What kind of freight do you see on your regular travels?

[Rothman]

Nothing special really around the Twin Cities, but back in Duluth and Superior it's logging trucks.

Also wonder about trucks hauling taconite.

[SP Cook]

I see a lot of "Wide Load"  trucks with police escorts sometimes. I seen a NYPD escort not to long ago on 95 South In Delaware.[/size]

I have never seen a police escort for a "regular" wide load, only for things  beyond that, which requires a special permit from the state and a state police escort (which the truck company pays for), and certainly never an out of jurisdiction police car. 

However, for some odd reason, NY state seems to require wide load escort vehicles to have a very police looking badge reading "Certified New York Escort Vehicle" and 95% of the escort vehicles have that very police looking marking, even far from NY.

[Tonytone]

I see a lot of "Wide Load"  trucks with police escorts sometimes. I seen a NYPD escort not to long ago on 95 South In Delaware.[/size]

I have never seen a police escort for a "regular" wide load, only for things  beyond that, which requires a special permit from the state and a state police escort (which the truck company pays for), and certainly never an out of jurisdiction police car. 

However, for some odd reason, NY state seems to require wide load escort vehicles to have a very police looking badge reading "Certified New York Escort Vehicle" and 95% of the escort vehicles have that very police looking marking, even far from NY.

Delaware has police escorts with all of their Wide Load trucks. Only a few times I've seen a truck without one.


iPhone

[kphoger]

Hmmm..  I've seen plenty of escort vehicles for wide loads, but I think they've all been private companies.  I think the sole exception for me was in México, where I saw a wide load being escorted by the federales.

[jon daly]

During my commutes...

Morning rush hour there's rarely anything memorable. 

During the evening rush hour I'll usually see an Amazon Prime truck, a truck that states it's transporting for the USPS, a Dunkin Donuts truck, probably a UPS and/or FedEx truck, sometimes a double (they're usually out later at night though).  But by far, the most trucks I see are container-ship type trailers with no real identification on them, most likely coming down from ports in North Jersey and around NYC.

Those intermodal trailers are what I saw in the spring when I went to Gettysburg via I-78. I saw a slew of them likely heading to the distribution centers in and near the Lehigh Valley.

[Brandon]

The main agricultural products I see on the highway are hay and turf; occasionally horses. If I'm heading back to my hometown. I sometimes see dairy trucks on CT-87 in Lebanon, Conn.

Here, it's corn, soybeans, hay, straw, pumpkins, and sod.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Nothing special really around the Twin Cities, but back in Duluth and Superior it's logging trucks.

Also wonder about trucks hauling taconite.

I thought about that, but I expect most of that comes on the trains.

[MNHighwayMan]

Nothing special really around the Twin Cities, but back in Duluth and Superior it's logging trucks.

Also wonder about trucks hauling taconite.

Most taconite is shipped by rail or by boat through the Great Lakes.

[jon daly]

As far as trucks adding something to my road enthusiasm...not really.  Most of the roads I do on Surewhynot are either scenic, Historic or rural in nature.  To that end it can be highly entertaining watching a trucker master craft their way through a logging or mining route when I see it.  Roads like I-5 and CA 99 generally don't do much for me unless there is some sort of historic value.

My enthusiasm is atypical for this place (I think that I got a kick out of the old motels at Lake George than most here would.) Another memorable site on that trip was seeing two Metro North commuter railcars being hauled south on I-87 on flatbeds from Bombardier in either Plattsburgh or Canada,

I still recall riding 11 years ago from Chicago to Saint Louis and seeing windmill blades being hauled across the prairie on I-55.

[MNHighwayMan]

I still recall riding 11 years ago from Chicago to Saint Louis and seeing windmill blades being hauled across the prairie on I-55.

I still see this from time to time in Iowa.

[jon daly]

I'm sort of surprised that only one poster riffed on my comment about Amazon Prime's motto. Kphoger who nudged me gently and mentioned that I was hoisted on my on petard when I tried to criticize grammar and later made a typo. But that's it.

No one has any thoughts on "There's more to Prime. A truckload more."? Am I being too perscriptivist?

[kphoger]

I still recall riding 11 years ago from Chicago to Saint Louis and seeing windmill blades being hauled across the prairie on I-55.

I still see this from time to time in Iowa.

