Note: Transcripts are prepared by an AI program and as a result may not be 100% accurate. For those of you who know us, know we are working very hard for this podcast (with our 3 hour round trip commutes and full-time jobs), and as we have time, we are slowly working on correcting the transcripts. We greatly appreciate you for understanding and your patience.
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Driving Profile: Joseph Fair
(sneak peek)
JOSEPH: I found my trailer and was heading out of Chicago, , was going about it.
25 miles an hour, , behind a pickup truck with a speed boat. And, I’m looking down on it. I see cooler and life jackets. , when we got going a little faster.
The wind blew the inner tube out of the boat and it came back and slammed into the front of the tractor. Which made a really ugly noise.
(intro music)
BHAVNEET: Welcome back to another episode of drive with this podcast. I Bhavneet
TARANJIT: and I’m Taranjit and we’re super excited to have you ride with us as our drivers. Take us on some adventurous drives around the world.
BHAVNEET: Today’s driver is Joseph Fair a former cop firefighter and commercial truck driver. But before we meet Joseph A. Little quick car keeping, did you know that we record audio and video for our podcasts? No.
If you’re interested in seeing our guests or watching their videos, check out the drive with us podcast, YouTube.
TARANJIT: Yeah, we put short clips of the episodes on the YouTube channel, and then we have full clips available on the patron if you’re interested in seeing the full video clips, let’s meet today’s driver, Joseph Patrick fare and father to college age twins is a former commercial truck driver, retired police officer and retired firefighter who served his community for over 25 years after a near fatal on-duty gunfight, he found his new path as a writer.
Here’s Joseph
(transition music)
BHAVNEET: Welcome Joe to drive with us podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today.
JOSEPH: Thank you. It is my pleasure to be on and, , to meet you. And, would like to, , add. I listened to your podcast all the time
BHAVNEET: we’re excited to have you on before we dive into your crazy driving experiences. Tell our listeners a little bit about your driving background. Your driving career and where you work.
JOSEPH: I am currently retired, but, over the last 30 years I worked as a firefighter. a small town police officer and a truck driver. My first driving experience was, , 14. My dad was trying to teach me how to drive a stick shift. It was actually called a Ford Pinto, with a four speed transmission and I stalled it a bunch of times.
And, , I loved driving when I first learned to drive, but the stick shift was tough bye dad yell a lot. And he said, if you wrecked that clutch, you got to fix the cars. And went on to drive a lot of different vehicles in my lifetime.
18 Wheeler fire, truck police, car motorcycles, , had a lot of fun.
TARANJIT: you’ve been a firefighter and a police officer and a truck driver. And what order was your career
BHAVNEET: in those
JOSEPH: Well, I was afraid. You’d ask that cause it’s pretty complicated. I had to go to the one that was paying me the most money. So actually I worked a lot as a full-time police officer and a part-time truck driver. And then later in life as a full-time firefighter and. Part-time police officers. So in there were periods that overlapped, but yes, the majority of money I made was, driving a truck full time
TARANJIT: what was it like driving an 18 Wheeler? Did you have any interesting on the road
adventures?
JOSEPH: Yes. One of my first, driving jobs was, , driving an 18 Wheeler from west Michigan into Chicago. And, , if people know anything about Chicago, there is this thing called lake Michigan, and it’s behind between Michigan and Chicago and you have to drive. Lake Michigan, where about three highways covenant together?
, I, 94, 80, 90, and a couple of other highways all merge into about seven lanes going east and seven lanes going west. And when you get in an 18 Wheeler and all the trucks are in the lanes going like this and the snow was blowing off lake Michigan you can barely see, , it’s a pretty scary experience to drive an 18 Wheeler in Chicago.
, I had to do it for about two years of my career. , I was glad when I got onto a different driving job,
TARANJIT: Since you drove an 18 Wheeler, and then you went to a driver fire truck, what was that? Did it make it easier
to drive
JOSEPH: It was much, much easier. When you’re in commercial driving the bigger the truck, , more wheels, more weight, definitely more complications. , here in Michigan, we get slippery roads. , I believe driving an 18 Wheeler it’s fully loaded is probably more complicated than driving a firetruck.
