Truckers are their own worst enemies.

Recent deaths at S.A. truck stops have drivers looking for answers

"It's not like they're out killing people," Porcaro told her audience. "The truckers are ingesting bad dope," she theorized.

Porcaro and her fellow veteran peddlers who gather here every day of the year, selling their wares or polishing wheels at $5 a pop, (Porcaro
sells CD's and DVD's from her car in the parking lot) suspect one of their transient acquaintances is cutting the methamphetamine he sells with another agent to support his own burgeoning drug habit.

A day after Porcaro said she told a detective her story, the peddlers said police went to their nearby campsite, looking for a man.

This man is now in Bexar County Jail on two unrelated misdemeanor warrants and has not been named a suspect. A police spokeswoman said no one is a suspect because the deaths have not been ruled homicides.

At all the truck stop's, in the warmer climates, there are always transients in the area, many garner the funds they need by doing menial tasks, such as wheel polishing, etc. These folks, to the truckers, are just a minor inconveniences. At all truck stop's there is a prostitution problem. Even those that have security fences, manned gates and security patrols there is a problem. Mainly because the truckers themselves travel with the prostitutes that litter the lot. Truckers are their own worst enemy.

While a very small portion of the 300 or so, trucks that may be in the parking lot actually deal, or partake, of the services offered by these women and their trucker pimps the number is high enough and the CB is loud enough to make it seem a pandemic.

"Turning on her CB radio, driver Letha Burnett illustrated how rampant - and easy - truck stop prostitution can be.

"If any of you drivers want commercial company, turn to Channel 24," Burnett purred into her radio.

"What do you look like?" a voice said, almost instantly. "I'll come pick you up."

"I don't feel comfortable at all, at any truck stop, walking around without him," said Burnett, a 32-year-old Louisiana trucker who's currently riding with her boyfriend, also a driver. "They all think we're prostitutes."

Also, it must be said, that many of the responders are just "CB Rambo's", meaning they will chat up the situation on the CB, but never have any intent of ever using the service, nor will they actually identify who they are, or their location. But the public listening to these exchanges never know this. Once more, truckers are their own worst enemies.

To clarify the situation, in this story the police offered this explanation of the events:

Police, however, have said they are investigating the possibility of deadly narcotics in at least three of the deaths: a couple found partly naked inside their locked cab at Petro on Nov. 1 and a man discovered inside his rig at the same truck stop on Thanksgiving Day.
Then as the conversation continued with the reporter, truckers once more demonstrated how they are their own worst enemies.

No drug paraphernalia, however, was discovered in the rigs, police said.

Investigators previously considered the possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning in the deaths of the couple.

The fourth body, a 53-year-old man found last Monday at the Flying J truck stop less than a mile from the Petro Stopping Center, died from a heart attack, the Bexar County medical examiner's office ruled Saturday.

As the conversation turned to methamphetamine use among drivers, one offered: "Road dope can either help you or it can hurt you."

Klein nodded.

"I don't do it a lot, just every now and again," he said, adding that he only smokes and never injects.

Drug use is specifically forbidden by the operator of a commercial motor vehicle. And date proves that usage is indeed low, to include alcohol.

Several other truck drivers echoed Klein's sentiment: Sometimes, pressured by a company to make a "hot run," or an urgent delivery that is running late, and facing the prospect of an exhausting, cross-country drive, some will do what it takes to make the deadline.
The keyword in that statement is SOME.

Drivers who are using the excuse that their companies demand they make unrealistic and unattainable delivery schedules are not in charge of their truck. DOT regulations demand a driver not drive when tired or impaired, for any reason. I, as a trucker, decided many years ago I will operate my truck in a manner that is safe to me, and the motoring public around me. I often hear drivers seeming to brag they can make
unrealistic schedules, like it is the mark of a real man! Macho does not play a part in the safe operation of a CMV.

"I ain't gonna lie," said Aaron Irby, a 27-year-old truck driver from Maybank, just outside Dallas, who owns his truck and contracts with other companies for loads. "When you first start trucking, you have to do so many things in not much time. I've done my share of speed.

"You've got to do what you've got to do," he shrugged.

