Newbies, do yourself a favor

yep ....... the so-called "training" available is really laughable.


This should be something that is taught in school and really shouldn't take more than..... oh say .... 2-3 hours for the group to get enough of a grasp of the subject to at least be able to do it on their own with a little trial and error.

Really?

34+34+12= 80 , 5th wheel back makes steers lighter, etc....

Tell me really, 'cause I kinda grew up around trucks and..... well, some pretty old school guys and, I think I got a lot of this stuff by osmosis. Is the problem really trainers/training programs OR is the current crop of newish drivers so STUMP DUMB that they are really clueless about this kind of stuff?

really...



.......... Jim

 

I just watched this morning called Dan Rather Reports it was on the trucking industry and the schooling of new drivers. It showed one lady that was trained in Florida. She had 1 week of class training then was put into a truck with 5 other people each person drove 5 miles and the trainer did all the shifting. The day of testing she was tested in an automatic. She said she wasn't comfortable when she finally got a job. She was placed with a team member and he told her I just drove all night go ahead and I'll sleep. Very interesting report.
That's scary!!

 

My first experience sliding tandems was kinda like being a non-swimmer and being thrown into a lake and told, "Now swim". We pulled into a receiver early one morning (still dark). Instructions from guard, "Slide your tandems all the way back". Okey dokey! Got back in the truck and told mentor, who was in the sleeper at the time, that we needed to slide the tandems. He said, "Okay, slide 'em!" He wasn't being lazy, I think he knew I could probably get it done, just wanted to see how I would handle the situation. Well, I learned one thing for sure. Sometimes tandems would rather stay put. I had to want them to slide more than they wanted to stay put. One fairly violent tug later, mission accomplished. Pretty unsettling for a "first time", but we've had some close to max loads since so the learning curve isn't quite as steep now.

I wholeheartedly agree that sliding tandems and fifth wheel should be taught hands on in school. Even a brief demonstration would help.

 

Problem is often with trainers (as it is with much of society in general today) is that any delay is frowned upon, and actually instructing a new driver on the points discussed is just an added bother to many trainers.

I see it as the same reason that many drivers don't shower, wash their hands when using the restroom, dump their waste products inappropriately, etc. Time is precious. And many drivers have simply taken conserving it to the extreme, much to the detriment of the industry..

 

Scaling out a load is so easy. I dont know why its not being taught! I am in a refresher course right now and they did go over sliding your 5th wheel and your tandems and which way does what and everything. Some trainers are just that dumb and lazt though what can you expect when companies are paying them to just get some "boot" driver miles so he can make even more money.

 

They are not conserving time they are just plain LAZY.

 

If somebody is that lazy(They cant get out and pull a freakin pin release) and move there tandems they should just be put away somewhere where there lazyness wont effect the safety of anybody. Hmmm 6 feet under?

 

Maybe it's because I was exposed to it (sliding tandems) right off the bat with my mentor, but I'm having a problem understanding what the big deal is. I'm sitting on a shipper's door in Jackson MS. Shipper's instructions: "Slide tandems all the way back, unhook from your trailer, etc." As soon as we're loaded, we'll have to slide them again before we weigh. We'll have about 40,000 in the box.

I'm curious about how all the "lazy" drivers get away with not sliding tandems. Doesn't a weigh ticket spell out what you need to do? Are these guys not weighing and hoping for the best?

Confusion is setting in!

 

Sonny, I don't think that it is "sliding tandems" per se. I suspect that there are a lot of new drivers out there that are just as clueless about quite a few things.

I would even go so far as to guess that a lot of them, if they do scale their load, just look at the weight slip and boogie on down the road without even a guess as to what it all means. Later they get pulled into the scale for being overweight and start with - "but, but, officer, I scaled it and, it's only 78,000 lbs!". Then they spend a few hours figuring it out with some help from who know's who. Of course the next step is to call CAT and try to get them to pay the overweight and when they won't they spend the next six months complaining about how CAT ripped them off.

<sigh>

................ Jim

 

Not paying attention, laziness, dumb as a stump and being trained by the same is a big problem these days it seems. Common sense is not that common anymore.