The husband and wife team, who run Uneeda Pilot Car Service out of their Simi Valley home, travel more than 50, miles a year escorting really big trucks carrying really big things across Southern California and beyond. When an object is too large for a train or plane to transport, trucks and their required escorts pick up the slack. Some loads are so huge that a axle truck with another cab in the rear is needed to move the object.
I hardly knew what a pilot car was. A former corporate secretary, Barbara was ready for a change six years ago when she was introduced to a woman who drove a pilot car in the Bay area.
Not long after, Barbara traded in her business suits and high heels for a CB radio and a set of flares and quickly mastered the art of dodging flying tire treads. A casualty of the construction bust, Doyle, 61, decided to learn the ropes from Barbara, who had already become a veteran escort of space shuttle parts. The pilot car business began after World War II, when the government required trucking companies to provide escorts for oversized loads, said pilot car legend Don Herning of Hesperia, who has tallied 3 million miles in 40 years of escorting.
The escort simply alerts other motorists to the oversized load and serves as an extra set of eyes for the truck driver. Herning, who began escorting loads before CBs existed and the interstate highway system was still a novel idea, is considered by many pilot car drivers to be a de facto historian of the escort business.
Now there are about in Southern California. The Paynes, who are paid by the mile and the hour, spend so much time on the road that you might say they commute for a living. The pair rarely drive together, but sometimes share a job when two escort trucks are required. Frustration eventually gives way to cynicism, according to veteran pilot car driver Bill Patchell of San Bernardino, who claims to have escorted Big Foot, the Monster Truck.
