Road ready: Semis and farm equipment DOT discussion

Chris

Barron: We are grateful that you are joining us for another episode of the Ag View Pitch, as we know that your time is very valuable. Our team at Ag View Solutions is always here for you for any questions or comments that you may have. Please feel free to reach out to us at cbarron@agviewsolutions.com. And now here is your host, Chris Barron. Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. We are going to have an interesting conversation here today. With a DOT officer. We are in our farm operation just getting ready to start harvest here as we record this, uh, towards the end of September of 2022. And we just had our pre-harvest meeting. If you didn't listen to the podcast I did earlier this week on having an agenda and sitting down with your team pre-harvest and getting things lined up so everybody's on the same page, go back and listen to that.

If you did listen to that, I think you're going to really enjoy the conversation we're about to have here with Chris Wicklund, who is a DOT officer in Iowa. So Chris, welcome, and how's it going?

Chris

Wicklund: Doing good, thank you.

Chris

Barron: Good, good. So what we're going to do here is just kind of have a conversation. So Chris, you just met with our team. You just did a, actually a couple of hours of training, answering questions, explaining to us, and our, our team, we have 5 semis in our farm operation. You were, you were sharing with us all the things that, that we really need to know. And, and we've got a couple of really experienced CDL drivers, and, and at the end of the conversation, they were even pretty complimentary of you too, you know, as it is. We all need the refreshers too, don't we?

Chris

Wicklund: Yes, we do. It's, uh, nice to educate people instead of, uh, meeting them alongside the road, uh, to, uh, you know, fine them or whatever, right?

Chris

Barron: Well, I think you said, uh, it's— what'd you say? It's free when you do it this way?

Chris

Wicklund: Yeah, it— the cost is free, but alongside the road it's going to cost you.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, exactly. So, you know, one of the things I said, and I did a pre-harvest podcast here earlier in the week, and one of the things I— and I had mentioned on there, I'm like, oh, we're gonna have a DOT officer come in and do training, and I also in that same breath though said, I'm sure a lot of the farmers are listening to this and thinking, oh, that's really what I want is I want the DOT officer to come and look at my trucks. And, you know, but like you said, you know, you can either be proactive or reactive and, you know, and I want to start out with safety. What are some of the simple things from a safety perspective or, you know, violations, I guess, from a safety perspective that you've seen and have you talk a little bit about safety?

Chris

Wicklund: Well, the number one violation that we see is speed, trying to get in and out of places way too fast. And as we all know, speed kills. Mm-hmm. Then using cell phones, make sure you're on a headset or just Bluetooth to the truck. It's leads to a lot more issues if you're using your phone.

Chris

Barron: So let me ask a question on that. So if you see— so, and I know every state's different and we have listeners from all over the country and Canada, but, you know, if somebody is caught, if DOT officer sees a truck driver holding their phone, obviously talking on it, texting for that matter, going down the road, what, what are the consequences?

Chris

Wicklund: Well, in the state of Iowa, it's $135.50 fine for the driver at the time of the stop. Then the feds can come in and issue a civil penalty of $2,750 to the driver and up to $11,000 to the company.

Chris

Barron: That would get a little pricey.

Chris

Wicklund: Yes, it would.

Chris

Barron: So, and in all likelihood, that would probably be enforced in the event of a loss, maybe, right? Or if there was an accident, then that becomes pretty evident.

Chris

Wicklund: Yeah. Well, and if it's a, if there's many inspections done with that as listed as a violation, it raises big red flags for the feds.

Chris

Barron: Mm-hmm. Oh yeah, for sure. What's your, what's your opinion of having cameras like in the truck and that are outside of the truck? Any thoughts there?

Chris

Wicklund: I would say do whatever you can to prove your innocence, basically, in an accident. We find that that leads to a lot of, a lot of times that the driver doesn't get issued citations because it's not their fault after we look at the camera.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, I think there's a lot of people that are hesitant. I even saw that with one of our senior drivers today. I asked the question about cameras and I saw him look down at the ground, you know, I'm like, I think, you know, sometimes some of us are camera shy, you know, we don't want to be on the camera, but it's not just on us in the driver's seat. It's also outside of the truck. And a lot of times the vehicles either cause the accident or they've got, you know, some peace in it, you know, and, and the trucks always seem like they're considered guilty until proven innocent instead of the other way around.

