When I first got into this business, I tried to figure out ways to get the attention of oncoming traffic when I was escorting an unusually wide load along a two lane road.  I came upon the idea of wearing orange gloves.  That was effective, up to a point.  At least people could see my hand (I usually direct traffic from my truck with my left hand).

I am always looking for new tools to use, and one day I came upon a product called GLO GLOVES.  It is a black nylon/spandex stretchable glove with highly reflective vinyl shapes sewn to the palm, back and back fingers.  There are three different versions of this product:  original, traffic control, and sports gloves.  I use the traffic control version for my work.

The vinyl shapes include the stop sign shape in red on the palms, and a yellow triangular shape on the backs.  The backs of the half fingers have reflective yellow rectangles.  The effect of the triangular shape is that of an arrow pointing in a certain direction.  Believe it or not, motorists see those shapes and seem to know immediately what you are trying to communicate to them:  stop, go in this direction, and etc.

I also use these gloves effectively when I am behind a load on a two lane road, in particular on a winding narrow two lane road.  I communicate with the lead escort, and if traffic is coming, I hold my palm (with the red stop sign shape) toward the vehicles behind me.  When traffic is clear, I turn the back of my hand toward them, thus indicating it is clear for them to pass.  When the weather is cold, I leave the window up and use the back of my right hand to signal oncoming traffic that they need to move to the shoulder.

These half finger gloves are stretchable and come in one-size-fits-all.  They comfortably fit from medium to XXL handes.  They even stretch over conventional gloves, so you don’t have to give up comfort for safety.  The down side is that they do not come in small or childrens and women’s sizes.

You can buy these GLO GLOVES at a variety of places.  If you go the the GLO GLOVES website (http://www.gloglov.com/index.html), they have a list of places where you can buy them.  The prices range from about $15.50 to $24 per pair.  These make excellent gifts for pilot car operators, bicycling enthusiasts, and runners.

Today I completed one route survey and began another one.  My second survey of the day is for the exact same load that I took through a couple of weeks ago…but I thought I would find a shortcut and save my customer about 100 miles.  I got three quarters of the way through the shortcut when I encountered an overpass that is five inches too low.

Two years ago, I measured that overpass and it was 2 inches higher than my load for this new survey, so I thought for sure I could get my load through.  WRONG!!  Apparently, at some point over the past 2 years, someone repaved the road underneath that overpass.  That’s the only logical explanation I can come up with.  SURELY I measured it accurately 2 years ago, so that couldn’t be it.  There is an important point here, for those of you just learning to perform route surveys:  NEVER EVER simply do a book survey because you think you know your route “like the back of your hand”.  Stuff happens!  Things change!  There is just too much at stake to do a so-called “book” survey.  People get hurt and loads get destroyed and overpasses or bridges get damaged when you do things like that…not to mention HUGE claims against your liability insurance.  Every time I have tried to do a “book” survey, I got caught at it, and that is embarrassing.

Anyway, I had to backtrack about 100 miles and start over on my second survey.  That puts me about a half day behind where I wanted to be by now.  Hopefully I will finish it up on Friday.

I dodged a big weather bullet last night.  As I got into Tucumcari last night, a serious storm was coming through town.  I pulled into a parking lot and waited for about 20 minutes until things cleared up.  I never saw anything, so I had dinner, went to my room and went to bed.  This morning, I learned that  a tornado apparently had passed over me and struck a house not even a half mile from where I had parked.  (Someone up there likes me.  Who knows why?)

I am in Bernalillo, NM, tonight.

You are welcome to check out our rates and services offered. We have photographs of our equipment and loads that we have escorted, as well as other pilot car operators we have met along our travels.

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