How do experienced drivers think new drivers should be trained
Discussion in 'Trucking Schools and CDL Training Forum' started by Gambosa, Jul 25, 2019.
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@MartinFromBC I would like to hear your input on this. You seem to have a Rock solid crew of professional drivers. Do you have any knowledge of how they were trained? Is there anything you look for in particular as far as training goes?
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But okay here goes....and let me say I mostly train already somewhat experienced drivers, who have a few years or many years driving easy stuff, how to now do specialized work not just cruising the highway.
Anyway that said I have trained a few in my time who knew nothing. First I made them start in the shop and working around the yard, to see if they have a solid work ethic, before they ever drive a truck.
Then if they were willing to work hard I would teach them how to hook up and unhook trailers etc and they would be taught how to drive slowly in first gear to pull a truck out to be washed, and wash it, then taught how to back up, because if you can't back anything i don't care how difficult a trailer it is to back up, I will not let you on the road in my trucks....once they proved they are hard workers, and can handle a truck in a yard full of trucks and heavy equipment without incident, then I would let them ride with me in the passengers seat, and teach them how to do the job, whatever that job was. Usually something brain dead simple like a fuel tanker truck, or easy gravel jobs, that is so easy it is nearly impossible to screw up. After a few days watching me, and me explaining why i do stuff the way I do, if empty on the way home from unloading the truck, or going somewhere in the morning to get loaded I would let them drive us there, we loaded, and then i drove. They pulled hoses, put out pylons, chocked wheels, dipped tanks, drained hoses etc. And if not terrible weather like a blizzard again let them drive home if it was a gravel truck. After a week or maybe a few weeks if they were doing well I would let them drive all the time, or most of the time even loaded. Once they showed me they could handle it, did their drivers test and passed, and had their hazmat and spill courses, i would put them 100% ofthe time on a fuel truck, and if doing well let them go deliver if not anywhere too far away or too difficult. I would keep them close to home though, say within a 6 to 8 hour drive max. Once they had some experience with the trucks and basic driving skills, I would take them out of the fuel trucks, could be a year or so into driving now, and 100% in a gravel truck doing somewhat harder work than when they began, see what they had really learned when its no longer just doing easy peasy fuel work. I drove and they watched, until i felt like they had been shown enough not to crash us or flip us. Once they had a day or three riding shot gun, i would let them drive and with me sitting beside them to keep them from doing anything too stupid. If i got to where I trusted them to run alone in however many days or weeks it took, I started them alone on easy jobs, and again close enough to home they were not say a 15 hour drive away getting in over their heads to far away from me to see them every day or two and talk to them. I am a person who observes others, and this has taught me that the important things are not usually what someone says, it's what they don't say....i listen really close to my people, and look for what they lack to tell me more than what they say. Most will not cry on my shoulder if they are scared or in over their head. They get quiet, or they only talk about irrelevant things and not truly answer my questions. Heavy and oversized hauling is a different world. After a couple of years of especially mostly driving gravel trucks where they are really learning how to drive comparedto fuel hauling...if a driver shows me they are doing great after a few years, I will often ask if they have any desire to learn how to haul the big stuff. Some say no, and I respect that boundary, it isn't for everyone. If they do want to, then I start training them, but it can be overwhelming so I typically only do it a day or up to 4 days in a row with a newbie, then I make them go haul fuel or gravel for a bit to rest, and then I bring them back to train on heavy haul. Once I feel like they are really getting comfortable, usually about 3 to 6 months of doing it part time, say 30% or so of their driving is training heavy haul with me, i let them go do small and easy jobs alone...after a year or two of part time heavy hauling with me I send them with another experienced heavy hauler for a week or so to learn their tips and tricks, and then 8f that experienced driver tells me they seem to grasp it I start them going alone on jobs that are not too spooky. In 3 to 5 years or so of me occasionally just jumping in the truck with them on random days to observe, I feel like they are very comfortable with anything and they never let me see them sweat, I start tossing them hard loads. But really I like to start people on fuel, its just so darn easy.
I have a guy who exclusively hauls fuel for me to, he has for 8 or so years, and he does a good job of it. He is comfortable doing that work, and doesn't want to graduate up to gravel, forget heavy haul.
Now I truly expect to get nasty comments about this post, partly why i stayed quiet on the topic before hand. I don't believe any driver has a place on the highway doing 55 mph until they can handle a truck like a champion at 5 mph in the yard, and back up like they were born backing up trucks...and not just something easy to back up like a dry van or reefer, i mean a Super B train or a quad wagon tanker. And then most controversial here on TTR is the gravel hauling...constantly I see people who criticize gravel haulers, and I usually just let it slide. Obviously some here hate gravel haulers for whatever reason. Or maybe in some areas of the earth it is an easy job, but here its anything but easy. The skill required to back into many places is extreme. Making sure to not hit anything or teardown power lines etc. Getting a truck and pup jack knifed perfectly every time to dump the truck after that pups emptied. And in deep mud and nasty holes on construction sites, and not flopping a truck on its side. And while super easy to back up an end dump comparatively, they are even more tippy and likely to be flopped on their side. I have trucks right now hauling all day every day to a site where they back in kilometers, and as the road gets built into the bush, they back in further each time....no place to turn around. Barely wider than the truck, up and down steep hills in excess of 20% grades, chained up, when they get back to the main logging road from the feeder toad they are building they stop and throw the tire chains off and just leave them lay there on the road side, and drive to the pit for the next load. Get back there and turn the truck and back up to where the chains were left, put them back on, power divers locked on the tri drives, and back in another 4 or 5 kms as fast as they can get the truck to back up to save time so they are in reverse hi range and say 1900 rpm around slippery corners and if they screw up the drop off the edge is certain death, and road is narrow. They are constantly on the radio listening and they have to run staggered timing with no driver to slow or they plug the road up for the next trip.
