Trucker Etiquette (that's Manners)

Pretty much common sense to me

 

I went and reread, wrote out something, deleted it...., and still dumbfounded. I spoke with my old co-driver who got his CDL through Steven's after his time in the Army, and he said the guy was 1st Lt material.

 

All you fat boys should park as far away from everything as possible then walk to and from. You KNOW you need the exercise AND get up earlier---like before dessert.

 

Then I wouldn't have my spot and I'd have dinky-do disease

 

That's not what's being taught, it's what's being LEARNED.

In the thread Six posted the OP posted about a lesson he should have learned while getting his CDL - Aim High.

Most new drivers look at the space 1-3 seconds in front of them. You, me, and Six know that we need at least 7-10 seconds of following distance under "normal" circumstances, so how does the new driver maintain their space? The answer is they don't - its a lot of fuel/brake/fuel, reacting instead of anticipating, poor lane control, and generally scaring/upsetting me. Getting guys to look near, mid-range, and far is almost as much of a pain as getting them to look in the right hand mirror as they go down the road.

The OPs trainer schooled him a little and the OP took one piece to heart. The trainer has a couple few more lessons to impart and the OP needs to learn the whole lesson.

Then comes PE T, who got something from a poster in a classroom. That poster was a result of a trend Stevens was having. Not being employed by Stevens, I can't empirically state what the trend was, but I can guess it runs along the lines of:

• "I ran the red light because I was afraid I would be rear ended"
• "I was going too fast for conditions because I was being tailgaited"
• "I swerved out of my lane and ran a bus full of nuns off the road because the driver next to me swerved"
• " I was too worried about what was happening behind me so I didn't see traffic stopping"

So Safety Stu gets a poster made saying look ahead, maintain your space, don't swerve out of your lane.

PE T sees the poster and decides "thats all I have to be responsible for" and goes merrily down the road like a jackwad.

Safety Stu needed to make a better visual aid that covers ALL the major defensive driving points.

PE T needed to look for the whole lesson.

It's like teaching King Pin to Rear Axle settings.

First of all some jackwad instructor will call it bridge law. Then he will list the 15 odd states that have a restriction and what it is. Then he will mention axle weights still have to be less than 34k.

1/3 of the students will understand it. Half of those will forget it unless the lesson is repeated/reinforced within a week.

The next third will only remember that the tandems need to always be at the 43rd foot mark, the axles need to be less than 34k, or some other variation of misunderstanding.

The last third won't remember being taught in the first place.


We had a new driver get stuck at a customer a couple of months ago. She did the right thing - stop before she hit something and call for help. OPS called me and I bob tailed down. It's an old building with a dock alongside the building with a railing on the other side. You back around the corner without a lot of space in front. Not that hard, but defintely not easy especially with the refrozen ice melt from the snow bank. The driver had put her tandems to the rear before attempting the back because her trainer had told her that its better to slide the tandems on level ground, which is both true and not so much at the same time. The longer wheel base meant there wasn't enough space to both clear the building AND the snow bank.

I got her pulled out, then we slid the tandems all the way up as there was a good 16 feet between the building and the railing. Told to cut the steers as the mudflap was even with the corner, once the tractor was 45 degrees to the trailer counter steer, then she's in. I gave her some more general guidance and then went back to making money.

What do you think she took away from this?

Think about your space and make adjustments accordingly? Nope.

"Having the tandems forward makes backing easier".

What did that result in?


Despite instructors best efforts, new drivers tend to only retain a fraction of what they are taught. Then they teach someone, then that someone teaches someone, and pretty soon we have homeopathic training.

 

OK, this is kinda related, but not strictly. Incident happened yesterday that I'm still chuckling about. I'm passing a slower truck, I'm still in the left just past the truck, but not far enough to pull back into the right lane. I've got a jerk in a BMW behind me, as soon as there is just enough space for him to pull into the right lane, to pass me on the right, he does, probably about 3 feet in front of the truck I was passing. As he is coming up my right-hand side, I make a quick swerve toward the right lane (relax, it was just a minor quick nudge, nothing that would be dangerous under the conditions present) and back. As he flies around me and gets back in the left lane, he sticks his whole arm out of his window and gives me the one-finger salute. I'm still laughing about it. Hope I pissed him off for at least five minutes!!!
That is all.

 

With those collision avoidance systems you don’t need to Aim High. Or even check your mirrors for a lane change.
Ain’t technology great!

 

Great post.

I always seem to get lectured from some Johnny come lately safety guru that starts out by telling me that he drove truck for 13 years, and worked safety for these many years, yadda yadda yadda. Next he will tell me how many feet it takes to get a truck stopped after seeing the brake lights on the car in front of me. As soon as they say this, I quit listening. Time for a nap.

“Am I boring you?”

Yes you are. You’ve never driven a truck. A driver would be on the brakes before that car in front of him. People in cars only look 20 ft in front of their hood.

 

One day soon, mirrors will be a distraction.

 

Stevens was the reason for the new hood. Couldn't find pics of the damage. Happened at sysco in Albany, only one in the dock and slams right into the hood with his wagon. The worst part was he was setting up for a f'n 2nd smash. Smh