I always hated trying to back into a tight spot on a busy night with trucks piling up all over waiting for you to get it in.
Even now after 18 months of backing several times a day it can still challenge me.
I find it much easier to back into a tight dock between steel coils in a confined space between buildings than into a spot two spaces wide at a truck stop for some reason. Maybe it's all the reefer drivers watching a flatbedder try to get that split axle in there -- I'm always impressed by how smooth the reefer drivers look whipping those trailers in.
A refrigerated trailer.
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All you students out there, this will probably happen to you:
Well it's 2 o'clock in a truck stop in southern Mississippi. I'm doing what I do best - waiting. I'm also watching trucks pull in for the afternoon.
Guess what? Most of these are professional, solo drivers. Just in the last half hour I have seen:
So not to worry. It won't be so bad after a bit.
Tandems:
Tandem Axles
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".
Tandem:
Tandem Axles
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".
HOS:
Hours Of Service
HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.