the self driving trucks"only" malfunction once per year per truck and only kill, maim, cripple one family per event,at some point as the as more trucks are added to the fleet and become more trouble free per truck the highways may become safer and there will be fewer drivers to pay (a major unspoken goal) It will be years before self driving equipment will be adapted to construction,dump,towing, door to door delivery and mountain and inclement weather use.Imagine an automated truck negotiating Donner pass when the chain law is in effect!

That's what I was thinking if it was centered on front diff. Would be too close to cab! Thanks for response!

41, kinda like all those "flood cars" from Katrina and elsewhere that went "up north" and got dried out and resold as ordinary used cars! On average the electronics in a flood car start messing up in about 2 yrs! By then the seller is long gone!

Screw or s/a ? Used to haul a lot of freight out of Copley Ohio !

I too drove a B with air steering,but mostly on sand and at low speeds,you could feel it kick in,sorta like those old Ford cars with that hydraulic cylinder on the steering linkage! Also drove a single axle B model dump without power steering didn't seem too bad on the road,but I was a lot younger! Style of tire and tire pressure are a factor with ease of steering,also the condition of the steering box.

Disgraceful!

Continuing on Ksb,having learned how the law works,they realize how they can use it for personal gain! On that subject,I just read that the capital police are going to destroy Doug Hughes gyrocopter which was confiscated and he forfeited as part of his plea agreement.Instead of selling it and giving the money to the taxpayers who are in reality their employer! "It would not be appropriate considering its role in his irresponsible and unlawful act last year" Suddenly a government agency has sprouted a conscience!! I suspect a large percentage of confiscated goods were used in illegal acts! They're pissed he made them look like fools! The man did something heroic in a foolish way! He would be dead if they properly protected the white house! There is a limit to how far you take " civil disobedience",and he went over it! He needed to receive some punishment, and he did! However his message about bought and paid for "public servants" was dead on!

I hear you Maddog so sad,so unnecessary!

iGH 204,I wouldn't want to be in the thing when it's dumping! Have had a few bizarre unloading scenarios! Dropped a dry van in the Port of New Orleans with bales of cotton. They had a yard tractor with a dump hoist under the fifth wheel raised the 53 ft trailer till it was on its last axle was unloaded in two minutes! By far the strangest,I got to customer with a loaded 48' van looked really tight! Guy says "drop it here" Got out from under it and the largest fork lift I've ever seen picks up a 48' trailer in the middle and disappears around the building!! Comes back in a half hour with an empty trailer!

Speaking of spuds, any of you "Empire State" guys ever see the unloading platform Frito Lay has by the pilot t.s. on11 where you pull a whole rig on the platform and tie it down and it dumps the potatoes into a bin! Fascinating! In Binghamton N.Y.

Actually saw a Forensic Files episode about a little kid eating lead paint chips! I think they blamed his.parents for poisoning him til they found out about about the paint chips 😁

OD, used to haul new Ford's out of the railhead in Greentree(pgh) pa every town in Wv had a Ford dealer! Pulling a 40 ft trailer with a f750 Ford gas burner.ran 60 before 64 was done(1974) get on,get off,what fun! Had to gas up at a couple little convenience store ,with the trailer out on the shoulder!Then back into traffic! Used to run rate 10 off 119 out of marmet down to Gilbert Wva to Hatfield,Mckoy Ford! All the guardrails were smashed flat from trailer tandem running over them! When another truck approached you had to put the tandem over the guardrail to avoid hitting it head on! I never ran over a virgin guardrail,they were all flat before I ran over them! There was supposed to be a legendary weighmaster at the marmet scale with one arm never dealt with him Wv at the time only had one permanent scale at mineral wells on 77 They got me and a couple others for expired permits in87 took us all to the rathole t.s. to get comcheks to pay the fine,no "mail in the payment" bullshit with these guys! Actually wva DOT were among the most pleasant I've met,also Texas,Contrary to popular belief! They got a bad rap from that 60 minutes episode in the 90s I think it was.

In Tampa bay yesterday they had a procession of towtrucks to honor a beloved wrecker driver killed by a drunk motorist while he was loading a car on his flatbed! Similar to Maddogs friend in Albany, happens too often,is only common sense even if it isn't the law! On the subject of cell phone use while driving, it should be restricted to law enforcement and First responders,who tend to be paying attention to what is going on around them! Statistically it is as dangerous as driving drunk! It is perfectly legal in many states,including Florida! Texting while driving is illegal in Florida,but a secondary offense.You have to be pulled over for something else to get a ticket for texting! The fines are low for such a potentially deadly activity! I believe we can thank the electronics lobby for this!

first big truck pickup I saw was at a T.S. show in California.Late eighties,was a F350 Ford dually mounted a early seventies KW cab,on the Ford frame kept the stock bed.Looked like it belonged! They are fairly common today! First time I've seen an R model, looks good!

I saw your hay wagon Gearhead and was reminded of some I saw in California's central valley in the late eighties.They were mostly cabovers,Pete's,KW's and Freightliners.from the late fifties to the seventies all spotless and we'll maintained! Some were truck and trailer like yours, others were single axle with two flatbed " pups". I remembered thinking of them as class eight " street rods" Hay haulers in general seem to take great pride in their equipment. Looks like a sixties or early seventies Freightliner next to the autocar.

The mopar ragtop looks solid,what model is it?

As usual you all make good points, some I agree with some I don't,but the important thing is "Bob Wills is still the king, yee haw!😁" even before you cross that ol red river! Vote early,vote often!

Blackdog 2 haven't you heard about the child labor laws?lol

Does the roadside assistance include bringing you lunch because you can't afford to go to McDonald's?😁 Seriously that's a lot of Lb ft for a pickup! But those new Dodge Cummins are increasingly electronic,so in a year or two we will see about reliability!

Gray hair,I was living In E.Washington Pa when gov.shapp gave Volkswagen some tax concessions to put an assembly plant in New Stanton pa,I was laid off,so I applied at vw,never got hired but they had a lot of labor problems and closed a few years later! So "same ol same ol!

Yep