Big Rig Intimidation

I was intimidated but I wasn't. I have been in trucks all my life and knew alot about them before I started driving. The only thing that really intimidated me was screwing up so I guess it was more nerves than anything.

And trust me even to this day there are still things that get my nerves going. Such as a blinding snowstorm, meeting people on tight roads, black ice, and there are others.

 

If somebody tells you they weren't intimated in one way or another, their lying... And, it would serve you well to keep a little of that intimidation... It will force you to drive accordingly!
It's the driver who claim to know it all that fear me!

 

I wasnt intimidated by the truck or driving it itself. But I was intimidated with driving across the country to places ive never seend before and trying to get that big thing backed into some of the docks.

 

It took me 3 months to get use to daily grind of driving, but every day you are still learning something new.

Mark

 

Just reading these posts make me nervous ! LOL ! I graduate next week and am off to TMC in a few weeks ! I'm nothing but nervous !

 

BEST POST of the day!

 

Today, so many students are starting from scratch. They are changing careers or have been attracted to trucking from afar.

In my day, many driving school students had experience operating trucks and machinery on farms. Others had a few lessons from relatives who were truckers. Merely riding in trucks is enough to give a kid confidence that someday he will be able to drive them.

I rode with my grandfather's furniture delivery drivers when I was too short to see over the dashboard. As a young teen, I waxed cars in a Standard station that serviced road tractors for Michigan Bakeries. I rode along when the tractors were shuttled between the station and the bakery. Although I lived in the city, I worked on a farm during haying season and occasionally drove trucks in the field. In my later teenage years, I had a job washing truck trailers. My favorite part of the job was using the old yard tractor to bring trailers into the wash bay.

I do understand the apprehension of driver students who have never been in a truck before, but that was not my experience.

 

The way u r feelin now , keep that! It is a big responsibility. I haul steel coils , so i have to strap em. What makes me feel safer is my company uses one more type of securement than the gov says so. Having a suicide coil ,one that can roll forward, keeps u on ur toes.

 

I worked as a maint man in a Molded Fiber Glass Plant in N.E.Ohio, the co had tractors and special high cube single axel trailers to deliver the Studebaker Avanti bodys in, also delivered Corvette Panels and other parts to various mfg plant around the area, anyhow the foreman had me bobtail a few of the tractors to the maint yard (about three city street miles away), then one day he had me hook up to a trailer and cautioned me to watch the right hand turns real close, after a few trips doing that i was comfortable driving around town, fast forward a few years to living in So cal, started working for a Allied Van Lines agent in Whittier Ca. and they had me take a trailer to the dmv to get a class 1 licence, and a week later they flew me to Detroit to the main companys Warehouse, bobtail to Chicago to get a new trailer, load some sticks in it, unload in San Jose Ca. drop the trailer up north and bobtail to So Cal. None of the other local guys wanted to drive out of area so they used me for short haul and specialty stuff(doubles, portable parking lots), Bottom Line, never was intimidated by the truck I drove, learned early on that it was BIGGER, WIDER, LONGER than my car, but it was just a chunk of steel, respect it for what it is and drive it like you are the master, and it is the tool that you use to get the job done.