Chris

Wicklund: Yeah, that's correct. So, um, most drivers do everything correctly to begin with, so they shouldn't be afraid of having that camera on them.

Chris

Barron: So you talked about speed being also like kind of the number one reason— that a lot of the trucks get pulled over in the first place. Talk to me a little bit about some of the other moving violations like stop signs and turns and things like that. What are some of the other things that you might see?

Chris

Wicklund: Make sure you're using your turn signals because improper lane changes, that's a very wide violation. I mean, that's issued quite often.

Chris

Barron: So what would a, like in Iowa, what would that cost you if you're not using your turning signal and you're switching lanes? It gives you a reason to look at a whole bunch of other stuff too.

Chris

Wicklund: Yeah, it does. It's a, it's a good reason for us. If they're not, not using the turn signals, there's obviously other issues that we're going to find with the truck that could lead to out of service.

Chris

Barron: So talk a little bit about, um, those other things that you would maybe find then. So, and namely, I think as we record this, we're heading into harvest for a lot of operations. I mean, we've got guys in the south that are done in Texas and some of those areas already done, but you know, in many of the cases, guys are going into harvest and it's a weight thing, right? It's okay, we're going to be legal at 80,000 and every state's a little different. So, you know, take this as a nuance, you know, and we're talking Iowa specifically here. But, you know, what are, what are some of the weight consequences that you see or violations that you see there?

Chris

Wicklund: Being overweight on axles, tire weight ratings. Obviously weight plays a big factor into your braking power. Um, so make sure you have good brakes on your trucks.

Chris

Barron: What are some of the instances that you've seen, you know? I mean, obviously 10, 10 years of doing this, you've seen some, probably some crazy stuff. What are, what are some of the things that you've seen as far as overweight or some of that? And then I'll dig into some other stuff.

Chris

Wicklund: But, you know, you know, just, um, I've had guys that were 103,000 pounds on 5 axles because they had just bought a new, new to them, high-sided trailer and didn't know how to load it and just filled it.

Chris

Barron: Hmm, well, that would be overweight maybe. Yeah. Um, with that said too, um, as far as other violations or other accidents and things, is there anything that you can say, you know, this is something that I saw over the years happen maybe more than once, or something that, you know, as us as farmers need to keep that in mind so it doesn't happen to us. What are anything there that you can think of?

Chris

Wicklund: Well, and it again, it's back to speed, you know, trying to get that extra load in. Um, it is still going to be there tomorrow, right? Um, so is it really worth pulling out and or having to stop quick because somebody pulled out in front of you and being tired and not having that reaction time that you need.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, I think that's a big one is sleep. I mean, you know, you get— let's face it, a lot of us on the farm operations, we work too many hours, and especially you get halfway through harvest And you could watch the weather and probably predict what's going to happen. If there's rain coming in 2 days, you can probably predict a day later everybody's going to be really tired and they're still going to be working.

Chris

Wicklund: Yeah.

Chris

Barron: And you can probably just about figure it out. I mean, I've watched a lot of things, and maybe you can address this, but where if you're overtired, your reaction time's just as bad as if you were legally drunk.

Chris

Wicklund: Yeah, if not worse.

Chris

Barron: Right. Right. I think something for all of us to pay attention to. One other thing I want to hit, and we'll talk a little bit more on some semi things, but pickups and trailers, you talked quite a bit about weight with, you know, gooseneck trailers and pickups. And I know, again, the state differences, there's differences between states, but talk a little bit about the regulation requirements for weighting the truck and gooseneck trailer and whether or not you need a CDL.

Chris

Wicklund: So if your combination gross vehicle weight rating is over 26,001 pounds, then you're required a Class A CDL.