And there lies the crux of the problem, a shurg. This industry demands professionalism, even if it is not awarded that status by employers, Federal Agencies, (Transportation is exempt from Fair Labor Standards Act, for overtime), Law Enforcement or the public in general. The safe, successful operator of a CMV will hold him/herself to standards higher than is demanded, or expected.

San Antonio Police Officer Shawn McGibbons, who, for the past 121/2 years has worked night security at the Petro Stopping Center, also within his regular patrol district, said he increasingly hears more talk about "high-speed chicken feed" on his hand-held CB radio.

"Maybe they're just more open about it," he said.

No, I don't think so. In my humble opinion, the "CB Rambo's" are setting the tone for the other 95% of safe, courteous drivers. The squeaking wheel get's the oil. No matter how you describe it, a few taint the industry for all of us.

Then for some reason this published report shifted gears from truckers and drugs to logbooks.

Critics also lambasted Congress for not passing a provision mandating drivers to have on-board recorders, which would keep track of wheel
movement, saying truckers routinely cheat on their driving logs.

The logs are meant to prevent overdriving, and truckers can be fined or suspended if they drive when they are meant to be resting.

But some drivers said they are pressured to fudge their logbook numbers - either by their own desire for a bigger paycheck or by their bosses.

"It's like, 'We ain't gonna tell you to lie on your logbook,'" said Irby, who keeps three for different occasions."But do what you can to get there."

When we have drivers like this one, admitting to log falsification to a news reporter, we are doomed to always be thought of as outlaws on the nations highway's and will maintain the moniker, "Killer Trucks", as was so termed by 60 Minutes many years ago.

This industry has made fantastic strides in safety performance, has became pretty much self policing as to HOS (Hours of Service) and drug testing. A few rouge's like the above trucker, Irby sure make us all look bad.

While OBR's (On Board Recorders), may not be standard issues on trucks at this time, records
are available to DOT auditors when performing an in house audit. Such things as fuel transaction dates and times. Especially if the fuel was
purchased with a fuel card such as Comdata. Toll receipts also are time stamped. And most large carriers are now equipped with satellite tracking and communications with their trucks. many states will log the time and place a truck crosses a weight station or port of entry, they use that data
to check at a more distant location, even adjoining states, to see if indeed the trucker was logging his time correctly.

It was further lamented in order to cope with the loneliness of trucking that, "Over the years, truck stops have recognized the need for entertainment, and many, like the Petro Stopping Center, now feature all-night cinema rooms and video-game booths. There are laundry facilities, Internet connections,
fax machines and a general store where one can buy anything from a DVD player to a thermos."

Would this be any different than a well equipped camp ground? Catering to the mobile customer's they have? OTR, (over the road), trucking makes hard demands on a person, and unusual solutions are found to fill the needs. Most truckers I know prefer to stop into a Wal-Mart Supercenter and
stock up for a weeks needs. No one can afford to pay truck stop prices, even for needed items, such as Preparation H, or other over the counter medicines, the prices are a complete gouge.

"Still, there is enough downtime, and loneliness, that truck stops are notoriously ripe playgrounds for prostitutes, or "lot lizards," who skulk between the big rigs in the late hours. "

As mentioned above, most of the prostitutes come into the facility IN A TRUCK! Drivers are indeed their own worst enemies. And, btw, I see these girls rebuffed more often than utilized. Once more a few bad apples are ruining the entire basket.

I have observed over the past many years of my trucking career a trend that says most of the abhorrent behavior of truckers, as chronicled above, happen along I-10, I-20, I-30 and I-40 on the east-west routes, and along I-95, I-85 and I-81 in the north-south routes. What that means, I have no idea
but it can't be denied. Also cities that seems to have the most problems are also along those routes. San Antonio is just one of them.

Do I deny these issues exist? Indeed I do not. Do I have rose colored glasses on and refuse to admit transgressions by other truckers? I do not.

However, I do know that all the bad publicity by an industry that is American Proud, one that strives to better it's self and one that has multitudes of drivers that "do it right" is generated by a very low percentage of outlaws, mavericks and scumbags.

Please do not assign me, or the people I associate with, to that group.

Indeed, drivers are their own worst enemies.

Monty Rhoades is a staff writer for Truck Net.