RACINE — As truck drivers traverse across the state of Wisconsin and rush to meet holiday delivery deadlines, winter weather is forcing them to hit the brakes.
"High vehicles - you'll catch the wind and it will blow you around, and if you're empty and the wind is hard enough, then it will blow you over," said Randy Price, a truck driver who stopped for gas in Racine on his way to Chicago on Thursday morning.
Another driver agrees the wind is a big concern as the winter storm rocks Southeast Wisconsin.
"At 35-50 MPH gusts, nobody should be out trucking," said a truck driver we met named Wayne.
Truckers told TMJ4 News that the conditions throughout the state are treacherous and likely too dangerous for any driver to operate in, especially overnight and into Friday morning.
"If your truck can make $4,000 in a day and it cost $60,000 to get it out of a ditch, you probably should just shut it down," said Wayne.
Drivers throughout the morning shared similar feelings.
"Oh, you can tip over. Tires slide right off the road," said Charles Degraw.
Neal Kedzie, the President of the Wisconsin Motor Carriers Association, said that the delays will mean the packages families might still be waiting on could take even longer to arrive.
"It will be inevitable that some of the deliveries will get delayed," said Kedzie.
Kedzie adds that when drivers are forced to put their rigs in park, the impact is felt by the state's entire economy.
"For retailers and others, you're looking at a loss of about $30 per hour for every power unit, that means a tractor-trailer, for that time loss. You add that up by thousands of trucks, literally, that are traversing the roads of Wisconsin alone each day -- that ends up being a huge huge impact. It's a huge kick in the teeth to the retailers and you know the consumers suffer each day," said Kedzie.
For drivers, the impact is felt on a personal level too.
"It means time away from your family. This is Christmas and it's kind of hard. You want to be home with your family," said Price.
At the end of the day, safety first.
"It's not worth your life or somebody else's life. It's not worth it. You know the load can always get delivered tomorrow," said Degraw.