No highway haulers could handle the pressure of the very difficult jobs i have my gravelers do. I have had 20 year veteran drivers come try working for me, and they never ever get even close to good enough that I would let them go alone in a gravel truck.
Okay...asbestos underwear are on, so flame away.Gearjammin' Penguin, Gambosa, dwells40 and 2 others Thank this. -
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Just to add to that. I don't do that heavy haul stuff. I'm just a city driver and that's all I've ever done. I've yet to put on big boy pants.
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And the trucking world really does not need that many who can.
I do unusual work, no dry vans, no reefers, no car hauling, no cattle, and no to many other things. In my younger days I did almost everything, except car carriers. But now I do three things, gravel trucks including end dumps, fuel of various types, heavy/over sized hauling, mostly heavy equipment, but not exclusively.
We actual do haul a lot of things in the gravel trucks besides gravel, from stumps to broken concrete or garbage, to logs to mills occasionally, a lot of snow, asphalt, lots of salt, just hauled a load of hops to a brewery, you name it. We build a lot of roads, basically through hell, then winter comes and they freeze in, so that loggers can reach remote areas. They log like mad for a few months while the roads are frozen in, and spring comes, so they go log in easier areas, my crew goes and builds more roads into areas of hell. I sit back and bite my tongue usually as the fine people on TTR trash talk gravel truck drivers, or recently a guy thinking that 32 bucks an hour was too much for his BIL to be paid to haul gravel. What i remind myself instead of posting a nasty comment back, is that likely these people have never done this type of work, so are just ignorant of what it truly requires.
In my opinion the current licensing system is badly broken.
But government officials who make the rules don't give a #### what i think.
Almost all of my equipment operators also either came to me with years of expexperience working for someone else, or they were kids who came to work for me as a grunt, busted their ### hard, proved themselves to be good workers, and then I gave them a chance how to learn to become an equipment operator. My last truck and equipment washer/detailer/yard helper/shop cleaner/slave, never complained once in 3 years working for me, and she worked hard. On her 21st birthday i took her out for lunch, and asked her if she planned to stay on with me long term or quit someday soon. She said she was hoping to stay. So i said great, this afternoon if you want to then I'll start training you on a loader in the pit. You won't be a full time operator, but run loader some. She is now 2 years later on a loader about 90% of the time, the new girl who has her old job is working out great and maybe in her future with me she will become a driver or equipment operator.
I think that everyone should have to work a manual labor job in the industry a while to see what its all about.
I was working with my uncle helping do maintenance and repairs, cleaning etc on his truck when I was age 12 and up. I earned his respect, and then at age 14 he would let me drive on a quiet bush road if empty. Slowly over the years i got to drive more and more, by the time I was old enough to get a license I would drive empty and loaded with a piece of equipment on the lowbed if not a busy active logging road, or hwy. I got my license, and went to work in a gravel pit hauling material for them 5 days a week in a gravel truck, and running loader on Saturday. Within 6 months they graduated me up to Super B because in their words I was willing to work and had proved myself. For 4 months I hauled Super B loads from Prince George to Whitehorse, it was winter time, and icy roads, but I was bored. Pulling highways icy or not was tedious and boring compared to the challenges i had daily in a gravel truck. So with that little bit of experience I had i went back to gravel, and did a few days here and there hauling fuel to service stations and loggers, and some low bedding. Then I went full time hauling fuel at about 1.5 years into my driving career, and I liked it for about 3 months and then got bored. But i kept doing it, and if it was a bit slow i would beg people to let me drive their low beds or logging trucks. I loved how risky the roads were, and the ever changing loads and roads. I quit hauling fuel, moved south, and got a job hauling logs for the winter off a mountain top called lost ledge. I thought i was going to die many times that winter, i was so far in over my head, 28%-29% grades, one truck width wide roads, 10 foot bunks, and I was too young and too stupid to be nearly as scared as i should have been. My only training was how to throw wrappers over the logs and that was in the guys yard, so took 2 minutes. He was old and tired, said just haul logs kid, he never once rode even 50 feet in the truck with me. By Gods grace I survived that winter and i made huge money to...added what i made to the other money i had saved the last 3 years, and I bought my own logging truck. I would pull any load from anywhere if it meant that I made money. How i didn't die is a miracle! I worked that truck hard, eventually had two trucks and my first employee, he was older than me, and very calm....he said son slow down before you kill yourself, and he taught me, technically his boss, how to be calmer. He was already 29 years old then, calm, and I looked up to him especially since he was older than me. He was my mentor in many ways, more than he was my employee. He still works for me today...we still reminisce sometimes and laugh about the old days. Man i was a dumb kid when I started out. Flew by the seat of my pants, and made mistakes, learned from them, and moved on. To this day just pulling paved roads with a load of fuel is nice occasionally because it's so relaxing, but two days and I'm bored, and craving the rush of wondering if I will miss a switch back and plummet thousands of feet to my death, with a 90,000 lb piece of equipment still chained firmly to the trailer as we fall.
Its in my blood to challenge myself every day.
Most people tell me that while I am in years 52, in my chest beats the heart of a kid still 19, and my soul is full of wonder and needs to explore limits and craves excitement to this day.
I married a 27 year old in March, and she is the mature one in this relationship.Gearjammin' Penguin, Fold_Moiler, FoolsErrand and 4 others Thank this. -
Gearjammin' Penguin, Gambosa, dwells40 and 2 others Thank this.
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I did.
I have no Idea why it came through in that format.
I'd never try to put words in your mouth.
Sorry for the mix up.
Trucking Jobs in 30 seconds
Every month 400 people find a job with the help of TruckersReport.
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