Sunday, March 27, 2011

What not to do when you get stopped

I yelled at a cop. Yep. His tone and approach with me from the start were way out of line.

He pulled me over because I was (unknowingly) driving on a road I was not permitted to be on with my size trailer, and he let me know it in a dozen different ways, and he'd ask me accusatorily what I was doing there, and as soon as I'd start to respond he'd cut me off as if he had no interest in finding out and as if it were irrelevant to the legality of the situation, which it were not. My frustration level rose quickly from 'severely annoyed' to far beyond until my blood was boiling and it became irrelevant to me that he was an officer of the law and I was a truck driver at his mercy; I was only aware of the fact that he was a man treating me badly, and no man gets to treat me badly. It wasn't something I thought out: really, I lost my head there for a minute. I hit my boiling point and I let him have it:  "Are you giving me a hard time?"

I don't recommend smarting off to a police officer. It's unjust but true that if I were a male driver my situation most likely would have gone from bad to far worse right then. I'm still a little surprised at what happened: First, probably a bit shocked that this little young woman stood up to him, he pointed out that he was a police officer and a DOT officer and I needed to respect him. But then he started trying to let me know that he wasn't a bad guy. He asked the young officer who had meanwhile pulled up for backup to let me know that he was a good guy. Later on in the stop, he apologized for the way he acted in the beginning and he thanked me for being cooperative. And I apologized and said I was already frustrated because I got bad directions from a customer and didn't want to be on that road in the first place.

He let me off with a warning, for which I am extremely grateful. I am also now intimately acquainted with New York State law governing truck travel. Ask me anything you want to know. Life is good.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Don't believe . . .

. . . everything you read in the logbooks.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Taxes

I like TurboTax. Every year I figure my taxes first with TurboTax.* Then I figure them all by hand. Some years TurboTax has caught some deduction or credit I didn't know about, and some years I've discovered something in the fine print of the instruction book that I qualify for that TurboTax couldn't have known about me that I didn't know to tell it.

Being a trucker is a huge tax advantage. Virtually everything you buy or spend for use in the truck or on the truck or while away from home driving the truck or to improve your quality of life while trucking is deductible. When I started trucking it was time to put away the children's versions of the 1040 and start itemizing: Battery charger for mornings the truck won't start. Work boots, gloves, and coveralls. Window cleaner and paper towels. Log books. Bed sheets. Snow shovel. Sunglasses. 12V appliances. Satellite radio with traffic and weather reports. Cell phone bill. $47/day for meals for every day spent away from home. This year approximately 25% of my gross income was tax-deductible. One of my trucker friends has had years where he has had no taxable income.

My favorite trucker tax rule applies to company drivers.** We can deduct any expenses that are not reimbursed to us. What I found (heh heh) is that any money reimbursed to the driver through his paycheck, and included in the wages line of the W-2 form, is considered by the IRS for tax purposes to be not reimbursed! When I discovered this  exception I started jumping up and down like a little kid on a snow day, since this is the way my company reimburses for expenses. Now I can deduct: Tolls and scales. Antifreeze, starter fluid, windshield wipers, light bulbs, glad hand seals, and any other truck fluid or part. Truck washes, repairs, any fuel that happens to get purchased with a T-Chek express code rather than the fuel card, and any other expense paid with a T-Chek. Bada-bing. I've actually been contemplating putting the EZ-Pass away so I can start racking up the 2011 deductions.

* The online version is free for anyone to use up to the point of e-filing.

** Disclaimer: I am not a tax expert. I am a taxpayer expressing here my understanding of US tax law as I read it. If you know something I don't know, please feel free to comment here. Actually, please do comment here! Preferably before reporting me to the IRS!

Monday, March 7, 2011

Real Trucker?

Sometimes I think I'm not a real trucker, because I drive shortline and am never more than a day's drive from home. Then I have days like today, when I a) spend 9 hours, unpaid, sitting in a repair shop waiting room, and b) spend part of that time on the phone with my car insurance company and the DMVs of two states trying to find out why my rates have gone up astronomically over an alleged two-point violation I got in the truck in another state last year, which in fact did not have any points associated with it, and incidentally was issued for choosing the safer although illegal of two courses of action.

For a trucker, I have a very cushy life. I'm home every weekend and several nights during the week, and I can't even compare that to the life of someone who is away from home for weeks at a time (which has been my life before and I don't want to be again). But a day spent sitting in a waiting room because the truck in the repair bay is my only means of transportation is the same whether that shop is in Las Vegas or 10 miles from home; and the legal responsibilities and ramifications of driving a 75'-long vehicle 40+ hours a week also don't change with geography.

Smokin'

It's Monday morning and I'm sitting in the waiting room in our local repair shop smelling like burned rubber. On my way to the terminal a few hours ago I noticed something in my mirror I'd never seen before: a cloud of smoke coming out of my drive wheels. I pulled into the plaza parking lot next to me and parked next to a small mountain of snow, which I proceeded to throw on the offending rims by the handful. They sizzled like skillets. I kept it up for a while and waited a while longer. While I was trying to cool them down from overheating I was also trying to warm them up so that whatever part of them had frozen up would release. I parked the truck at an angle so the morning sun would shine down in the narrow space between the tires and the frame. (The sun is the solution to so many wintertime problems.) Whether from the heat of the sun or of the hot brakes themselves, they eventually released, and the smoke eventually subsided, so I decided it was safe to try to drive a few miles up the road to the shop. I want to have everything checked out before I head out of town with a load.

Lesson learned: Don't drive on frozen brakes in hopes of warming them up and thawing them out. Park them in the sun and come back later. Don't drive on them. Okay? Okay.