, drive a fire truck?
is a straight vehicle, but operating a firetruck with a pumper and a ladder and water tank in foam and medical equipment. A lot too, a lot of technical knowledge and training to operate firetruck, effective.
TARANJIT: Has that ever affected your personal driving? Has it made it like, have you been able to easily switch between the two.
JOSEPH: That’s a good question. I think once you drive a emergency vehicle, you get a new perspective when you’re in your own car and you’re driving down the road and you hear a siren behind you, or, , you see flashing lights coming the other way , you get really quick to get over in that right lane and make room for room because, you know, They’re going to an emergency and they got to help somebody, , when you flip the coin around and you’re in the fire truck and nobody will get out of your way.
And it’s a pretty hot call and you hear on the radio, maybe another fire truck has arrived. Saying we need water right now. , it is very frustrating, , to drive emergency vehicle. What people won’t let you over. once you get in your private vehicle, you, , tend to be really quick to get over and get out of the way.
BHAVNEET: Yeah, I can imagine, I never understood why some people, I don’t know if they don’t hear the siren or what, . Sometimes I’ve seen like police officers are like right behind someone with their lights on like move out of my way, but nobody’s moving out of their way.
It’s like, uh, hello.
JOSEPH: there are people, that are driving and there. In the music and, , they’re in their own head, completely, , in the car. They’re not looking around at the mirrors and all that stuff. And those are the people who don’t move over very quickly. , yes, , when you have to hit the air horn in the firetruck for people out there listening, when they hit the air horn at the intersection, that means somebody is not paying attention.
TARANJIT: In that situation, , do you just blow the horn? If someone isn’t paying attention, like if you’re stuck behind a car that just won’t move over, is that what the process
JOSEPH: there, there, there’s a couple of different processes. When you come up to an intersection that’s pretty busy and Congress won’t move over. There’s what’s called the S turn maneuver, where you slowly go out into the opposing traffic lane. If you see everybody stopped at the light and do an S turn around through the intersection and the other method is to.
Hit the siren cyclet and then pull the air horn a couple of times to let people know coming into the intersection to stop. Mercy vehicle has requests the right way, the right of way in Michigan. I guess the law is?
you’re requesting the right of way. So you have to come up to the intersection, make full-stop look, request, and then proceed forward.
TARANJIT: What is the process like since you have been in both the firefighting field and police officer, what is the process like for responding to an
emergency?
JOSEPH: Yeah. It’s, it’s really interesting. , what most people probably don’t think about is that there is a ton of training, , that goes into both jobs and then there’s a ton of preparation. , I had a friend that was going to get into firefighting and I tried to explain to them. A big part of the job is to make sure the fire truck is prepared.
When you get back from one call, you clean the fire truck, inspect all the equipment, checked the lights. , make sure the battery’s fully charged. , you do a whole bunch of stuff. So when the next call comes in, you’re not panicked that you’re going to get to turn out gear on during the, in the firetruck.
And you’re going to go, , the second part, , in my day before GPS. , we spent a lot of time talking about when an address comes in to know where that address is in your community. What the cross streets are, where the nearest fire hydrant is. , a lot of preparation. We went through a six week course where they set up cones actually behind the high school.
And the parking lot We set up cones and we had to drive an S pattern forward and backward with the fire truck and then sit to a classroom and, , learn about. Braking distance reaction time. And most of all, coming up to an intersection, hit the air brake, , hit the horn, checked both ways and then proceed through.
pretty technical, a lot of training, a lot of prep work.
TARANJIT: Have you had to put a number to it. How many accidents have you had to respond to? And what was the severity of those types of
accidents?
JOSEPH: Well, I extents, over 25 years It’s a very good question. I sounds like I’m going to divert from the question, but what most people don’t realize is that the fire truck rolls out of the firehouse a lot. And then, of the calls, we have false alarms that we roll out on. Then we get part of the way, and then somebody calls and says that’s false alarm.
