Automatic trucks

Yep. You have people that come in to the industry, with bad work ethics, want money but can't drive and refuse to learn anything after they get the CDL. Starting out over $.40/mile and still don't make a grand a week.

"Oh, but they should pay us a wage where wouldn't have to run hard."

If they were paying you guys $1/mile, company schmuck, half of you still wouldn't make a grand a week. If they were paying company drivers $2/mile, there would still be some of you that couldn't average a grand a week.

"Oh, they should pay us by the hour!"

I can see it now. 5.25 hour pretrip, mandatory 30, 5.25 post trip. Who was it that said, "Good drivers make good pay. Good pay doesn't make good drivers."? I think it was Cranky...

"But that will be good for us, because we would get paid regardless."

Not for long. Customers don't get their freight, they will look for the company that can get it there. The company that can get it there will pay the driver that can get it there. And your company will shut it's doors.

"That will never happen to the megas, Six."

20 years ago, Covenant was the biggest player on the block. In the cabover arena, the orange trucks was of course, Schneider. The tan trucks was JB. Anybody remember the 3rd? Here's a hint, they ran white cab overs.

It's interesting. Years ago, JB and Schneider were scraping the bottom of the barrel. Both realized that hiring and catering to morons was not the way to go. Some companies haven't realized this yet, and they're racing to the bottom in the effort to see who can hire the most rookies. It's funny that Schneider is considered to be a better company, when they were on the bottom. You hear lots and lots of jokes about FedEx. Before FedEx, before JB and Schneider, there was BigR. Better known as Roadway, now YRC.

You guys speak about 'the industry as a whole', but you're referring to bottom feeders. Contrary to the spoon fed propaganda, bottomfeeders are not the whole industry. They're just at the bottom. Not in the middle, not at the top.

 

Yep, the white ones were Swift and they bought M.S. Carriers which had the same spec'd trucks; white in color also and same trailers. M.S. Carriers owner, Mike Starnes, was building a modern terminal with all the ammenities in Memphis and it was never completed because Swift bought the company and put a stop to it. Supposedly, that terminal would have been the nicest, most modern truck terminal in the USA, at that time.

 

What's double clutching?

 

It DOES take a more proficient driver to Drive a stick shift well.... saying that They are defining their manhood by it is a bit of a stretch.. Whats with so many people on this forum Acting like Automatics are something special and new.. They have had Autos in Semis since the 60s and back...

Manual Will always have the monopoly, Drive whatever makes you happy... But recognize that most big company's put automatics in their trucks to get less experienced drivers in the seat.. That's not the rule for all of course.. but its true enough of the time to be relevant.

P.S. if you think that Autonomous driving is going to replace The trucking industry your projections are Highly optimistic at best. it wont happen for at least 30+ years.. Hell we were supposed to have #### Hover cars by now.. Remember that projection?

 

The white cab overs that used to compete with JB and Schneider I was thinking of was Burlington.

Point is, if you want an automatic, that's fine. Do not, however, base your entire career over a tread that the bottomfeeders are doing, unless you want to stay at the bottom. There will always be a call for and be a need for (on the higher ends) people who can actually drive.

 

I remember Burlington; some drivers falsely believed if you drove for Burlington they would have railroad employee benefits.

 

One thing I would recommend to new drivers is to get some years under the belt on shifting gears. If you start off driving automatics, and somehow lose that job, you will limit your job opportunities to companies with automatics only because you don't know how to shift gears. I've been driving for 20 years and am currently driving automatics for about a year and a half. I took a road test at a job that I was interested in that had manual trucks and I have to admit, that not shifting gears for a year and half, it took a while for me to brush off the dust and remember how to use the clutch and shift gears again. It took me about 5-10 minutes to get back in the groove, but it's probably better to learn how to shift gears than start off in automatics so newbies don't limit their job opportunities because they don't know how to shift gears.

 

It has nothing to do with anyones manhood, I just feel the knowledge of how to drive eather is valuable to have. Your also limiting your self to what you can drive. The other thing that concerns me is the control it takes away from a driver in winter conditions and the fact that a automatic only knows how its programmed and nothing more.

Yes, Most you can stick in manual mode and use them but alot of the companys are gutting the use of manual mode to force you to stay in the "D" section.

 

I thought the exact same thing before I started driving automatics. What about winter driving?, but now that I've been driving automatics for a while, I noticed that their really is no difference in my opinion. Only difference is that the truck selects the gears, but you can still control the speed of each gear that it's in by how hard you hit the throttle, just like you would do manually, and listening to the engine or looking at the gauges. I'm by no means pro auto, just more open minded, now that I'm driving one.

 

Within 5 years. 99% of all major trucking companies will be automatic. There will be a few manual small fleets around, just like there are a few manual cars around, but 99% of trucks will be automatic in 5 years.