Questions about general things while trucking

My advice is never drive when you are legitimately tired or risking falling asleep. A good sign is when you can't remember the last couple miles. It's not worth dying or killing others. Nothing is.

Shifting will come with practice. When you get nervous, take a deep breath. Who cares what the 4 wheelers think? I sure don't. Drive safely to protect them and yourself, but don't give a rats buttocks if you hold them up.

 

If your mentor doesn't like you stopping for even a 30 minute nap, screw him. Stop anyway. Being tired is normal at night and takes getting use to. Take it slow and easy.

As for shifting while turning.. Don't. Wait untill you get through the intersection to shift. That extra 1 second you gain just isn't worth it.

 

If you can't shift while turning a corner... don't.

Get into second gear, make it around the corner, straighten out, then start upshifting again. When people start out, they try to do too many things at once then get bogged down, make a mistake, panic, then ruin everything.

Take it one step at a time. Don't think about the 3-4 shift when you are doing 2-3. Worry about the one you are doing right now, then continue on. Learn how to shift as second nature, then start working it into cornering. The most important thing you should be doing while turning is worrying about where your trailer is, not gaining speed.

Your mentor sounds like an idiot. You need a proper trainer to teach you how to drive the truck. When you are tired, you stop. Make up any lost time after you sleep. If you end your day at 5 pm rather than 10 pm, you can start your next day 5 hours earlier.

My advice is get a new trainer. Can't get a new trainer? Take your time (it's not a race), take deep breaths when you start to panic, and try to recentre yourself back to a calm state. It's hard when you are starting out, but nobody should be rushing you. Take all the time you need to get the job done right. If your company starts giving you flack about taking too long, maybe it's time to find a new company, especially if they aren't going to train you properly.

 

OP...If you were so tired after that last five hours of driving that you can barely remember any of it you were too tired.
You were fatigued and if you're fatigued you're also impaired.
Your trainer is a moron by the way. Better a late load than a load in the ditch...or worse.

 

Don't shift gears in a turn. Shift before or after the turn. For the same reason you said but here is one driver forget I thing in the summer. Come winter you could jacknife. You always want to pull the trailer around a corner. If your not pulling it then the trailer is pushing you. A trailer will always want to keep going straight. So the trailer can just push your truck out of the way(the jacknife)and keep going. So you don't shift gears because if you do then your not pulling the trailer.

 

When I first got my license, I'd start out in 2nd empty with a trailer, grab 3rd as I pulled straight into the intersection and stayed in 3rd until I had the truck straight and confirmed my trailer tires will clear any obstructions.

 

Do not shift during turns. Or you will become a problem blocking traffic or worse. Leave it alone until you come out of turns. I don't shift much during turns.

Being tired is a accumulation of fatique upon your body. You can pace yourself a while but at some point your system will give out and you will go to sleep with your eyes open. That I hope never happens to you. That is why we have limits on hours of service.

As far as your trainer limiting your attention to just the engine it's really tough but hang in there, you will get through this time and get into your own truck and you can do whatever. As a side note, I always kill the radio etc when pulling into a customer, scales, truckstop etc. Even coming off the highway onto the ramp I had a habit of killing everything in the cab and then wind the window down to listen for problems during braking on that ramp.

Not being able to recall something is a form of being too tired to be able to. It shows the diminished capacity in your brain because you were tired. I have gone into places and delivered many loads in that state but cannot remember anything and cannot tell you specifics to save my life unless something really different happened. Then the chemicals in the body generate a fight or flight situation and wakes up the mind focusing on the problem. If you were to examine some of my long range driving and finally stopping somewhere safe to gain plenty of sleep, you will see that being tired is worse than being drunk. You wont remember it tomorrow. Im working google earth to seek out a small tiny stop south of Raton but not too far from Santa Fe in that area where I took refuge after a 2000 mile run. The pavement had iced in my face at 4 am and I had to finally stop. I just don't remember where it was. I'll find it eventually.

Big things, pace yourself, stay away from simulants and steady as she goes. You will get there. When it's time to sleep don't play video games. That is the worst thing you can do to yourself.

 

You just need practice man. Everyone does stuff like that when they are new. Also never worry about what cars think. Don't worry about holding them up or anything. Just focus on whatever you have to do.

 

I'll expand on that a little.

When you press the clutch to shift you are decelerating in the process.
That means that the trailer will be pushing you from its own inertia.
Since the trailer is moving in a straight line, and you are are not when turning, the forward momentum of the trailer will push your drive tires towards the outside of your turn radius - thus causing a jacknife situation.