We have hazardous conditions. We roll out to, , it’s not a car accident. We may run code to. To a response like that. , but I would probably guess at least 300 calls that I can think of over a 14 year period, running two calls for service, fire, , EMS and car accidents?
, EMS is about 70% of the total calls, , trouble breathing, chest pains.
Bleeding falls, stuff like that.
BHAVNEET: What’s the craziest most funniest call that you’ve ever gotten?
JOSEPH: probably The strangest call then I got was, sometimes you get multiple calls, multiple trucks are out running multiple. , we had, , wasn’t a Cornado here in town, but it was straight line winds. And. When that happens, , electrical storm throws off fire alarms and you get wires down, all kinds of stuff.
At one point, , we had run two or three calls. Branches out of the road, , sparking wire, whatnot. And then we got a call to go out to the highway and pull another firetruck out of intermedian because he tried to do a U-turn and the gravel wasn’t very packed and it rained really hard and the fire truck got stuck.
So we went out with a. And, , we pulled the other fire truck that was stuck on the highway, back on the pavement. So he could continue to run calls, that was probably the strangest thing that I ever got dispatch to was to rescue another vehicle that was stuck.
BHAVNEET: Uh, firefighter rescuing a fire truck.
JOSEPH: It happens on a very rare occasion. And, , it was a very unusual day. And I think that day we had 10 or more calls stacked in the 9 1 1 system. And I think they were trying to make a maneuver to cut off one call and not have to go up to the exit.
TARANJIT: I dunno if you would have advice in this situation, but if you are on the road and you either see something crazy happening on the road, or you get stuck in a terrible weather condition, what are some ways to keep yourself safe in that situation? What should you do to prevent anything
from happening?
JOSEPH: I would say in a car you should probably have, , emergency kit with flares, blanket, water, When you’re on the road, what’s really got to do is stay in communication with people, have your cell phone charged and. I would not advise people to stop on the side of the road.
When they see something unusual, I would advise people to dial nine 11, let a police officer grow to a size up. , there is a rare occasion. Maybe if I saw a little kid out next to a car, not in the expressway, I might jump out just. What could happen, but most of the time you see something like that, dial 9 1, 1, give them a good address mile mark around the highway, proceed forward.
But, in Michigan we have snow storms in west, Michigan by lake Michigan, we’re in a snow belt and, we probably get more nine 11 calls out on the expressway than the average person, ,
TARANJIT: switching over to the police officer side, have you ever been in any, police chases or had to enter 20 hit and run
calls?
JOSEPH: Yeah. Interesting question. Please chase. , I would like to put a caveat that, , if you drive a police car and you work long enough, eventually you activate the lights and people don’t. , what you see on Hollywood is usually a high-speed chase, which are pretty rare. More often somebody is.
Seven blocks from their house and their mom has the bail money. So they just proceed slowly to get in the driveway to not get the car towed and to get the bail money from their mother. But yes, I have been in a few high-speed chases. , it is really scary. , when the roads are wet, , adds a whole nother element to.
Braking and going around corners,
BHAVNEET: so now that we hear. About your professional driving fast ground, let’s dive into your crazy driving experiences. What is one of your top three craziest things that you’ve experienced on the road?
JOSEPH: When I was younger, I might’ve been the kid that drove a little aggressive in a sports car and, , Challenged the speed limit a few times. , later on, when I grew up a little bit, I started becoming a much more responsible driver and, , was much more safe. , but, , probably, , the craziest thing was, , I was riding a motorcycle.
I was new to riding motorcycles. I had got caught in a rainstorm, , I was trying to get home. It was actually pretty cold. I came up to a, , intersection on the road?
with railroad tracks and they were not square to the road. They were more like a V and new to a motorcycle. I went over the railroad tracks when they were wet with a little more throttle than I should have gave the motorcycle, which caused the back tire to pop out a little bit.