Chris

Barron: Okay.

Chris

Wicklund: Um, unless in, like, in Iowa, if you're a farm operation and it's farm plated, then that's not required.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, and we had some questions today too because, like, our trucks are plated commercial, but yet we're hauling, uh, farm to farm and doing a lot of that kind of stuff. Even though they're plated commercial, we can— we still would fall underneath the farm, quote-unquote, farm regulations, right? Even though they are plated commercial.

Chris

Wicklund: Yes, that is correct, as long as the covered farm vehicle paperwork is in the truck, right?

Chris

Barron: And explain that.

Chris

Wicklund: So that exempts, um, or it's only good for trucks hauling their own product to their farm or to the co-op or the ethanol plant or wherever it's going to.

Chris

Barron: Is that a multi-state thing, do you think, where people could go on their state DOT and print out that exemption form and actually have it in the truck? I know that's, uh, that was part of MAP-21 Um, because I bet a lot of guys don't do that. I bet a lot of guys are listening to this and like, what? You know, you need to go on the DOT website, print out covered farm vehicle. Yep, covered farm vehicle and whatever that exemption is. You actually have that paper, so if you get pulled over, you can say, here's, here's my documentation.

Chris

Wicklund: Yep. And it's, again, it's only— it will be used for your own product in your own trucks.

Chris

Barron: So when you, you guys pull somebody over, what's kind of the, the main mechanical stuff you're looking for? I mean, is there anything that's like major, or is there anything that's minor, or something that's real common? What are you looking for?

Chris

Wicklund: Uh, tires, brakes, brake hoses.

Chris

Barron: What are you looking for in tires?

Chris

Wicklund: Making sure there's enough tread, making sure they have air in them.

Chris

Barron: And have enough air because you were saying one of the weigh stations, as the trucks drive through, they can see the air pressure in the truck as it's driving across the scale. Is that right?

Chris

Wicklund: Yeah, they can tell if there's a difference in the tire pressure.

Chris

Barron: That's pretty cool.

Chris

Wicklund: Yeah, it is.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, that's neat. We need those on the farm. Like my nephew's like, how expensive is that? It'd be nice to have that in our own operation when the trucks are driving through the yard. But yeah, what about brakes? What are you looking at there?

Chris

Wicklund: Making sure there's enough brake pad there, making sure the drums are actually— or the pad is contacting the drums, make sure there's not rust on the drums.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, another thing too, you talked about when we went out and actually looked at our oldest truck in our fleet, you you did find something. You found an airline that was rubbing, you know. I'm like, good luck, let's see if you can find something. And you did, you know. You probably can look at any of our trucks, probably find something if you look hard enough. What, um, you know, talk a little bit about, about airlines. What are you looking for there?

Chris

Wicklund: So on the airlines, we're looking at further brake hose chafing, or they're where it's rubbing against something else and causing a defect into the brake hose. Anytime two airlines cross, there's— they're going to be rubbing. Or if it's resting on a frame member or differential, that just going down the road is going to create that vibration to cause some chafing.

Chris

Barron: Hmm, interesting. So, um, I guess a couple other questions. If you are looking at different regulations, what's a common thing that you see that people don't do that they need to have done? I mean, was it a medical card? Is it, you know, or I'll just leave it at that. I'll ask the question. What, what, what's a common thing you see or what's a list of things that we need to be aware of?

Chris

Wicklund: Well, just make sure you're doing a good pre-trip and post-trip on your vehicles. Because you can find a lot more issues with your vehicle and get them taken care of and have a whole lot safer day.

Chris

Barron: Mm-hmm. So with that said, then a pre-trip, we'll start there. Let's say the driver pre-trips it, something happens in route. What are the things that you say, okay, you're staying here, you're not leaving?

Chris

Wicklund: So if there's any air leaks, especially with your brake chambers, that needs to get taken care of right away.

Chris

Barron: Right on the spot.

Chris

Wicklund: Yeah. Tire, you know, flat tires.

Chris

Barron: What about limping to the next exit where you're safer?

