How did you learn to drive?

Feb 1976 took a load of fish from portland maine to baltimore in an old model b mack
no heat or defrost ice scraper on the inside of the windows and a quilt wrapped around you
that is at least one dot violation
fish haulers were like produce haulers
we slept over the wheel for an hour
if we went to the bunk we would be afraid of oversleeping
remember all the argueing over power steering
the old timers said we would all wreck we couldnt feel the road my oh my

 

Exactly and well said. It was the same then as it is now...Its what YOU make it. Can be miserable or it can be the best thing you do. Flatbed just needs to remember its all those not-so-great times that made us "Tough-skinned"". Some tend to forget that part of it.

 

OMG SHERMS BAR
passed out there a few times
when i wasnt driving
i ran gillnetters and swordfish/tuna boats
Tony Marquis and the boys of beverly and peabody
small world some days

 

I learned in '77 with my brother in a bed bug (moving van). Been out of trucking since '81, then just returned this year (and had to get my CDL again after letting it expire).

Diesel was cheaper, but mpg was terrible unless you could master the art of getting in a convoy. I remember one night in our '74 Ford cabover running 80-85 mph on I-80 in Wyoming 20 feet behind the truck in front of me... we had a convoy of ten trucks, swapping lead so the rest of us could draft. Got great fuel mileage that night.... almost 5 mpg!!

 

B17 Mack? I remember my dad driving one of those. Had a P&H 3 cyl in it. Two shifters that were constantly being used when loaded.
I learned working with a mover. I had a background driving a class B tow truck towing in 72 passenger school buses. When I started working with the mover he had me get my permit and after a few days he just said, your turn to drive, if you have any problems I'll be in the sleeper. Wake me up when you pull into the truck stop in (I forget the name of the town, San Antonio?)
I was the slowest driver on the road for about a month getting used to everything, after that it was full go.

Stopped driving when I got offered a job as an auto mechanic that I had applied for. Let my CDL expire when they started charging extra for it. Never looked back until a few years ago I took a job that required a CDL. Now I just drive a 3500HD with either a 30 or 35' gooseneck. I've been looking into driving flatbed lately. Time will tell.

 

Something that might make things different now is the way people are taught in school. Everything needs a flowchart. You have to follow this diagnostic routine for this problem. That is the only way.

Have you ever called customer support for something you are knowledgeable about? You can confuse the person on the other end when you tell them you already checked all that. They are lost because they have not been taught how to handle anything that is not on that chart.

I'm not saying people are not as smart nowdays, they are just as smart or smarter. They just have not been taught to think on their feet.

 

Good post here....I agree there is hardly any body willing or even able to take some personal responsibility anymore..

Alright Giggles....Hang on......

My uncle taught me as a teen. He had a small dairy in the small community of Max Meadows , Va. I would spend my summers there when school was out. He told me one afternoon that he needed me to ride with him to High Point that night to deliver a load of milk , I was to help keep him wake. We left at dusk and arrived at I think was a Borden's Dairy about 4 hours or so later, got unloaded , washed out and headed home , all the while I was asking when can I drive..you know a 15 year old can do it all..... He didn't let me of course , but I was hooked. After that if he was going to High Point I was in the cab. The next summer , it was business as usual , but one night after we had gotten out of town a ways he looked over at me and said....You still wanna learn? He couldn't get stopped fast enough...he helped me get rolling and handled the shifting for the most part on that duplex...but man I was DRIVING....after not enough time , he had me pull over and he took over, but I KNEW I had found my calling.

The rest of that summer , he would let me drive some on the return trip home...each time a little farther, and with less help on the transmission...but by the time school was ready to start back in the fall I was doing most all of the return home driving. Th next summer was my senior year of high school , and as soon as I graduated I was headed back to Va. to help him , and get back in the truck and earn myself enough time to get a "public" job as a trucker.

But that pesky thing called the Viet Nam conflict slowed my progress down a bit...off I went and in Nov. of '69 I was wounded and spent 19 months doing what the Dr.'s said I couldn't/wouldn't be able to do again, which was walk without a cane or crutches...well I walked out of the hospital and when they sent me home...I was ready to get back in another truck , took a while but I started driving a dump for a friend's dad , and then later on got a job running a team deal with a company named Thomas Produce out of Greensboro , NC. Did that for a bit til the kids started coming , and almost quit trucking altogether so I wouldn't miss my boys growing up.

I was lucky to get hired on by GSF and spent the next almost 30 years throwing "Big Mac's"...retired in 2011 and now I'm here to help keep Giggles in line......One thing I can tell you all is I would have never been able to do this job , have what little I have , without my uncle taking the time to let a snot-nosed kid try his hand at driving a truck...RIP uncle..Love ya!