Comments By Garth M.

Snow isn’t what concerns me as much as below 0 deg F. That makes it hard, for me that is.

At least in Canada that is, January and Frebruary are always the coldest. I managed to survive and improved my tarp handling greatly in fact I got to the point that I dreaded switching to roll kit flatbeds that would make me soft between episodes of tarped loads.

Have you tried Maverick, I see some of their flatbeds hauling into Canada, thats not far from you lol.

Most of my first deliveries of the day are for 6:30 or 7:30 and I may have to drive 4 hours to make them so its dark when I start and light when I'm done for the day. Less traffic is the best part of starting that early if I have to drive in the city, but if its raining then thats a different story, I don't enjoy driving in the dark in the rain, especially if I"m on a road I haven't driven before.

I started training with a flatbed company the week after getting my license. I was hired for their heavy division and had six weeks of training before being sent out on my own. I am glad I chose flatbed so far, I get a bit of fresh air and exercise every day rain or shine lol. I'm still not sure if I can do the job in bad weather, throwing straps and pulling tarps is hard work in the rain and the thought of winter has me worried. Safe work practices are a must with this job, plenty of ways to get hurt.

As a rookie I find the E log my company uses to be very confusing and slow. I wish company orientation spent more time teaching the procedures but after meeting the people responisible I have decided to relax and learn as I go. Luckily for me a couple of my dispatchers actually drove for a while so when they've seen I have been putting in 16hr days the piling on slows down. I am responsible for most of the time waisting that goes on and I know that preplanning is the key to getting better, I have called several customers ahead for directions into their location and thats a habit I need to aquire. My situation is every morning when I find out the trailer I'll be pulling is to set up the air suspension and run it over the scales hoping that it passes and the system is working proerly, oh for designated trailers, unfortunatly things don't go that smoothly and I have to start my day about an hour before I log in and then sometimes its still not early enough. These past two weeks I've put in my 70hrs in 5 days and although its possible its not sustainable and when I'm tired the mistakes realy start happening. For me its all about the money, I should be able to easily make more at this than at my previous job as a carpenter even if I have to work twice the hours so I keep trying to apply what ai learn here to my situation but its hard to when getting enough sleep interferes with doing my job. I have lost all shame when it comes to backing my trailer and I don't count pullups anymore but then there is the correllation with how tired I am once again. Allmost all of the drivers I meet are very helpful and usually have a few good words of advice which says alot about the quality of people in this industry. I guess I've said too much but up north here I haven't experienced negativity that is reffered to in this post and just watching most other drivers working to do their best I wouldn't want to fall into the judgment trap, lifes too short.

I finished one week hauling steel coils and slabs, it was all local but that just meant loading and unloading up to three times a day so lots of practice. My trainer was a woman and I hope that someday I will be able to work as quickly as she does, I lost every race chaining and unchaining even though I'm sure she didn't know I was racing lol. This time i drove a 13spd and hauled some heavy stuff, 96,700 was the heaviest and negotiating in town made for some excitement but I learned a lot. Thankfully the trainer was very tolerant about my mistakes and positive about my overall ability so by the end of that week I knew I could work through anything she told my recruiter I was ready to go. After taking a week and a half off for family stuff my recruiter put me with the second trainer for the last two days to make sure and this coming Monday will be my first day on my own, I'll be driving locally using trucks of who ever is on holidays till the end of August as far as I know then hopefully I'll get my own truck. So far its been a challenging adventure for me overcoming my fear of failure after staking so much time and money to get to this point. I think back even only a month ago anout how nervous I was about some of tje simplest things and smile.

We use a paint roller handle as well on a long broom stick or extendable pole no more than 6 feet. I don't have a picture but we remove the roll holding assembly and don't bend the wire, leave it as is it works great for the wooden edge protectors we use or the plastic ones as well. The wood protectors are made with 2 pieces of 3/4 inch plywood held together with 2 lengths of old strap with about 1-1/2 inches apart, the boards are about 6 or 8 inches by 12 inches. place the protectors on the ground and pick it up with the tool and slip it under the strap on the hooked side first then go to the winch side and pull the slack out of the strap and put the edge protectors under the strap then tighten.

