New female driver with female drive partner All advice and tips needed!!!

Well I'll be the pestimist among the crowd, and tell you flat out, no matter what your gender is, trucking isn't for everyone. It can be a dangerous and dirty job, it can be a stupid job and you may not make the money you think you could make.

People come here as a last resort, others support that idea but to me it is a formula for BS that we have to deal with in the long run. This poor group of people cause us to have elogs, more stupid regulations and deal with cops all the time.

I'll give you a couple examples from this morning. I drive my kids to college in the morning because I need to get out of the house, I'm retired. I am driving down the road at 75 on the speedo (which is 73) and I was passed by a full placard tanker hauling gasoline who had to be doing 85. I got on the phone with the state police and he was pulled over for speeding a few miles down the road. I don't care what the excuse is by the driver, speeding with hazmat to me is a big deal and his behavior is why my insurance is high and why I have to deal with cops pulling my trucks over for spot checks.

The second one was just plain stupidity, the idiot driver lost a tire. His retread blew on his forward drive axle and threw tire crap all over the road, it hit a few cars, causing an accident and blocked traffic for a while as someone had to get the carcass out of the road and the wrecked cars off the road. The real problem is that he didn't stop, he just kept on going, putting his fourways on and drove really really really slow on a stretch of freeway where it is 70 mph and people go 80 as the norm. It didn't take long for us to catch up to him, the cops were right in front of the crowd and he got pulled over. I would have fired the guy for that crap, no excuse for leaving the scene of an accident, which was not as bad as not pulling over when you lose a tire like that.

NOT saying you are not going to be a good driver or anything like that but I will say if you don't treat this as a profession and just a job, you are not doing anyone any favors being here and it will be short lived.

That said, take advice and learn how to drive right, try very hard to get rid of bad car driving habits like crappy lane changes, short distances between you and others and be the one that is the exception to the norm.

Also learn an important word - NO. YOU have to get this straight in your mind right from the start, after you have that CDL that you EARNED, treat it as something so valuable you will defend it no matter what. YOU are in charge of that truck when you are in the driver's seat, not dispatch, not your trainer, NO ONE BUT YOU. If your trainer (I hate that term because they don't train) tells you something to do illegal or improper, just tell him/her NO. It isn't his place to demand a thing, you are the person who is legally responsible for everything that happens in that truck when you are sitting in that driver's seat - PERIOD.

I can not stress that enough.

Go learn the Smith System, https://www.drivedifferent.com/ which all schools should offer to their students, it and another set of safety courses is required to be done by my drivers before they are handed over a truck to drive.

So again, trucking is not for everyone, good luck and hope you make a great driver.

 

mraverin, @mraverin

 

I stopped at 4 minutes that's all I needed to see to know this lady is right on target about everything.I really liked OTR.I came off the road to help my dad care for mom then I went local and hated local driving.But OTR I really enjoyed it.

 

Please, please, please... buy a dash cam, make sure its running 24-7, this is my most omp. Advice i could give... also if your caught in a jam, (lost or trying to find a costumer, on a no truck route etc) get on that cb and ask for help, yea there will be alot of bs on there but i have found there is always at least one good guy out there willing to help. Dont EVER be to proud to ask for help, yes they might laugh and its embarising. BUT most of the time people will help. And thats soo much safer and you will learn somthing for next time u are in a jam.

 

Running team your looking at 5,500 miles a week times what ever your pay per mile is. So you can make some money. I was a trainer for a year. I would the hard part is two people in a truck for 22 hours a day. It can get old. We had to drive 1,200 miles per day or 24 hours was the dispatch speed. 2 hours a day for food, shower and bathrooms is not so easy to do plus fueling the truck almost every 12 hour at 15 minutes each is 30 minutes. They use to put me and a student on run from Milton PA to Portland OR. They gave us 44 or 48 hour to do the run. A year of that was it for me. I'm just saying you will be running hard

 

With truck driving its simply comes down to doing the miles getting your loads delivered safely on time. then the other part is putting up with all the other annoyances and you will get lots of them from arrogant receivers, to arrogant dispatches, to crazy drivers it all comes with the job and you just have to tolerate it. Living out of a truck and at truck stops can also be a real downer after a few months if your willing to tough it out and live the hard life it will work for you. And of course the big plus is saving on rent, utilities etc etc that's a saving of around $12,000 per year to start,.Its better off in your bank account then in your landlords. The key is mastering the long vehicle watch those right hand turns, always keep a look out for your back wheels as you go around a corner. Which is one problem car drivers have when they first drive a really really long vehicle.

 

Pulling a heavy load is always better I thought running solo but even better at a team. Because nothing can stop the truck like weather or wind. In Wyoming it's always windy and they even have high wind warnings for light loaded trailer. With a heavy load you basically never have to worry about that. Even in snow the weight it what keeps a truck on the road. Even when stopping the truck and trailer are designed for weight. The hardest thing to stop in and emergency or on snow is a bobtail(tractor without trailer).

It kinda funny but remember if a deer run out in front of your truck DON'T try and miss the deer. You hold on the wheel and run the deer over. That were having more wight is also better. Many drivers try to avoid the deer and end up putting their truck in the ditch. I think in training they told us you step on the pedal and plow the deer over