You're told to drive on a flat by a DM, what would you do?

This is something every newbie needs to understand. I am ashamed to admit it took me two or three years to figure it out.

 

I never liked sitting on side of road for repairs. I would probably limp it to truck stop if not very far. You could be stuck for hours waiting for a service truck on side of road.

You look in mirror and see truck coming and they are crossing the line onto shoulder, I would rather keep going to truck stop if possible.

 

I did a lot of hopping and never had a problem. Was hired back by 3 of them and another asked if I was interested in coming back. I guess the key is not to blow up any bridges. My problem was that I was new and really didn’t know what I wanted to do.

Imo job hopping would be a problem if you were trying to get on with a good company like Walmart, UPS etc.

The flat tire issue I’ve been through once. Was an outside drive tire and when I saw it out the mirror it was flopping around like crazy. I took the next exit and found a tire shop nearby that got me straightened out. I’m not too sure that I would drive 25 miles on the interstate if it was an outside tire because it sure looked like it could possibly come off the wheel.

 

Look it needs to be repeated, RIGHT NOW IT IS A CARRIER'S EMPLOYMENT MARKET.

This means the carrier can be very choosy to who they hire, too many drivers.

So you can fill in the blanks.

 

30 years and still haven’t figure it out..
lost two jobs because of a flat tire. Wtf

maybe you should invest in an air hose and a plug kit

 

This is part of the reason that mega trucking companies have made such a big business out of schooling rookie drivers. It benefits them to be able to intimidate newbies into operating in an unsafe situation just to get the next load delivered. If something bad happens, it's solely on the driver so dispatchers don't have to worry about their own accountability.
Experienced drivers can be a royal pain in the arse when they tell the dispatchers to go pack sand and refuse to operate the equipment if it's unsafe to do so. Experienced drivers become less and less useful as tools in the industry as viewed by the office staff and management.
A sad juxtaposition in the large scheme of things that the more experienced the driver, the less useful they become in many ways.

 

That’s a good point. Most drivers working for western, swift, and other bottom of barrel companies make less than $700 a week staying on the road for months. And that’s #### laughable. They get paid .42-44cpm. It’s hard to go broke when you have 1500 trucks running for dirt cheap. What many of them do is have the drivers run short hops on the north east. Drivers don’t make good miles, company gets good revenue tho. So now you have a sucker running NYC freight for .42cpm. Thats a win not matter how you look at it.

 

this isn’t true. Look at this guy 30 years experience and can’t even handle a simple issue with any grace…
Time developing bad habits and not putting in all you’re effort everyday doesn’t account for anything…
improper practice leads to bad habits
perfect practice leads to perfection


here’s the learning curve in trucking.

Most things are gone over and experienced within 2-3 years. After that there’s not much learning going on.
After 5 you should be able to deal with any situation pretty easily.

so sick of guys like this thinking 30 years means something when they clearly still suck… we’re all doing the same job

When you have a bad attitude, drag ###, don’t get things done, still need their hand held. Why are you deserving of any respect. Cause you wasted your working career not developing yourself?

 

Maybe he doesn’t know that the truck has an air compressor.