My first month with a trainer…

PFJ points add up too slowly. I used Loves points and bought the Garmin OTR700 outright with points, a free truck GPS. I think it took me about 2 hours of driving to realize this thing is not much more useful than just guessing. But then the map updates began regularly and now it's pretty decent. It's still far from perfect.

To those who worship an atlas, I just don't see it. For anything other than major interstates which I just about have memorized anyway, I find them useless. I used to write down my route, too. Oh those days of being a newbie. All that wasted time. Writing down routes, calculating distances, and then road construction or an accident has your exit shut down. OH SHEET. What do I do now? Driving at 45 through road construction is not the best place to have to crack out a truckers atlas and try to figure out another route. The GPS will reroute you instantly, using mostly truck roads with a few restricted roads thrown in to keep you awake, back to your route and destination. MUCH SAFER than fumbling with an atlas. The 1980's called, they want their technology back.

There actually isn't anywhere I can't go when I combine google maps (just about guarantied to get you to the front door every time, but will route you on no truck roads and under low overpasses without hesitation) and the truck GPS (might not get you to the exact location of the building that you need to go to, but will keep you off of restricted roads.)

So I usually use the truck GPS except for the last half mile or so. Then I use road signs and google. I haven't had a problem getting anywhere when I combine these two. I just completed a trip to a little paper place up in rural PA with ONE WAY IN and ONE WAY OUT. Google of course routed me wrong but the Garmin 700 did perfect, routing me EXACTLY the way it should have with the directions I saw someone post in a google review of the company.

 

One thing I started toward the end of my career was to use Google Maps/Google Streetview to find the truck entrance at a customer and then drop a pin. Then enter those Lat/Lon coordinates in my GPS. Sometimes the truck GPS just routes you to the front door to the business, where the Receptionist answers phones, and not where you need to go.

Also, using Google Maps for the reviews. Those reviews often have very useful info about the customer "Sign says open at 7am, they open at 6am" or "Park beside the trailers on the right, bring your bills to the 3rd door by dock 27, and check in before X". Or, "expect a 4 hour wait, bring your own EFS check or you will pay $2 for a check form the customer." Or, "do NOT drive beyond the first driveway. There is no turnaround, just homes past the customer."

Read the Google reviews, hopefully the customer isn't partly a consumer location and partly a shipping/receiving location or you may have to wade through several pages of "I don't like the new colors for their product and Karen was rude to my husband" before you get to the truck relevant info.

 

To maximize your fuel point rewards concentrate your fuel purchase at one chain of truck stops. I decided to get all of my fuel at a Loves because once you buy 1,000 in a month you get 3 or 4 times the points and you get free drinks and free showers daily for the next month. If you sometimes buy fuel at TA, sometimes at Pilot, sometimes at Loves, etc you will seldom get enough fuel to bump you into the accelerated points and you can't really use TA points at a Loves, or Pilot points at a TA, etc.

 

Yes, I agree here.

I used to drive for a company that fueled at Loves and PFJ. I never got good points that way. I quit that job and went to work for a company that fueled ONLY at Loves. Before long, I bought a GPS, 4 different CB's (2 which I sold on Ebay for $$) multiple CB antennas, food, electrical items, you name it. All FREE. Once you hit platinum you get 3 pts per gallon. Diamond is where I stayed until I got shot, 4 pts per gallon. You guys know the thread I started where I lost 45000 Loves pts but did get them back eventually.

 

i dont mean for this to sound harsh.. if you want to make it in this industry you have to develop an independent way of thinking.. meaning you need to think for yourself.. find your own solutions to the problems.. go out and get your rewards cards and use them to fill up when you are driving... do not use a gps when you are brand new to trucking.. spend the money on a nice rand mcnally truckers atlas and write down you route on a sticky note and watch every road sign you pass with full concentration... getting in this habit, helps your mind always to be scanning the road signs, for not only the next road you need to take, but you will be watching every road sign that you pass.. your chances of getting lost this way are very low... when you get good at this, then you can splurge on a gps if you want.. but i find it is nothing more than a crutch... eventually when routing yourself with the atlas, in a bout 6 months you will be able to navigate multiple areas of the country without any form of navigation... with a gps i find that i cant never remeber which roads i am on or where i need to go next.. i use a gps to route my direction to pickups and deliviers thats it.. not saying that my way is the end all be all or even the best way.. but i have never been lost 1 time routing myself with the atlas and routing turn by turn directions to pickup and deliverys... but have been lost dozens and dozens if not hundreds of times following that gps without any prior research.

 

5 monkeys were placed in a cage as part of an experiment. In the middle of the cage was a ladder with bananas on the top rung. Every time a monkey tried to climb the ladder, the experimenter sprayed all of the monkeys with icy water. Eventually, each time a monkey started to climb the ladder, the other ones pulled him off and beat him up so they could avoid the icy spray. Soon, no monkey dared go up the ladder.

The experimenter then substituted one of the monkeys in the cage with a new monkey. The first thing the new monkey did was try to climb the ladder to reach the bananas. After several beatings, the new monkey learned the social norm. He never knew “why” the other monkeys wouldn’t let him go for the bananas because he had never been sprayed with ice water, but he quickly learned that this behaviour would not be tolerated by the other monkeys.

One by one, each of the monkeys in the cage was substituted for a new monkey until none of the original group remained. Every time a new monkey went up the ladder, the rest of the group pulled him off, even those who had never been sprayed with the icy water.

By the end of the experiment, the 5 monkeys in the cage had learned to follow the rule (don’t go for the bananas), without any of them knowing the reason why (we’ll all get sprayed by icy water). If we could have asked the monkeys for their rationale behind not letting their cage mates climb the ladder, their answer would probably be: “I don’t know, that’s just how its always been done.”

 

I've wondered truck drivers feel the need to go to a truck stop for the 10 break.

I never had the modern conveniences of today's rigs but all I needed was a place that was near a toilet when I got up.
So many options but maybe it's because we are only traveling the interstate or scared of out of route miles.
My favorite places were hotel lobbies and office buildings. But stores, restaurants or gasp!, a gas station.
As long as I could get my morning sit down and wash my hands and face I was good.

Hard to fathom all the trainer horror stories I've read on here.
Seems like they don't prepare these guys for the real world.
Always chasing the miles vs drive time.

Adapt Improvise Overcome.
Separate from the rats and run your own race. See America from another angle.
Imho it's what's kept driving a truck interesting for me.

 

ive been playing a simulator on my pc called american truck simulator its sure helps with the basic and such