Moving to tankers from reefers

It’s more money for doing the same job, which is the same reason I haul hazmat tankers at night.

Besides that it’s just doing your job like a professional. Thorough pretrips, safe, patient driving, and, if you share your truck with a day driver, bringing the truck back on time and in a condition as if you were the next driver. Not rocket science,

 

Scars from yanking tanks? Tell us more. Might be some good advice for the greenhorn.

 

Nothing like pulling up to a gas station and hooking up two hoses and dropping 4K gasoline and 1500 diesel in the wrong holes lol.

 

Yeah one thing is that we get paid per hour so there is no rush. I have to get my mind away from mile based pay since that’s what I have done all this time.
It’s definitely something new.

 

I’ve gone to the port of Baltimore and the ports of Philadelphia, tons of container trucks very busy area and they require a twic cars or else like $100 gate fee. I don’t understand why. Probably a money grab.

Tankers will keep me away from all those bs places thankfully.

 

Or hooking up wrong but walking your hoses and catching it. Better then any energy drink out there. Wide awake. I always double check because I know I'm not perfect. Never had a cross dump, contaminate tanks or wrong station. But came close a few times.

I currently am doing reefer and get paid by % but I still have a do it quick mindset. A good habit I picked up from doing fuel. The goal was to do everything with intent. Meaning that no time was wasted but also no safety procedure was skipped. It's amazing how fast you can be while being safe.

I always warned rhe new guys that at first they would be slow even though they were trying to keep up. Then one day the routine (dance) would click and they would be as fast as anyone else.

 

That's what we'd always tell the new guys..."We don't expect you to do it fast but we expect you to do it right".

 

Are the plugs labeled? Or someone will tell you where the chemicals go?
Like seriously you can’t make a mistake doing this. You’re toast.

 

Things should be labeled. If they're not, don't even hook up to them.
I haven't hauled a lot of chemicals, but the guys on here who have say that a lot of times you don't unload...the plant man does that. Watch how they do it.

 

I don't know about chemicals but the pots to unload gas are labeled. What happens is you think you hooked up correctly but didn't. We're human. The major problem comes when we think we are above making stupid mistakes. A quick double check will usually catch errors before they become reportable.