U.S. Xpress going to manual transmissions in all trucks?

If the freight wakes up, it ends up pressing charges.

 

http://youtu.be/hjJ8n1aQSfw
How many drivers can still do this??

 

Well........a man gets lonely out on the road..........and.......

 

Plenty. Could you throw me in one right now and expect me to shift like someone who has experience with it? No. But they learned how to, and I know I'm fully capable of learning how to. Hundreds, if not thousands, before me learned how, and there are plenty of others out here who may not get the chance to do that, but are fully capable of learning how to if they had to. Nobody possessed some special chromosome to shift those which got somehow bred out in the years since, no matter how prone some are to trying to make it seem that way.
I wonder how many of those graduating today will be making a post like yours twenty or thirty years down the road, albeit with an Eaton ten speed, rather than a twin stick.

 

I think you're wrong there. There is some chrome missing.

The work ethic has been bred out. I am not an old hand by any means, but this new breed of clowns are lazy and entitled and seem to think they are above learning how to drive a manual much less a twin stick. I never thought I would say it but I actually think I might prefer to hire a foreign worker that WANTS to learn instead of someone that thinks they are God's gift to trucking before they've even turned a wheel.

 

Volvo may have gotten things right, especially the combination of their engines along with the i-shift. Really a non issue for me, in that I have no desire to ever spend money on a Volvo. Drove one before, about 130,000 miles 8 years ago, and was glad when I gave it up. Some folks really like them. I didn't. Doesn't matter what I didn't like about it, suffice to say, I will never buy one. Doesn't make them a bad or a good truck. Just a lot of design features that I didn't care for. By design features, I mean some of the things that are standard features that are not optional, i.e. you are going to get them whether you like them or not. So, that leaves the i-shift off the table for me. And I am not that big of a fan of Eaton AMT's, so the Allison or a manual is the only choices at this stage of the game.

And you are darn right.. I am lazy! I have been shifting these manuals since my dad first showed me how in the 60's with our grain truck on the farm. I am just plain sick and tired of shifting. I have shifted manuals from above the Arctic Circle to the Rio Grande. Those folks that want to play with them, feel free. Have a great time. I am glad the technology has come far enough that we now have a broad selection to choose from in both AMT's and true automatics. If it makes my life easier, I am all for it. And I don't waste one minute of rest worrying or pondering whether others have learned to shift a manual. I am only concerned whether or not they get me killed on the road. Unlike some, I could give a rip about whether a new driver pays the same dues I did.

This idea about folks should always learn to shift a manual is like telling a soldier today that because he doesn't know how to work a muzzle loader like they did in the War Between the States, that he just isn't a real soldier. By God, every military person should learn to pour in powder and shove a mini ball down the barrel! And do it under fire! That's about how stupid this stuff about every driver should be required to operate a manual trans. If they need to use one, yes. If they don't, who cares.

 

What do you think of this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lEYaTvvq4g

 

I can get on board with what you're saying.. but only to a slight extent. I think you're giving in to a lot of the hype. The old, "everything went to #### as soon as I got out of it" spiel, the romanticism spiel, etc.
I'd dare say I'm not seeing 40-, 50-, and 60-somethings going to work as floor hands on oil rigs. By the logic that current generations are too lazy, entitled, spoiled, etc. for that sort of work, there's no way that industry should be booming the way it is. When I deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, I was surrounded by 18, 19, 20 year-old kids (and I myself was only a year older, or a couple years older in Iraq). And, on the subject of Iraq, I'm back for about a week, and what happens? I find myself getting chastized by a Vietnam vet who proceeds to lecture me about a "real" war, and how this one should be conducted, and this and that.. the kicker of it... earlier in the conversation, when I asked his MOS, he'd told me he held the MOS of a Light Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic... so, you know, I'm sure he was knee deep in the ####, right? I was a Combat Medic serving in line units.
I'm only 33 now. Most of my driving experience was in the construction industry... rest assured, it was hard work. Yet, when I'd hear the usual song and dance about "this generation" and how lazy we all are, I knew I was lumped in with the rest of us in those conversations... by highway drivers... freight haulers... granted, when you have 2.5 million miles under your belt, of course I respect that... on the same token, with that many miles, I can guarantee you're not doing the jobs that I did, and from what I've seen of those making the commentary somewhere other than Channel 19, a good number of them... well, I consider myself pretty well-rounded, and able to take on jobs requiring me to be dynamic... many of them were well-rounded in a completely different way, and would've never last doing what I was doing.. yet I was the lazy one, with my labor-intensive job and ability to look down and see my own two feet. Okay...
It makes me wonder, because I've talked to some older hands who'd talk about running trucks with Allison five speeds in the 70s and 80s... I wonder if they were chastized then the way people who drive autoshifts are now?
Yeah, there've been times I'd receive comments about "at least you're willing to work.. too many people your age aren't worth a ####", and sure, there's some truth to it... but, then again, most of the panhandlers I've seen on off-ramps have been significantly older than me, then we look at the likes of Bernie Madhoff and his ilk... people who are how old, again?... and they made their living by swindling others, yet we somehow overlook that and say, "oh, this generation isn't content working for seven Dollars and hour... back in the prehistoric times, I worked for half of that", even though, when you adjust for inflation, half of that then could easily be the equivalent of twice that or more today.
So, yeah, I just can't take the hype at face value, least of all when it comes from people who were born with some sort of spoon in their mouth... even if not necessarily silver, something semi-precious, still. I grew up in one of the most depressed regions in the most depressed state in the union, I busted my ### for everything I have, I fought the wars past generations beat the war drum for... so yeah, when I consider all of that, and consider others like me who've been in a similar boat, it really pisses me off to hear this banter and drivel about, "this generation, blah, blah, blah", and of course my apathy towards their spiel would lead to more, "this generation has no respect" commentary, with the notion of respect being earned and not given being slightly overlooked... if someone's going to see me, and right away jump to these conclusions, and act like an ### towards me because of it and without knowing the first thing about me, then what exactly is it that I'm supposed to respect?

 

I was just getting ready to go look for this video when I saw you posted it. If I'm not mistaken. The right is your range selector, middle is gear, left is your splitter. 3 stick is for 18 and 13. And 2 stick is for 9 and 10. I'm just guessing here. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Either way, it'd be cool to try it out. Doesn't seem as difficult as some make it seem. Just substitute a flipper for a stick. But then again I've never drove one. So It could actually be that difficult.