Comments By Travis M.

The subject line fits for me as well. First step complete. Passed the general, combo and air brake written this morning. Learner's permit in hand.

Thanks Bret and TT. The materials, study guide and practice tests made it pretty easy.

Starting classes with Johnson County Community college program in February. They have classrooms and a training area near the mutli-modal yards south of Kansas City. They have dedicated classes but I'm doing it part time - class work two nights a week and drive training on the weekends for about 8 weeks. I have a full time job and live near there so it will work out very nicely.

A learner's permit, DOT physical, drug test and background check are prerequisites. I don't see too much about them on the internet but they have a good reputation in this area. I'm not very good at keeping up a diary but I'll try to post information and my experience as it goes along.

Bret and all the moderators, Thanks again!!!

Of course you're correct. I have no experience as a commercial trucker.

For what it's worth, I thought I was agreeing with you although I'm sure you don't really need or want my support. I know you don't want my opinion.

My mistake, I did assume that Brett was the author. Here is the reference to the 15-minute savings I referred to. I'm not a trucker (yet) but I took this to mean that an extra 15 minutes a day is worth thinking about.

CDL Training Materials => High Road Training Program => Making The Most Of Your Available Hours - Page 108

Combine Tasks
...
Combining tasks is an excellent way to save on time. In fact, there's one trick which could save you 15 minutes or more every day? Wouldn't that be beneficial? Heck, 15 minutes saved over the course of 7 days is an extra 1hr and 45 minutes.
...
Perform your fueling and pre-trip inspection at the same time.
...

And, from Brett's response to my post,

Look at how you spend your time for an entire week and tell me you couldn't save yourself time on pretty much every load you haul. Linehaul guys tend to get on the gas and stay there the entire run with only their 30 minute break. Almost no one else does that, because no one is consistently on that tight of a schedule, even when hauling JIT (Just In Time) freight.

I'm certainly not a linehaul guy but doesn't that seems to support the idea that an extra 3 mph under the right conditions would be an advantage for some operations. Small advantage, no doubt. But on the order of a 15 minutes advantage for the day - for the right driver under the right conditions. I'm just combining concepts, here.

I poorly referred to trucks not accelerating. I only meant that being able to go a little faster seemed like it would have other benefits even if it wasn't used to travel more miles in a driving day. I now understand that there are no such situations.

My apologies for sticking my neck out. Lesson learned. I'm going to count that as my first lesson on my path to becoming a driver.

Rookies-

You'll never convince me that driving 3 mph faster is that great of a thing.

Experienced drivers-

Thanks for being the rhyme of reason.

There are clearly drivers, loads and conditions where driving a faster speed is acceptable and will provide an edge. Will some push it too far? You bet. Stopping everyone because of a few is probably the right thing to do. But it would provide an advantage.

Brett coaches us to be efficient with on duty time by combining fueling with pre-trip. His conclusion is that the extra 15 minutes per day will add up and create noticeable improvement in time management.

An extra 3 mph for 5 hours in a driving day is an extra 15 minutes of driving time. Can it always be done safely by all drivers will all loads under all conditions? No. Accident statistics support your claim that speed is a bad thing.

Slow speed is also not always a good thing. If you can't accelerate to avoid a conflict, you have no chhoice but to slow down. You're already below the speed limit and slowing down further will cause bunching and accident potential behind you.

But all that is a different arguement than will it create an advantage.