Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

Had to do it more than once when I worked for Knight.

 

Man I was thinking of coming back to big green but Don was my dm. Probably better off with a gig closer to home anyway.

Anywho hello ladies & gents! Hope you're all doing well!

 

Yesterday I a stop at GA 95 S Exit 1 to fuel. There was this truck driver in front of me at the fuel line and came over to ask for my help. I ask him what's the problem? He said " I don't know how to move my trailer tandems" I said what!..? You are a truck driver and you don't know how to move your trailer tandems? (There was nothing wrong with them) I got out and help him understand how to do it; but driving down the road I made all this mental questions... How in the world is he driving in the interstate not knowing how to move his tandems? How did he become a solo driver? He didn't know even what brake knob to push in!

 

The answer is easy. His trainer never taught him how to do it.

 

Yep!

 

I have seen a few trying to park and driving down the road with the tandems all the way rearward. Clueless...

 

I can't lie, I got hired here not knowing how to slide tandems. When I went through driving school many years ago the only trailers the school had were fixed tandem trailers. 53footers were just being introduced and they didn't have any. The difference between me and that guy is that I know when I don't know how to do something and so I go looking for the answer online or on YouTube and teach myself how so I don't make myself look silly at truck stops.

Even when I was with trainers here, if there was no need to slide the tandems, I wouldn't be shown how. The employee handbook describes how to do it for the various trailers we pull but that's nothing like seeing and doing it firsthand.

 

I learned how to slide tandems in training here as well. You don't need to know how to slide tandems to pass a CDL test, so my CDL school never taught it.

Me personally? Ain't nothing wrong with a driver recognizing his limitations and seeking to remove those limitations by asking a more experienced trucker at a truck stop. Passing on information to other humans is why we have language in the first place.

Speaking of passing along information, anybody have the address to the drop yard in Ellenwood, GA? I have a delivery near there with 7 extra days on the load, so I'm gonna head to the drop yard intstead.