Profile For Old School

Hey John, I wish all the best for you at the cardiologist. Let me also assure you that Knight is a great company to work for. I've been driving for them for many years. I have always been treated like a professional. They have a unique management system that I think works really well for their drivers. Each terminal is somewhat autonomous. They each have to pull their own weight. I am out of the Gulfport, MS terminal and my experience has been wonderful.

Dan, how long have you been trucking?

by the time i graduated i wasn’t confident to drive for an employer

There is absolutely nothing unusual about your circumstance. All you can expect from a truck driving school is to get to the point where you can pass the driving test to get your CDL - That is what they are designed to accomplish. You've been sitting around for five years claiming you don't have the confidence to do this. There is more to this story than even you realize. Your lack of confidence cannot be blamed on the school. I know you said...

the driving school i went thru at that time wasn’t reliable i mean, they offer cheap course, basically they just taught me how to pass the test

It appears to me that they were very reliable. I am guessing that you have convinced yourself that the school is your problem. I am not convinced. You got the license. You didn't go get the job. Perhaps you don't really want the job. I don't know, but this sounds very odd. Nobody is confident in their talents or skills as a professional driver of a CMV just because they went through a truck driving school. They don't even offer to help you get confident. They offer the help to get your CDL, and apparently they did a great job at that - you got it!

There is precious little difference between driving truck in Canada or the USA. It takes some confidence in either country. How do we gain that confidence? We go get a job. Once we have gathered the courage and the commitment to taking that step, we start our actual training. That is where we just start beginning to gain a little confidence. I don't know a single driver who started his driving career with a load of confidence. Most of us started with fear and trepidation. We started because we wanted it. We started because we made a commitment to better ourselves. Commitment comes long before confidence.

You will not gain confidence by playing around with your Daddy's new truck. Go get a real driving job if you can. It won't be easy with that stale CDL you've been holding. Most employers want current experience or a recent truck driving school graduation certificate.

Make the Commitment you need and put in the hard work that produces confidence. There is no other path to confidence or competence.

Trucking is full of calculated risks and grey areas. It is the job of the professionals out here to know how to manage those things. Sometimes we drive on a bad tire for a little while. Sometimes we get creative with our parking. Sometimes we get our appointments changed without consulting dispatch. Everyday we face challenges that can be daunting and overwhelming, especially for the newbies out here. We adapt and overcome.

Thanks Rob for illustrating that with real world examples - that was golden!

Don't worry. Those bags of dog food in your trailer will NEVER call and complain about the ride being too rough.

Did you notice how none of us feel we are "micro-managed?"

Trucking is a very independent career. Do a great job and nobody will bother you.

Those are indeed the DOT guidelines: https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/faq/what-effect-driver-certification-based-fmcsa-hypertension-stages

You are correct Robert. Forgive me. For some reason I had that second number as 80 in my memory. Everything else I said is true though. Nobody is playing "gotcha" with you. Your blood pressure was over the limit, therefore you got a three month card. Get it fixed and all will be well.

Get that blood pressure down before going to another doctor. Don't count on it magically changing on it's own. Just about any new trucking job is going to send you for another physical during orientation.

The D.O.T. has their own parameters. The guidelines you are quoting are not D.O.T. guidelines. You can get this straightened out. That's why they give you three months. They want to see you being proactive with your health. We all hate keep ourselves below 140/80.

I feel I was cheated or something. All my stuff was packed and I had one foot out the door.

You got a three month card because your second number was over 80. That's the rule. All you have to do is get those numbers below 140/80. That's the reason for the three month card. It allows you to go ahead and get started while you work on getting your blood pressure lowered. People get started with three month cards all the time. There's no cheating going on. They are trying to help you get started, but you will have to be serious about getting this taken care of.

