Remember your first load solo?

Yep Just do it! Now you're on your own and no one is looking over your shoulder..Everyone is scared at first and if you weren't, I'd be worried...Just take your time and ask other truckers...most guys are pretty cool and can help you out in a pinch...I would get a CB and when you can, a GPS...The cb helps if your at a truck stop and need directions and a gps will get you pretty close to where you need to be. When in doubt, call the customer. And when you're backing up....please get out and look if you're not certain..that's the best place for damage to be done...Good luck! BTW...there's lots of girls out there too...

 

Sure do. My first Solo was in a old COE for a company that paints their trucks orange. I P/U the truck in their W.Memphis Yard and went to Dallas Tx. Going across Ark.in a COE in 2000 was a lot of fun (NOT). Talk about being sore and tired by the end of the day. Yes it does get better once you get a routine

 

I can remember my first solo load with my last company. Got to go to the caves of Independence, MO. That was cool and all get out.

First solo load with the company before that sent my happy tailfeathers into Nawlins, where I have never returned. Before that, they all become a blur.

 

Sure do remember it---winter in Portland..dispatched with a set (doubles) luckily the con gear had a flat as well as the rear pup, and the line for tires was about 10 rigs in front of me...so with the delay for the repairs, the ice storm that shut down I-5 and I-84 through the gorge hit while I was waiting...two days later, roads were clear and all the trucks in the median and tangled up on the sides were pretty much cleared out of the way.

That ice was so bad...thought someone brought a Zamboni machine to the yard so the mechanics could get in a good game of ice hockey on the clock!

 

Your with USA right? Well if so and you dont have a GPS and you need better directions then call your fm cuz they have a map program they can use to help you find your way to where ever your going.

 

Yep Load from SLC to LA. Luckily it was a load I had run with my trainer before. Important thing is don't be afraid to ask question and get out and look. Better to look then to have to explain why you didn't.

 

yep, it was a 40 mile delivery from the place I upgraded to Long Beach Cali, 40 miles away.

I hooked the trailer the night before, and then went to bed.

When I woke up in the morning at the terminal, there was another truck parked at an odd angle next to me. When trying to pull out at 4am, I broke the mirror on the other truck with the trailer. Way to start my morning, thinking I was getting fired.

Then off to the delivery, I had a load of loose alfalfa pellets on the floor of the reefer.Now the qualcomm directions say, take a left of the ramp and then a right into the shipper, use intercomm on the gate for access.

So I follow the directions to the gate. Realize I am at the wrong facility, I am at a US port facility. And not the delivery entrance. Luckily there is a nice old man walking out to put the flag up, he opens the gate for me to go in and turn around, instructing me I can try to turn around but, "under no circumstances can I cross the tracks in to the gravel lot." Well I get in there and there are so many cars parked, there is no way to turn around, well I see the tracks and there is a 10acre EMPTY lot across them....and a guard there smiling at me walking my way. Guard says, you are the 5th central this week. And that I would have to back out onto the street, I am now 1/4 mile deep into this facility. He informs me that he will back me out then block traffic so I can get out. He does, and I am on my way, make a turn or 2 with his directions, and I am there.

Have to pull on a scale there to check weight, no problem, the problem is how I need to get onto the ramp that lifts my trailer to dump the load.

It is a blind side back, with not enough room for my nube ###. I had to blindside back onto a ramp, this ramp as I remember(could be wrong in my frustrations)was about 6inches wider than the truck on either side of the tandems, and there was a small guard rail on each side as it was elevated and you really did not want to drive off of it.

Well I got it on after blocking traffic and taking 20min to get onto these ramps, and everything else from that point foward was cake.

K

 

I remember my first solo run... A load of charcoal on pallets from Kentucky to southern Alabama... I don't remember the exact locations... Everything went smooth...

Look at this as a new experience and an opportunity. Keep your eyes and ears open, be careful and continue to learn...

J.

 

My first load, not solo load as I have never run with someone else, and I never had a trainer, was shortly after I bought my first truck. I was very young, I had only driven for less than a year driving a daycab, where I was home everyday. I have never driven a comany truck as an otr driver.

I had no formal truck driver training, everything I knew I learned by shunting trailers in the yard, or driving in the city. I didn't know what to do when you went throught the scales, I didn't know how to scale a load, nobody told me. I had to learn everything on my own.

My first load as an otr driver was from Toronto to South Carolina, I didn't have a clue as to how to do the paperwork for customs> luckly I ran into another driver from the same company who helpd me out. I finally figured it all out and with the help of my map I made it down there in time to get the load off.