Comments By Bud A.

What was the point in him impeding traffic to pass me? None. He just didn't want to let off the cruise.

That's the money quote right there: "He just didn't want to let off the cruise."

There's one that's not uncommon, I see one almost once a day:

Bulldozer: inhabits the left lane. Usually runs about 65 -70 until he gets behind a slower vehicle. Then he'll move up to 3 feet from the bumper. This intimidates the slower vehicle and forces them to move to the right.

In that situation, I prefer to slow down to a safer speed if the bulldozer insists on tailing me. (But being limited to 62 MPH, I'm usually in the right lane unless I'm passing a Schneider.)

I have driven trucks that were governed at 62, 65, and 66 mph. Now that I'm driving an ungoverned truck, I have a little different perspective on this. If the speed limit is 70 or 75 or 80, and your truck is governed at 62 or 63 or 65, you probably shouldn't be in the left lane to pass someone going one mile per hour slower than you unless there's no one coming up behind you for a mile or more. Otherwise you are impeding traffic with your slow truck and creating unsafe situations. (Please don't misunderstand me to say that it's OK to ride 3 feet off someone's bumper!)

Let's do the math. Say your truck is 75 feet long, and the truck you want to pass is also 75 feet long. And you will probably want to move over to the left to start your pass when you are at least 150 feet behind the first truck, and you won't want to move back to the right until you are at least 100 feet in front of the truck you are passing. That's a total of 400 feet you will need to overtake the other truck.

Oh, that's not so far. Heck, at 65 mph, I'm traveling 95.33 feet per second. I'll cover that 400 feet in just over 4 seconds. No problem!

Ah, but of course it's not how fast you are traveling relative to the highway. It's how fast you are traveling relative to the other truck. Let's say he's driving 64 mph. That's 93.87 feet per second. So your relative speed is 1.47 feet per second. That means to cover the 400 feet you need to pass him, it's going to take 272.67 seconds, or a shade over 4 1/2 minutes. If the traffic a mile behind you is traveling 10 mph faster than you, they will catch up to you in six minutes. If they are traveling 15 mph faster, they will catch up to you in four minutes. So yeah, 4 1/2 minutes to pass is probably OK, but those last 30 seconds might involve having someone who wants to drive 80 behind you after they've had to slow down 15 mph so you could go 1 mph faster.

So, four and a half minutes of your slow ass hanging out in the left lane going 10 or 15 miles per hour slower than the speed limit, and you wonder why someone who is hoping to drive at or close to the speed limit in order to make their delivery deadline might get a little frustrated and tailgate you?

Again, I'm not condoning them tailgating. That's always stupid. But it is at least as stupid to think you are justified when you impede traffic just so you can get to your destination 8.7 minutes faster. (That's literally how much time you will save driving 600 miles at 65 mph instead of 64 mph.)

My point is that if you're in a governed truck, please think long and hard about moving over to that left lane if traffic is passing you 5 or 10 or 15 mph faster than you are traveling.

Is it worth it? Are you really a courteous driver if your default assumption is that since you have the right to pass someone, you ought to pass them? Is saving 15 minutes over the course of a day really more important than the probably dozens of other drivers who are going to have to deal with the dangerous speed differential you are choosing to create by moving over to the hammer lane?

Please note that I will rarely be that truck in the hammer lane that you see. First of all, I won't tailgate, so if you're going that slow, I'll be at least four seconds behind you. (I will be cussing you for driving so damn slow in the hammer lane to pass someone who is going 2 mph slower than you, especially if I have a tight window, so don't expect a friendly wave when I finally get past you.) Second, most of the time I drive on two-lane roads with a speed limit of 60 or 65, roads that most of you will very rarely go down since the vast majority of traffic there is local trucks running rural Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, and Minnesota. Third, when I am on the interstate, I usually drive 72, since my truck is geared low and that puts my tach at 1700. I will say that at 72 mph, I very rarely pass another truck around here, and I rarely get passed.

Yes, the behavior described is dumb and frustrating. Just be sure that while you're busy condemning them, you aren't the one who is causing someone else to think of you as dumb and frustrating.

I took a local flatbedding job with a company a few months ago. They are a manufacturing company that runs two trucks. They were pretty eager to get me on board since one of the trucks hadn't had a driver for a while and I had the right background.

I wouldn't worry too much that they're eager to get you on board. Drivers with a year of flatbedding experience and a clean record are in demand. Just make sure to ask them about pay, benefits, time off, expectations (home every night? spend the night out sometimes? if so, how often?), etc.

