Favorite Pin of the Week

Since we have been talking about organization in Our Journey to Debt Free Living, I thought it would be appropriate to share one of my favorite organization pins.  Check it out here.  I am actually using this idea to make my own organizers for my pantry.  An area that is in desperate need of reorganization.
Knowing exactly what I have will also really help our grocery bill.  Here is a picture of the one that I have finished so far.  I find that these organizers work best with the smaller cans, although they work ok with the bigger cans if you don't want as many in your stockpile.  They hold about 7 of the spaghetti-o cans.   I used the save $5 off of a Scotch Expressions Tape purchase of $10 or more at  http://www.coupons.com/ to buy the duct tape. 

Trucking Kids - Alphabet Book

Princess has been working matching letter sounds with the correct letter.  To help her do this we have been making an alphabet book together (a project I can remember doing when I was in preschool!).  It is such a simple project.

Materials Needed
1" 3 ring binder
26 Page Protectors (one for each letter)
26 pieces of white paper
old magazines/fliers/newspapers to cut pictures out of
Black Marker
Black Pen

Write the capital and lowercase letter of each letter on one of the pages (example "Aa" would be one page).  Let the child cut out pictures that start with that letter (with supervision of course).  In some cases Princess did best if I drew a large circle around the picture she was cutting out and she cut out the circle.  Glue the pictures onto the letter page.  Write each word underneath the picture.  Put in a page protector and put into the binder.  Continue this until you finish all the letters in the alphabet.  Periodically as we work on this (it is not a one day project), we go through and Princess points to the letter and tells me what it is.  Then she points to each of the pictures and says what they are.  She loves to "read" it to Buddy too, which is great because it increases his vocabulary as well.

Making Our Marriage Work

Truck driving is more than just a career.  It's a lifestyle for the whole family.  Fortunately, the Colonel did his homework before he went into the field and we both had a basic understanding of what this lifestyle would mean.  I say basic because there has still been a major learning curve through the time we have been doing this and I'm sure it's far from over.
It's no secret that many trucking marriages end in divorce.  The Colonel and I are determined not to be another statistic.

When we started out all the trucking companies and any support said the same thing.  I was supposed to be this energizer bunny and handle everything family life sent my way while making sure my husband had nothing but rest and relaxation on his home time with no sight of a break for me.  This was the fast track to divorce not to building a healthy family.
Here are a few things that we have learned:

Set Your Family Up For Success - By procrastinating and not helping me get the apartment ready to handle our young toddler and everything else on my own added a lot of unnecessary stress, burn out and strife to our marriage.  Do what you can to help make sure the apartment/house is clean and organized when you leave.  Something as simple as picking up after yourself or washing some dishes can make a world of difference.  This also allows your significant other to devote their attention to helping the children transition if there are children in the picture.

Have a Plan to Communicate But Realize Sometimes It Has to Wait 
     The Kids - We try to let our kids talk to Daddy every night.  The reality is that this isn't always possible.  Most of the time they are ok with Daddy is sleeping and we leave him a voice-mail.  They know that Daddy will call them as soon as he can.  On the occasional chance that that isn't enough we keep a prerecorded voice-mail that tells them Daddy loves them and misses them or we call another important family member (usually their grandparents) to tell the highlights of their day with.  We also do good and bad phone calls.  The kids are with me all the time so sometimes listening becomes an issue.  In these cases the kids need to hear that Dad not only knows they aren't listening at home but that he is behind Mom in how it is being handled.  I really try to avoid these phone calls but they do happen.  On the same not when the kids do something really really good we celebrate it with a phone call or leave Daddy a happy voice-mail.
     During Storms - The general rule of thumb is the Colonel gives me an idea of where he will be and gets in touch with me when it's safe to let me know he is safe and to check in on me if we are dealing with the same storm at home.  Only if there is an important piece of information on the news that directly effects him or an emergency at home do I try to contact him - usually with a text or voice-mail.  My main goal is to avoid distracting him.  The kids understand this well enough (we want Daddy to be safe) and we use our voice-mail on these nights.  I hate being alone in a storm with my kids and I certainly hate waiting for that phone to ring, but if it's what brings my man and his student home safely to their families then I will get over it.  As a trainer's wife there is nothing that bothers me more than a significant other that does not understand this concept or a student that doesn't help their significant other really understand how important it is.  The student may not be driving but if their phone keeps going off over and over, over every little thing it is still a distraction to the driver.  Get them home safely by letting them contact you.
     Communicating as a couple - The biggest issues here are your own personal fears and the games your mind plays on you.  After we first got married the Colonel wanted to talk the most when I was visiting my family.  He had this fear that I would stay there and not come home.  If I go so long without hearing from him I do get concerned about whether he is safe or in a ditch somewhere.  The Colonel also goes through these phases where he just doesn't want to be bothered to talk which drives me crazy.  There are some important things to remember on both sides, which at times is much easier said than done.  First, he is on the road to do a job and needs his sleep to stay safe.  On the significant other's side, unless they know another trucker's significant other there is no one that really understands what she is dealing with.  However, from experience more than likely there are many that think they get it and are very free with advice.
Listen to each other the way you want to be listened to.  You want to vent about that wonderful individual that passed you on the right on the highway (immense sarcasm here), a load you are delivering that's a week late, or any of the other frustrations that come with truck driving then give her the same courtesy and really listen to her when she needs to vent.
When you actually do get to talk, stop the conversations with other people, turn off the tv and pay attention to each other.  The Colonel is very easily distracted and I actually was convinced he was cheating on me with his teammate because he would pay more attention to the teammate then to me when we did have a chance to talk.
When it comes to the big decisions include each other.  I am so thankful that when he started training the Colonel asked me how I felt about him training female students.  I honestly was not ok with it and not because I don't trust my man.  I wasn't ok with it because I wanted to protect my man and my family.  There are students out there unfortunately, both male and female, that will make false accusations because they didn't want to hear what needed to be said.  They don't care that there is an entire family and children that will be effected by those false accusations.  We both agreed that we wanted to keep the chances of that happening to a minimum as much as possible.

