Trip Planning

“Operating Center”
Yes, Houston is where they train tanker
Congrats and Be Safe!

 

Yeah, I deliver tanker loads of chemicals to a few places like that. They look like Stalingrad during WWII or some post-apocalypse factory that's being scavenged for scrap metal by the survivors.

 

Yes! Like a Mad Max movie set

 

Once you have an assigned truck you can drive it in a way that suits you. You can stop every 45 minutes to use the restroom or you can drive until you almost have a bathroom emergency. The hardest time is usually when you are with your trainer. You don't really have a pattern yet, and the trainer's pattern may not be anything like you expected. And since you have minimal room for your stuff and you aren't picking the places you stop it's hard. Once you have your own truck it's a lot more responsibility but the living is much easier than in the trainer's truck. With the trainer, you needing to use the restroom is a good enough reason to stop the truck. Some trainers are chill about that and a few trainers think like they are on a death march. Speak up. EVERY trainer would rather stop when he doesn't want to so you can use the bathroom than have a student "mess" up waiting for a bathroom.

 

Have you ever driven 4 hours in the rain? In a semi? In heavy traffic? Darwin’s crowding around you, unconsciously looking for a way to die?

Do you see these guys talking about 11 hours? That’s 11 hours in the rain. And 600+ miles. Every day. Driving is the easy part. At the end of the day, you have to back that wagon into a hole without hitting anything.

If you’ve been following this forum and reading the posts from the drivers who get terminated, have accidents...etc, they too thought that it would be easy. So from the start, don’t worry too much about how many miles you run in the beginning, let’s create those good Habits first, and then build up.

It’s like being a fighter who works on his punching power, but not his stamina or defense. He’s going to get KTFO in a tough fight.

 

That's a worst-case scenario, not a daily situation. Heck, 90% of drivers I see won't drive more than 1 hour if it sprinkles. The raindrops start, they flip on the wipers, then they flip on the turn signal and hide under the fuel pump awning until the rain stops. Maybe their dispatcher told them don't drive in the rain like they tell them to never back a trailer.

 

It's just as easy to learn good habits as bad habits. It pays better. Do everything like your boss and the cops are watching you do it. Then you don' have to worry what anyone saw.