And, , it caused more cycle to fall over and. Bruce my knee and, , gravel in my elbow and, , was really embarrassed. But, Learning to ride a motorcycle is a, there’s a learning curve there. And I think most people spill in the gravel or a railroad track or something like that. Between the time they start riding a motorcycle till they get good at it.
BHAVNEET: were there. People around when that happened or is it just like, oh, nobody saw that nothing happened.
JOSEPH: You knew, you knew didn’t you, you knew Yes. I had a couple of buddies that were following behind me in a pickup truck and they did see it and they laughed they helped me pick the motorcycle up and get home. So I have to thank them for that, but quite embarrassing to slip on your motorcycle right in front of your buddies.
TARANJIT: Yeah, they’d probably never let
you live it down
either.
JOSEPH: They have reminded me and that was 40 years ago and a few of them probably, it would still remind me today if I ran into.
BHAVNEET: What is your second was craziest thing that you’ve experienced?
JOSEPH: at one point when I was driving the truck, I had a friend tell me that driving a guest link. Tinker was the way to make a lot of money. and I was not completely excited about driving a gasoline tanker, but, , eventually looked around the internet, found a job and decided to drive And, , I can tell you it’s really complicated, really dangerous. But it pays really well.
The technical part about this is on a guest link tanker. If you’re driving the really large one, they call a super tanker. It holds 140,000 gallons of fuel. Usually. Regular unleaded, super unleaded and diesel fuel has five different compartments.
, it will typically have six axles on the trailer and three axles on the tractor. So you have nine axles in 40 wheels on the ground. What makes it really interesting is that it won’t go around a corner with all the axles down. You have the axles down when it’s loaded.
So it doesn’t tear up the pavement, but when you come up to a corner, you got to time it, right. And you gotta do all your braking and then you have to hit the tag axles, which lift two axles in the front and two axles in the back of the trailer. So it will get around the corner. , probably the toughest thing.
I ever did in commercial driving was driving a gasoline tanker, getting it situated at the gas station, unloading it, getting it loaded. When you first start to drive a gasoline tanker, you’re a little freaked out. And then the first couple of times you go around the corner, you start to make a turn and it just stops lots of ugly noises, lots of screeching, lots of shaking.
And then you say, , the axles are down. I will have to stop flip the axles up. There’s airbags that lift the axles up. Take off back around the corner. But, the 18 Wheeler. Well, it’s a 40 wheel vehicle. , nine axles, In a snow storm in Michigan is super challenging.
, if you park it in the wrong spot and the trailer and tractor at the wrong angle, when you stopped to go to take off, you don’t have enough traction to get the trailer rolling. You have to stop it like that. So, , there was a learning curve , , had a lot of fun. Made decent amount of money woke up one day and said, , I don’t want to drive a gas tanker anymore too dirty of a job and too challenging and, , the thought of a catching fire, , too much.
BHAVNEET: Yeah, that’s crazy. Especially, I didn’t know that you had to lift axles in order to even turn the truck like that.
JOSEPH: they make a regular tanker that has two axles on the back and three axles on the tractor, but that can only haul. I think it’s 9,000 gallons of fuel. Then they make a supertanker in. If you’re like,
delivering to gas stations, you go to the terminal, fill up the tanker, then you go to five gas stations.
If you’re doing that type of job, you got to drive a super tanker. And, , you also got to remember to unload the back of the tanker before the front of the tanker, because if the weight is off. the axle will not get traction to take off also. So you got to load it properly. You got to go to the right gas stations in the right order.
They got unloaded properly. And then, you got to stop it. Pretty much straight arrow to get it rolling and then turn it. Otherwise the truck will not take off in all supertankers. the front two axles in the back two axles come up off the ground when you go to a corner and then they have to be back down to.
Spread the weight out on the road. If there’s anybody out to this drug gas tanker, they completely understand that it’s super technical. It does pay a lot of money. It should pay a lot of money. Cause it’s, it’s tough.
