Are truck stops / rest areas evenly spaced out?

Rules of thumb from my own experience:

-- Have everything you need and you see truck stops perfectly spaced as you pass them by. Or get a little tired (not too tired!) with no time to stop and you'll see truck stops with big, open lots laughing at you as you keep going.

-- Have low fuel, a full bladder, get thirsty or hungry with nothing in the truck and you won't see a truck stop for what seems to be days.

-- Do poor trip planning and run low on fuel and you won't see a truck stop. Or drive for a company that wants you to fuel only at certain places (like one of the big 7) and you'll see every truck stop except the one you need. This will ensure you have to contact your fuel department for authorization to get fuel at an out-of-network stop so they can tell you what a dumb ##### you are while they incorrectly calculate how many gallons of fuel you will need to make it to an authorized stop

Hope this helps.

 

Not to mention that they will tell you to "stick" your tanks to see how much fuel you REALLY have. Then all you have to do is to find something to stick them with. UNLESS you come prepared. . .

 

True, Don, but - again in my own experience - having done the poor trip planning to begin with generally means I have not come prepared. Hehe.

 

I would be very picky about the school you choose, so you have options when you graduate. The Nashville area has many options for truck driving education.....some are good and some are very bad.

 

Good luck Nash. Keep your expectations low and you'll rarely be disappointed. Plan for the worst and hope for the best. I hang out at the truckstops talking to drivers and for every 10 drivers I talk to, 8 of them say don't do it. Then, I come here and the general consensus is "don't do it", "It's not as glamorous as it looks", And the ever popular "it's not a job, it's a lifestyle"

The more I listen to, and read about, newbies falling flat on their face, the more I realize that maybe the naysayers are on to something. Maybe they're not trying to scare newbs away so they can have the miles to themselves. Maybe they genuinely want to keep us from making a mistake. The astronomicaly high turnover is not seasoned drivers retiring by the thousands. It's disillusioned newbies running for the hills. Just make dam sure you know what you're getting into or you'll likely wind up in worse shape than you were in before you started. And that's just my take on things, your experience may be different. I wish you luck.

 

As others have said, you never know where the next toilet may be.. could be 10 miles or 100 miles.. though if it's 100 miles you're probably in a rural area, and nobody would mind if it's an emergency and you had to stop to take a leak.

Not ideal, but it beats peeing your pants!

My tip is to write things out on the windsheild. Get yourself a pack of dry erase markers and each day write the directions out on the top corner where they won't obstruct anything.

Ex -I-80 E to exit 350, I-25 S to Co... stuff like that

Then alongside it write all the next stops you find in your truckstop book. I only did that if it was getting late and I wasn't sure where to stop, I'd list all the stops for the next 50-100 miles and just pick the one I felt like stopping at

Mine looked like this, each # being the exit or mile marker
-235 - Pilot (M)
-247 - T/A + 2 more (L)
-280 - FJ (L)
-290 - Rest Area
-310 - BP (S)

Better to be prepared with all info close at hand before you more.. sure beats trying to flip through a truck stop book while in motion!

 

Here is a little tip for you folks who are not familiar with Utah. If you have to stop to pee in Utah, you'd best use your emergency bottle, unless you are at someplace that has a head. UHP (and some other agencies) WILL write you at ticket for peeing beside the road. . .

If they observe it.

 

New,

It will be worth the wait. I would just go on the website , download the application and take it with you. They are not at the main campus, they are out on ####rill bend across from the prison. They are there from 8-2 mon-fri. Might as well stop and get your learners permit right up the road from the school while your there. I'm not sure how far backed up they are at this point, but you will need a current med card and learners permit in hand before they will put you on the list for the next open class. They dont waste time with preping you for a leaners permit like some schools, thats up to you to study and pass those tests on your own.