Chris

Wicklund: It's, it's supposed to be— I mean, you're supposed to stop and take care of it.

Chris

Barron: Technically.

Chris

Wicklund: Technically. Yeah. But I mean, we do understand that safety is a big key.

Chris

Barron: Yeah.

Chris

Wicklund: And stopping in the middle of the road is not an option.

Chris

Barron: Right. But if that does happen, is it something that can be requested by the driver that, you know, you have either a police officer or some kind of an emergency vehicle there? Yeah. More than just having the, you know, the triangles out and stuff, you know, you have a service vehicle there. Some of these roads, there's a lot of stupid drivers out there that drive way too fast.

Chris

Wicklund: Yeah, and there's a lot of roads that don't have much shoulder on them either, right? And so yeah, contact your local law enforcement and say, hey, I'm broke down at this spot, it's not good visibility or whatever, not big enough shoulder, could you guys send somebody out to, you know, so traffic will move over?

Chris

Barron: Yep. Yeah, safety is is why you guys are in the business you're in, right? Yes. I mean, it's a safety thing, which I think a lot of us don't always think about that, you know, the reason for this is safety.

Chris

Wicklund: Yeah.

Chris

Barron: Whether it's overweight, whether it's, you know, not having equipment together like you should and that kind of thing.

Chris

Wicklund: Yeah, it's for the safety of everybody on the road and to keep the roads intact.

Chris

Barron: Right. Yeah, because, you know, there, there is a 90,000-pound thing in a lot of the states where, you know, they raise that up, but that doesn't include— at least in Iowa anyway— doesn't include the interstate, right? So just because it's 90,000 on your two-lane roads doesn't mean you can pull out onto a four-lane and be legal, right?

Chris

Wicklund: That's correct. So not valid on the interstate.

Chris

Barron: Not that that would ever happen, probably, but I'm sure there's people that, um, so talk about, um, a couple of other things that might stop. I know one of the things you said, like a leaky fuel tank, you know, if you even, if it's just dripping.

Chris

Wicklund: Yeah, if it's dripping, then it's got to be replaced at the scene. That's an out of service.

Chris

Barron: And it's not moving.

Chris

Wicklund: Yeah, it's not moving. If your turn signals are out on the trailer, then you have to get that fixed at the scene.

Chris

Barron: Okay, um, I guess I'm, I'm trying to think of any other questions. I guess, you know, what are, what are some of the things if you were to sit down right now and tell the listeners as farmers, you know, just pay attention to this, this is a big one, this one's, this one's a big one too, what are the couple of the two big things?

Chris

Wicklund: Just, I mean The biggest thing that I can say is, you know, pay attention to your surroundings because a lot of times the cars are not paying attention to what you're doing. So you have to think for yourself and for them.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and then you mentioned speed too. I think one of the things that I have on our agenda that I talked about, and I was looking to you as I was giving our our team a lecture sort of on the safety side of things is just the speed you drive in driveways. We have a speed limit in our yard of 10 miles an hour, and that doesn't mean that you can go 15. It means 10's the max. It means go ahead and go 5 if you want. Doesn't mean you have to go 10. And the same thing, you know, we come across our scale, it's 3 miles an hour, so you don't drive on the scale and jam the brakes and screw up the scale. It's just having those conversations.

And the other thing too is that I brought up, and I was looking to you for confirmation on this because I didn't know, but when the drive— when our driveway is kind of a steep driveway into our yard, when the trucks are on the highway, a lot of times we feel like— and I guarantee every farmer listening to this has had this feeling, whether it's a piece of machinery you're driving down the road or a semi you hate to slow people down, you know, it's just to kind of— it's like, I feel bad because they're slowing down behind me. Shifting down and getting down into your lower gear before you enter into the turn instead of coasting into the turn, because when you coast into that turn, it does a couple things. It's hard on the truck because you're torquing everything to one side of the truck, so you're, you're wrenching on the truck, number one.

