Semi-Truck Terrorism? [Didn't Want To Learn Backing Up...I kid Ya Not Alert]

kxmc.com ^ | Dec. 12, 2006 | Not Cited

[conservativecorner]

A truck-driving student is in custody in Boston after raising suspicions when he wasn�t interested in learning how to back up his rig.

WLVI-TV (Ch. 56) reported last night that the would-be trucker is a 28-year-old Muslim from India and had overstayed his visa. An investigation is under way to see whether there is any connection between his unusual behavior and a terrorism plot. Federal authorities were alerted by instructors at the Nationwide Tractor Trailer Driving School in Smithfield, R.I., WLVI reported.

The student was described as a resident of New York, with driver�s licenses from New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

�Every indicator was there,� R.I. State Police Major Steve O�Donnell told WLVI. �Any one of these things alone is fine, but four or five together .

While a loaded semi-truck would make a fine weapon it’s hard for this ex-farm boy to understand that you’d need a lesson on how to drive it forward.

I wonder what will become of this story?

[bobby.223]

500??? good god!

[metmom]

It would send up a red flag to me. Sounds too much like not being interested in landing the plane.

[sarasmom]

The only direct order I refused to comply with during my entire stint in the USAF, was regarding obtaining a flight line driving certification.

I figured accepting an article 15 was better than damaging an F-15 or B-52...

[Quix]

LOL.

I vividly picture things far too easily.

[Muleteam1]

I guess I had one although I can't recall that particular certification (ca 1960s). I never ran over an aircraft although I did have a few almost run over me. LOL!

[Tailback]

I got lucky, I fell into by pure accident a job with a garbage company after a year driving flatbeds. Then 5 years later a buddy in my national guard unit told me about an opening at a county public works department.

Having that truck school certificate has kept me from ever being unemployed, but driving over the road is no picnic. If I ever get laid off at the county, I'd crawl over broken glass to get back on with a garbage company. My last choice would be going back over the road.

[Ax]

Back in the day, I was in Djibouti. We were supposed to take the Embassy Escape and Evasion out for a test run. My buddy told me to drive, and he'd guide me so I could back the trailer down the ramp. I just couldn't do it. Finally, a French Officer jumped on the running board of the Toyota Land Cruiser and asked if this was my first time. I said yes, and he said "you can't do it on your first time. Move over." So I did, and he backed it down the ramp. To this day, I cannot trailer my boat, and that's why I keep it at a marina. Oh, yeah. The HOA said no trailers in the development, too.

[Muleteam1]

I suppose one can easily imagine the load shifting in the van and the wild look in my then young eyes as the load moved up the ramp. Unfortunately I cannot adequately describe the critical look on my father-in-law's weathered west Texas face as he stood folded arm off to the side. I also moved houses with him for a couple of summers. Now that was even more fun.

[Tailback]

backing a 40,000 pound load of swinging meat up a shaky ramp onto a railroad piggyback flat car is no way to learn to back a truck.

Your father in law sounds like a tough guy to impress, I hope marrying your wife was worth it, sounds like it probably was. So was mine.

That truck school experience has served me well in the military. I can't tell you how many times I've had the supply sergeant or first sergeant come to me to back water buffalos, field kitchens, generators, or fuel trailers into very tight spots and onto railroad cars. My skills driving truck has kept me out of many a detail because they always want me close at hand "just in case".

[ladyjane]

Your directions reminded me of the old Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez movie, "The Long Long Trailer".

I can't believe there is someone else out there who saw this movie and actually remembers it!

[Quix]

LOL.

I can imagine.

My very demanding mother insisted that I know how to drive more than the tractor by age 11 or 12. AND that I know how to back a pickup and a trailer respectably by mirrors only.

I can do a respectable job often fairly quickly.

Interestingly, the little golf cart and 10 cu ft red trailer give me more fits than anything. No mirrors is part of the problem. LOL.

[Quix]

I can about picture it. Born in Texas with plenty relatives still there.

One question . . . maybe 2.

--You still married to his daughter?

--He ever decide you were worth keeping around and treating like a peer?

[Muleteam1]

I drove from Albuquerque to west Texas in my pickup last month when the big snow storm blew through here. Big mistake. There were more rigs turned over on I-40 than I had ever seen in my life. It took 15 hours to go from Albuquerque to Clovis, NM. There's no way I would have been out there in a big rig in that storm but I do recall the driving force of logbooks. Tough job.

[editor-surveyor]

"Makes you wonder what substance the bad guys see themselves filling trucks with"

Molten sulfur is a real killer too.

[Tailback]

I do recall the driving force of logbooks. Tough job.

Which logbook? The one you show the state trooper, or the one you turn in for pay?

[pandoraou812]

Did this make any newspapers? It is really alarming to hear this. Anymore details on this? Is anyone in jail?

[shadowcat]

Hold on........
Jack is back in January '07

[sarasmom]

Hence my decision to "not acquire one", as I deemed myself eternally insufficient to the task.

I could and did climb the ladder and give final target instructions to my pilots, while fighting the gravitational pull of those enormous air intake valves of the F-15...and I crawled into the belly of the beast of an alert B-52...
But I refused to drive on the flight line.

Many men in my family drove big trucks for a living.
They taught me many things, including that driving big trucks is a dangerous profession, best left to those who are trained to do so.

We already know the jihadists plan on using tankers and tractor-trailors to deliver their next "surprise" attack.
We need not ignore lessons already learned, and actually give them licenses to carry out their murderous plans.

[Dust in the Wind]

A 53 foot trailer behind a long nose tractor is easier than a 2 horse trailer behind a pickup any day of the week. Don't feel bad. Short coupled along with normal steering being severe over steer jackknifes the little rig every time.

[Muleteam1]

>>Your father in law sounds like a tough guy to impress, I hope marrying your wife was worth it, sounds like it probably was. So was mine.<<

He was an old Republican from way back. I greatly loved that old man as I have his daughter for now 36 years.

Yes truck driving experience can get you out of some tight jams. I recall one old conventional Diamond Reo we used to use at the piggyback yard that had a warped frame from someone backing it off the train at some point (not me). Whenever backing into a turn with a loaded trailer the clutch would sink to the floor and become inoperable until the truck and load came back almost straight. It would be an understatement to say it was quite exciting to back a load between two shiny new semis already sitting on each side of your door at the meat-packing house. Your heart sank with the clutch petal as you maneuvered what you knew was a one and only attempt at placing the reefer in the door and not on top of one of the burly truck drivers closely guarding their rigs.

Much time has passed now and the largest thing I back anymore is a 16" foot car-hauler with an antique tractor on it.