The NUMBER ONE requirement for OTR driving

truckerndfw,

An EXCELLENT post. In the days before cell phones I think mental toughness was more evident than today. When a phone was miles away and help was even further away a person was forced to be tougher. Lacking in toughness, physical or mental, or the creativity to overcome whatever obstacle you were suffering under left you on the side of the road. Those days are gone now. Help is just a phone call away, no toughness required. Save for the intestinal fortitude to admit that something has gone wrong. Too many "drivers" can't even do so much as that.

 

Your Attitude is the only thing you can control...so if you dont have a good 1
Everyones toward you will as bad or worse than your own. So if you want to succeed as I believe we all do you need to start w/ the right attitude....and some mental toughness wont hurt.

 

That is the absolute key! Good point. Maybe throw in a side of patience with that order.

 

Patience comes w/good attitude.

 

as markgel43 and an old timer said PATIENCE is the number one thing you will need to be successful in the trucking industry!!!!

 

Y'know.. I agree that all of the above mentioned items are important.. but I think it's a variant of the "toughness", as described that really makes the difference.

You HAVE to be comfortable in your own head.

You can do the job if you are impatient
you can do the job if you have a crappy attitude
you can do the job if your wife hates you

and so on.

But, if you aren't OK with spending days at a time inside your own head, you can NOT do the job - much less be happy doing it. Text messages don't count as emotional contact with the outside world, so the Q-Com and texting your best friend as you drive are no help. Clerks and salespeople are just effectively androgynous robots - not real people.

Lol, don't even MENTION the CB.

The closest thing to real people we see are the folks at S&R - and 90% of the time they're either completely indifferent to our problems, or actively seek to make life worse.

Safest place to be is inside your head where you can keep the riff-raff out.

 

I work for a very small company now. they don't have terminals all over the place that I can just swing into and have a mechanic take a look. The trucks are older. I started my job last week. I drive a 1995 peterbuilt.

I took it out with the sixth cylinder not firing, air conditioner not working, fuel gauge broke, hole in the fifth wheel airline, rpm gauge not working, water temp gauge not working, red and yellow engine lights blinking. I was headed toward Sacramento under a 45000 lb load when one of the belts (i believe it was the crank case belt) broke. I pulled into a truck garage thinking I needed to check the water cuz the water light was going off now and the mechanic told me the broken belt was left there by the last mechanic who changed it and to toss it into the garbage. Me, not know a thing about how many belts are attached to the front of the engine, thru it into the garbage. As I proceeded, a second belt came off (alternator I suppose) next thing I knew i was running off my battery.

i ended up having to sleep in the truck that night with no heater (cold out, like 40 degrees or so) and wait for a mechanic to come next morning (truck is being thoroughly fixed now)

yeah, u have to be able to wing it. If you want to drive you don't complain. You just do the best you can. U have to be mentally strong enough to handle tough situations. Its all an adventure whenever I go out with a truck. Ya never know what the hell is going to happen.

 

Yes, I know our situations are different.. but there is no way on the planet I'd take that truck out of the yard.

It will fail any - and I mean ANY - roadside inspection. It's flatly not safe to drive. You have no idea what's going on in the engine if half the dials and gauges aren't working.

A thorough pre-trip would have told you how many belts are expected to be on the front of the engine, too.

I'm sorry - that's not toughness, that's just plain ignorant.

It's not a matter of not complaining - it's knowing what's important enough to complain about. Everythign you mentioned about your truck is important enough to complain about and get fixed before the truck hits the road. (well, excepting the A/C)

 

It's not that I am ignorant. They already knew full well all the problems when they sent me out in it. I was hesitant to take it. I always kept my truck up at swift, and it was always clean. I never did get inspected. But I am new here. This was my first time out. They told me to go so I went. I am not in any position to start making demands. The mechanic already knew what was wrong because he had me take it to a different shop to have it tested on a machine just before I left. You are right tho. The truck should never have left the yard, I agree.