Number two, you're entering whatever it is— it might be a farm driveway, it might be a landlord's driveway, it might be your own driveway, you're kicking up a shit ton of dust and everything else, you know, where it's like gear down on your, your primary surface, and when you're going to the next one, already be in the gear you need to be in to get started up again.

Chris

Wicklund: Yeah.

Chris

Barron: Any kind— anything with that or anything you'd want?

Chris

Wicklund: It's the other driver's responsibility to pay attention to what— to slow down what you're doing. Because you're not required to go 40 miles an hour into somebody's driveway.

Chris

Barron: And you talked about turning signals too. We had that discussion with our team today. It's like, where do you turn the turning signal on? And one of the guys said 500 feet. What's your comment on that for turning signals?

Chris

Wicklund: I'd say, you know, the longer warning you can give the person behind you, the better. I would say quarter mile if you can, with that, I mean, as long as there's no other roads that you're going to cross. Right.

Chris

Barron: Right, and that's the thing too, is I think a lot of it is just so you're making yourself apparent to the other drivers. Like you said, you know, it's— and it's a lot of it's common sense, you know, is what a lot of it is. So I thought I had another question, but maybe I don't. So, um, if any of you guys, um, have other questions or things that I should have asked or you guys want to know, just feel free to email me and, um, you know, we can get those things answered. But one of the things I want to ask you, Chris, too, before we wrap up here is, you know, we contacted the Iowa DOT and said, hey, we'd like an education. Um, I would recommend that to every farmer that's listening to this that has semis on the road is— and, and you guys are, you know, you did a great job today of educating us on a ton of stuff.

You had a really cool PowerPoint presentation, you showed us some accidents, you showed us some things that can happen. You know, I think that was really cool. And people can do that, right? They should be able to, for their state, any of the states, they should be able to reach out to their DOT and ask for that kind of training.

Chris

Wicklund: Yeah, I'm not sure on the other states, but I know we're in Iowa are trying to get a group of individuals that just do trainings.

Chris

Barron: Yeah. And I think it's critical. I think we— it's a lot less expensive to do it and be proactive from an incident standpoint. I'm always— with all due respect to DOT, I always tell people, you know, it's— you can pay a fine, but if you kill somebody or you injure someone, you're going to have a lawsuit most likely. And that's where it could get expensive if you're not following the regulations of the DOT and doing all the things. From a regulatory standpoint that you need to do, that's where it can really get expensive, isn't it?

Chris

Wicklund: Yeah, it is, because I've always told individuals that I know, said go above and beyond what you're required to do. You know, say you're FarmPlate, you don't need to do the annual inspection. It's $60, not that expensive. But if you go above and beyond, showing that you're doing more than what you're required to do it's going to look better for you if you're ever in that situation.

Chris

Barron: Right. I did think of what I was going to ask now real quick, and we'll, and then we'll wrap this up. But grain carts, combines, tractors on the highway, you guys have jurisdiction of farm equipment too, right?

Chris

Wicklund: Yes, we do.

Chris

Barron: So I think a lot of times farmers aren't like, with their tractors and their carts and all that stuff, don't even think, well, the DOT, you know. So if you see somebody driving down the highway or gravel road with a full grain cart, what would you do?

Chris

Wicklund: We're going to stop and weigh the grain cart.

Chris

Barron: So a typical grain cart axle, they can—

Chris

Wicklund: in Iowa can only be 28,000 pounds.

Chris

Barron: That's not very much corn in the cart. Uh, no, or very many soybeans or anything in there. Very much weight at all?

Chris

Wicklund: No, not much weight at all. So about 400 or 500 bushel, I think. On a typical grain cart.

Chris

Barron: Yep. Yeah, so less than, less than half full if you got 1,100-bushel cart, you better think about it. And then there's bridge weights and all kinds of other stuff too that you have to abide by as well, right?

Chris

Wicklund: That's correct.