How We Handle Home Time next in Making Our Marriage Work

Incident at Market Basket

Yesterday Market Basket was stop number 2 of our grocery trip.  We were going one direction down an aisle and there was another person going the other.  Little Buddy was being such a good boy in the seat of the cart.  Then a woman decided to push between the two carts in the aisle rather than wait the minute for the aisle to clear out.  In the process she pinched Buddy's finger hard enough with her cart to give him a black and blue and scrape the skin.  The best part - she couldn't even be bothered to stop, apologize and make sure that he was ok.  I was too busy making sure he was ok and trying to calm him to chase her down but if I had had the opportunity there would have been words.  Poor baby was so traumatized by it that when I had to put him in the seat of the cart at the other stores he cried real tears until we got back to the car.  Made for a really tough shopping trip.  I wish I could say that that was the only customer like that at Market Basket, but it almost happened at least 3 more times.  Many of the customers were pushy and grabby.  To make it better the aisles were filled with product to be stocked onto the shelves at what appears to be a peak shopping time.  I understand that shelves need to be restocked but this was just sitting in the aisle with no employee in site.  When I had to ask for help to find something, I was shocked at the rude response from the employee.  Definitely was not a good shopping trip.  Honestly this is the kind of behavior I would expect on Black Friday, which is exactly why I refuse to shop until the rush is over on that day.  I like a deal when I can get one, but honestly there are only a a handful of products at Market Basket where the deals are better than the other grocery stores in our area.  But it doesn't matter how many deals or how good they are if I have to choose between my child's safety or a deal the choice will always be safety.  Needless to say we won't be going back.

Lessons Learned From A Fire

Have Renters Insurance:  No one in our building had renters insurance when it burned, including us.  Renters insurance is relatively inexpensive and combining all forms of insurance you have (renters, auto, etc.) can often get you a better deal. The  less than $20 a month is very worth if it should something happen and you have to replace everything you own.

Have A Waterproof Fire Box:  Not every fire box is waterproof.  Ours at the time was not.  I spent the first night after the fire going through all our soggy important papers pulling them apart gently (praying they didn't rip).  Even though our apartment was one of the ones that received most of the fire damage, the water damage was much much worse.

Storage:  Our storage unit was in the basement directly under the worst of the fire.  Fortunately for us, we store everything that will fit in the plastic tubs that have the locking handles.  Anything cloth we put in a vacuum seal bag before it goes in the tub.  Everything in our plastic tubs thankfully survived the fire.

Borax is Your Friend:  We tried numerous methods to get the smell of soot and mold out of everything.  Everything that was in the apartment that day had to be washed.  The only thing we found that actually worked was borax.  Sometimes the loads had to be done two or three times.  Unfortunately with the mountain of things that needed to be washed some things molded to badly to be saved before we got to them.  While borax was a huge help there were some materials (such as fleece) that it was impossible to get the smell out of.

