A bizarre situation developed for me just this past Thursday. It left me totally baffled, so I crave input specifically from Americans about how their country works/is suppose to work.
A particular flatbed load was not ready when I arrived at factory. It was far more complicated a securement puzzle than represented. I rushed in the hot sun to get the load secured in time to get to a truck stop so I could shower and cool down. (US law limits hours professional drivers can work driving, and work not-driving. Anything beyond this is violation of US law).
I failed to meet the deadline. It proved too great a puzzle and I ran out of hours . . . then worked over my legal hours (but was still on private property, so “safe”). They wanted me to leave their secured compound so they could go home. I parked out of the way, outside their main security gate. By then I was suffering from heat stroke and retreated to my air conditioned sleeper.
5 hours later the night-shift security told me I was trespassing and had to leave. I told them I had heat stroke, was out of hours, and my load was unsecured. They said this was “not their fault”. I refused to drive in an unsafe condition, with an unsafe load, on US public streets.
They phoned the police. And I was told that their complaint regarding their private property rights took precedent over my being legally over-hours, being in an unsafe condition to drive, and having an unsafe load (only gravity was keeping 6,000 lbs machines on my deck).
They escorted me, at 3 mph, on public streets to a point just outside of their jurisdiction and left me on the side of the road.
I told the officer that this had made no sense to me. He commented that this was “America working the way it was suppose to”.
I am baffled and even flabbergasted. This was so totally alien to me on so many levels.
Any Americans out there with any insights on this?
© 2026 – SoulSequel
24 responses to “American Culture Shock”
You can always escalate things. But it may be better to leave things be.
You could have asked to speak with the officer’s superior,and his, and so on. Tell them to wake the mayor of the city at 3:00 AM and see if he’s happy about being disturbed.
I would also look into printing waivers, stating that the company, the security company or maybe even the individual who told you to move (and the police officers) so involved are now liable for any incidences involving your vehicle for the next 24-48 hours due to their interference in your rest period.
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit ticked off and wanting “something” from them. Perhaps just an acknowledgment that a policy, mindlessly executed, resulted in an endangerment of others. But I get the distinct impression that fear of culpability/lawsuit would prevent any positive process.
What struck me was the combination of really not understanding the legal/judicial processes at work in a foreign country; and the mental confusion that comes with heat stroke. (I felt like an officer was “requiring” me to perform dangerous tasks while drunk, under threat of legal consequence if I didn’t)
The officer seemed driven only by the motive of satisfying just one point of law — the one he was called out for. He just wanted me to drive away with an unsafe load while he went back to whatever else he had been doing. I made his escorting me a requirement of complying, and told him why. But just beyond an arbitrary jurisdiction-zone???
I really wish I could understand this so I might make better decisions in the future.
I would have put in an hour more to secure the load, even breaking the laws about overtime. You were on private property. But, that is just me. When I am collapsed with heat stroke and ready to keel over, dizzy, and unable to think straight, it doesn’t take me 5 hours to recover in an air conditioned area. Usually, by the time I am reeling and near fainting, Immortal Pirate pulls me off the job and indoors with some water to cool down with — and it takes me 30 minutes and I am ready to get back out there and finish my work. It would not take 5 hours. You could have taken a break to recover just enough to go out and secure the load enough to move the truck a bit further away from the facility. But, that is just me. I am not a trucker and really have never read the laws regarding illegal overtime. I would have pushed the boundaries and fudged where I could. But again, that is just me.
You really were in a dilemma, and I can see that you had to do the best you could, at the time.
I have gotten really bad heat stroke while driving across the desert on a 124 degree day, when my air conditioner decided to not work. It took only 30 minutes to recover at a Denny’s Restaurant, and I was ready to finish getting the hot car through that desert. Of course, I got it to ….. wait for it….. another Denny’s on the other side of the desert and mountain pass. But then, that again, is just me.
