My 16 Week Experience with TRANSAM

To become a barber takes at least a year and has more stringent tests and licensing requirements than driving a truck. I do not know an operation done by a barber that will kill and maim. A bad haircut will grow out. A barber does not work in a closet surrounded by zooming maniacs that think they are immortal and untouchable. A barber does not face jail time if he makes a mistake. A barber usually does not make life and death decisions. I am not criticizing barbers, merely using them as an example.

In driving an automatic shift truck the major experience needed is not related to operating the truck per se. The major experience needed is in how to recognize the dangers around you from the other drivers (both 4 wheel and 18 wheel). Case in point: while driving in Virginia during December 2008 a white car came screaming up beside me until it was just ahead and paused for a second before exiting right in front of me off I-81. I had already taken my foot off the accelerator and was pushing on the brake before he did this otherwise I would have hit him and knocked him into the concrete construction barriers on the exit. As it was, I could not see anything but the hood of the car as it passed in front of me. There was at least a half a mile clear behind the truck but the idiot had to exit in front of me. If I had not seen this same behavior a hundred times before (but not so close) I probably would have killed the guy. The slight hesitation is what told me what the guy was going to do. It was like he had to decide if his life was worth the risk.

I have seen trucks do things just as stupid and without regard to the other vehicles and drivers on the road. I have seen trucks tailgating cars at 70 mph less than 10 feet behind them in heavy traffic; I have seen trucks driving 65 mph on ice during snowstorms passing everyone like we were standing still. This is unbelievably stupid. These people presumably have the same training I had and know how dangerous their behavior is but choose to ignore the training and endanger everyone around them to gain a few seconds. This is not a race. A truck is not going to outrun anything else on the road. At 62 miles per hour, at best, you will go 682 miles in 11 hours. At 65 mph you will go 715 miles. In reality your miles will be a lot less. It makes no sense to be a hotrod to gain what would be at most a half an hour of milage, but could cost you hours because of an accident or ticket.

Anything can happen at any time. The minute you forget this is the minute you get in trouble. Watch everyone around you all the time and do not ride beside another truck for miles in the belief that it will gain you anything. There is nothing more frustrating or demonstrative of stupidity than two governed trucks trying to pass each other. Slow down and let the other truck get a mile ahead. You can then drive like you want to without interference. Chances are, even if you do manage to pass the other truck, you will pull into the same truck stop within 5 minutes of each other 400 miles down the road.

 

Check out the WIA program through the employment office in your area. I got my CDL through them. I did not pay for anything but gas to get back and forth to the school. They would have paid for a motel, but I drove back and forth because the school was only 40 minutes away. There is nothing worse than being in the hole to a trucking company for the cost of the CDL school and obligated to them for a year or 18 months. It is akin to slavery. The whole CDL school/Trucking Company relationship is just another scam to screw the new driver and obligate him for thousands of dollars for training that could be done much more cheaply if the government was not involved in helping trucking companies to screw those least able to pay the "freight" in meeting govt. mandated regulations. It is another profit center for the trucking company. If you can qualify for the WIA program you at least start your career in trucking at "skippy". That's a lot better than being obligated to a soulless company that will sue you or screw you if you do not meet the letter of the agreement.

 

I do not know what the requirements for the WIA program are. It doesn't hurt to ask. There may be some other program for the self-employed. With all the money being thrown around by Washington these days there ought to be something for everyone. If the government can provide health care for illegal aliens, they should be able to provide job training for the formerly self-employed that their rediculous programs of the past have put out of business. After all, they need you back on your feet and in a position where they can put the screws to you to pay for all this #########.