Posted on 01/06/2010 9:43:20 AM PST by SoonerStorm09
A week before Christmas — four days before Arrow Trucking Co. closed its doors and stranded hundreds of drivers and their freight at truck stops and rest areas around the country — Arrow driver John Eischens called his mother.
He asked her for a bus ticket home.
"Arrow bounced John's last two paychecks and cut off all advances in the week prior to the shutdown," said Marie AuBuchon, a driver for KLLM Transport Services of Jackson, Miss., and a member of a loose-knit national effort to return stranded Arrow drivers to their homes.
"John only worked for them for about a month. He would have had no money for food or shelter."
Eischens' mother is old school, AuBuchon said. She convinced her son that Arrow would make good on the money it owed him, that you owe the company loyalty and shouldn't abandon it during tough times, AuBuchon said.
Nineteen days after Eischens called his mother, and 15 days after Arrow's lenders canceled company fuel credit cards, the Arrow driver is missing, said AuBuchon and volunteers at "Support for Stranded Arrow Trucking Drivers."
The organization can be reached on the Internet or through Facebook links.
On Tuesday, authorities found Eischens' truck at a truck stop in Montana, AuBuchon said.
(Excerpt) Read more at tulsaworld.com ...
What’s the insurance situation look like? Yours or Arrow’s cover any of it?
The customer must be going ballistic, he’s got a construction schedule and no G*D* transformers, huge loan payments and probably a hefty performance bond. Man, one irresponsible shipping company can make a world of pain.
strange as most motor carriers have trailer and tractor tracking gps systems in them. so unless the units were comepletly disabled the should be able to find them as also the guys mobile phone might even have the system.
One thing is for sure . . . Truck driving is largely a "red state" profession, so I can almost guarantee you that there are Arrow trucks and trailers parked out of sight in remote areas all over the Appalachian Mountains and across the fruited plain of this country right now.
I’d be shocked if anyone is prosecuted for “stealing” Arrow trucks or loads. You’d have a hard time finding a unanimous jury willing to convict anyone who is charged with a crime after the sh!t this company has put them through. And I were a driver charged with a crime for anything I’ve done, I’d have my defense attorney call every Arrow executive as a witness in the case just to have them help make my case for me.
The carrier or broker if it was brokered freight. Hopefully the carrier has proper insurance or valuation coverage with a insurance carrier. Many motor carriers are self covered.
Motor carriers offer VALUATION and not Insurance. They are not liecenced to sell insurance. The can offer Released coverage VALUATION.
If you followed that plan, the call to the shipper could be construed as interstate extortion and wire fraud, two felonies, before you even finished your second sentence. Every other step in furtherance of your plan would make it worse.
I understand that the drivers were instructed to take the trucks to dealers where they would get Greyhound tickets home. Fair? No way, but it beats sitting in the Graybar Hotel for five to twenty.
Back then, one common practice for a driver who was stranded by their company like this was to drain the oil out of the engine, leave the truck idling at a truck stop or highway rest area somewhere, and then hitch a ride home with other truckers.
The company was then in a race against time to save the truck before the engine seized up. Even if they have GPS they may not be able to get there in time.
I wouldn't recommend this approach, of course. I think the truck is more valuable to the screwed driver if it's in working condition.
I just talked to my boss and she said that the transformers have been found in North Carolina. She said they were impounded, so now she’s got to try to get another truck out to the lot, with a crane, to get the transformers on another truck and on their way. Whew!
They're free to come and get them (with all the proper paperwork, of course), but for the right price I sure could help them dig it out and bring it where it belongs.
Prior to trailer or tractor tracking we could go months before finding an abandoned truck.
Trucks and trailers are already on the market for sale. I have had calls from Two dealers selling them.
Actually about all jury duty people would NOT be on your side if you have stolen company property. You would end up in Jail by thinking you could HOLD onto property until you were paid. Don’t even think of it.I am a retired trucker and I know of a couple of drivers that tried that trick!! didn’t work.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.