Roehl Trainers Check- in/ New Roehl Drivers Check-in

My Dad was a trainer at Roehl for a few years and had a student do that. They were coming out of that brake check area on the top of Monteagle. The student started going through the gears and missed 8th. He is trying to get it in gear and they start picking up speed going down the hill. He can't get it in and they are flying down the hill in neutral. The student then asks my Dad what do. The old man never had much patience and just loses it, "If you don't get this truck in gear you can put your head between your legs and kiss your a ss goodbye!" They got the truck slowed down and back in gear but the old man's training days were numbered after that.

 

Eagle isn't that bad at all.. Truthfully I cruise down it in 10th all the time with 50k on the bed.


Safety? No need here!



Not really, I don't think it's the country's most dangerous though. If so that is kinda weak compare to the hills out west!

 

I always start out in 7th on monteagle. I leave the brake check area in 7th and don't come out of gear till close to the bottom so I can just go from 7th to 10th.

I have had situations where I've needed to light up the brakes in Connecticut on some steep but short hills. Steep enough to go over 70mph but not enough to put any warning signs up

Ethan

 

I don't work there anymore but I was a trainer there for seven years. My all time favorite student was Billy from Arkansas. I picked him up from the terminal in Gary, IN. I tell him we have to drop off in downtown Chicago. "Where's that?" says Billy. "Where's what?" says me. "Chicago", says Billy. I say, "About 30 miles west of here." I'm thinking this dude has been in Gary for a week and has no idea that the third biggest city in the country is right down the road. Ok, here we go. We make our delivery and get our next load assignment. The pick up is in a suburb of Chicago and we get our directions over the qualcomm. The directions say to take I94 west. I bust out the atlas and tell Billy to look at the Chicago map. He starts looking through the C's. I said, "No, go to Illinois then find the city map." Billy says, "Chicago isn't a state?" We find the map and Billy finds I94. He says, "I see 94 but I don't see 94 west." This is going to be an interesting week. Billy turns out to be a natural driver and probably the best backer upper I had as a student. His geography skills left something to be desired though. We were driving across the bridge over the Mississippi river on 494 in the Twin Cities. He asks, "Is this the Golden Gate Bridge?" I chuckle and ask if he is kidding. "No, I never left Arkansas before I came here," says Billy. "That is out by San Francisco and Oakland," I say. "What state is that?" says Billy. I never made it out of the Midwest growing up but I knew where all the big cities were. It took him almost an hour one day to find Des Moines on the Iowa map. We got delayed getting loaded one day and had to drive later than I liked too. We stopped to get fuel at a truck stop and Billy goes inside. He comes out and asks if he can drive. We don't have much farther to go so I let him. About a half hour later he starts sweating profusely and breathing heavily. It is winter but he turns off the heat and starts tugging at his shirt. Before I can say anything he rips his shirt off while driving and is covered in sweat. "WTF are you doing?" I ask. Billy said he heard about these pills that help you stay awake to drive farther, he saw some at the truck stop and bought some. I asked him how many he took. He said about 5 or 6. Then I found out he was blind as a bat at night. We were headed west toward the Quad cities. I told him to stay on I80. We were coming up to the 80/280 split. He starts squinting and leans forward so his nose is almost touching the windshield. These are great big green signs that can be seen a quarter mile away. At the last second Billy realizes that 80 veers right and he quickly changes lanes. I now have a sweaty, shirtless, night blind, hillbilly stunt driver on my hands. We make it to the next rest area and we are done. Adding up hours at the end of the night was probably worse than the map deal. He had no math skills at all. He couldn't get that a 30 mins was .5 hours, he thought it was .3 hours. I had to make him a conversion sheet. He told me when he gets on his own everything would be done in hour chunks so it would be easy to add up. I asked if he was going to fuel for an hour and do an hour long PTI. He said yes. So it gets pretty cold the next couple days and Billy wants no part of it. It is below zero and the wind is whipping when we stop to get fuel in Fargo, ND. Billy gets out of the truck and pulls his stocking cap all the way down over his face. He is wandering around looking like the guy on Fat Albert. We get done fueling and he goes inside. I hope they think he is going to rob them and call the cops and end my nightmare but no such luck. I give him a few eye tests while driving and his vision isn't that great in the day and is horrendous at night. I tell him this isn't going to work. You can't drive a truck and not be able to see at night. He says, "My grandpappy has been driving trucks for forty years and he only has one eye." I chuckled a little because he actually said, "grandpappy." He was upset and told me I was killing his dream. I just couldn't let him go out there like that and be a hazard though. He did go home and got some kind of glasses and finished with another trainer.

 

This is one reason I won't be a trainer. No thanks.

Ethan

 

If that is a true story it is a riot.

 

I thought the same thing when I was your age. Then I just got so flipping bored after five years. I needed students to spice up my day. Its really one of the few ways to make any real money in the industry too. You either have to train, haul fuel or oversize, or be an O/O with your own authority with some kind of niche.

 

It's true. I trained over a 100 guys and have forgotten most of them. I will remember this dude until the day I die.