In this case I had already gone over hours, was retreating to the cool sleeper for periods of time, and returning to the task. It got to the point where I was running out, doing 5 minutes of work before being incapacitated again. And then when you return, you spend 4 minutes trying to remember where you left off. And all of this 4 ft in the air, dancing between machines, with tripping and slipping hazards everywhere. It was a safety nightmare — and had I taken a header off the load they for sure would have had a truck stuck on their property for far longer!
I’m also counting a difference between heat exhaustion and heat stroke. The latter is where you stop sweating, start shivering in the heat and your kidneys start to ache as prelude to renal shutdown.
It was just a dangerous situation that I was flabbergasted to see exacerbated, and the public needlessly exposed to — just to enforce a policy: and to see the police as party to it and seeing it “solved” with some jurisdictional “not my problem anymore”.
That is not “american culture”, that is people being heartless creeps. At best, one could argue they do not know who you are, and so for all they know you could be some criminal posing as a truck driver and lying about everything.
Sometimes there are people who go the extra mile with strangers, sometimes there are not. I think “american culture” is a misnonmer, here, however, as america is simply the most diverse of nations so you generally will actually be dealing with people from ‘who knows what culture’.
Point taken about the diversity. And about some always presuming the worst of others. (with forgiveness and healing of things in individual pasts being a likely cure?)
As for lying, I offered to show the officer my logs; I had toiled in the hot sun in full view of the guard shack for hours; plus I had already had another random trucker comment on how flushed I was and offer to help (which he did until he overheated and had to turn his attention to his own load). So “the proof” was there to back what I was saying. All they had was “against company policy and we’ll charge you”. (Which BTW, I DO see a LOT of in American culture)
If by some miracle the factory I loaded from approached me and said they would do whatever was necessary to make this right, I think all I would ask for is a re-examination of when blind adherence to “policies” requires inhuman acts.
And the main reason I bring this up on group, is to invite re-examination of where the culture is headed and if individual action by enough people might send it on a better path? Unity in the humanities perhaps?
“So “the proof” was there to back what I was saying. All they had was “against company policy and we’ll charge you”. (Which BTW, I DO see a LOT of in American culture)”
Sorry, I do not. A problem with such evidence is it is often statistically untrue as a general rule for everyone, even if it is statistically seemingly true for you. Though, another factor there is once one is bit by a dog, one tends to see all dogs as bad, even though many do not bite.
“As for lying, I offered to show the officer my logs; I had toiled in the hot sun in full view of the guard shack for hours;”
Possibly, still could be something else going on. Secure compounds are not areas where people are generally welcome to hang out.
Criminals find all sorts of clever ways to allay suspicion. While this wouldn’t much matter at a non-secure compound, at a secure compound it is cutting gordion knot. For whatever reason you say, regardless of how true and good it appears, they can not trust you.
Bad people, you never know who they may be, there are zero trust situations.
Last case I had like that with cops, I was having problems, on a binge, and was kicked out of a bar. I had reversed the bouncer’s hold which only made more jump on me, and it was freezing cold wind. My phone was out of juice and found some people to maybe help, they did not.
Eventually, two or three cop cars came to me. I had accidentally set off a silent alarm by wandering close to a store. I got a rude remark (they asked if I ever had been arrested, I said I had for PI as a teenager, and made a snide remark about how people who did one thing always repeat it…)… never mind that was thirty years before. :/
I still sometimes think about that and want to say something to them.
But, fact is? Guess what happened? One of them drove me back to my hotel.
The cop did not arrest you, at least, he could have.
“plus I had already had another random trucker comment on how flushed I was and offer to help (which he did until he overheated and had to turn his attention to his own load). ”
Key term: secure compound.
I think, working in security, there are situations where there is zero trust, and it does not matter what someone looks like. In fact robbers and such tend to be more trust gaining then non-robbers.
None of this makes all out systematic rules you can make for a nation of 300 million plus people of extreme diversity.
You have no idea what the US is like living in Canada, at best, somewhat if you are living in a diverse environment like Toronto. Canada is not very diverse, America is the most diverse nation on the planet.
