Hi Dylan,
I'm a newbie myself, but after reading through some of the awesome information available on this website and forum, I have learned that an agility test is par for the course at most, if not all companies. Among other physical activities, a driver is required to lift anywhere from 35 to 50 lbs, and flatbed truck drivers must lift very heavy tarps to cover their loads.
Someone with far more experience than I will be along shortly I'm sure.
-CK
Yes. I’ve picked up pre-loaded trailers that were dropped too high for me to back under and couple correctly, requiring me to apply much greater than 10 lbs of pressure to crank the landing gear down, lowering the trailer. Some of my empty trailers have been dropped too high, and their stubbornness also required more than 10 lbs of force to crank the landing gear down. Using both arms, and I’m not a weak man. Ugly maybe, but not weak.
You will need strength to crank landing gear, pull tandem release bars, pull the king pin release, and open trailer doors to name a few. Best suggestion I have is go to a truck stop and ask a few drivers if they can let you crank their landing gear and pull their tandem release. The landing gear cranks have a low gear for those heavy loads, however, that option is very slow. Good luck. If you want this bad enough you can do it. In my last job, one of the guys who delivered metal only had one and a half arms. Yet he did the same work as everyone else.
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".
Best suggestion I have is go to a truck stop and ask a few drivers if they can let you crank their landing gear and pull their tandem release.
You might want to explain why to put that in context first.
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".
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I'm interested in trucking but I have an arm injury, do you need to lift more than 10 pounds