New driver needs resources to learn about Dot checks

Someone say books?

 

I don't know if the green handbook is Required to be in the truck, but is sure did get used a lot.

 

As far as I am aware it's not. At least it's not in any of the trucks in my current company. They are very good about the required paperwork too.
I know the "Orange" book I belive it's called is required for hazmat load.
I should probably verify if I should be carrying the green book.

 

OOOOO. How much for all of them? NOice!!!!

 

Especially when you point to it for chapter and verse preaching to Mr Lawman standing on your fuel tank as you tell him or her nicely to eff off. Unless he or she has actual ticket to write.

Im not picking on LEO's today. I enjoy situations in which the trucker is correct with the green book and evidence presented in the court of fuel tank Law. And such situations are pretty rare.

The LEO has gotten pretty good. But I fear a future in which LEO holds up rules in one smart phone to you and you hold up rules in your smart phone to him. Let the appts decide.

 

There are many cheats that you could learn over time to keeping up with things on your truck. As an example, you know the slack adjusters are probably fine on your trailer if you pull your trailer hand break and feel even friction at around 15 psi or less on the gauge. If you apply over 20psi before you feel breaks engaging then you might need to cove bc your slack adjusters.
I sat at a truck stop lobe morning, with absolutely nothing I felt like doing, so I literally just watched all of the truck drivers waking up add starting their day. Guess how many of the 30-40 in view did I witness doing a pretrip before running out of there? 0, nodda, none... However, I always see drivers checking under the hood while getting fuel.
One thing to keep in mind, things don't fail often on most diesel trucks. If the things which fail most commonly, are mostly things easy to check. Tires and breaks only require a walk around (though many new trucks make it hard to see the tractor breaks these days). With just a quick walk around, you could inspect 90% of the things that usually go wrong on these trucks in less than 5 minutes, but most drivers fail to do even that, or at least they don't do it first thing in the mornin. Once you know your truck well, you CAN inspect many of the common fail safe items less repetitiously. The DOT may disagree with me, but then again, they also think it makes sense that they are the ones who should tell me how and when i should feel sleepy, and when I should feel awake. Hence, I drive sleepy one elogs 10 times more than I ever did on paper logs because three log book tells me that if I stop and take a needed nap, I'm going to lose driving time, miss an appointment, and eventually lose my job. The DOT doesn't think everything through, so you must use common sense and learn to do what's safest for you and the people on the road.
You'll be fine, I average an inspection about once a year, but I also drive at night. They don't mess with you too frequently. It will just become a gradual learning experience for you.

 

The regulation books were all under $10 a piece. The claims set was $285.

I also carry these as well;

 

Do the US log books come with a list of what is minor/major defects in them?

Here in Canada; it's called a schedule 1. It's also the law that we have a copy of it with us. We're just dumb truckers and we forget what is minor and major so that list will tell us. They finally got the idea to put them in the log books/ local pre trip books a few years back.