Use Plastic Photo Boxes:  We had several of the cardboard ones which were totally destroyed along with all the pictures inside again due to water damage.  Surprisingly just about everything we had stored in plastic survived the heat.  Most of our pictures inside frames survived as well, as long as we got to them while they were still damp.  We did have some that ended up stuck to the glass.  We have since purchased the photo boxes that have plastic cases inside the plastic box to put our pictures in.  Put important pictures inside the fire box.  

Trucker Kids - Learning Phone Numbers

We have started working with Princess on learning her phone numbers.  She can easily identify numbers 0-9 which really helps this process.  I searched pinterest and the web for ideas but did not find many that would actually help her.  So I came up with this:

I took the flap off a wipes box, wrote down the phone number with a black marker and cut it up into a puzzle.  Princess loves to play with it and it really helped her to make significant progress on the first phone number she needs to learn (we are working on 1 at a time).  I do include the area code just so that she is aware of it for added safety reasons.
Once she has mastered the number with the puzzle we will switch to this nifty little toy made by fisher price. 

  Fisher Price fun 2 learn phone

You can program this phone with 3 numbers.  When the child is playing the "Let's Learn Our Phone Number" feature the phone will correct them so that they learn the right number.  We are planning on using this as reinforcement and practice actually punching in the numbers.   

All About Rose

I am the Colonel's wife and stay at home mom of 2.  For the sake of this blog I call them Princess and Buddy.  Princess is an eager to learn, tender hearted 4 year old who loves to dance.  Buddy is an energetic 2 year old who cares about others and loves to climb.  The Colonel and I are very committed to making our marriage work, despite all the statistics for trucker marriages.  Some days are easier than others.  My primary responsibilities are taking care of our children and teaching them, couponing and shopping, as well as most of the cleaning and cooking.  Basically I do everything to do with the household and kids except paying the bills.  We learned a long time ago that if I paid the bills it made me anxious and nutty as my husband so nicely puts it.  I love to scrapbook, do projects with my kids, knit, crochet, read, garden, and save money.

A Little About the Colonel

Well I guess it's time I give you guys a little insight as to who the Colonel is since I seem to have all these great and wonderful opinions. Well I'm actually a trainer for one of the top start companies out there. As far as which one it is, that is of  no great concern. I spend my days on the road teaching fresh drivers right out of school the things they need to know in order to work for the the big companies. My job is to teach beginner drivers what this job is all about.  My wife and I started blogging as away to help potential and hopefully continuing drivers and their families along their journeys. When I started years ago there was not a lot of help for someone just getting into this.  It was a solo journey with just my wife and our one child.  We were on our own in a very fast paced and very stressful job.  We had to beat the odds as statistically trucking has a very high divorce rate.  Being gone out on the road all the time does not help anyone's moral, so trying to keep the home fires burning day in and day out can take its toll.   Trying to pay the bills from out on the road, chasing after freight to make the paychecks that keep things rolling - that's life for us as drivers. The home front does not always understand so you have to help them understand.  It takes time but eventually they learn what it takes for me to keep things going.   All of you truckers out there with families or in relationships will understand.   As a driver you are never truly alone.  Family is everywhere, just not like you might think.  All drivers are part of the same unsaid family, some more then others some days.  We are all in this together.    Family is what will keep you moving along while you are out here, whether its for the hope of one or the family you leave behind.  For me, it's the one I leave behind every time I take that door.  My wife and kids mean the world to me and I will do what it takes to provide for them.   I work hard and am constantly learning to be the best at what I do. At the end of the day my family is what matters most to me. My wife might beg to differ because I put most of my energy into making sure new drivers stay safe on the road and make it  home when home time rolls around.  I do this to help make sure that my family and the families of the students are safe on the roads as well.

All About Me Collage

At the end of each birth year I like to make a "What I was Like at __" page.  Since Princess is getting to an age where she can participate I decided to make it an "all about me collage" with her doing as much as she could.

First she decorated her number 3 any way that she wanted to.
Then we did a little interview which included:

• Favorite Color
• Favorite Game
• Favorite Books or Types of Books
• Favorite Toy
• Favorite TV Shows/ Movies
• Favorite Foods
• What Activities She Likes To Do
• Significant Firsts (In our case Princess had just learned to read her first word)
• The Pets That They Have

I then found pictures and stickers of her favorite characters and the things that are important to her to decorate the pages with.
Our next little project was tracing her hands and taking her fingerprints.  After several attempts from both myself and my husband we found the best way to do this was to color her fingertip with washable marker.
Princess loves to see how much she has grown, so we included a little blurb on how much she has grown in the past year.