The Wednesday I passed my license test I called the recruiter who had told me to call her as soon as I passed so I could be scheduled in their orientation class for the following Monday. That company seemed to have the most thorough training to offer and she invited me for a test drive the next day a Thursday, that went well I passed even though I was running on pure adrenaline and very little sleep in fact I was seriously debating whether I should have asked for a later date but I was foolishly worried it would evaporate never to be seen again, so after that I was scheduled in for the drug test and physical the following Friday which qualified me for orientation.

Orientation was excellent, we covered as much material with more detail than I had at CDL school and I found the other employees in this company to be a good bunch and all seemed happy while being very serious about their duties.

The week after orientation I worked at a tarping station in a drywall plant to become familiar with load securement and tarping, they haul a lot of drywall. It was a good experience and my construction background made it easier on the physical side of things.

My third week I was put with a trainer who had 43 years of safe driving behind him and he seemed easy going with a good sense of humour. I had a lot to learn about the equipment especially the many different variations of flatbed trailers this company had acquired from companies they absorbed through acquisitions.The first day seemed overwhelming but I was so happy and excited to be here, we almost did 14hrs which is legal in Canada and I barely had time to eat lunch. My trainer is a hard working fellow who likes things done his way and as it turned out doesn't hesitate to express any negative thoughts, the only downside was I didn't get to drive. The second day went the same and so did the third.

My trainer's truck had an 18spd and he went through every gear up and down, only using the clutch to start and stop hoping I would absorb this skill I guess because by the end of the first week I only had maybe 4hrs behind the wheel. I was beginning to wonder if I was missing something because I didn't seem to be making progress as fast as he wanted. it seemed as if he expected me to learn through osmosis. To make matters worse he mumbled and spoke in spurts that I couldn't distinguish whether the topics were important or trivial conversation, the second morning I explained that even though I passed several hearing tests before this I had a lifetime of construction and if he could, speak louder.

12 Tips For Surviving Your Time On The Road With A Trainer helped me get through the 2 weeks I spent with this person and even though I knew he was working hard on my behalf by the end of those 2 weeks I was seriously thinking I wasn't cut out for this job, the skills I had learned to drive the trucks at school had disappeared and I lost most of that self confidence. This trainer is an excellent driver and I was intimidated by his skill as we drove through and around Toronto on some of the busiest roads in North America, rush hour, hail storms you name it he never missed a shift or crossed a line but all the while mumbling just under the sound of the radio or wind rushing by the open window taking away the smoke from his cigarette. We weren't able to make the teacher pupil connection even though we both tried and I was hopeful when told I would have a different trainer for the next 2 weeks that I would do better.

Week 5 is a different story, much like what happened at school with two different instructors, one not so good to learn from the next way better. My new trainer has had me driving the first two days more than I had the previous 2 weeks and with hardly a peep. I'm back in the saddle and looking forward to next week with him because after that I'll be training over the road hauling steel coils and the like. The funny part is even though I'm sure my first trainer wrote me off and I didn't think I was learning anything, while driving with the second fellow I'm using much of what the first taught me particularly about handling the truck and the more relaxed I get the more I recall. I wish him well.

My CDL school taught us on 13spd manuals, we only ever double clutched. My first trainer had an 18spd and he only used the clutch to start and stop while splitting every gear up and down, I think he was showing off but I saw it could be done and he never ground a gear. My second trainer has an automatic which I really like in heavy stop and go traffic. I think it's better to be trained with an auto first to handle the truck then put in a standard to learn shifting, I found there was a lot going on to be worried about shifting gears at the same time as negotiating heavy traffic but to be a professional driver I think you would want to be able to drive any sort of transmission.