Things Heard in Trucking School (FAQs)

One of the guys in my class in '02 asked me what it was like to drive a manual. I just stared at him until I realized he was serious. He'd only been driving for about 6 months, and the only vehicle he had ever driven in his life was a Chevy Tahoe with an auto trans.

 

About 4 kids in my class were legitimately unaware that truckers didn't go home every night.

As for my favorite question, "How much warning do you get before a random drug test?"

And then, "Does the company have to pay for all my tickets because it's their truck?"

 

I've grabbed at where my CB mic would be to yell at a big truck for driving like a moron or check on traffic a few times
Then I feel like the moron...

 

I don't swing wide, but I do tend to square off my turns, I also tend to leave a good 6 seconds following distance, and as another said, I wait a little longer than I need to making left turns sometimes.

If that makes me a moron and a #######, so be it, but I drive a truck about 300 days a year and my POV about 65... Habits carry over, but I will say this, I would rather be a moron and a ####### than do the reverse, and drive my truck like my POV.

It's much safer my way.

 

I've always said that you can tell how a trucker drives his rig by watching how he drives his personal vehicle. Behavior shouldn't be determined by which steering wheel is in your hand.

 

The horse that pulls the sleigh in Jingle Bells

And a deadhead is an acid dropping hippie with a Jerry Garcia fixation

 

I remember asking somebody "if you just keep turning the truck, will it eventually crash into the trailer or is there anything to prevent that?" The answer to that one is on the fairings of rookie's trucks.

Stupid question now, but hell, I didn't know anything about trucks when I started.

 

Does the company provide all the tools needed to slide tandems.