no training use common sense

Discussion in 'Flatbed Trucking Forum' started by ford06, Dec 2, 2017.

  1. ford06

    ford06 Bobtail Member

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    my first flatbed load back in the day no training no ride with instructor boss gave you a run down on how to do things and there you go i got along just fine if i had ? i would ask does that happen in todays world how many of you got started the same way
     
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  3. MACK E-6

    MACK E-6 Moderator Staff Member

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    That was me when I started out.
     
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  4. Jazz1

    Jazz1 Road Train Member

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    Same here, started out hauling steel on flatbed. Company I was operating plant for needed load delivered and since we had a truck in yard asked if I could drive it. Hell ya! I was 20
     
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  5. soloflyr

    soloflyr Medium Load Member

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    Applied for an oil distributor warehouse job, interviewer saw I had a chauffeurs license, sent me out by myself with a stack of BOLs, a list of orders & the old punch cards used at the loading racks, I became a rookie gas hauler that day.

    Of course I didn’t bother to tell him I got that chauffeurs license in a 2-1/2 ton bobtail flatbed I borrowed from a friend just for the test. That gas truck was the second truck & first tractor trailer I’d ever driven.

    Worked out, spent 6 years there, didn’t have any wrecks, kill myself or anybody else.
     
  6. Tug Toy

    Tug Toy Road Train Member

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    Came into work one morning when I was 17. Boss asks if I know how to drive a stick.


    Um yea?


    "Go take that truck to Tucson."

    Not flatbed or a semi but a overloaded refer strait truck.


    First flatbed was the company's first truck and I was the plant manager. So off I went to pickup lumber.
     
  7. Joetro

    Joetro Road Train Member

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    I was hired by an O/O to run second seat, first dragging a reefer in '89, then hauling nuke fuel from WA to NJ with a crusty old O/O that needed a second to make a round a week. I made $750 a week on that deal. Good money for a green driver in 1990. That one lasted until the company he was leased to changed hands and the new insurance wouldn't cover me as I was too young. After that, I went to work for a small company. Boss rode with me around the block so he could make sure I wouldn't break or run over stuff and from then on away I went.

    Today's new drivers are pretty much doomed from the get-go. Substandard training from substandard "trainers".
     
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  8. mitmaks

    mitmaks Road Train Member

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    No training huh? Who pays for injured people when load falls off of your trailer or worse kills someone?
     
  9. cnsper

    cnsper Road Train Member

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    6 years ago for me. 5 trips across Montana over t he course of a year. Got my license on a Thursday and took a 10 foot wide load into a residential neighborhood on Friday. Monday I moved a Volvo a30 articulating dump truck. A month later I was pulling a stretch trailer 68 feet long with the axles all the way to the back.

    @mitmaks the training provided these days is below par for the most part. I had no trainer except on those 5 trips/loads, maybe 3000 miles or 5 days out of 365.

    Just because someone does not have any training does not mean that someone will die or something will go wrong.

    You sir are an optimist like my ex, she was positive the worst was going to happen. Change to coffee and toss out the koolaid.
     
  10. ShooterK2

    ShooterK2 Road Train Member

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    I started driving in '96. Every trucking job I've had has been in the oil patch. I've pulled tanks, flats, RGN's, belly dumps, steps, vans, end dumps, pneumatics, etc. I was not trained on any of them ahead of time. Just usually given a rundown of how to do it and then a "here's the keys, call me when you're done."

    No tickets, no accidents.

    Common sense. If this industry had more of it, we wouldn't have a lot of the stupid accidents that we have nowadays. Training or no training. Ain't no load gonna "fall off" my trailer.
     
  11. Short Fuse EOD

    Short Fuse EOD Road Train Member

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    Same here, first flatbed load was a small oversize. No handholding. It’s still happens today.
     
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