You won’t get that from our tv and you won’t get that from minor brushes in some areas, in some places.
I have stories where I have dealt with unreasonable people in the US. One time, I could not sell pizzas to factory workers because they were union.
Where am I now? Who are my neighbors? Probably ninety percent are first generation immigrants. From where? Do you know? Nigeria, East Africa, India, Vietnam, not a few from Laos and Cambodia.
I have lived in all sorts of places in the US, everywhere is different. Even the majority “race” of “white” is bullshit, as there are countless different nations “whites” come from, and countless different subcultures even among those who are primarily from one nation.
Having been working since the early eighties, though mostly the early nineties, I can’t tell you how normal it is for me to work with an extremely diverse group of people. I can not even begin to name all of the countries my coworkers and friends are from.
My own main cultures, probably alternative Gen X culture, and upper middle class culture, and government culture and computer security culture…. totally different then these you are dealing with.
My kids are millenials, different culture entirely even though they grew up with me.
Except largely my oldest.
Just, very mixed bag.
Some truck driver from Canada isn’t going to be in a position to see enough to be able to judge.
There are some systematic problems, some probably unique to America only, but these can be very hard to say. And as America – sorry! The USA – is so close, you are going to have bias. For instance, me calling the US “America” reveals some of my own bias — though, I have worked for a Canadian company before!
I try to remain aware of my “foreign bias”. I also ponder why I have a career where so many elements of my past journey allow me to see and ponder so many things about a nation I THOUGHT I knew through their media streaming across the border — and now I essentially live in!
This is not a post of judgement; but rather more in the gist of the one good friend in a crowd who will tell you your fly is open or there’s a booger on your face when most others will simply extract “entertainment value” from it!
I understand the “secured compound” issue; and the “fearing the worst of people” — which perhaps US’ers don’t realize has become very idiomatic of their culture. But I was outside of their secure perimeter, having already been in the heart of their factory for hours. I moved my unsecured load outside the fence to a shoulder in full view of the guard shack. If I was up to no good (in my obviously infirm state of heat stroke!), I was very stupidly up to no good!
Part of what shocked me was I had done a favor for them that I could have easily and legally refused to do (regulations about unsecured loads, liability for damages etc) . . . and then they turn around and use the law against someone who is actively doing them favors and helping their bottom line.
I hoping I don’t put too sharp a point on this, but it’s sort of like going nose-blind to the doggie-odor in one’s house. Everyone who lives there ceases to notice it. But every single visitor notices it like a slap in the face with a wet fish!
So do you hold your tongue and let a friend stink? Or do you say something?
I don’t know about you, but I value the friends who will risk personal loss, so I might gain.
Having specific responses to potential intruders at secure compounds is something you can find at any nation…
The US has a lot of problems, but I am not persuaded that is one of them.
Many countries are not even safe for people to travel to if they are white. Sometimes it requires being white and middle class. Communist and Muslim countries, for instance.
I am quite sure you can try and park your truck at a secure Canadian compound and have problems.
Canada has some more invasive laws in some areas even then the US.
Anyway, how one organization operates in one place is not going to be something anyone should come to systematic conclusions onto. Even poll numbers can be wrong, but theoretically it usually is far better to derive conclusions on mass subjects via polling then via the perspective of a singular person.
To try and understand such a subject, one needs to really dig into books and news articles. I would not feel confident going by subjective personal experiences where feelings were strongly bothered.
But, you do not seem to get this.
And by all means television is far from revealing anything about US culture of meaningful value. Some is more revealing and accurate then others, all will be exaggerated.
In reality, Toronto did not seem much different to me then some parts of the US. But, otherwise, much of Canada is very, very not diverse. You simply can not easily compare experiences of a not diverse environment to an extremely diverse environment.
You created that mess yourself. You should have A) put your truck and trailer someplace that was overnight friendly, like a flying J or something. B) you should have drank water so that you wouldn’t have a heatstroke like a putz. (lol, heatstroke… hahaha, what an idiot.) C) it’s private property, what on earth leads you to believe that YOU have the right to be trespassing on their property?
