And so my new Stevens adventure begins!

By now, you have no doubt found those three skills very useful when pulling into a truck stop at night. Your colleague truckers seem to pull in all sorts of ways, making your own approach quite, shall we say, 'interesting.'

 

Yes, OR2 is repetitive, repetitive, repetitive in so many ways, but there's a reason...ITS IMPORTANT!!!
Capper, it sounds like you had a good trainer in OR1. But there are some that either had a less qualified trainer or perhaps don't remember everything, so we repeat, repeat, repeat.
All things in the class are important, but if there is one that I would emphasize, it is Sgt Major's Super Trip.
I know we have Jill. And there are those that tell you she is all you need.
But I'm here to tell you that reading a map and understanding directions is AS important (IMHO, more!) than the GPS.
I cannot begin to tell you how many times that POS will lead you astray! It shouldn't be named Jill, it should be named Jezebel.
Every single shift, I will have to help at least one driver that is led down the wrong road or given a route that doesn't make sense.
And too many drivers follow that POS to the letter.
Carl's (Sgt Major) course teaches the rudiments of trip planning and that is ever so important.
During this last major ice/snow storm, we had drivers caught short of their safe haven due to poor trip planning. In nearly every case, the reason given was, "...but Jill told me...".
Just this last sunday, we had a critical load that was set to follow a straight course...San Antonio to El Paso. I-10 the entire way.
The routing was obvious, but Jill took him via Del Rio, out in the middle of nowhere. As a result, he ran short of hours and had to shut down 70 miles short of the repower point. The other truck was completing a 34 and couldn't come meet him (the extra 140 miles would have been too much for the next leg anyway) so the load was late, the product rejected and no less than total chaos erupted.
Had the driver looked at the map, the natural question would have been, "why am I going around my butt to get to my elbow?". He should have called and we would have told him, "go thee west! and remember not that maven of mis direction's call!"
There are things to listen to and pay close attention to and Carl's course is most important!
And remember...everything you hear in OR2 that is a repeat...IT'S IMPORTANT!
Good luck with your next phase.
and remember...the night crew is there to abuse....er...help you!

 

San Antonio to El Paso via Del Rio????

Where was the re power point? Van Horn?

 

I maybe the only one, but I have never used Jill.

 

Nope i never used it either and emul why wouldnt someone at the office notice the little dot on the screen going way down there and maybe checking out why. Seems like they told us they could see a uturn happen in real time on the screens. Why not a deviation off of I 10

 

Repower point was El Paso.
When I left at 0130, the truck had just finished his 10 and was beginning to roll. When I returned at 0700, I checked on critical loads as usual and found him off course (about 0730).
There isn't software to monitor trucks' routes and times. It's done manually. That's why our position (inside)is best filled by a driver...one who knows what should be going on.
The overnight group on this one would have only kept an eye on him if I had given them a heads up.
It was San Antonio to El Paso. Who would think someone could get THAT one wrong?
But Jezebel is waiting in lie....

 

Do Stevens drivers get charged for out of route miles once it hits a certain % and causes the problems this load did?