GPS Could Have Prevented A Chicken Mess

A noxious, dangerous mess might have been avoided if the owner of 37,000 pounds of frozen chicken had invested in GPS asset tracking.

According to police, an abandoned trailer full of rotting chicken was found at a truck stop in Missoula, Montana at the end of September, dripping liquid and attracting flies in the 90 degree heat. The trailer had left Springdale, Arkansas a month earlier, bound for Kent, Washington, but never arrived. The driver, who was already wanted for a parole violation, apparently abandoned the trailer after Dixie River Freight, Inc. refused his repeated demands for more money.

The driver is being sought by police, but Dixie River, the load’s owners, is now responsible for cleaning up the mess. That is no easy task, because the liquid oozing from the rotting meat and dripping from the truck is full of dangerous bacteria. If the owners simply sent another driver to pick up the load and drive off with it, that bacteria would be spread all over the highway and on to other drivers’ vehicles.  There is some thought of refreezing the load for transport, but then the oozing chicken would freeze into a solid mass that would be very difficult to unload. A dispute over money has converted $80,000 worth of food into a rolling toxic waste disaster.

According to police, the driver left the trailer’s freezer on and it apparently kept the chicken nicely chilled until it ran out of fuel. That means if Dixie River Freight had known immediately where and when he left the load, they would have been able to send a second driver out to fetch it before the chicken defrosted. The food and the money need not have been lost.

GPS asset tracking gives users the exact location of moving trailers every 15 minutes and sends an alert if a load is left idle for an extended period. GPS software can be configured to provide a variety of reports on this history of a load’s movements and can send text and email alerts to keep the user informed even outside of normal business hours.