Honestly, I have been pondering this conversation for several days. I didn't want to comment because I kept thinking there's no way we have places that allow you to turn left on a non-arrow shaped green light without yielding. I was assuming he had arrows painted on the road for the left turn lane. It is as Mikey says. If you don't have a lighted arrow you have to yield to the oncoming traffic. I honestly think this was a case of testing anxiety. I think "Dirtydeeds" let the pressure of having that tester sitting over there in the jump seat push him into the realm of total confusion. He then just got all out of sorts and felt if he was just sitting there idle he would fail for impeding traffic. Something crazy like that must have started racing through his head. He overreacted to the anxiousness he was experiencing and decided he needed to get rolling. It was a simple mistake that could have serious consequences. That is why Mikey sounded the alarm.

We all know how stressful it is taking that driving test. You have got to deal with that anxiety and keep it at bay the best you can. Get in there and do what you know is right. Don't go second guessing anything. Be cautious and careful with every maneuver. You know the testing route now, and you know that you have got to yield at that green light until you see a green arrow or you don't see any oncoming traffic for a good long way. It will take you about 12 or 15 seconds to fully complete that turn from a dead stop. That is a lot of time for a vehicle to approach you and become a problem.

Don't get your self all stressed thinking you are going to be running across all kinds of different turning laws in different parts of the country. It is all basically the same. Otherwise we would have the kind of chaos you experienced when you took that turn without paying good attention to the signs, traffic, and signals. There was nothing unusual about that turn. Your approach to it was the problem. Forget about it and move forward. You just made a mistake. Now you know what to do.

I'm used to making proper meals with healthy ingredients and having a full kitchen which I don't have and frankly it's torqing and annoying me off to no end. Ive been questioning if I'm cut out for the OTR lifestyle for this fact alone....

Moe, I understand you venting about this. You can vent in here - it's okay. What you don't want to do is make career decisions based on the way you are feeling from venting. It is a huge mistake.

We all have issues out here on the road. It comes with the territory. I remember my trainer was obsessed with having a clean windshield. I'd scrub it clean for him while at a fuel stop, and five miles down the road we would hit a bug or two. He would come unglued and couldn't stand the sight of those bugs on his windshield. He would actually stop to clean it again because he would allow it to irritate him so badly that he couldn't continue on down the road. It was irrational and unproductive.

We all get it. You want to eat your own healthy food. A cooler can be replaced. You can plan your next trip with a 30 minute break at a Wal-Mart. You can work around your company's goofy policies. We all do that. Remember, you are in charge of your truck and your fate. You make choices and decisions that make this career work for you. It is very wrong to let a minor issue upset you to the point where you start convincing yourself that you are not cut out for this OTR lifestyle. I eat very good on the road. I make the decisions that lead to that, Heck, when I was a rookie I used an ice chest for a cooler. It worked fine and I never had to worry about it breaking down. Get creative. Be your own solution.

Making a career decision based on one bad day's experiences is rash and irresponsible. You are finding out now why we always encourage you guys to make a one year commitment. It just takes that long to learn how to handle yourself out here. I have found this career to be so rewarding, but had I listened to my instincts during my rookie year I would have quit this job a hundred times over. There were just so many things I didn't know how to handle yet. It would disturb me to no end sometimes if they didn't get me home on time or if I had some issues I couldn't get resolved quickly. I took all those difficult situations and looked at each of them as a way to learn how to be creative and resourceful out here. You are the one who will make this career work for yourself. It won't be your company or your coworkers. Learn to roll with the punches, stay content with your lot, and make changes to the things you can. There is a lot you can do to just allow things to roll off of you.

Remember what I told you about my trainer's obsession with having no bugs on the windshield? I started allowing that to bother me once I went solo. Then I realized this is stupid! I am going to have bugs on the windshield. I can't let that issue slow me down. I started letting bugs pile up on the windshield. I'd purposely drive with bugs piling up. I would purposely ignore them just to practice setting my mind a certain way. I wanted to be productive. I didn't want to be aggravated with each little distraction that came along. That was counterproductive. Try to control your own mind and your emotions. That is part of the biggest battle out here. If you can control your angst, your thoughts, and your emotional reactions, you can conquer anything this career throws at you.

I used to pick up copper at Morenci quite often. Most of the loads I got from there went to Connecticut. What was your destination with that load? Depending of the grade of the copper you get there, those loads can sometimes be fairly high value.

what is your take on the indirect vs direct tie down and the prevailing wisdom that a direct tie down only gets credit of 50% toward the aggregate working load limit.