I enjoy finding those trucks on Google satellite imagery.

No one has any thoughts on "There's more to Prime. A truckload more."? Am I being too perscriptivist?

Yes, you're being to presciptivist, especially as it relates to ad slogans*.  That is, after all, the way the slogan is spoken; to my mind, it is therefore the way it should be written.  That is to say, the pause is more substantial than would be indicated by a mere comma.  It's like "Bond.  James Bond."



*  Except for this slogan shown below from the late 90s.  That's just inexcusable.

[vdeane]

I think I'd normally use a dash when writing out something like that, though standard convention for advertising slogans is the period.

[jon daly]

Ha. Hoisted again. There's something karmic about screwing up when one is trying to correct something.

[kphoger]

Hoisted again.^{[sentence fragment]}

[sparker]

When heading up to Sacramento on either CA 99 or I-5, open-cargo trucks, usually of the "bobtail + trailer" format, are dominated by tomatoes.  There are processing plants in both the Sacramento and Modesto areas, so the cargo tends to go in both directions.  And, of course, one can almost always see loads of tomatoes on the CA 120 Manteca bypass (lots of tomato growing in the Byron/Brentwood area).  Since they tend to slightly overload the trucks, there is invariably tomato detritus on or along the roadways.  Besides that particular cargo, the I-580/238/880 commercial corridor between Oakland and I-5 is loaded with container trucks (principal routing of the L.A.-Bay Area "shuttle" when the container owners or consignees would rather avoid dwell time at rail terminals); while morning hours appear to host the greatest numbers of these, I've seen quite a few on the road even around midnight.       

[MikieTimT]

On I-49 and I-40 in Arkansas, mainly see standard vans from several different carriers, but predominantly Wal-Mart and J.B. Hunt.  Lots of Tyson reefers and dual pup trailers for UPS and FedEx.

[ce929wax]

I see a lot of Swift around here, but I also see a lot of local scrap and garbage companies too.

[abefroman329]

I see a lot of Swift around here, but I also see a lot of local scrap and garbage companies too.

You know what you get when a Swift truck pulls out of a parking space? Two parking spaces.

[cjk374]

The fastest I have ever seen a trailer with the names "Swift", "J.B. Hunt", "Schneider", or "Werner" was when they were riding piggyback on a train!

[jon daly]

I'f I'm not mistaken, Schneider doesn't let their drivers go faster than 55 mph; at least that was the case years ago,

[jeffandnicole]

I'f I'm not mistaken, Schneider doesn't let their drivers go faster than 55 mph; at least that was the case years ago,

Them and JB Hunt were strict 55 mph'ers during the NMSL era.  Both companies definitely allow faster than 55 mph now.

[Rothman]

I'f I'm not mistaken, Schneider doesn't let their drivers go faster than 55 mph; at least that was the case years ago,

Them and JB Hunt were strict 55 mph'ers during the NMSL era.  Both companies definitely allow faster than 55 mph now.

Yep.  Followed Schneider trucks zipping along at far above 54 on rural two-laners in the Midwest recently.

[jon daly]

I still recall riding 11 years ago from Chicago to Saint Louis and seeing windmill blades being hauled across the prairie on I-55.

I still see this from time to time in Iowa.

I enjoy finding those trucks on Google satellite imagery.

No one has any thoughts on "There's more to Prime. A truckload more."? Am I being too perscriptivist?

Yes, you're being to presciptivist, especially as it relates to ad slogans*.  That is, after all, the way the slogan is spoken; to my mind, it is therefore the way it should be written.  That is to say, the pause is more substantial than would be indicated by a mere comma.  It's like "Bond.  James Bond."



*  Except for this slogan shown below from the late 90s.  That's just inexcusable.

I think I'd normally use a dash when writing out something like that, though standard convention for advertising slogans is the period.

I saw a couple of Prime trailers on my commute home and had a couple of thoughts.

1, The tractors are not owned by Amazon. One was from Western Express. The other was from some company whose name escapes me.

2. I'm a fan of the dash and had not thought about this before, It's a shame that you have to know ASCII codes to type a real dash instead of a lousy hyphen.  (I often use 2 or 3 hyphens to make an en- or em- dash.) By the logic, The Comic Book Guy was saying "Worst --- episode --- ever."