It's a Team's Life

Light Sleeper - you better get over that

By Linda Caffee
Posted Mar 31st 2018 9:25AM

Truck Stops and the Interstate are not Quiet places! 

It is amazing the noise level out here and all of the different noises that we hear all day and night.  The sounds never stop unless we are lucky enough to park at a customer’s lot that’s business is closed until morning. 

I used to be a very light sleeper...  A child making noise at night, the house creaking, or a dog that needed to be let out would wake me up immediately.    Now I hate to say it but we recently slept through a fire alarm at a hotel, lucky for us it was a false alarm.   There are certain noises that immediately wake us up such as a knock on the truck door, and I admit when we wake up to that noise we are usually not in the best of moods.

When we get to a truck stop we back into a parking spot and get settled in.  Sometimes we have neighbors on each side that are not an arm's length away.  Trucks make all kinds of noises when they are running.  The worst is one that has an air leak and the compressor keeps cycling all night long, the air dryer vents every time it shuts off.  Then there is a reefer that is loud and continuously through the night as it starts and stops.  Before the reefer starts there is often an alarm to let everyone know it is going to start. We have an invisible sign on our sleeper to only us that says if you are noisy please park here. 

So we get all settled in and are parked between two quiet trucks and all is good!  Our truck is shut off and our very quiet generator is running or often nothing is running for the night and we are snuggled into bed.  In a few minutes, one of those quiet trucks pull out of their parking spot and what backs in?  A noisy reefer...  or better yet someone that has a noisy generator.  Now some of the generators we hear can put a reefer to shame with the noise level.  All night long this can happen and very seldom do we go to bed and wake up to the same neighbors.

Something else that is noisy is the backup alarm, setting the parking brakes, and those that honk before backing.   Most drivers do the courtesy thing and turn on their emergency flashers before backing.  This lets other drivers know that are coming down the road that a driver is wanting to back so they do not drive behind him and those that are walking know that the truck is going to go into reverse.  The backup alarm is another warning to people that are walking.

 Several times a night different trucks will back in beside us, set their brakes and then go inside of the building.  The alarm of the trailer goes right by our heads and then the brake noise is also often right by our heads, as the parking brake is set.  We either learn to sleep through all of this or we learn to drive with no sleep.  In order to survive out here for any length of time, you learn to sleep through all of this activity. 

Now once we go to sleep we go to sleep pretty much no matter what is parked next to us.  When we go home it is awesome to wake up to the sounds of the country, such as a chicken crowing or a cow mooing. Living in the country is still awesome for these great noises.   Those are the most beautiful sounds in the world.

Bob & Linda Caffee

TeamCaffee

Saint Louis MO

Expediters since January 2005

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