BHAVNEET: Yeah, so complicated, definitely should pay for all that you have know.
I can only imagine what it’s like driving that on the highway. Firstly when I’m driving and I’m near any kind of 18 Wheeler or any kind of large track, I’m like, I’m just going to stay away. But then there’s those people who like drive right next to it for really long.
And I’m like, I’m so scared that truck drivers going to like move over .
JOSEPH: Yeah. There is one other factor not to get people paranoid, but when the truck is fully loaded on the highway and there.
is an uneven surface, like they’re patching. The front axle of the trailer. Sometimes we’ll get caught in a rut and it will squirt the truck around in the lane. And the person next to you will think that you’re trying to run them off the road.
It’ll freak them out. And, that part of driving. Heavy truck with all the axles on a road. That’s not well-maintained, we’ll just rally your nerves
TARANJIT: Since you have been on the road a lot and different types of vehicles, I’m sure you encountered all types of drivers on the road. How would you describe the types of drivers in, in the state that you’re in or other areas that you have been.
JOSEPH: I am a patient driver. , when I get in the vehicle, , some people probably realize this when you drive a commercial truck, you’re going to be in there for 10 hours a day. there’s no reason working yourself up. , Sometimes you’re getting paid by mile. Sometimes you getting paid by the hour, so it’s not advantageous to speed.
, I try to, , drive slow, get in the right lane, set the cruise control on and let all the crazy people go by me in the left lane and, , laugh a little bit. On occasion, you’re going 62. And somebody goes by you at 90 miles an hour makes you seem like you’re standing still. , I have seen a lot of poor driving.
, I’ve seen a lot of cars skid off the road while I was driving. , seen a few high-speed chases go by, , , One came back to me here. Then I had forgot about this was around, 2008. , I was driving to, , Chicago and, , I got Chicago one day made it to the terminal, found my trailer and was heading out of Chicago, , was going about it.
25 miles an hour, , behind a pickup truck with a speed boat. And, , I’m kind of guessing they were in Chicago, went out on lake Michigan was having some fun was driving home probably. , it’s certain times traffic slowed down. I’m looking down on it. I see cooler and life jackets. , when we got going down the road opened up, got going a little faster.
Eventually the wind blew the inner tube out of the boat and it came back and slammed into the front of the tractor. We’ll have a going down the highway and, , it was a pretty interesting accent to explain to my safety manager. It’s a trucking company that a tube flew out of, , the back of the boat It didn’t do a lot of damage to the truck, , but I got out, took pictures with my cell phone and, , probably the strangest thing that I’ve seen out on the highway, there was enough straps on.
Tube, so that one of the loose straps got in the front tire and yanked it into the suspension of the truck, , which made a really ugly noise.
BHAVNEET: Yeah, that is a really strange thing to have to And be like, yeah, I got in an accident. It’s a tube.
JOSEPH: The only. Damage to the truck is that there’s a little temperature sensor underneath the bumper, to tell the fan to come on and off in 18 Wheeler. When you’re sitting at traffic that the fan runs on an electric circuit and, the tube came up underneath there, got pulled by the tire and it ripped the wires out of the temperature sensor, but it didn’t damage the bumper.
It didn’t damage the grill of the truck. May the truck overheat because the fan was working,
BHAVNEET: so you kind of alluded to this a little bit. How would you describe yourself as a driver? And would you say that your family and friends would agree with your driving?
JOSEPH: I, classify myself as a very patient driver, , very professional driver, , Went close to a million and a half miles in my lifetime, , without an at fault accident. So I’m a pretty good driver. , my kids like to, , insult me by saying that I drive like a grandmother and. I could take that as an insult, or I can say that I’m really safe when I’m driving?
a car.
I’m really looking out for other people’s safety and trying to do the right thing. I think when you do it as a profession and it becomes your. You get really serious about looking real far ahead and watching a light, turn yellow and breaking early and all that. But my kids call me a slow driver and they say, if you’re ever going to have an accident, it’ll be because somebody runs into the back.