As far as being more work and less driving, that's true. Sometimes I get a run to a job site and then deadhead back, but most days I do four loads. Usually I take one from our plant to a galvanizer about 100 miles away, bring back galvanized product to our plant, then do it again. None of the loads are tarped, so it's just strapping, but I will admit that sometimes I feel a little weary strapping and unstrapping that last load of the day. I'm getting old, though, so don't let that scare you.

I love your ride along threads, Old School! Looking forward to it!

Sweet ride! Thanks for the pics!

Yes it still needs a good cleaning and polish but I’m in Texas, what is this winter ❄️ thing you speak of ? Does the weather actually get cold ?

Lol I'm so looking forward to winter this year -- not! At least it's what I grew up with, though.

As the others have said, don't let backing determine whether you want to be a flatbedder. It's probably more relevant to ask yourself questions like:

* Do I enjoy spending time outdoors in all kinds of weather, from a very dry 115° in the desert in summer to -10° with high winds and snow in the winter?

* Would I enjoy doing an hour or more of light physical work each day? (Yes, tarping is "light physical work." Hard physical work is something entirely different than flatbedding.)

* Am I self-reliant enough to tackle new challenges such as securing a load I've never seen before, or spending the night at a shipper or receiver located in an industrial park or the middle of nowhere New Mexico?

* Do I have the ability to do math well enough to figure out how many straps and/or chains I need to put on a load?

The question about backing applies to any kind of freight you haul. It is not, Do I have the ability right now, with little or no experience? It is, Am I willing to learn how to put the truck anywhere the customer needs it in order to make it possible for them to unload it? On the other hand, it is true that flatbedders are much more likely than other kinds of drivers to do a little bit of off-road driving to get the truck where it needs to be.

BTW, Old School's picture doesn't really show the full horror of that place. In fact, I might have to go back to therapy now that I've seen that photo and remembered what happened there.

Serah, glad you're ok!

I have to agree with Old School on this one. I drove Texas regional for almost a year. Sure, there are some bad drivers there, but overall I think Texas is a great place to drive a truck. I have a long list of places where there is a higher percentage of bad drivers than Texas.

Why are they allowed to "pass go" and collect $200?

Ha ha! G-Town threw in a freebie! Atlantic City is the basis for the game Monopoly, and the boardwalk the guy drove down is the same one that will give you all that rent if you put a hotel on it and another player lands there.

If you look at Google maps, the driver had to go through a parking lot at the end of the highway to get to the boardwalk. The boardwalk is twice as wide in that stretch as the rest of it.

I can't understand 1) why he didn't notice he was driving on boards instead of pavement, and 2) if he did, why he didn't back up a little ways past where he got on to the boardwalk and make a right turn back onto the street he'd come from. It was very early in the morning, and dark, but dang. Just stop and think! And if you can't figure it out yourself, call the cops for some help! Sure it's embarrassing, but the embarrassment is even greater after making the decision to just keep going down the boardwalk three miles.

Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200.

Here's a pro for you: they really like to hire veterans. And I've heard from their drivers that they get home every weekend. Honestly, none of their drivers has ever said anything bad about them, and I see a lot of them these days because they haul a lot of loads out of our yard.

I have never worked for them, but I am sure that Schneider will walk you through the process of getting the endorsements and the TWIC card.

The connection between the TWIC and the hazmat endorsement is that both require your fingerprints for an FBI background check to make sure you're not on their list. In some states (I think there are six or seven of them), you can combine the fingerprinting process for both the TWIC and hazmat endorsement, which saves you something like $86 and a little bit of hassle.

Also, you will not be given a hazmat endorsement until you have your CDL in hand. In some states, you can take the written test for hazmat when you are getting your permit. The endorsement will not be added until you actually get through the rest of the steps to get your CDL and the background check is completed, but it saves you the stress of taking tests on two different days. (No need to stress, though -- just use the High Road to prepare and you'll pass, no problem!)

So, again, the folks at Schneider know all this. They'll help you get the medical certificate done, apparently, from what you've said, and they want you to pass the hazmat endorsement test. They probably have people that will walk you through the TWIC process as well. Just take a deep breath, listen to what they want you to do, then do it. And focus on learning to control the truck and especially on how to pull a tanker.

You don't have to become an expert on the paperwork, you just need to make sure you have what you need to do the job. You do need to become an expert at controlling the truck and handling the cargo you'll be hauling, so I would recommend that you spend your energy on that.