Advice on a way to tell my folks i found a new career / trucking company ...

in all honesty, i have never met a fellow truck driver or EX driver who despised truck driving and drivers as much as you

i can see why you want to put them in a box, so you can control and monitor those pesky critters

i bet you are now a safety man or some other type of controller of drivers and they get the butt end of your venom every day

 

more poisnous attitude

i can see why you are an 'EX, you didnt like and were unable to find something else, so you became bitter

bitter old men are lousy people

 

Sure, it can, but it just doesn't. The theory is, rookies are still afraid of the damage they can do with the equipment. Experience teaches steering wheel holders how much they can get away with.

Rare must be the driver who hasn't been surprised and had to tromp the binders, but you don't see much learning from those experiences exhibited on the roadways. Speeding and following too closely are ubiquitous, practically universal.

Drivers tell themselves they're great drivers because they managed to avoid the crash, not that they've committed a grave error for almost crashing.

The greatest difference between the typical 4-wheeler and the typical truck driver is the truck.

 

I take it your parents have reservations about you becoming a trucker or you think they will? My mother was the same way, dead set against it as she felt it would be a disgrace to her side of the family. I still did it, paid to go to a cdl school after selling my car. I did my time over the road with HO Wolding and then landed a local tanker gig. I guess my point is you can make good money doing this although it does come at a price being your social life in the beginning. I look around and say I did pretty well compared to some people I know who got 4 year degrees in college and are pretty miserable at there jobs or the ones who were even lucky enough to land one in there major. Live for you and not anyone else.

 

With a such a broad brush and narrow outlook I don't doubt you were easily replaced.

There are many of us who rarely end up in a position where we need to react quickly to avoid problems, truckers and 4 wheelers alike. The fact you think it's that rare speaks volumes.

 

If it's unskilled labor why do we need a special license, a clean driving record, be drug free, have a medical certificate, hours of service, and a plethora of rules to do this job? Does the Walmart cashier or McDonald's worker need 1/5 of these requirements? Seems the government wants to have their cake and eat it too.

 

mr legal, question

the rules generally state that you must have a 8 second following distance

as you are aware, most drivers reduce that to about 3-5 seconds

so here is the question, if 4million trucks are following too close (from the mega dictate of 8sec following distance) on a daily basis, and you have 100 having accidents because of following too close, would you say the accident was because they were too close or because they didnt anticipate what was happening or sometimes accidents just happen?

reminds me of speed laws, 95% of atlanta drove 70mph in a 55, they enforced the speed limit more aggressively and you still have the same amount of accidents, so they decided to raise the speed limit

the flow of traffic and the reality of driving should always take precedence over some "rules made up in an office"

 

Ad hominem isn't much of a rebuttal.

 

So does that mean I can also keep my doctor?

 

Once upon a time I use to call it a career now to me its just a job that pays the bills and many in this industry feels the same way.Far as it taking skill,not really from what I've seen on our roads.