Fuel island etiquette as a trucker.

How much room do u guys need? I always tried to be courteous towards a reefer needing to pull up behind me, but being a flatbedder im not sure how much is enough

 

The hoses in the tanks doesnt always work either. That used to be my go to until i did it one night out in gillete wyoming and the feller came out of the store with a shopping bag in his hand, forgot he used the hoses as a decoy and went hammer down all the way back to the interstate dragging a fuel pump hose right behind him. It made me laugh pretty #### hard

 

You are correct. They are selfish and would rather stop interstate commerce than risk guessing wrong about which fuel pump blocker will end his 10 hour break at the fuel pump first.

 

This is the right answer.

Thousands of places to get fuel, pass that craptastic mess, and keep truckin.
You'll soon be at many more.

 

I would agreee but i know many guys are required by their company to fuel at certain fuel stops. And the fuel card is locked except for the stop that is in the computer system.

 

Sounds like a mutiny is required.

 

Tanks on reefer are generally a bit behind the landing gear. Some are farther back than others. So it does vary with the specific trailer. So, to fuel our reefers we have to pull up far enough that the landing gear is in about the same place as the steers are when fueling the rig itself.
THANK YOU for being courteous. Us reefer jockeys appreciate it!!!!

 

One would only wait if there is no fuel islands free, if there is for sure I'd be making for the free bay.

 

I'll go around someone sitting way back trying to get the first lane
open. As said find someone fueling with no truck in front of them.
If I have to pull behind a truck just sitting there I'll go ask them to pull
up , in nobody in the truck I'll give it about 10 minutes then. Call the truck stop and get them to call out on the speakers for the truck to move.

 

Sometimes you can manipulate that system to give you something better. When I drove for Roehl, we would send in a fuel level update on the Qualcomm after each trip. Then the system would generate the routing and fuel stops for the next trip based on that. I would later learn that all you had to do is “lie” on your fuel level, and it would just generate a new fuel stop for you. Of course you wouldn’t want to do this all the time, and I always called and talked to the fuel manager first but he was always cool with it.