Learn more than one truck!

Trucks are all the same; it doesn't matter.

What matters is how you handle situations like accident avoidance with situational awareness.

What doesn't matter is overthinking.

What matters is having confidence to lessen the learning curve.

Manual transmissions are easy to learn; they all work the same and they all shift the same, no exceptions. Just the patterns are a little different.

I have driven all kinds of trucks, and junk, all different transmissions and all different sizes, maybe a hundred or so.

The question I have is this: who uses resumes?

 

those all basically work the same except for the 6+4. Few guys left on the road would know how to use a 2-stick Spicer setup.

 

it isn't that hard to learn. if you understand how it works, it should take maybe an hour of driving to get it right.

 

Never had twic.
Never had passport.
Got rid of hazmat.

These days. All that matters is can you drive a stick. That's what puts you above most everyone else.

 

I know that, I can drive them all, it just floors me how some guys act like a manual transmission requires a PHD.

 

Passport is only important if you’re Canadian. US drivers have little reason to ever go up there. Mostly a #### hassle and not worth it. (Ask me how I know). I have a passport card and don’t use it

TWIC: used to have one when I hauled containers off the piers in Jersey and Staten Island. Ports are crap work you don’t want to bother with anyway.

Hazmat: used to have it when I bumped docks as a freight guy. No interest in hauling bulk fuel or chemicals, although that can pay well. Waste of time and money for most people to have it.

whether you can drive a stick shift manual (not an automated one) is increasingly unimportant as not many fleets even bother with manuals any longer. That’s a big change since I even started driving in 2011. (That and ELDs but to be honest I have no interest in filling out a paper logbook anyway after getting used to the phone based ELD programs)

 

The problem is common sense and mechanical knowledge are now rare attributes.

Can you imagine trying to get a typical CDL mill grad to understand it's two separate transmissions?

Hell, whether I like it or not I'm an old-timer, and most of my peers don't understand that a 13 speed is three transmissions in one case!

 

Admitting it is the first step.
Congrats and welcome to the club!