Hey newbies! Pay Attention!

This topic has nothing to do with being new driver or a vet, but about the respect one has for him/herself and the equipment given for the job. If you live like a pig then your truck will be your pigstye simple as that. If you care about your equipment then you ll get out and look before backing under your trailer to check your 5th wheel heights. If it comes to point where you can t bath for a couple of days the you use wet naps and deoderant to keep the funk off. Being new has nothing to do with having respect for yourself and your home on the road.

 

All the wet-wipes in "two worlds" will never change
this world based on face value.

 

I've not yet gotten my CDL but did drive a box truck for a mattress store for awhile. We had three people that would drive (two on a regular, myself and one other) and every time that I got in I would have to clean it out. The other person that drove on a regular basis was a large fellow, 300lbs+, and would stop to eat every chance that he could and never throw away anything. He also sometimes brought a second pair of shoes and change in the truck so you can imagine. I had to keep a bottle of Frebreeze in the truck and spray it out daily just to bear driving the thing.

It really is amazing how some people live. If they are that dirty with a vehicle that they drive daily, and live in if OTR, I can only imagine what their homes look like. No wait I don't even want that image in my head. It's almost like the homebound person with 60 cats or dogs that you see occassionally on TV, just nasty.

 

Biggest pigs i see out here on the road are the guys that are "Vets". Don't shave, shower, or clean there trucks. I watched the other day 2 "Vets" drag there bumpers into a poll trying to back in a tight spot at a dock in Dallas TX. Then both of them hit the trailer parked in the hole next to them. Both did not even get out and look or care that they hit something. One 20 year "Vet" had the nerve to tell me he had been doing this for 20 years and its part of the job. Funny thing is both so called drivers had short nose trucks, one was a day cab and they hit 2 things and did not care, i drive a 272 inch WB Classic and had no problem getting backed in. I did something crazy, i put effort into my job and got out and looked 3 times. New or old, it comes down to effort not newbies or super truckers.

 

I'm not sure which is worse...

That a driver could manage to tear up a truck that badly in 47,000 miles.

Or that a company wouldn't bother to fix fairly minor damage on a new truck!

Both would be giant red flags about where I was working IMO.

 

Nana, that is disgusting! How can someone be that filthy and disgusting in just 3 months? Even an animal wouldn't live like that.

 

This is one of my biggest pet peeves. I refuse to live in a truck that someone else has treated as a toilet facility. i once quit a job for this very reason. I show up to be assigned my truck i open the door and wow the smell was so bad it almost made me throw up. There was also trash pile up in the floorboards mud, dirt, etc all over the place. I tell the safety person i am not getting in this truck that i don't live like a slob and i am not going to clean up and stay in a truck that someone else did either. He tells me this is the only truck he has available and that if i want a job this is the truck i get. So i ask about the 50 or 60 trucks parked on the fence row next to the lot and why i cant have one of those instead i was told that this was the truck the computer assigned me take it or leave it. I told them where they could put the truck and found myself another job driving a much nicer piece of equipment 2 days later. I am amazed at the slobs and filth that you see out on the road. Just think if that many of them go in public like that how many of them try and hide it!

 

You can tell by the way truck stop bathrooms look as to how people think of themselves and other peoples property.

 

This seems like a good place to ask a question I've been wondering about and another I thought of while reading this thread:

1) As a new driver getting his first truck, what should I plan to do to "sanitize" it. Even if it isn't woefully disgusting, who knows what the previous driver did in it or what "critters" came along for the ride.

I fully intend to insist on a new mattress that I will then take with me if I subsequently move to a new truck. However, it seems that wouldn't necessarily take care of potential threats like fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, bedbugs, roaches, ants, fruit flies or who knows what else?

Have any experienced drivers run across these kinds of issues? Is it common practice to "fumigate" a truck in some way when you get it? If so, how/what product?

2) What is a driver supposed to do when minor damage occurs to a truck like the bend rails and cracked fairings described above? If there is an outright traffic accident, it seems pretty simple. Notify the police, notify the company and start looking for a new job. But if I tear something up on the truck, do I report it, do I fix it, does the company fix it, does it go unfixed? And how detrimental are such mistakes to ones career?

Ok, so maybe more than two questions.

Thanks!

 

Bring lots of paper towels, a good ammonia-containing cleaner (like Windex All-Surface) to cut through the cigarette residue, a scrubbing sponge, Lysol spray, and a good upholstery foam cleaner.

You can throw a regular aerosol "bug-bomb" or "fogger" into the cab and seal it up for 4 hours. Then, roll down all the windows and air it out for 4 hours more.

What is a driver supposed to do if this happens? Tell your company and let them fix it.

What should you do? #1) Get out and look! Be aware of the obstacles in your surroundings in drop lots, truck stop parking lots, every where. Get out and verify that the trailer is at the proper height before backing under it.

Adjust your mirrors to avoid blind spots along the sides of the truck - nose mirrors should be just able to see the rear of the steer tire back along the very edge of the cab; wide-angles should be able pick up where the nose mirror lets off, and view the very edge of the side of the cab, back along the drive tires. Your side mirrors should cover the rest. NONE of this preparation should take away from #1 above, Get out and look!

You can't avoid an obstacle that you can't see. Even elliminating as many blind spots as you can, you won't be able to see EVERYTHING. Take a look all around where you're wanting to back. Consider that you'll probably have to pull-up a time or two, and make sure that there's nothing in your way. Don't just look at the ground, look UP!

No offense to the O/O who said that he has the same kind of damage to his truck; but most, if not all, of the damage shown in the pictures could be avoided by just getting out and looking.

(Did I mention Get out and Look?)