We All Need Help Some Day.

I been trucking for 6 months now I love it enjoy seeing the world and making great money. The only problem I see is that truck drivers with experience are so rude and won't get out and help new drivers. Almost every truck stop I help a fellow trucker to park his or her trailer in but all this other drivers just look and laugh or nob their head or stay in the truck looking very hard. It only take 1 min of your time to help someone in need so they won't hit any one truck or trailer. All I'm saying we as trucker need to help and look out for each other. Thank you

I been trucking for 6 months now I love it enjoy seeing the world and making great money. The only problem I see is that truck drivers with experience are so rude and won't get out and help new drivers. Almost every truck stop I help a fellow trucker to park his or her trailer in but all this other drivers just look and laugh or nob their head or stay in the truck looking very hard. It only take 1 min of your time to help someone in need so they won't hit any one truck or trailer. All I'm saying we as trucker need to help and look out for each other. Thank you

They should remember that one day in the past, they were the rookie that everyone was watching...

Shoot I still need help sometimes. However the first couple months on my own were daunting. I promised myself id stay humble and always remember that feeling of not being able to back into a spot and asking for help. That's my thing I wasn't afraid to ask for help, and never had anyone be rude about it luckily.

All I'm saying we as trucker need to help and look out for each other.

Of course I agree that truckers should look out for each other. But what I personally wouldn't expect is for drivers to keep jumping out of their trucks to run over and spot other drivers while they're backing in under ordinary circumstances. You really shouldn't need help backing into a spot unless someone needs to block traffic while you back in from the highway or there is some extraordinary circumstance involved.

Part of the reason you won't see veterans falling all over themselves to hold a rookie's hand through basic, everyday things is simple - trucking requires a whole lot of problem solving and some fierce determination so:

1) You're never going to learn unless you grab the bulls by the horn and do it yourself

2) If you need people to constantly guide you through normal, everyday things after you've already gotten to the point that you're running solo then you're probably not going to make it in this business

All day, every day you're faced with an endless stream of challenges. You're constantly monitoring your logbook hours, traffic, and weather. You're trip planning to account for fuel, terrain, routing, customer schedules, and your available time. You're managing a million things all the time and there's simply not going to be someone there to guide you through the process all the time. At some point the training must end, the training wheels come off, and you have to figure it out on your own. If you can't manage to figure out the basics, all the hand holding in the world will never help you.

So when you first go solo and things still seem extraordinarily difficult it feels like, "Geez, it sure would be nice if people would help me out a little bit more" but the reality is you'll never learn to do anything on your own if you never have to do it on your own.

This is certainly not the industry to be in if you're timid or your prefer a safer, more predictable life. In fact, this job is really best for people who are highly adventurous, the ones who go out of their way to seek out challenges instead of avoiding them. You also have to be fiercely independent. Even if you're working for a large company you're still making most of the important decisions yourself. You have to be creative, you have to think on the fly, and you have to have the gumption to solve new and unique challenges every single day. If you can't get backed into an ordinary spot at a truck stop or you can't figure out the everyday basics of the job you're simply not going to last long out there.

You're either cut out for this job or you're not, and you're either going to learn to stand on your own two feet or you're not. The only way to find out is to give people the basic training they need and throw them into the fire and see what happens. Nobody knows if someone is going to make it in this industry until they've proven they can.

So I get what you're saying about drivers sticking together and of course I agree. But I don't think that means that a driver should expect everyone to drop what they're doing and come running anytime it would make things easier for them. You have to stand on your own two feet. At times that's going to make things extremely difficult, but working through those difficult situations is how you become a much better driver.

"This is certainly not the industry to be in if you're timid or your prefer a safer, more predictable life. In fact, this job is really best for people who are highly adventurous, the ones who go out of their way to seek out challenges instead of avoiding them. You also have to be fiercely independent."

The above quote sums up very succinctly my attraction to trucking ... it fits my personality profile to a T!

Brett is right, for everyday backing maneuvers like those at a truck stop you really don't need help, unless the circumstances are tenuous. If traffic needs to be blocked or there are other safety issues, then please, by all means ask for help.