TARANJIT: Well, it was better to be seen. Slow as opposed to racing down and you don’t have control of your vehicle.
JOSEPH: Correct. I’ve never run into the back of any vehicle.
ever. And all the driving I’ve done, I haven’t had a speeding ticket since 1988. I don’t know. That’s 30, some years ago, right? I haven’t had a speeding ticket, so I’m obviously driving safely.
TARANJIT: Do you have a driving pet peeve or there’s something about other drivers that are really
irks? You.
JOSEPH: probably this, thing about not using your turn indicator, changing lanes, , that is the one that, , I see people do that and I say, , they’re flirting with. Someday statistically, if you’re doing a lot of lane changes on the highway and you’re never using the turn indicator, , you’re, , create a situation that could be a bad accident.
But, , as a commercial driver, you try to watch people and you will maybe see a pattern of somebody that just doesn’t use a turn indicator. And then you may just decide to slow down and let them get miles ahead. but yes, , you use your turn signals on the highway. , check your lane, flip your turn signal on, move over Or shut it off.
, otherwise you could have an accident.
BHAVNEET: Or there’s those people that will change lanes, and then turn on their indicator after they’ve already changed lanes and be like, well, thank you.
JOSEPH: And there’s people who will turn on, move over to the right and then they’ll just leave it on and drive down the road for two or three miles. And you know that they forgot to turn it off, but, , yes, turn indicators, , use them properly. And. Try to pay attention when you’re on the highway, people are moving fast and get out of the way, get over in that right lane.
If you’re going slow, getting that right lane. If you go fast, get in that left lane, but pick one and stay you.
in one, don’t go back and forth.
TARANJIT: So switching gears a little bit, let’s go back to when you first started driving, how would you describe your test driving experience?
JOSEPH: I went to driver’s training. I was super excited about going to drive restraining. , I was 15 years old. That was a long time. , Jimmy Carter, might’ve been president now. That was a long time ago. Yes. , I was super excited. I went to the secretary of state, took my road test. Everybody told me that the guy, if the guy fails you, it’ll be because you pull up the stop sign and you don’t stop doing the white line. That’s the thing that this guy failed people for. So, , got my mom’s Cadillac, went down.
Sector state came up to the white line, stopped about four feet behind the white line. Completely looked over at the guy in stuff. Look both ways. Turned right. And he said, go back to the office and he signed a little thing and handed it to me. So I didn’t have a long test because I had a good knowledge of what he was looking for.
TARANJIT: I know you touched on this a little earlier briefly of the fire truck driving test. How was that compared to atypical
driving tests?
JOSEPH: it’s pretty challenging, there was a whole bunch of stuff, , that we would go into a classroom and then they would explain. And then, , we’d go out into a parking lot and then we’d practice. And then we go back to the classroom and he would explain what you did, right.
And what you did wrong. And then there would be the discussion about, , you’re a public servant. We have high standards. , if you don’t pull up just the right distance to the fire hydrant, you could get out and have the hose six inches to. And at that point, you’re not getting any water and you got to back the fire truck back up to get the hose on and there could be a house on fire and that extra minute could make a huge difference in the fire.
So there was a painstaking process and I believed at the time they went over things too many times, but we went over and over. Saturday after Saturday until you were precise, parking the truck, the distance, the fire hydrant, knowing where the equipment was, positioning it, close to the fire, but not too close where it could collapse on the fire truck.
I believe the school went six weeks long and, , it was pretty tough. it was pass or fail. You had to know everything or you couldn’t drive the truck. So, , might’ve took two attempts,
TARANJIT: is there
a time limit in between if you were not to pass the first time that you have to wait before you could go back and do it
again.
JOSEPH: in my case, it was quite a long time ago. And, you would have had to wait six months until the new module came up and the state did a new. , criteria, and then you would have to sign up for that class. And then you had had to go through that class again.
So six months or a year till it cycled back through, and we had a training if you didn’t get it.
So there was some pressure.