I go by their math. I am not sure I understand the engineering behind it. I just know that I have run across a few inspectors who really know their stuff on securement rules. That one is sort of a "gotcha moment" if you aren't aware of how it works. I'm not saying I agree with it, but I do try to remember it when calculating my load securement.

It would seem if you put two chains (one on each side) on the anchor points of a piece of equipment and then came back to the same side of your trailer with each chain, that would be twice as strong as putting one chain through the anchor points and terminating it on the opposite side. The math tells us that those two methods are equal in strength. I am sure there is something about the stress put on the angle of the chain when it goes back to the same side, but it has puzzled me for years. I do it with their math, but I am not sure it is correct.

One half the weight is the correct WLL for a flatbed load.

I don't really understand that first statement which says "one and one half." Lifting requirements are different, but they clearly are not talking about lifting. They refer to "the combined strength of all cargo tiedowns." If there is a typo it is in the old manual.

The title our friend gave to this conversation is comically ironic. His comments are a grand exhibition of all the traits that do make society look down on truckers, and he doesn't even seem to realize the irony of his arrogance.

I wish him well. He will find plenty of solace while hanging out at the terminals and driver lounges. His sympathizers are easy to find - they are a dime a dozen out here. Just start a conversation by picking on C.R. England and most of your average truckers will jump right in on the easy prey. Fortunately there's a crowd here who is above it. Congratulations to you guys who know there are no cut and dry solutions to parking at times. I applaud you.

Once again, I agree with the PackRat. You can get a lot of your own information right there from your smartphone. I do that all the time.

I agree with PackRat. It's hard for new drivers to understand just how overloaded these dispatchers are. When your dispatcher is out, the other guys are taking on his drivers and they are probably considering their own drivers as their priority. Imagine the problems you are experiencing and then multiply that by about 100. That's probably how many crisis those dispatchers are handling at the moment. This is a common problem just about everywhere. My dispatcher had this wonderful habit of planning out my loads for an entire week whenever he would take a vacation. I loved it. I'd work all week without needing to talk to anyone.

Hang in there and use your tablet to communicate whenever you can. Let them know you have an urgent issue and would appreciate a response. PackRat gave some great advice. Follow up with a phone call if needed. Be upfront and firm while being calm and professional with them.

HazMat is a good thing to have. You are only making yourself more available for loads and more valuable to your dispatcher. You will not be hauling nuclear waste or anything ridiculous like that. Those type jobs are specialized and go to specialized carriers. Did you know that bleach, paint and sometimes orange juice concentrate are considered hazardous materials? That's right. You may not get chosen to haul a load of house paint to Home Depot just because you don't have your HazMat endorsement.

With your permission, is it okay if I copy your replies into a word doc to use as possible sourcing/reminders for if/when I return to this topic?

Of course you can.

Also Keith, think about this. You make this comment: "a lot of this paper stems from my experience working for Knight and so there's definitely anecdotal fuel in my perspective." You struggled a good bit at Knight. I would assume that much of your struggle was from simply being a young and somewhat reluctant rookie. I want to suggest that you don't allow your rookie issues to influence your total perspective on the trucking career. It is easy to keep ourselves in our own little bubble. My experience at Knight has been nothing short of wonderful. I did come there as a somewhat experienced driver.

There is no question that some of your points in your paper are valid reasons that people struggle with trucking. It is a tough career for many of the reasons you give. I don't look for government regulators, legislators, or corporate managers to correct any of those issues. I just try to reconcile what it is and make sure that I am able to deal with those issues so that I am satisfied with my work. I try to do my best to be hyper productive. I put forth a strong effort at keeping myself making really good money while enjoying what I do. When I can do that, I am just as happy as a pig in mud!

Mikey, I believe Mackerel is in CDL school right now. He's probably seen some of the whiners on the internet complaining about being micromanaged. Hopefully we can help him realize there is the reality of trucking and there is the internet of trucking. They are two separate worlds that are seemingly irreconcilable.