Small, but very dertermined

Visit a large truck dealer. Preferably Peterbilt or KW. See if you can access physically the cab of the big truck from the ground using a standard and very necessary 3 points of contact. Your foot goes up on the fuel tank skirt step. Your left hand goes to a handhold at or on the open cab door. Your right hand is touching the big truck while you step up onto the first step with both feet. You do not let go with any 3 holds.

Repeat until you get into the cab. Once in you learn to adjust the seat to see if you can reach the pedals, all of the controls and so on. The sleeper is less important. The clutch will be the biggie, it's really got some weight on it. You will need to build up stamina for that work in a manual truck.

Automatics are nicer but carry certain issues best not yet addressed until you have had some time on the road with one. If it has a manual model, that is what you want. If it does not have a manual mode do not drive that truck or company. I personally did ok with auto way back in 2001 as a team, but ours had a manual mode for mountain and winter storm work that did well.

You will find that a nice tractor trailer in good condition, loaded properly an with a 5th wheel greased good will be driven with a finger or two. They are almost alive in a way of thinking.

The actual ordinary driving forward in a 18 wheeler on a nice road relatively free from traffic is as boring as driving your car in the park. Thats not really the issue.

The dealer and you can resolve very quickly if you can access a big truck from the ground and back to the ground. You will find there is a catwalk behind the sleeper to get to and there is also a trailer you need to get into and out of from the ground. Again there is a specific way of doing it with your hands and feet together. Or you will get hurt really bad. Fast. Its not fun to slip on the back doors of your trailer trying to get in then grab your first wrapped two ton pallet that now follows you off the trailer on the way to the ground to crush you. That's no way to go.

Trucking has eliminated some of the ... knuckle dragging aspects of our lifestyle and it's requirements over the say last 50 years. What we deal with in the 50's and 60's then is totally totally different than today's trucks that will just as soon BURN DOWN because of the emissions crap on them.

This is a journey. Not a 9-5 job. It is also a committment similar to marriage. You are running freight that keeps a city fed. A nation going and so on. You are already late, they are waiting for you.

A short review of the thread indicates that several people has taken liberties and cracked jokes or otherwise had some fun. I'll smile and then say to these people you cannot be doing that too much too often, chances are you can easily destroy anyone's desire to run a 18 wheeler at all in life. Now a little horseplay and some witty fun is awesome. But let's be gentle with the new ones huh?

 

Wasting your breath, she is just going to think you're cutting her down.

 

Size and gender don't matter as much as attitude. Trucking--while it has gotten more civilized in recent years--is still a pretty macho culture. If you instantly get your back up at anything you perceive as offensive, you're not going to last long in this world.

Food for thought.

 

That may be so.

All I can do is answer the question and they will just have to learn it. If they can do it great. If not? Then fine. It's not for everyone.

If I really wanted to blow the man down around here I would be banned so fast....

 

No, most of the time when we played a team that used the full bone offense I was the will linbacker. If the team was more of an I formation I dropped back as an extra safety.

 

One day doing a pretrip on a trailer you will see exactly what I meant.

 

It sure helped da Cat's!

I couldn't pass it up. I'm on a roll tonight.

 

A short roll