Also, you were discussing this with a SECURITY guard, who’s job it is to SECURE the environment. He doesn’t know who or what you are, or what you’re up to. You could have been trying to steal things, or have an empty truck, or a bomb in the back, or drugs, or whatever, who the heck knows. So from his standpoint, he’s to secure the environment. His job depends on it. Why should he be lax on security because a stupid Canadian didn’t drink water, had heatstroke, and didn’t get his truck unloaded on time?
The fact that you’re baffled by this is comedic. This isn’t some “American thing”, this is a “welcome to adulthood you dumb millennial thing”
By the way, this was my favorite part – “By then I was suffering from heat stroke and retreated to my air conditioned sleeper.”
Laughing, IRL, you’re such a baby. Who on earth is letting you drive their truck?
Should we expect another thread where you’re befuddled with confusion over the fact that the trucking company you’re hauling for isn’t quite happy with you for missing your load time, as well as your logs being over? Because the people you haul for get audited, and their drivers can’t have logs going over mileage. Or… are you going to fudge your logs so that there’s no questions asked. That wouldn’t be quite honest now, would it?
A lot of unfounded assumptions there.
Proverbs 17:28 is yours.
Feel free to correct any of my incorrect assumptions.
A point-by-point assassination of your abundant assumptions cannot accomplish anything more than Proverbs 17:28 already has. The spirit of your response was just so far out in left-field.
Ok. But let’s just remember, you’re the one that didn’t do your job cause you were sucking your thumb in the sleeper with the A/C on cause you got heat stroke.
For the record… let’s all just remember that.
You’re still stuck in a Proverbs 17:28 zone.
While you have no reason to know your own Nation’s Trucking codes, you persist on a path that just in large is the hole you’re already thrashing about in.
lol.
How do you know what I have reason to know or not? How do you know I’m not a director of IT at Swift? How do you know I wasn’t a trucker in a past life?
I have quite a good familiarity with the American trucking industry.
Because I choose to believe that you could not possibly be as callous as you present yourself.
“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance”. -Hanlon’s Razor
Because I choose to believe that you are probably not as callous as you often present yourself.
“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance”. -Hanlon’s Razor
Your desperation to prove something about yourself, to yourself, at serious continued detriment to yourself, is duly noted.
As I read your description of events and some of the feedback received here; my opinion is that you just encountered some pretty dopey individuals and this has less to do with American culture per se, as it does with just coming across idiots.
You get there, the load isn’t ready. You’re pushed to accomplish things required in a process that is time sensitive. Basically, you are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The rules associated with timing is for both public safety and your personal safety.
The only thing I see is a consistent illustration of selfishness on the part of every obstacle (aka people) that cared less for you and the safety of the public at large and more about themselves. Perhaps that is the culture that they have been exposed to and may potentially be a part of. It’s a dramatic difference from the person you are and maybe that’s why it seems so blatant.
Chalk it up to experience and try and be proactive next time take into account physical time required to get the job done by the standards issued. I’m sure there were additional circumstances associated with just leaving and coming back another day, but it might have been an idea to let your dispatcher know immediately that the load wasn’t ready and what you thought through about the time progression. People who treat truckers like shit are usually treated like shit themselves. It probably would have made the most sense to let your bosses deal with their bosses. That’s what they get paid for. Not you.
If only there were a few more “Like” buttons —- I’d be pushing them.
The USA is not the land of the Brave. It’s the land of cover-my-ass. It’s common sense lynched and buried under red-tape spewed out endlessly from the world’s largest religion of worshiping money.
So do you think there is anything the average citizen can do?
I can give a view of the overall forest from outside the trees. But the jungle-dwellers are the only ones that can do anything about it.
We HaVe to do what humans have always done to survive, band together.
Let’s starrrt a baaaand maaaan!
That security guard should’ve been able to bend rules as should’ve you. I’m glad my j-o-b is pretty close to anarchy. There’s absolutely no future in it, but it’s fun.