Chris

Barron: So, um, what about like, um, you know, we talked about fuel trailers. So we have a lot of farm operators, and, and I know you're going to be telling me for Iowa, so again, this is why If you're in any other state, you know, find this stuff out. If you don't know, ask and find out, right? Yeah. And, but we asked you about our fuel trailer. I think TJ said it holds like 750 gallons or whatever, and it's got DEF on it and diesel fuel and parts and stuff. It's a hazmat vehicle or trailer.

Chris

Wicklund: Yes, it is.

Chris

Barron: So on the farm side, we're exempt. One question I didn't ask is, is do— should we have an exemption form in the pickup that's pulling that? Trailer or not?

Chris

Wicklund: I would.

Chris

Barron: Okay, because that just helps if we did get pulled over and then somebody, you know, if they want to check. Because you guys, that's the other thing, you guys don't have to have a reason to pull anybody over. You can pull somebody over just to scale them or to check them out, right?

Chris

Wicklund: Yes, we can.

Chris

Barron: It's a little bit different than a typical law enforcement that kind of needs to see something. Yeah, you know, before they—

Chris

Wicklund: most have to have probable cause before they pick on them.

Chris

Barron: You guys can pick on us no matter what, right? Yeah, we Which is good, which is a good thing actually. You know, when you got trucks rolling down the road at 80,000 pounds at 65 miles an hour or whatever, there's a lot of momentum and a lot of weight there. Yes. On the farm, back to the farm thing though, on that fuel, I didn't mean to sidetrack there, but on that fuel trailer, you said in Iowa they don't need to be, the trailer wouldn't need to be licensed, is that right?

Chris

Wicklund: If it, well, if it's over 3,000 pounds and it has to have a License.

Chris

Barron: Okay. All right. So that's on the fuel trailer based on that. But as far as hazmat, it's not if it's a farm, if it's going farm to farm and you're not going to like the fuel supplier to pick up the fuel, because if you actually went to the fuel supplier to get the fuel, then you're technically commercially—

Chris

Wicklund: No. Yeah. Then you have to have hazmat endorsement.

Chris

Barron: Right.

Chris

Wicklund: So CDL.

Chris

Barron: Yeah. So if you just go back to your own personal fuel trailer and then you're going from there to the combine or tractor or something, And it's farm use.

Chris

Wicklund: Farm to field.

Chris

Barron: Right. So I think that's important for people to recognize or to ask in their own state, you know, what, you know, what am I doing here that's legal, you know, and am I doing anything that's maybe not. And then same thing with farm equipment on the road, I guess, is just knowing that you guys have jurisdiction over that and You know, and sometimes we're crossing the center line the whole time because we can't get over any further. I mean, is there anything that you've watched or seen that you guys have had to deal with, or—

Chris

Wicklund: Well, most of the time it's failure to yield half the roadway.

Chris

Barron: Okay, so if, so if they're crossing the center line, if the combine's going down the road and the dual's hanging out over the center line, that's crossing the line. You got to figure out how to be over.

Chris

Wicklund: Yep.

Chris

Barron: That'd be interesting for the guys that are listening to this in Indiana and Ohio, because those roads are like— the whole road isn't hardly wide enough to drive the machine down. I don't know how those guys get away with it over there.

Chris

Wicklund: I'm not sure what their regulations are there.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, they must be different over there. I know our roads are a lot wider here than they are in the east. Yeah, but so I think that's everything. I, I really— Chris, I really appreciate you being here, and, and, um, you did a great job educating our team, and I really appreciate you educating our listeners on the Ag View Pitch. Really important information. And I guess I would encourage everybody to do what we did today and, and have somebody like yourself come in from the state DOT and do some education. It's always better to be proactive than reactive.

Chris

Wicklund: Yeah, definitely.

Chris

Barron: So, all right, well, hey, Chris, thank you very much. Really appreciate being here today.

Chris

Wicklund: Thank you.

Chris

Barron: So, all right, and everybody, hopefully this was an educational opportunity. And again, like I said, if you have any questions or some things I didn't ask that you wanted me to talk about or whatever, ask about, let us know. And encourage you to get a hold of a DOT officer in your state. So with that said, everybody, thank you again for listening, and we will catch you again next time. On the egg.