Hauling big chunks of iron takes special driver

By BARB KAMPBELL
The Trucker Staff

10/24/2008

He’s been driving trucks for 36 years and after having several heart attacks and a quadruple bypass, Mike Abbey has learned to take things a lot easier and his health will follow suit.

Abbey drives oversized loads for KFT LLC, out of Bullard, Texas, where he’s been employed for 10 years hauling loads to the lower 48.

He usually hauls heavy equipment and sometimes it’s impossible to tell what it is.

On the day The Trucker caught up with him at a Central Arkansas truck stop, Abbey had one piece of equipment that went with two others; hauling the load for a private company.

“It’s just a great big chunk of iron,” he said.

Before he became a company driver, Abbey was an owner-operator.

“That’s what caused my first heart attack,” he said. “I’ve had probably four heart attacks. It’s been fixed by a quadruple bypass, losing weight, quitting smoking, diet and exercise. My blood pressure stays good now with no medication.”

Abbey’s doctor said if he wanted to live he was going to have to get some rest and stop working so much.

He explained that now he often parks as far as he can from truck stops and will park and walk laps around his truck for exercise.

With oversized loads, especially in winter, the work day is not long.

Abbey is only allowed to drive during daylight hours. He also gets paid more for oversized loads so there’s not the need to get in too big of a hurry.

“We usually stay out a couple of weeks and then go home for a week,” he said. “I work about seven months out of the year and make about $100,000 a year, which works out great. Oversize loads pay better; it pays extremely well.”

His wife of three years, Barbara, rides with him. Between them they have two sons; both are 29 years old. And they have one grandson who was only one week old at the time of the interview.

Driving loads with 30 tires instead of 18, with longer lengths and sometimes taller loads, takes an experienced driver, which he is.

And Abbey has lots of opinions about others in the industry.

“I believe you can show anyone how to drive a truck, but you can’t make a truck driver out of just anybody,” Abbey explained. “You have to take what comes to get the trucks on the road. Not everybody can be a truck driver — I couldn’t be a writer.”

In 36 years on the road he’s has seen a lot of things change.

“It’s changed for the worst by hiring inexperienced drivers,” Abbey said. “Trial and error for drivers is expensive including broken equipment to broken lives. [Inexperienced drivers] cause accidents. Some can grasp it as a profession or career and some can’t.

“There’s an overabundance of trucks that are costing companies and need to be moved. They back off of expectations of drivers to just fill the truck. Now to make money it has to be on a volume basis.”

And new drivers have other issues that bother Abbey.

“It’s like once they get that CDL (a lot of them) don’t want to learn from the older people,” he said. “There’s not a lot of courtesy. They don’t stop anymore. In ’72 when I started if I broke down several truckers would stop. That’s just the way it was. It’s gotten to the point of ‘you drive your truck and I’ll drive mine.’”

Even Abbey has decided that showing courtesy isn’t something he’s as apt to do anymore.

“I stopped to help a woman 4-wheeler and she said: ‘I don’t need some man to help me. I haven’t stopped again,” Abbey said, although he will still stop to help other truck drivers and admitted if flagged down by a woman driving an automobile he’d stop to help her.

And he added that times have changed, not just in trucking, but universally, some of it okay and some of it not, in Abbey’s opinion.

Onto other trucking issues, he thinks the Hours of Service situation is a mess.

“I think someone should make up their mind about what they want,” Abbey said. “But it doesn’t affect me anyway because I’m a daylight only driver. I don’t think anyone should have to work so long it’s detrimental to their health. The body only repairs itself when you are resting.

“Part of this job is destroying to you just to do it. Companies say they take care of the drivers but just ask drivers. Dispatchers send them out tired; they gotta get more loads out. I’ve worked for companies that say they adhere to a strict policy, but when you get to dispatch they send you on even when you’re tired.”

With diesel prices setting all time records it’s always a hot topic for truckers, and when asked his opinion, Abbey was quick with a reply.

“Ridiculous,” he said. “Absolutely ridiculous. Corporate greed. People who run the oil companies are to blame.”

He recalled as a kid when his mother and other “housewives” protested milk prices that were being raised 10 cents a gallon in Houston.

“These women set the price,” Abbey said. “This is what truck drivers need to do, but it’s hard to get them to work together to do anything; to make a difference.”

Abbey said the high prices of fuel are hurting his profits especially since the bigger trucks get about half the mpg of regular 18-wheelers, but on the flip side, the bigger loads get paid more so it’s all relative.

What does get Abbey’s dander up is having drivers from Mexico bringing loads into and out of the U.S.

“I think they should drive in Mexico,” he said. “I don’t think they should be here. Mexico doesn’t offer our drivers what we have here.  We have good highways. Down there you might have to pay a guy $100 to go 100 more miles down a highway. There are no real regulations.

“And besides that, they can put us out of a job by driving for half the price we do. They buy fuel cheaper. I can’t drive my truck for the same rate they drive theirs. And it’s the same in Canada. They want our dollars.

“Make the same rules for everybody and I’ll have another look at it.

As a former unhealthy driver, Abbey is really conscious of those who look unhealthy or those who exhibit unhealthy behaviors.

“I think medical conditions should improve,” he said. “I didn’t pay a lot of attention for a lot of years and it almost killed me. A lot of drivers need to take better care. This can be an unhealthy lifestyle, but you can take care of yourself. I think health ought to be a big concern.

Abbey’s advice to drivers is to “think about what you’re doing every day. Pay attention to yourself and everyone around you. Get rid of this ‘me first’ attitude. Me first causes a lot of problems.”

And for everyone involved in the industry, he says, “It’s still one truckload at a time — it’s not a volume business — it’s one load at a time.”