Another fun little project was to give Princess a person template and let her draw herself the way she sees herself.  I put this between 2 pictures of her that where taken when she was 3 that really reflect her personality.
For the final touch, I wrote out all the words to her favorite song (along with the title and who it's by).
Princess was so happy to be able to help Mommy make her memory book.  And I have a lot of priceless memories of making these pages with her, making them even more special for both of us.

Traveling with Kids

This week has been an extremely busy week as I prepare to take the kids to go visit family.  The kids are excited and full of extra energy so I find myself trying to find ways to keep them busy, refereeing more, and repeating myself more (for some reason whenever my kids get excited their listening ears shut off) while trying not to forget anything.

When I first started taking Princess on trips 4 years ago, I found the best way not to forget anything was to write a list.  Now I am so used to packing what we need that my list usually consists of things that need to be packed and done the day of.
The first step in our travel process is making sure that that car is ready.  This time that consisted of getting the trunk handle fixed (can't pack the trunk if you can't get it open) and getting an oil change.  I like to make sure that I have a full tank of gas and check all the fluids to make sure they are full the night before.
Next comes doing the laundry, dishes, and putting together everything we are going to bring.  I find that I enjoy the break so much more if I know I am coming home to a clean apartment.  While this doesn't always happen, it is something that I try to do.  The most important things for me are having all the dishes done and the trash and recycling taken out.  I am happy to say that this time the laundry is all caught up and the dishes are just about done.     Next is figuring out everything that needs to go up to my family.   This includes pictures, invitations, outgrown clothes for the consignment shop, birthday presents (no point in wasting money on stamps if we are going up there anyway).    Then comes packing.  On top of all of the clothing, diapers, and necessities I find it good to bring a few projects for the kids, 2 or 3 of their favorite toys, and a few of their favorite movies.  This really helps with maintaining their schedules and avoids the meltdowns when my youngest wants "Barn" (Barney) to quite down (especially for those days when they have been around a lot of people or had a lot of stimulation).

When I pack the clothing I find it best to make a pile of all the clothing I will be bringing for the one person and to finish that person's pile before moving on to the next.  I try to pull together all the clothing first.  I find the best time to do this is when I am putting away the clean laundry.   Then I pull together diapers, supplies for projects, toys/books/movies in that order.   I put everything we are packing in a special spot in my bedroom.  Our bedroom is gated off so the kids can't get in and remove items from our packing pile.  I store everything here for the trip until I am ready to pack the car.  This prevents the kids from unzipping the suitcases to check everything out.
When packing everything I find it best to try and consolidate as much as possible.  I have a big suitcase I try to put all our clothes in and a bag that all of our toiletries and medical supplies go in.  Any overflow goes into Princess' little suitcase.  I pack a backpack with the toys and things.  This travels in the backseat with the kids so that if they want a toy on the drive they can access it.

When it comes to packing the car, the bag of toys goes in the backseat (I also usually put extra underwear, several diapers, a ziploc bag of wipes (just make sure all the air is out before you seal it), a plastic bag for the dirty clothes and a change of clothes for each child in this bag.  It is easily accessible in case of an accident so I don't have to go through the entire trunk if I need something.  I also pack a bag that contains a juice cup for each child and a simple mess free snack that the kids can open themselves (like Teddy Grams in sandwich bags).  I put this in the passenger seat next to me along with the cds of stories and kids music.  That decreases the chance of them dropping it and getting upset.

Finally comes the actual trip.  I find the best time to leave is right before nap time.  Our trip averages about 2 hours each way, so the youngest will sleep almost the whole way there.  We also put him in a night-time diaper before we leave.  For some reason we have found that both our kids would wait to do their business until we were in the car.  So a night-time diaper helps us avoid all the fussing from being miserable, having to find a place to stop that is safe to change his diaper, and having to take the car seat all apart and clean it.

Princess and I sing songs, listen to stories on cd, and see how many "Daddy trucks" we can find and what color they are.  We find the letters of the alphabet using signs and license plates too.  On the way home she usually takes a nap.  How do you keep your kids entertained on a long trip? 