BHAVNEET: It’s definitely not like just regular driving test where you can like there’s room for error, or , you can get a couple points off and you still have.
JOSEPH: I believe that don’t, don’t quote me on this, but I believe that at certain points where you back the fire truck true between the bumper and the orange cone was four feet on each side, and then you’re articulating the truck. So, you really had to. Pay attention and you really had to practice there was room for error, but there was a low margin for error and they gave you multiple temps.
But if you couldn’t get the truck, , through the course in time, you waited six months and you practiced and did it over.
TARANJIT: it makes sense in a way that if you are in an emergency situation, you need to be able to do it the first try as opposed to like sitting there, going over and
over.
So out of the three. Having careers, the , firefighter, police officer, and truck driver. Which one was your
most favorite?
JOSEPH: Well, I really love driving the fire truck, , and being a firefighter. It is probably the most rewarding job you could have in your lifetime. , if you are an adventurous person, , the fire truck gives you endless opportunities to learn. , there’s incredible amount of equipment on a fire truck from the pumper, the jaws life, the heart star, , the oxygen, , it goes on and on.
So to be a firefighter, to have a fire truck , it’s untouchable, it’s completely untouchable.
TARANJIT: Let’s dive a little bit into the future would driving. What are your thoughts on self-driving cars? And is this something that you would be comfortable
with?
JOSEPH: I just watched the Waymo YouTube yesterday, after you are video, I was watching a couple of episodes of yours and I watched the Waymo, , and the guy jumps in the back of the van. And there’s no driver in there. And Waymo is a company that’s owned by Google and they’ve been working on self-driving much like Elon Musk at Tesla has been working on, self-driving , I don’t know a lot about artificial intelligence, , but I do know if you have a good enough computer and you have good enough sense of.
Eventually the computer should be able to drive better than a human being. So level five autonomy in a self-driving car that has all the data from the past mistakes. , there was a Tesla going on the highway in a semi-truck, went in front of it and it was pretty white. And the contrast wasn’t there and the sensor, the LIDAR or camera didn’t pick up some eye and it ran into it.
Enough data. I believe the self-driving could be safer than the human, and I believe we’re approaching that at some point. , but I would be more comfortable with?
the car driving that a human, except when it’s super IC or super cold, snow storms, ice, something like that. You need the human any other time.
Put the robot in there, let it drive the car. , probably if I had to guess three years from now, , Tesla, have it figured out but, , what’s your thoughts?
BHAVNEET: Yeah. I, I’m not sure if I would jump into it right away. Like right now I would want to wait until. A little bit. I also know that they are, I think also starting to make self-driving semi-trucks
JOSEPH: Tesla does have one of those and, electric powered in hydrogen powered self-driving truck. And, I believe it is the way of the future. And there are trucking jobs where it’s line haul from, say one spot on the highway to another town on the highway, say Detroit to Chicago. And, , the trucks basically driving.
A straight line or in a lane without a lot of congestion, , that probably will be automated at some point, but local delivery driving, where you add a load and unload the truck, like the Pepsi or Coke guy, I think you’re always going to have a human operating on delivery truck,
BHAVNEET: burden’s question time. Are you ready?
JOSEPH: I think I’m ready.
going to ask me the embarrassing question, right?
BHAVNEET: if you could make one, a new driving law, what would it.
JOSEPH: Probably this thing about, driving 90. Wyoming, I’ve never done it.
but I hear there’s places out west where you can drive like 90 miles an hour. And the average person is probably not having the skill to do that. , 70 is a pretty good universal. In the United States, but, , 90 or even 90 in a commercial truck is probably too unsafe.
I would, I’ve never been out there to see that application, but, , I would say capita 70 and cap, , commercial trucks at 62. ,
BHAVNEET: yeah, we’ve also never driven out west. So like east coast, that’s like 70 is the max that we’ve
JOSEPH: Yeah.
Yeah.
TARANJIT: Do you have any final thoughts or any advice that you would give to drivers that are
listening right now?
