schools with new trucks

The problem is not with the auto's as much as the software. The trans computer needs to be able to talk to the motor computer. When that communication breaks down, so do you.

 

If I remember correctly the state examiner can fail you in Florida for bad shifting since you lose X amount of points for every poor shift such as grinding, skipping, missing gears, etc. Can't remember exactly how many points you can lose but you can definitely lose a bunch.

 

I went to Eastern Utah University here in Price, Utah to there truck driving school. They had a few older Peterbuilts and 3 newer Kenworths, one that was just picked up at the end of last year from the dealer. Pretty good school with great instructors. Spend about an hour or so in classroom then the rest of the day out driving. And yes we did drive the new trucks.

 

I was in a truck stop one night, and a woman driving for one of the big companies was trying to start her truck. It was about 5 degrees out (F). The truck would not even crank over. She hit a button her dispatcher told her to, and the computer gave her a fault code. The truck was parked, with the transmission in Park. The code said something about "Can not start while Trans in gear". She was not in gear, but her fancy space-aged transmission thought it was. So there she sat, freezing, while waiting for a service truck to get to her. Absolutely nothing wrong with the motor or truck, but a simple sensor in the transmission kept her from starting.

Maybe some of us people "Stuck in the past" know a thing or two? After all, we had to find places without GPS. We had to figure out how to place a load on our trailer without some fancy electronic weight indicator. We could fix many problems ourselves, without calling for road service. These days, the companies want a truck that nearly drives itself, so they can hire a monkey to drive it. Just throw a few bananas on the hood, and off he goes!

 

The ability to manually shift gears does not make a good driver, or even a better driver.
The opposite is probably true, because shifting gears takes at least some attention away from the road.
More for some than others, granted.