Great Deals This Week

I'm in the process of planning my grocery trip, so these are from the flyers.  I haven't actually been in the stores yet.  Most of the coupons mentioned in this from Swagbucks can be found on coupons.com as well.  I prefer to use swagbucks coupons because you get 10 swagbucks each time one is redeemed (takes about 4 months for the swagbucks to register) and I can put the swagbucks toward gift cards and other things my family needs. 

Walmart:
1 Subject Notebooks $0.17 each

20 0z. Chex Mix $2.98.  Add the $0.50 off 2 General Mills Snacks 4.5 oz or larger from Swagbucks making them $2.73 a piece

Betty Crocker Scooby Doo! Fruit Flavored Snacks 10 pack $2.  Add the $0.50 off of 2 Betty Crocker Fruit Flavored Snacks from Swagbucks  making them $1.75 a piece

Target
Girls Circo basic leggings $5.  Add the Cartwheel coupon for 15% off Circo girls leggings making them $4.25 a piece

Men's C9 Active tee $4 Size XXL $6 Add the Cartwheel coupon for 10% off C9 by Champion Men's Tees making them $3.60 or $5.40

Ziploc 40 ct. storage, 170 ct. sandwich, or 30 ct. freezer for $3.50 a piece.  Add Swagbucks coupon for $1.00 off of 3 Ziploc Brand Bags  making them $3.17 a piece.

3/$8 12 pk Coca-Cola products - must by 3

2/$5 Market Pantry lunchmeat.  Add the Cartwheel coupon for 5% off Market Pantry Lunchmeat and the Target printable coupon for $1.00 off of 2 7oz. or 9oz. Market Pantry Lunch Meat Items making them $1.90 a piece

Hanes Products: (Target has an additional $5 off of 3 hanes underwear, t-shirts, or socks in the flyer)

• Girls 9+2 pack underwear $6.49.  Add Cartwheel coupon for 5% off Hanes Girls Underwear making them $6.17 a piece
• Kids 10+2 pack socks $6.89 Add Cartwheel coupon for 5% off of Hanes Boys/Girls Socks (the coupons are listed separately on Cartwheel) making them $6.55 a piece
• Mens 6+2 pack socks $7  Add Cartwheel coupon for 5% off of Hanes Men's Socks making them $6.65 a piece
• Women's 6+2 pack cotton panties $7 Add Catrwheel coupon for 5% off of Hanes Women's Panties making them $6.65 a piece
• Womens 10+2 pack socks $10 Add Cartwheel coupon for 5% off of Hanes Women's socks making them $9.50 a piece

Hannaford
Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast for $1.99/lb
Strawberries 2/$4
My Essentials Pasta 16oz. $0.69

Some Good Coupons on Smartsource.com
$3.00 off any 1 Icy Hot Advanced Back Patch
$2.00 off any Icy Hot Advanced Product (excluded Trial sized)  (We go through so much Icy Hot in this trucking household!)
$1.00 off any 2 packages of Dole  Fruit Parfait (these are one of my favorites as its a nice low fat fruit snack that my trucker can take with him)
 

Trucking Kids - Favorite All About Me Project

One of my favorite projects for an all about me theme is a life size drawing of the child.  I just finished doing this project with Princess and Buddy.

Materials Needed:

• Roll of Craft Paper
• Scissors
• Pen
• Black Marker
• Markers or Crayons
• Mirror

First I rolled out the paper and had Princess lay on it.  Then I traced around her with the pen.  (If doing this project with a toddler an extra adult to help keep the child still really helps!)   Then Princess got up and I made any touch ups that needed to be made.  Then I traced the whole thing with a black marker.  Next Princess got to decorate it.
How we handled the decorating depended on the age.  For Buddy (22 months old), I drew the face.  I chose the colors that matched his hair and eyes, gave him the markers and asked if he could color where his hair/eyes were.  He chose the rest of the colors and I would name the color and the body area he was coloring as he colored it.
Princess (age 4), drew her own face and chose all her own colors.  I told her I wanted it to look like her and we talked about what colors her hair, eyes and lips were.  She decided what she wanted to be wearing and colored it accordingly.  I helped when asked (mainly drawing the outlines of things like the crown and butterfly).  They were so excited to do this project and cannot wait to hang them up!

Changes to the Blog

There are some exciting things happening here on Truck Driving at a Family Level.

• We have turned the Colonel's Corner into its own blog.  You can still follow it by clicking on the link on the sidebar.  We will still be treating it as a part of this blog.
• You can now follow us on Facebook, Pinterest, and Google +  (find the links in the sidebar)
• You can now subscribe via e-mail, so when we add a new post you can be the first to know about it.
• We have also added some new items to the store so be sure to check it out.

