Welcome to my Nightmare.

Oh my, where to start.
Mistakes; too many to remember, but some of the highlights:

1. The only time that I ever hit another vehicle was at a winery around Modesto. I had finished loading and had pulled away from the dock, moved over to one side and backed up enough to be out of the way, leaving a good fifty feet behind me. Went in to call for information on my next pick up (wine loads in California can have a lot of picks, and this was before cell phones) came out, backed up a bit more to give myself room to swing and as I was pushing on the brake to stop and change direction I had a feeling that the truck stopped before I had applied enough brake. Pulled forward and looked in the mirror and sure enough there was a car there that wasn't there when I went in to use the phone and get my bills. Evidently that was where an employee had pulled in behind me and parked. Went back into the office and told them what I had done, and asked whose vehicle that was. Very minor damage to the car and none to the ICC bumper, but we exchanged information and it was taken care of. After that I never again backed up if I had been out of the truck without glancing behind it.
2. Failed to raise the neck support on an RGN.
3. Failed to remove air lines from the neck before detaching (actually did that twice within about a month period). Slow learner, but haven't done it since.
4. In the old days driving an 82 Freightliner cabover coming out of the bay area headed over Donner. Did this run every week for a couple of years and was always heavy both ways hauling spuds or hides to California and newspaper inserts back to Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. That cabover was brutal ride-wise if you had your fifth wheel slid up enough to get weight on the steers, which I had to do. The boss and I were discussing this, and the mention of fellas lubing up the fifth wheel slides with dish soap, releasing the locks, and firmly applying the brakes a few times on the way into the scale at Roseville came up. He said that he had tried it and it worked great! When leaving the scale just give a little extra fuel for a shift or two and you could slide it right back out to the stops, lock the fifth wheel, and away you go. Well, I got rather good at this and it saved a lot of time pulling over before and after the scales. I wouldn't have done it at all if the ride was just bad, but it would throw you into the top of the cab it was so bad, and had to be hard on the truck. Anyway, one night I was pleased as punch with myself for just how smoothly I had learned to do this, and proceeded up over the hill. All was well until the off ramp at Boomtown where we used to fuel. Yea, you guessed it, I forgot to lock the fifth wheel and upon applying the brakes on the off ramp all of a sudden BOOM, the fifth wheel had slid clear forward to the stops. Thank God they held, and I never ever did that again.

I'll quit now before you all realize just how steep the learning curve has been.

When I bought my first truck I was the young pup around a great bunch of older owner operators. They always liked running with me, not because of my glowing personality, but because I was eager to grease trucks, adjust brakes, adjust clutches, climb up on top of reefer trailers and fix lights, and I used to like to race the lumpers unloading IBP beef and would do theirs (the other O/Os) if we were running together just for the exercise. We all ran the same routes and had a great time running together. There was another fellow about my age that they all despised, not because he wasn't likable, but he was notorious for being late with appointments. He made all of us leased to this company look bad, and the group finally convinced the company to get rid of him. That was not tolerated.

Talking about CB's, we relied on them so much back then for many things; learning about road conditions or traffic problems, checking on literally every truck that was on the shoulder to see if they needed help, harassing each other, and making the time pass. This was before there was so much crap on the radio. Nowadays it seems that just a small percentage of the folks even run them. The other day I came upon a fellow pulling a dry van that had his right rear door on the van open, just a swinging away. I hollered at him with no response, got up next to him and help my mike up so that he could see I was trying to tell him something, and he just ignored me. I was in my pickup at the time and I guess he may have thought I was screwing with him. I couldn't get him to pull over, and finally got up out of the way as another truck came up from behind. That driver was finally able to get his attention and let him know what was going on.

So how does any of this have to do with the A game? Admittedly I have had many moments in which I was performing with less that my best, but I never quit striving to be better. Now that I am older, I realize that my reactions are not what they once were, but my instincts are better. Knowing what to do without having to think about it takes years of experience, and I think that we all can agree that there is a bit of luck involved as well. As long as one recognizes the potential consequences of mistakes, and strives to improve and not repeat them, then we really cannot ask for more. As Sawmill mentioned about the philosophy of having the whole team learn from mistakes, and giving an honest individual another chance, then everyone prospers. When one gets to the level of hauling very wide, tall, and/or heavy loads, one must have much of the learning curve behind him and yet still recognize ways to improve.

Not sure what prompted me to write this little mini-novel, but I enjoy the comments and the insight that has been shared on this thread, and appreciate you guys that have risen from the masses in trucking.

 

I don't. I prefer "Freight Transportation Engineer".

I also include in the "education" section my Bachelor's degree in Forestry and my Master's in Redneck Engineering...still working on my workin' man's PhD, though.

 

I prefer “Allocation Relocation Specialist”.

 

Never thought of that happening

Although that's not necessarily driver error, in my opinion

 

A long time back a neighbor of mine sold an identical pair of John Deere swathers. One was going to N. Dakota and the other to Montana. The Montana guy didn't like my rate and decided to haul it himself. Halfway across N. Dakota the cab all but blew off on him.
Sure glad it was him and not me.

 

I love that look. I just smile and nod knowing i put more in my bank account last week than they did in the last month.

 

I’ve got a good idea about what happened on the Nashville truck. They had two similar loads going through TN, they got one permit, and run both loads on the same permit.

I did this one time on over width tree cutters. Had 2 identical machines, going back to back, from TN to AL. Ran them both on the same permit. Of course, the scales were closed on my first round, I knew better than to cross the scales on both trips to have record of my 2 trips. They did go to two different places, about 50 miles apart, but they weren’t routed loads.

 

Because people make mistakes. All of us. It's how we handle those mistakes that matters. I've read the thread to the end and I see this fact has been covered. However, I feel this is such an important detail that really needs to hammered into some people's heads. We all do our best by learning vicariously via others mistakes when we follow sound advice. There are tons of trash posters here and even I get caught up in things sometimes too.

I've been growing my ignore list exponentially lately to try and stop letting them derail my purpose for being here. Some of you guys have helped me and don't even know it because I've gotten my answers from your posts that were long before I ever signed up to TTR. I used to have family to go to for trucking help but they are gone. After 20 years I'm still learning things. Ironically, many of those things I never had an interest in 1998 when I first started. Life really is a circular pattern it seems.

I sincerely appreciate the help (whether directly or indirectly) the "arrogant" ones have given me. Just knowing I can reach out for help and get it in this point of my life is indispensable. When I read the posts of the indoctrinated tools calling experienced operators "super truckers" etc etc it makes me mad enough to kick puppies. I just try to remind myself that these losers will always be the bottom feeders. The world is full of two types of people; winners and losers.

 

I can't say I've ever been that upset. Except maybe when our puppy ate the TV remote.