mistakes that let everyone know youre a rookie

what are you talking about..that is being a driver.

 

Delivered out toward Atlantic City. Got a pre plan on qualcom and it said Newark is where the shipper was. So I take off to Newark New Jersey before I actually got my load assignment got 50 or so miles up the road pull over at a rest area only to find out that the load picked up in Newark Delaware

 

My trainer and I had delivered my 1st load, from L'Anse MI to Holland MI. We had already received the next pre-plan that loaded in Holland and delived to L'Anse. My trainer is yakking with the fork driver unloading us and tells him, yeah, those empty pallets going back to L'Anse are for us. AFTER we are fully loaded again, he sends the empty msg and receives the next load, only to find out that it's from a shipper down the street. He had to call his FM and apologize profusely for making this "rookie mistake" (his words). The shipper had to wait an extra day for the driver that was originally coming for the pallets. SEND QUALCOMM MESSAGES IN THE CORRECT ORDER AND AT THE APPROPRIATE TIME

Just because the manual states the truck is a 6x4 does not mean it is an offroad vehicle. Even if it looks like theres a good place to turn around just a little further down the rutted, muddy dirt road. 2 tow-outs later...

If your GPS or any other source of info tells you 'that gas station on the corner has diesel for trucks', but you ddon't see other semis there, or at least the tell-tale black turning tire marks, DONT PULL IN!

It is never too soon to stop what you're doing to think it through a lot more. It will become too late WAY sooner than you think.

Leave your phone & head set on your bunk. Neither your dispatcher nor your mom has anything to say that is more important than what is on the road in front of you.

 

more than once done that one

 

this will date me but.....

summertime, heading for the lower level on the GW, in the right lane, daydreaming about 3 days off. lots of traffic but it's moving steady.

at the last second i notice that the right lane is exit only and i don't have the nerve to cut anyone off so i take the exit. no problem just keep making rights until it gets me back to a street that will put me on the bridge.

uhoh, way up ahead i can see an orange sign on an overpass. stop in the middle of the street in the bronx, throw on the 4 ways, jump out of the truck to ask a couple guys sitting on a stoop in the middle of the day drinking, how high the overpass is and btw how do i get back to the gw?

 

Actually it is a bad hill, sure there are steeper around the country' but its the length of the descents on donner that make it so dangerous you should of figured that out with the mistake made on your gear choice. Lived in reno 10 years an ran that hill a lot. Your very fortunate to be able to put in writing.

 

This is funny I think i've made almost everyone of these mistakes. A lot of them long after I wasn't a rookie anymore. The thing is sometimes your not on your A game and sometimes you don't realize it till its to late. I still make mistakes and real stupid ones its just that they're fewer and farther apart. They can happen to anyone at anytime no matter your years of exp. One day you'll be able to have a good laugh about'em even the really stupid ones. Like one night I pull up to the yard and there is a couple guys trying to get the lock open on the gate. Driver comes out my truck on the street asked if there is a new combo we keep talking g for a bit. I decided to get out and see if I can it open, we had talked just long enough for me not realize I hadn't set the break before I got out. After I get the gate open I turn around and see that my truck is gone. I seriously thought someone had stole it while all had our backs to the street so I walk out to the street and see that the truck has rolled a half mile down the street and into a ditch and just about on its side, fortunately it was very light set. I now had to call dispatch and explain why I needed a hook a very embarrassing phone call. I had been driving about 6 yes at the time. I can bust a gut over it now though.

 

I think one of the worst things I ever did was leave Laredo, get to San Antonio and realize I forgot the bills. Luckily they were able to fax them to the TA and one to the Consignee. And just when you think you ve seen and heard it all, here s a few more mistakes drivers have made

1. Being in such a big hurry you leave a fuel nozzle in a tank and rip it off the pump.

2. Getting trailer numbers mixed up and a 1000 miles later you realize you had got the wrong trailer.

3. Winding up on a Parkway in NYC or winding up on Blue Ridge Parkway in a truck

4. Seeing drivers going down the road with a tire or tires missing off the axle of a trailer.

5. Seeing a driver slide tandems so hard that they come from underneath a trailer.

6 . A newbie going from Evergreen, AL to Tampa FL going up I 65 to Montgomery, then I 85 to Atlanta and back down I 75 to Tampa. Or from Evergreen, AL to Chicago, Taking US 84 to McComb MS and taking I 55

 

Running into yellow poles.

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Willingly volunteering for the Family Dollar or Dollar General accounts thinking you're gonna make BIG money lol!

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