Non-recent CDL grad, inexperienced

I had some trouble with your post.

Two things. When your trainer says "Easy... easy" he means easy does it. You can turn over the truck and hurt it in specific situation.

Second thing. If you have a turn planned, whatever gear you are in when you start spinning that steering wheel is the gear you need to stay in for the duration of the turn. There is sometimes pressure on that 5th wheel, frame area during turns for reasons beyond the scope of this post that can and will stall you out and expose you to cars that now must decide what to do with you prior to impact.

Never you mind what's going on behind you unless... you are parking, backing into a hole or docking etc. You are adding too many balls to your mental load driving. Remove a few. Don't stress about everything around you. You have enough challenges as it is already.

Im sorry I did not write very well trying to help you understand that you don't need to play around in the bottom of that low range any more than you have to.

Finally not last, there is a flaw in your driving during turning, you do NOT shift up trying to get speed. What happens is you over steer your front end and run out of that room you need to swing on your front bumper as if you already discovered this once so far... follow me?

 

I do. I was going on what the teacher was telling me. My instinct told me to not shift and focus on the turn (i'd have stayed in 2nd gear) but he was telling me to shift up pulling out and then stay in that gear during the turn... well my gut told me "what is he talking about?" because the intersection was pretty darn small. Sure, enough because I was following his instructions. I stopped bothering with the shift because I knew I hadn't turned the wheel in time to make that left turn. Not a great multitasker I guess. I still have it in me to give this trucking career a chance even though my CDL school experience was bad. I just want to learn to drive safely and a bit fearful after the experience.

 

I don't have a problem with that. You are well on your way to being a professional driver ready for your own tractor.

 

Well I guess I just ended up at a bad CDL school that were just a bunch of retired old truckers who felt it was ok to yell at you when you screwed up because they expected us to be professional truckers right out the gate. Yes, yell. I was partnered with a Sikh wanting to truck drive who spoke broken english and everytime the instructor raised his voice the sikh would motion like he was hitting himself over the head while saying sorry. It was crazy. Expected more professionalism. So that is why I am considering Schneider as they are offering me a 3-day refresher before heading over to the 3 week orientation. The account offered to me was Anheuser-Busch hauling beer on heavy quad axle trailers. Any advice would be appreciated unless x1Heavy you feel I would need better training? Thank you for the input.

 

Good idea to do the research before going with any company. Especially a mega. I have yet to do the training mentor thing and not looking forward to it.

 

Well, Im happy to help. Tell you some stories, teach you this and that only to be corrected and so on. It's my pleasure.

But your story regarding the poor school makes me sad. I think you will rise above everyone else in due time during your future work with 18 wheelers.

See, in my time trainers abused they hit, punch, yell profanity, pinch you and so on. If you did something right and correct they stroke you and say atta boy! yeesh. Alot of it is a sort of a theater command style leadership requiring the students to essentially parrot back what they are yelled at. Non thinking, non functioning.

My spouse came out of a school like that. It is fortunate that I recognized certain behaviors from her driving and implemented corrective teaching to improve her. During Desert Storm she was given 45 Marines with rifles, ammuntiion, Food, grenades and so on and told to drive the bus to this corner near the Amphibious deck carrier that will load everyone in due time to go to war over seas. No one told her anything. So there she was. Doing what she needed to help her Platoon make ready to fight.

That generated PTSD in side of her. That leaked out onto the 18 wheeling to my surprise And I recalled a book called "Tears of a Warrior" so that helped me understand what I had to do to teach her for a couple months everything I knew about trucking without abuse, yelling, hitting etc. She would not put up with that crap.

She got really good for a student. And I feel lucky to have gotten away with it at least once in my life time.

Much of what you learn in your first year and the first few years... will determine your success or failure.

Not everyone gets to retire with a whole body, a bunch of kids, a loving wife, a happy home etc. in this industry. But you can do your best and hope that when that time comes to retire, you have had some fun along the way.

You cannot ask for more than that.

 

Thank your spouse for her service. My dad is ex-military and served in Desert Storm. It must have been tough for her to adjust to trucking? I don't handle certain stress very well mostly because I had a childhood illness and it's what prevented me from ever serving as it disqualified me. So true that we don't always get what we want and just to do our best. I should look at it definitely instead of continue to think about how the school went. I'll never know until I actually get out there and do it.

 

Trucking, the actual doing was not the problem for Spouse. Automatic transmission to the rescue. That time.

Problems manifested itself in several ways. Predator behavior among the parasites who visit my fuel tank wanting free smokes, cash money for nothing, free food and fluids etc. beg beg beg, and the implied threat of violence should they not get what they want in the South Side market of chicago. In the past I looked out for myself with a big buck special in it's holster on my belt open carry without trouble. But now I got a wife to protect. If these parasites found out there is a female to take advantage of...

Armarillo to the New Mexico Border with Texas is about 68 miles as the crow flies when using the old ruins of cadillac cars standing on end buried in the dirt at edge of the town. Anyhow in 2001, It's east bound with the right hand shoulder dug up and gone. Leaving a 3 foot drop off which will most certainly be a fatal roll over accident wreck if your steer varied more than two inches and dropped off.

The wall on the left side is absolutely right there. I had trouble teaching her to accept that wall. Partly because of the eastbound right hand steer tire is 3 inches from doom with that three (What is it with the threes lol....) foot drop off... ###### if you do and ###### if you don't

Fast forward to Vegas. NW trip into death valley, probably valley of the fire etc. Working up towards Reno via Hawthorne, aka Walker Lake. I got up and put her to bed in the middle of her ten hour driving shift due to a previously undiscovered inability to cope with nothing. The land offered her nothing for 300 some odd miles. I think it hurt her. I took er into Reno for the night. Pending Donner next day.

I can go on and on, but I think that is enough for this post.