We are excited to be growing and changing and have some great ideas for posts to come.

Highlights of This Week's Grocery Trip

 Shaws:
Hostess Powdered Mini Donut (My kids' favorite breakfast treat) $2.00 (regularly $2.99)

Hood Ice Cream - If you buy 5 they are $1.77  coupons.com also had a $1 off of 2 coupon that could be printed twice and shaws printed out coupons at the register for $1 off of 1 hoods limited edition New England flavor.  For the 5 after all the coupons it comes to $5.85, which works out to be $1.17 a piece

4 for $10 (Russet 5lb potatoes, whole pineapple, sliced mushrooms, 2lb bag of clementines)
B1G1 Strawberries making them $1.75 a piece
B1G1 Freihofer's Italian Bread making $2 a piece
Shaws hot dog rolls 10 for $10
Oscar Meyer Turkey Hot Dogs 2/$3
Motts Applesauce (the small jars) 2/$3
Maine broccoli for $0.88/lb
peaches for $0.77/lb
Green Giant Steamers $1.99 with $0.60 coupon from coupons.com doubles making them $1.59 a piece
B1G1 Perdue Boneless Chicken Breast (lowest priced item is free)
El Paso Taco Dinner Kits 2/$5
Dole Fruit Parfaits (one of my husband's favorite ways to take fruit on the truck) $2.69 with coupon from coupons.com for $1 off of 2 making them $2.19 a piece

Walmart:
Old Orchard frozen juice $1.57 each with $1 off of 4 coupon from coupons.com making them $1.32 a piece
free eco tools scrubby $0.87 a piece with the $1 off of 1 coupon from coupons.com means I made $0.13 a piece

Staples:
Expo double sided dry erase board $3
Krazy glue $2
Staples Pencil boxes $0.50 a piece
Staples washable liquid glue $0.01 with $5 purchase (limit 2)

Target:
Picture 1:
Crayola washable markers for $0.99 with $1 off coupon from couponpro
48 count crayons $2
$2 off of $10 purchase target printable coupon  so I stocked up on paint as well

Picture 2:
There was a $10 off of $40 worth of select groceries in the Target flyer this week that was used on the items below as well.
2 Poland Springs packages of water $3.99 each
2/$7 select Kellogs cereals
AW and Sunkist 12 packs for $4 each (plus the Sunkist had a $0.50 off of 2 coupon on it making the Sunkist $3.75 each)
Skippy Naturals Peanut Butter Small Jars 2/$5 (plus 2 $0.55 off of one coupons from coupons.com making them $1.95 a piece)
Go Go Squeez $2.49 a piece
Hellmans Mayonnaise 2/$7 (plus $1 off of 2 coupon from Sunday paper inserts making them $3 a piece)
Oscar Meyer bologna $1.93
Relish should not be in this picture but it was marked down to $1.22

Picture 3:
Dr. Seuss flashcards in the $1 section

And with all of these target transactions I use my Target debit card with takes off another 5% (and 1% gets donated to the school of my choice) and my target reusable grocery bags (for each bag they take off another $0.05

The Difficult Relationship Between Drivers and the Safety Department

Safety departments are most truck drivers worst nightmare 90 percent of the time. Desk jockey know it alls that never want to do back a driver. Any accident is always driver error because there are always a hundred other ways you could of handled it. Car cut you off and you put the truck in the ditch to save a life. They'd tell you that you should of hit them. There are thousands of times this happens. The professional is always at fault in every case. Yes I get that there are a large number of accidents a crossed the country where the professional is at fault, I really do. I go with the belief careless is everywhere around us out on these highways. People in cars constantly make poor choices without any regard for the consequences. Day after day more poor choices, but as drivers we're supposed to think for the millions and millions of people that travel Americas roads. That's impossible so we try to handle the space around our trucks but careless is out there just waiting for you. Good drivers are fired day after day over other's mistakes that forced their hands. In split second scenarios you don't get to second guess.  Being a safety personnel is a tough job, I get it.  Safety personnel don't generally last long. It makes sense because they are asked to make final decision on what they think was the right choice without actually being present at the incident.  And some do not acknowledge that saving a family is more important than saving the truck.  Perhaps driver relations with safety would be better if safety would take the time to listen to the driver, rather than usually expressing an I'm right and you're wrong attitude.