Are "manual transmissions only" types of drivers supertruckers?

I always heard that the best Drivers didn’t go to School.

 

Screwing up on your own is more painful, yes, but VERY educational.

 

Yep, Exactly

 

As I said before, if I were still driving I would prefer a manual. I just felt more comfortable driving one. I also drove an auto-shift and was comfortable driving one of them. I had several things against the auto-shift. The first one was the "jumping" it would do when I was really heavy and was only needing to move maybe an inch or two. I always had to rev up the RPMs higher than I was comfortable to get started, and if I was not careful the entire truck would jump. I also hated having to place that selector into manual mode so I could go down a long grade so the jake would work properly. Then the last thing that bothered me was sliding tandems and having that dang protect mode engage and shut me down. These items were not something I had serious issues with, just petty things that were an irritant. Still, I did not feel like I was less of a trucker because I was whistling through gears.

 

He probably got tired of the whiners and that was the easiest way to put a halt to it.

Oh, as you well know, we were schooled, it just wasn't in class. The "mind ya own business" attitude often taken now would have left you on your ### on a frequent basis back in the day.

Much like our education system, teaching to pass the test isn't necessarily conductive to true learning.

I kind of fell into trucking, and figured if I was going to do this for a while, I was going to learn everything I could. Did most of the maintenance and light repair, and devoured any of the industry press I could get my hands on. Gearhead is in my genes, which helped.

 

The recovery from surgery is a nightmare (I still can't nap in a recliner after having to sleep in it for 6 weeks,) but it's well worth it. Mind you, I didn't have a choice, when I dislocated it, the top rotator completely detached, but it's still better now than it was after 50 years of abuse. Takes a moment to limber it up, but after surgery I have my cannon arm back. Spent 15 years with a hitch at the top of my motion that went away after the cleanup and repair.

 

I know there’s a lot of smoke in this industry, but I sought out and did a lot of research before I picked a school. And yes I wanted to pick a tough school. My intention was to make truck driving my final career move until retirement. And I wanted to be good at it. If there is such a thing as a natural, I do believe I tend to lean that way. I picked up on it pretty quickly. The instructor I’m talking about is a nice guy. He was fair. And sometimes fair can rub people the wrong way. He had a clock on the wall. He called it “the Jesus clock“ he didn’t care what time your cell phone or your watch or whatever said the Jesus clock was the only clock that mattered. During breaks and reporting the class he would stand by the door staring at the Jesus clock. He would shut the door and lock it when it was time to be due back. This was to train us to be on time for everything. Lol Some students whined and complained about it, I enjoyed it.

 

My father taught me how to drive using an old split shift Mack logging truck. If I started grinding gears I got hit. I remember once many years ago in a drop yard driving a POS truck and I was grinding gears. I was looking around for my dad! Today I guess they call it child abuse. Back then I guess it was a father showing his son how much he loved him so he would have something he could do.

 

I’ll give you some clues and let’s see if you can figure it out. They are one of the longest standing trucking schools in America. They have the lowest instructor to student ratio of most any trucking school. They are also the absolute only trucking school in America that allows the students to drive the trucks once they have their CDL WITHOUT an instructor. Yes, for the last few weeks of class you drive around town in the truck by yourself. How can they do this? Because they have such a stellar safety reputation, because they don’t allow students to just fake a CDL, that their insurance company will insure them for this. Those same insurance companies won’t insure any other trucking school because they know what they put out. Lol

oh, and they don’t cost that much to attend either. However the course is much longer than most. It’s about 1/3 the cost of the average trucking school.