Trucking & Covid 19: Sanitize

This is an important topic for me since my wife has a mildly compromised respiratory system and falls into a high risk category when it comes to covid 19. We have an ongoing discussion about the situation we're presently in, reviewing it together on a weekly basis. There is a delicate balance between risk to myself, risk to my wife, obligation to my employer, and remaining conscious of the importance of keeping the supply chain we all live with operating normally.

It is far better to act out of compassion for others and not fear for yourself. That is, doing everything you can to prevent the spread of this virus to others is a far better way of protecting yourself than acting out of fear of its affect on you.

There are numerous points of personal contact in the trucking & delivery sector. In a highway tractor it's much easier to isolate oneself for an extended period than say a day cab driver doing pickup & delivery all day then returning to the home terminal every night. So the approach to maintaining social distance and a sanitized workspace is very dependent on the specific circumstance. But here's what I did last week on a typical trip.

First, understand my circumstance. We have only employee drivers where I work. There are no owner operators or independent contractors. This means the tractor assigned to me may be used over the course of the two days I am home each week. It may be used for local delivery or a short run into Michigan, which may or may not include a driver having to use the sleeper berth. There may also be warehouse & wash bay staff as well as diesel technicians in and out of the truck over the course of those two days.

So upon arrival at the yard I use Lysol spray to disinfect every touch surface from the driver's door and move methodically through the truck hitting every surface. There are a lot. From controls on the sides of the driver's seat to every handle, latch, lever, button, switch, control knob, seat, carpet, mattress(s), (all sides) work surfaces, and touchscreen surfaces. The whole inside of the frigging truck.  I do this wearing nitrile gloves. Then I go in the office and grab my paperwork allowing the sanitizer to sanitize for a while.

Still with gloves on and before putting any of my personal gear into the cab I wipe down any wet sanitizer left on hard surfaces. Then I do my usual wipe down of the truck with Armour All/window cleaner and vacuum. Then I load up my gear after throwing out all the paper towels etc. from the clean-up.

Here is a piece from livescience.com about what is known thus far about how long the virus lives on surfaces and how to treat it.

For highway drivers like myself things get a lot easier from here on out. With the workplace sterile you have control over what comes in from that point on.

Luckily for me the pick ups I do in Michigan are drop and hook at our customers facilities and I have little to no contact at all with personnel on site. But what about documents that have been handled by others? I don't have an answer on this. I then head straight to our Winnipeg terminal. I have food & water in the truck so can sleep in rest areas, as long as they are kept open, and because our loads are light out of Michigan I have no need to fuel until I reach Winnipeg. I have the ability to limit my exposure at service plazas & truck stops so I will continue to do this.

My only close human contact would be at ports of entry and exit into and out of the U.S. and at the security gate of our customer. It is quite easy to maintain the required social distance and isolation to a high degree as a highway driver. A regular wipe down of driver door handle, grab handles, and steering wheel with a spray cleaner along with all the hand washing, hand sanitizing, and use of nitrile gloves keeps my workspace sterile. I think.

With a driver that has to do deliveries all day long it becomes much more complicated. Nitrile gloves, no face touching, social distancing, frequent hand washing/sanitizing, and a pre-trip and post-trip spray down of the cab are all that you can do.

What about face masks? I keep a few in the truck in case I become symptomatic so have some protection for others by not spreading the infection. From the limited research I've done apparently filter masks do little to protect you against  getting the virus - other than preventing you from touching your own mouth - but they are beneficial in restricting the spread from you since the virus is attached to water droplets you cough/breath out.

That's all on that for now.