My first solo run as a truck driver has been completed, and boy do I have a story to tell. This trip was eventful, but was also successful in the end. Despite a few embarrassing details, I’m going to share it all. I can handle the razzing, and probably deserve it for a couple of things I did.
Leaving The Terminal Alone For The First Time
I was finally assigned my very own truck at my company terminal. A yellow 2007 Freightliner Century with 270,000 miles on it. The truck is in pretty good shape and I’m very happy with it so far. After waiting around for about a day, I was told to pick up a trailer and dead head (empty trailer) to Liberal, Kansas and wait for a load there. So, I hooked up to the trailer and off I went! My first time solo in a big truck!
The trip went pretty well, but I was a nervous wreck. It is a little tough hopping into a new truck. The truck acts differently, makes different noises, handles different, and since I was already nervous, that just added to my anxiety. It was a little hard for me to relax. the more I tried to make myself relax, the more nervous I would get. Also, Kansas has a lack of expressways, so I was traveling on small two lane country roads through little towns. This is not something I was really used to and didn’t have much experience with. But it went real well. I was able to get to Liberal without any problems and parked the truck for the night. Lucky for me, I found a parking spot I could simply pull into, so I didn’t have to back it up. I was happy about that.
The Meat Packing Plant
The next morning, I was told to pick up a load of beef (it’s what’s for dinner). So, nervous as heck, I hopped in the drivers seat and went to find the customer,s location. I approached a large facility that had a lot of trucks in it, but I didn’t see a sign stating it was my customer. So I kept going. Turns out, I should have pulled in. That’s where I was supposed to be. So now, I’m stuck on this two lane country road with nowhere to turn around. After about 10 miles, I happily found a spot to safely get my truck turned around and over to the shipper. Once I arrived, they told me to take my trailer into their lot and drop it. Then I was to bobtail (no trailer) out to a parking area and wait until my load was ready. The morbid part is I had to literally wait for the cows to be slaughtered, processed, and loaded on my trailer. Unfortunately for me, this took them about 12 hours. Unfortunately for the cows…well…you know.
So finally I was able to hook back up to my trailer and hit the road. I had two drop off points. One in a suburb of Detroit and another in the city of Detroit. They loaded about 42,000lbs. of meat into the trailer, so it was a little heavy. I left the facility, not realizing there was a scale at their location. Not knowing this, I figured I’d just hit the first truck stop to scale out. Well, there aren’t a whole lot of truck stops in Kansas, and even less that actually have a scale. So, for all I knew, I was driving overweight. The miles kept ticking away, and I was getting more and more nervous about getting busted at a weigh station. I even came up to one weigh station and I think my heart stopped for about 5 seconds until I realized they were closed. Phew!
Finally, I got to a truck stop that had a scale. Turns out, I was in fact overweight on my drives (rear tractor wheels) by about 400lbs. So, I slid the rear tandems (trailer wheels) forward a bit to help even out the weight (for those who don’t know, the trailer wheels are adjustable and can be moved forwards and backwards to even the weight distribution). I finally got it right, and my truck was evenly balanced and legal.
And So The Trouble Began
After some much needed rest, I was back on the road. Things were going very smoothly up to this point, but that was all about to change. I got some fuel in Effingham, IL at about 1am and continued down the road. I had the cruise set to 55mph, and the radio set to my favorite XM radio station. I pretty much had the road to myself and was just enjoying the drive and was finally relaxing a bit. There was some fog moving into the area which had me a little concerned, but nothing too terrible. All of the sudden, my truck began to strain, I heard the sound of rushing air, and my truck started slowing down at a pretty quick pace. I had no idea what was going on at the time, so I just mashed in the clutch, hit my emergency flashers, and pulled over to the side of the road. I finally discovered the air I was hearing was coming from my trailer brake valve and I was losing air pressure very rapidly. This in turn, set my trailer brakes while I was driving (losing air automatically sets the brakes as a safety feature). I checked all of my connections which seemed to be ok. All the hoses were connected and nothing was cut. The only thing I could hear was an air leak coming from one of my trailer brakes. After trying to regain air pressure without success, it was clear I wasn’t going anywhere. continue to page 2 –>
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MY GOD, man. That was brutal!
Oh, I would love to be able to tell you that ordeals like this were rare, but they’re not. That was an exceptionally rough couple of days, but certainly not out of the ordinary when it comes to life on the road. There are just sooo many variables that can have a major affect on your life out there that when the stars align just right (or wrong, for that matter) things can go really, really well or really badly – and in a hurry!
But life on the road is a never-ending roller coaster ride of highs and lows. In your mind you learn to keep a balanced and relaxed middle ground as often as possible – and you’ll get much better at it as you get more experience on the road.
Folks, I’ve known TruckerMike for a while, and he’s a very sharp dude. When I knew he was getting ready to make his first solo run, I sent him an email and gave him this advice:
I drove for 15 years, and I know life on the road as well as anyone. I knew he’d have struggles like these because we all do. I knew it might even be on the very first solo run of his career, and it was. This is the entire reason this website exists – to help everyone learn about the trucking industry and life on the road so that they can get through the tough times safely, just like TruckerMike did here.
I wanna give TruckerMike a ton of credit. I knew he already knew the advice I was giving him, but I wanted to keep it in the front of his mind in case things got stressful for him, and sure enough they did. But just like I would’ve predicted without second thought, he handled it all like a pro and successfully navigated the mine field out there on his own, and made the right decisions, kept his head, and will live to fight another day.
There is nothing easy about life on the road, my friends. It can be incredibly rewarding for those of you who are the type of people that can handle it, but it is rarely ever easy.
A huge congrats to TruckerMike for handling this like a pro, and a big thanks for sharing everything he went through. Definitely one of the most interesting writers I’ve ever come across. I’ve been there a million times, dude, and I know what it took to pull that off. You were certainly cut out for this, and there’s a ton of us that really look forward to hearing a lot more of your adventures in the future.
What a great story! I laughed too–not at you but at the situation. We have all been there and done that–maybe not on the first run tho.
The main thing is you did deliver the product safely and that is all that matters. We are all nervous and forget everything we learn once we are by ourselves. But we soon remember what we were taught and do just fine–like you did.
Get a extra set of keys as soon as you can as they really are needed. My truck also locked me out in Kansas City one day. I was not pleased at all. Luckily there was a short in the electric locks and I was able to get back in after beating the door to death while waiting on a 4 lane city street and all wondering what I was doing to that blasted truck!!!
Looking forward to many more stories.
That’s a great story. I worked at a truck stop for many years, and we had a hand full of first timers a week come through to get weighed. I kind of enjoyed how important for them it was to get legal ASAP. It seems like some of the folks that came through just didn’t care. But staying legal in this business is pretty important. If the wheels aren’t spinning, my wallet is draining.