First day, low bridge

Well here is the way "I see it".

You WERE TRAINED to shift a truck, to drive a truck, to PAY ATTENTION to signs. YOU FAILED, and you want to blame it on a transmission? Take responsibility for YOUR ACTIONS, YOUR FAULTS, and DO NOT PASS BLAME ON AN INANIMATE OBJECT OR OTHER PERSON!

YOU TOOK NO ACTION to inform your company you had no training on a 10 speed, but you went ahead and accepted the job. YOUR FAULT 1000%

Now I take it you were not fired? Had you gone under that bridge/over-pass and topped your trailer, that is to MOST companies a fired on the spot offense.

Apologetic? Yes to all of us for you trying to place blame on a transmission?

Pissed off? Yes for your own self not paying any attention to the signs and your surroundings.

A second chance? ONLY IF your company thinks you deserve it, it is entirely up to them. But if you come back here again, and try to place blame on what will be next, the headlight switch being in a different location? Then get out of trucking, as you accept no responsibilities for YOUR OWN ACTIONS!!!!!!!!

nuff said.

 

I'm just curious as to how much training you had? An eight speed isn't THAT much different than a ten speed so don't use that as an excuse. Situational awareness is of paramount importance in this business, hopefully you learned at least that from this incident. Did you actually hit the low bridge or get stopped before tearing anything up?

This is why I believe CDL training needs to be revamped completely. Far too many folks are handed a set of keys that don't have a clue or let the slightest things rattle them into making a perhaps career ending mistake.

 

Hi Hammie, sorry, I agree with the others, learning to shift an unfamiliar truck while driving down the road is just wrong. If I'm not mistaken, a 7 speed is a straight shift (no low/high split), but an 8 speed, like SlowPoke sez, isn't any different than a 10 speed. In all my years, I never went under a low bridge mistakenly. It's one of the 1st things you should be aware of when driving a truck.

 

Well Hammie I feel for you. But like everyone else has said the tranny really had nothing to do with it.Need to pay attention of your surroundings at all times.Not paying attention is how bad things happen.

 

Anytime I get put in a new/different truck I always spend at least an hour driving it in the back part of the yard to get a c eel for it. Each truck is a slite bit different. That being said, why were you on a road with a low bridge anyways??? Did you check the Atlas for the low clearences, or were you following gps???

 

Don't be fooled, everyone here has had some kind of experience that they wish never happened. ( I had some real doozies the bosses never found out about) I hope all goes well and there was no damage, and you learned from that. Best of luck in your career.

 

Without knowing, and observing you beforehand, it is impossible to answer. If you are a serious and attentive person, I would give you a little road time with a experienced driver until you have shifting down pact. If you are the type that doesn't want to listen...........adios! Go back there and tell them that you do not want to give up. The bridge deal tells me that you might be easily overwhelmed at this point, and will need a little more time before you are set loose. It is not the end of the world.

The biggest problem with new drivers and shifting, is that they are not trained properly to begin with. You can take most any truck with a Eaton Fuller or Rockwell transmission and have the basic shifting down in 15 minutes. Many of the trainers I have been around have no idea about engine RPM shifting ranges on the low and high side of the gear box. They learned by trial and error and figure that others should. The ones that do understand shift ranges are either too lazy, or lack communication skills to present themselves to the student. If are not sure of the shift range, all you need to do is bring the engine RPM's slowly up to where a little fingertip pressure can pull the shifter out of gear. This puts you in the sweetspot for shifting whether you use the clutch or float the gears. Do this 5-6 times and observe the tachometer. You will begin to see the relationship all by yourself. The shifting range will remain constant throughout the low side of the transmission. Once you have the low side down pact, the high side will work the same way. The only difference is that the RPM's used to shift on the high side of the transmission. You can tell by sound also. The engine will sound like it is working throughout any given gear until the road speed and transmission speed are peaked. At that time you will hear the engine sort of unload with no gain in speed. This will tell you that you need a higher gear............and light finger pressure can take it out of gear easily. Others may explain this better than I can to simplify things. They all basically shift the same way. I bought my truck with a 13 speed in Cedar Rapids without ever driven a 13 speed before........I took few minutes to learn the splitters and then I was off to the races. It still shifted pretty much the same as any 9-10 speed.

 

Hi RetiredUSN, all good points. I've found, new drivers typically over-rev the motor when trying to up or downshift, thinking it's like a car, where there may 2 or 3 thousand rpm's between shifts, and a truck is a few hundred r's.