What important skills of truck driving did you learn after your first year of trucking?

Discussion in 'Experienced Truckers' Advice' started by expedite_it, Dec 17, 2024.

  1. expedite_it

    expedite_it Road Train Member

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    Or I was not observant in my first 569 weeks.
     
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  3. MACK E-6

    MACK E-6 Moderator Staff Member

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    It is, IF one knows what he’s doing. But with the way I was trained, I thought it better to get adept at the textbook way to do things before I thought about tweaking it to attempt floating.
     
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  4. Numb

    Numb Crusty Curmudgeon

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    did he also tell you to not drive over little old ladies or drive off bridges. :confused:

    can't teach common sense. :rolleyes:
     
  5. D.Tibbitt

    D.Tibbitt Road Train Member

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    Why do u keep mentioning your trainer didn't teach u this or that? I was with a trainer for 5 weeks at swift. Don't remember a dam thing what he told me, dont even remember the guys name. But I do remember he smelled worse than a cow with explosive diahreah because he never showered and liked to lay in his bed covered in sweat and tarp grime and sleep with his shoes on
     
  6. Hammer166

    Hammer166 Crusty Information Officer

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    I'm still not convinced he's not an expert level troll. I saw him comment he didn't realize tandem placement affected offtrack for 7 years. Then the 118 IQ comment.

    Anyone at that IQ level is at least decent at spatial intelligence and for sure good at pattern recognition. It just doesn't jibe.
     
  7. expedite_it

    expedite_it Road Train Member

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    If I had thought about how tandem placement would affect off-tracking in my first 6 years of trucking, I might have been able to deduce that moving the tandems forward reduces off-tracking, but I just did not think about it until I had been trucking for 7 years. People don't learn through osmosis. I don't care how smart a person is. If a person does not make an effort to learn something, then he will never learn it.
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2025
  8. Hammer166

    Hammer166 Crusty Information Officer

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    But that's kind of another point... At that IQ level intellectual curiosity starts to become an almost irresistible force. One almost has to make the effort to NOT learn things. Especially anything you interact with daily life as a driver.

    We're all wired a bit differently, but there's also a lot of commonality among smart folks. I'm a bit higher than the number you put out, and I promise I'm not normal. Neither is anyone else I've ever met around that level. But I can't think of any of them who wouldn't intuitively grasp that off track/WB relationship in short order. Mind you I was mostly around STEM types, so it's possible that's more likely in those wired that way. Just hard to wrap my head around the possibility of one not grasping the relationship.

    And that's not learning by osmosis, it's learning from pattern recognition, and pattern recognition has a strong tie to IQ ; it's a big part of every IQ test I've ever seen. Humans in general excel at it compared to other critters. It's literally one of the biggest drivers of building civilization.

    "Hey, there's that star, just after dark, winter is coming soon, we gotta get ready!"
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2025
  9. Wargames

    Wargames Captain Crusty

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    Sounds like a homeless man I’m bored ha ha ha
     
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  10. expedite_it

    expedite_it Road Train Member

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    I have a lot of intellectual curiosity. My house is filled up with very intellectual books that I read just to satisfy my intellectual curiosity. I just did not have intellectual curiosity about how tandem placement affects off tracking in the first six years of my career.

    A person cannot have pattern recognition through osmosis. Even if a person has an IQ of 160, a person still has to think about something to recognize the pattern.

    No person on the face of the Earth with an IQ of 118 is exactly like me. I am unique. Just because the people that you know with an IQ of 118 would intuitively grasp the relationship of tandem Placement to off tracking in short order does not conclusively prove that I would intuitively grasp the relationship of tandem Placement to off tracking in short order if I have an IQ of 118. Even among people with an IQ of 118, I am unique. The only thing I have in common with all other people with an IQ of 118 that I don't have in common with the general population of all humans is my IQ score.
     
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  11. D.Tibbitt

    D.Tibbitt Road Train Member

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    Yes. Yes you are certainly unique.
     
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