Interview for Truck driver

Don't expect to get someone's real name on a forum. It could happen, if the person is not very astute on privacy, but then I would question anything else they said as well.

Forum Name is Big Don

12. (Started late in life to driving a truck.)

Very different. You are looking at 40 tons vs maybe 1 to 2 tons in your car. You are looking at having a 53' trailer behind you. You have to plan EVERYTHING. Your stopping distance is much greater. Your turns take up much more room. Going up hill and down hill is much more complicated, and can be dangerous if you don't know what you are doing. Backing a truck is another subject that could take pages to tell about. It is a job, not a pleasure cruise. In addition to the normal rules of the road, you also have to follow the commercial vehicle rules. I am barely skimming the surface here as to the differences.

Inattention, stupidity, rudeness, just to name a few. There is no way that I could point to the thing that annoys me the most.

Oh yeah. There is not a one of us out here that have not had close calls and/or crashes due to some jerk off doing something stupid. As an example, I was in a left turn lane, coming up on a red light. Just barely moving, but the two right hand lanes were stopped dead. As I was s l o w l y passing to the left of another big truck, this "gentleman" in a little pickup comes shooting out of a private driveway between the stopped traffic. I got him right behind his driver's door. Nobody hurt, and he got the ticket.

 

Name: Boy Wander

Experience: 3 years

How is it different than driving a car: You have to pay attention to everything - you have to know who is around you and where they are at all times. Weight is obviously much different - going up hills can be tough, and going down hills can be scary depending on how big the hill is and how heavy you are. Big trucks take up a lot more room. A minor accident between two cars may end up with no one going to the hospital, but an accident with a big truck, and someone could likely die.

What annoys me: Cars that don't drive with cruise control, and vary their speed. Truckers use cruise control over long stretches of driving to 1) keep their foot from cramping and 2) keep their speed consistent so other drivers can act accordingly. It is not good when a car passes you, then gets in front of you, then slows down.

Accidents: Once I was at a red light in the left turn lane, and a truck coming from the left side of the intersection wanted to take a right onto the road I was at, and he couldn't make it because the curb/corner was too tight - so I had to back up to give his nose some room to make the turn. Unfortunately, there was a small car right behind my trailer - a car small enough and close enough that I could not see it in EITHER of my mirrors, even though I looked in them. I should have GOAL'ed. (Gotten Out And Looked). I put a dent in her hood.

 

NAME--they call me allniter when there not mad at me.
EXPERIENCE--20 years, retired since 2009.
DIFFERENCE THAN DRIVING A CAR--Others here have mentioned weight and size so I will try to add something different.....wow there are so many differences! Planning and looking ahead while moving is essential. If you miss a turn in a truck you cannot just do a u turn to fix it, sometimes you must go 20 miles before you can find room to turn around or find another route to get where you're going, example I was on route A and I missed the turn to route B and couldnt find a place to turn around so I had to take route A to route C to get back on track to my destination, added 80 miles to my trip.
WHAT ANNOYS ME-- is inattentive drivers whether it be cell phone , texting or messing with the am/fm or whatever. Pay attention to your driving!
ACCIDENTS--Never had one myself, (thank you Lord) but witnessed many. I've watch a wheel come off a trailer in front of me, roll across the median and hit a van going the other way headon, the damage was like they hit a tree. I watched a car cut thru the median to u turn and hit the rear wheels of a tanker right in front of me, the car exploded into pieces. Drivers stopped to help but there was nothing we could do.

 

... In a truck, we are typically operating in an unfamiliar area and missing a turn or encountering an unplanned-for construction detour can make for a HUGE problems and a lot of guesswork and hoping. (You can't typically make u turns, and you don't know if a road you may turn onto has a "manageable" out and return [in a truck]