Snowplow driver was fired for damaging 55-cars on the Ohio Turnpike

Obviously eyesight is just about shot too.

Why the heck do I keep on doing that with "from vs form" ????????

 

I agree with most of your points. A 980 is huge for a 10 foot plow. I was just going by the ad language. Doesn't sound like its doing open parking lots, otherwise they'd of specified a pusher box.

$310/hour is good money. I just don't think its as crazy as a lot of people probably do. No one wants to work. They have to make it incentivizing.

Also keep in mind that Watertown is a pretty populated suburb about 8 miles out of Boston. About 36,000 people and median home values in the $700,000 area. No ones running a 8 yd loader on city streets for 20 bucks an hour at 2 am there. Not when minimum wage is $15, and its one of the most expensive states to live in.

 

Sorry if I got off topic. To the video, the guy is an idiot. Going way, way too fast. I was the lead truck in a highway convoy with a fixed left hand plow. You just have to go slow. Overpass bridges can also be really tough. Have to almost crawl.

 

We’d charge $125 an hour for snow removal for a loader and Tri axle was $75. But plowing was contracted yearly for a set fee for plowing and salting. $310 is good money. Labor is dependent on who needs money. There’s good operators out there that don’t like funemployment and would rather work, albeit plowing is when it snows and you’re in Masss, around here $25 and hour will get you the best of the best loader operator. Loaders aren’t too high tech to operate and doesn’t take the skill of knowing grade like an excavator operator. Pushing snow just drop the blade into float and go. If you ride up back up and put some down pressure on the blade. Make sure you aren’t running into stuff. We did have one guy grab a manhole and pull it out of the ground, not really his fault as it stuck up about 3 inches.

 

One of the forums I frequent (it's a firearms forum), quite a few posters live outside the Continental USA and Canada and they tend to post either in their native language (which requires the use of a translator to read the post) or they use a translator and post that and usually the translation leaves a lot to be desired anyway so you have to 'read between the lines' to decipher the comment. Usually, I don't bother with either anyway.

 

There is a big shortage of plow drivers around here. I have my class A, all endorsements so I could but I don't want to because it don't pay enough hourly wages to be of interest to me. I have extracted 4 idiots from the ditch this year alone at 50 bucks a snatch. I use one of the big diesel front wheel assist farm tractors and a snatch strap on the drawbar and have them attach the other end to their vehicle, that way I don't destroy something and it's on them. If they don't have the jack in their wallets, I let them sit and wait for the local recovery service which charges a minimum 150 bucks.

No way am I driving a plow truck and dealing with the idiots on the road. Thankless job and like I said, the prevailing wage here is between 15 and 20 bucks an hour and it's just not worth it. I believe mot qualified drivers feel like I do as there is an acute shortage of plow truck drivers here.

In reality, I don't much care if the roads are plowed or not. We have a snowstorm, the buggies stay parked in the drive anyway. being retired and not having to get to work has distinct advantages,

 

Absolutely. No one I know with any experience and a class B or A CDL and air brake endorsement would even consider waking up at 2am to go plow for $20/hr. We paid that and more to class D drivers in a single wheel 3/4 ton pickup back in the late 90's-early 2000's.


Every state is different, but $20/hr is 40 grand a year. That's poverty wages. It's a dangerous job, long azz hours, tough conditions, and as you said thankless. I can't tell you how many times our convoy got off the highway and cars behind us were honking and giving us the finger. I always laughed when I'd see the same a**hole an hour later in a ditch.

 

Bad enough when I get that farming when I'm driving a tractor with an implement to one of my remote fields. Most everything I pull is over width and some are excessively over width even folded up for transport and I'm trucking along at 22 mph and the idiots in cars have zero patience, just have to get by at all costs and sometimes those 'costs' are pretty substantial when they wind up in the ditch.

Been flipped off, cussed out and cut off many times. If I have room on the berm or in an intersection to let them around, I do but I'm not yielding my right of way just because some idiot has to get somewhere quick because they left late...

What they fail to realize is, I weigh many times what they do and their 16 gauge steel coffin don't stand a chance in hell against my big diesel tractor or the heavy implement I'm pulling. I could literally run over them and suffer very little damage, if any.

Here in Michigan, agricultural vehicles (so long as they are displaying the proper placards and warning lights) have the right of way on any road except limited access highways and if permitted, even on those. I'm always 100% legal in those respects.

 

20 bucks don't cut the cheese with me and it's obvious not with anyone else with any experience around here and you'd better be experienced with plowing snow on a highway and have eyes in the back of your head and your wits about you when dealing with idiots in cars.

Big shortage of plow drivers here and getting worse, not better. Until the various municipal and township entities pony up with commensurate wages and benefit packages, it will continue to get worse. How it is. Governmental entities have no issue paying their administrative staff's big bucks from taxpayer funds but when it comes to the worker bees, they all want to cheap out.

 

I bet the fired plow truck driver was back in the saddle in a plow truck the next day considering how hamstrung all municipalities are for experienced plow truck drivers.

Same way with semi drivers. We went from an excess amount of qualified drivers to an acute shortage because all the old timers (me included) either retired (I did) or said hell with the suffocating DOT regs and quit driving all together.

I still own a Class 8 road tractor and a grain trailer but because I only haul ag commodities and it's all local I don't have to comply with all the suffocating regulations the government imposes on road drivers. All I need is my Class A license. Don't even need to take a DOT physical. I self certify as I own the business and the equipment.

The government did a really good job of destroying the industry. Bunch of college educated people who never had a clue about it in the first place. I'm not saying all the current regs are bad but a lot of them are very detrimental to the industry as a whole.

On another note, what is has transpired in Canada with the independent truckers and small fleet operators is coming here as well so it might be advantageous for you to stock up on necessities you need (if you can even get them) and that includes gas and diesel . Remember, if you eat it, wear it or use it, chances are at some point, a truck handled it., so supply chain disruptions will become a lot worse than they already are. Better to be prepared than holding an empty bag...

 

Yeah...but y'all rarely get enough snow to plow!

 

Exactly what I was thinking; by the hour in Ohio at $500 an hour as an Independent you could starve..

 

That all depends on which way the prevailing winds are blowing and the ice coverage on Lake Erie. The Turnpike parallels the lake about 15 miles inland until it gets to east of Cleveland and then the shoreline heads northward. Turnpike snow is mostly lake effect so it can transition from a huge dump and 10 miles farther on there is nothing.

 

I know where you are (location). From Olmsted Falls, I moved to (bought a home and acreage) on SR82 in Columbia Station almost across from Elizabeth Ann Seton church. From there we bought a farm up here in Michigan and been here since.

 

Really? Southern Ohio is affected by ice coverage on Lake Erie...I don't think so...

 

I could tell so may crazy stories about plowing. You see some wild stuff, that's for sure.

 

We used to have to plow a connector road that had like 8 exit ramps to the highway on it. A state trooper parks her car smack dab in the middle of the road and proceeds to clear her windshield. We went around her at least 3 times which takes awhile. This road is at least a mile long. On the fourth trip I had some slush come off my plow and hit her windshield. Next thing I know I see blue lights behind me. I think to myself, no way shes pulling me over. Sure enough she was. Walks up to my tri-axle and starts yelling at me. Asks me where I got my license then sarcastically says "Sears and Roebuck"? Then she asks who I work for. I point to the state barn that we report to which was about a 1/2 mile down the road, and told her "The state... just like you do", want me to call them? I was f***ing pizzed. Basically told her to go f herself. I'd been out there for about 30 hours at this point.