A cousin operates a Wyoming hot shot
freight service. He wore out one Dodge Dually at 432,000+ miles. He has had his
share of wildlife encounters and shared this.
For those not familiar with the term, hot
shot, a shipper has something that needs to go from point A to point B RIGHT
NOW. Often an operation costing $10s of thousands per hour is stopped for lack
of a vital part. Call a freight forwarder specialist who can get it transported
as fast as possible.
A notorious stretch of highway for wild
animal encounters is Colorado Highway 13 from Rifle, CO through Meeker, Craig,
and on to Baggs, WY. My cousin had an encounter with a elk one night just South
of Baggs.
Back in the day when I was running off
site car sales, we had two car haulers we owned and operated. One night between
Meeker and Rifle our driver hit a deer. The owner and general manager were
making noises about making the driver pay for the damages. Closing the office door, I gave them a short,
unpleasant, lecture. Pointed out he
could have tried to swerve an 80,000 lb truck/trailer combination and rolled it
and the ten cars aboard off the hillside.
They weren’t thrilled having the Tank
tell them what trees made shingles but nothing more was said about charging the
driver.
Over the years I’ve hit three deer and
had many other close calls. I understand in the Southland feral pigs are a big problem.
That is a lot of compact meat on hoof from the few I’ve seen.
Drive safe out there!