JOSEPH: When you first start driving, you need to have your mind on the fact that it’s a driver’s training teachers or the principals, but you need the experience to get good at driving. And, , you should probably drive super safe too. You have a lot of expenses. Three four years,
at some point, when you drove for like 10 years, , you could probably drive in relax but when you’re a new driver, you gotta drive slow and break early
TARANJIT: yeah. I feel like when you’re a new driver, though, at least I’ve noticed with some new drivers, you’re so excited that you just go for it, as opposed to thinking about what could be the consequences of those
actions.
JOSEPH: Enthusiasm. Yes. Correct. When you finally get the freedom to get out of the house and drive you drive with enthusiasm. And, it’s probably good to get away from everybody else while you’re trying that.
BHAVNEET: Much for coming on today before we let you go, I know you have a book that just came in. where can our listeners find you?
JOSEPH: Yup. two die hero. End of watch one, , easiest place to find it. As on Amazon, if you just put in to die hero or you put in author, Joseph, Patrick fare, , that will get you to me. If you want to talk to me, probably the easiest way to find me is on LinkedIn, Joseph fare. , send me a friend request and a direct message.
And I will try to get back to you. I get. Interaction on social media. But I try to get back to people. It’s been my pleasure to be on here. You have a wonderful podcast. And if you ever want to have me back on, I’ll come right on.
(transition music)
TARANJIT: I feel like these past couple episodes I’ve been saying, I learned something new each time. And again, I’m going to say, I learned so much
BHAVNEET: about wealth, the wealth of
TARANJIT: knowledge. I learned so much about life as well. A little bit about police officers. We didn’t dive too deep into since we ran out of time, but about life as a police officer, a firefighter and even a truck driver, like there’s so many things I didn’t realize, like I know driving a truck has.
need scale. I just didn’t realize all the things that went into being a truck driver, especially like a gasoline tanker driver. Is that a word? Is that how you say a gasoline tanker driver? But it was so interesting to hear about the different professions from Joseph and the behind the scenes of each job.
And I show surely made me have, I always had appreciation for. The people who work in that field, but it just made you have a bigger appreciation for police officers, firefighters, and even truck drivers. Like, can you imagine having to control such a big vehicle while also navigating roads filled with crazy people?
Like crazy drivers? I know
BHAVNEET: it’d be crazy enough. Just driving on an open, empty road. Like he was saying, if you hit one tiny little. Divot in the road, the truck will start swerving a little bit and then you’ll freak out everyone around you thinking that you’re trying to run them off the road, but you’re not, you’re all being awesome.
And stopping the truck from swerving again, staying in your lane. And it’s like, now when I see a truck driver, it’s like, oh, hats off to you
for staying in your lane.
TARANJIT: Exactly. I was driving next to one the other day and I’m like, Okay. Maybe they’re like trailer going, like this is not their fault. Like, you know, I have a different way of looking at it now, which were just nice to know the behind the scenes to understand what they’re going.
BHAVNEET: We hope you enjoy listening to Joseph’s driving stories. Be sure to stay tuned until the end of this episode, to hear a sneak peek of next week’s episode with Peter, the owner of discovery map international a map-making company
TARANJIT: she wrote like an ad, he shared with us about the time he was hanging from his seatbelt as his truck flipped over. And he also got stuck because a mountain was moving.
BHAVNEET: Thank you for tuning in this week. And if you enjoyed this episode, you can help support the show by sharing it with your friends or leaving us a review on pod chaser. It truly does help us get discovered.
TARANJIT: Thank you for choosing to drive with us and we’ll see you all next week.
(outro music)
PETER: I got a phone message from my mother on the voicemail was in a panic. She said that she’d found, ice flat ice and was unable to gain any traction and she was off the side of the road
we were having a light snow storm. I turned onto that road. that she was on
And just as I did
It finally occurred to me that we were on a sheet of a. And I had no control over the vehicle at all.
. And As soon as the two right wheels on the truck left the pavement, the truck immediately just flipped over on its roof.