stupidest thing u have done or seen a rookie do?

I used to do this all the time with my air horn I installed hidden on my jeep. Scared the crap out of everybody.

Lots of fun in strip mall parking lots by store entrances.

 

Go down eisenhower mm211 in CO on I-70 with the engine brakes off because he did not know what engine brakes were.

 

If my company ever sends me that way it won't be much prettier. My Jake barely does anything in the '06 Century.

 

you know the old timers can remember when the tractors not only did not have engine retarders, but did not even have brakes on the steering axle at all. in spite of that they survived so while jakes are nice they are not truly essential.

 

My driving career started with Monson Trucking, Duluth, MN (now defunct) in 2003. Even to the bitter end (2009), none of their trucks ever had jake brakes. For the most part we were on the flats in the midwest, but occasionally we would see the big hills down in Dixieland. And I guess as recently as 15 years ago they would have runs out past Vail CO, and into Salt Lake City and Phoenix. I've been over Rarity, Monteagle, Cumberland Gap, Sam's Gap, and the I-77 one in VA/WV a number of times, never had any major problems. There are even some hills here in Southeast MN, SW Wisconsin and Northeast Iowa that are just as steep or steeper. Not nearly as long but nasty little buggers that can sneak up on you. I never had any huge problems with brakes overheating, just a little bit of smoking after I got to the bottom of those big hills down in Dixieland but far from having a runaway truck. But of course even brakes themselves have come a long way in the last 40 years.

I think every rookie should be taught how to do it, as a jake is a mechanical/electrical device that can and will fail occasionally. Stab braking doesn't work with no jakes, and in my opinion is not a good idea even if you do have them. And that "go down the hill a gear lower than you climbed it" rule rookies are taught in school does not always apply either. What happens if you climb a 6% grade and the other side ends up being a 9% grade?

My first car was RWD, open end diff, no ABS, No Traction control, no stability control, and today you see the same amount of people in wrecks and in the ditch as you did 20 years ago. I'm sure the same thing is true of big trucks, relying too much on your truck and technology to do the job for you can bite you in the #$$ in the end. You can go down a mountain 1,000 times too slow, but only once will you go down it too fast.

Yes there are some extreme cases where you truly need them, but bottom line, if you can't get a big truck down a mountain without jakes, you don't deserve a CDL.

 

The guy that went down eisenhower went to fast and when he passed me his brakes were on fire as in beyond smoking.

 

Had to do a D&H yesterday. Was one of those stupid ones where you need to put it in the same door as the one you are pulling, so you have to drop and hook several times to shuffle trailers around.

Did a half assed job of hooking up my air lines, right before I had to swing the trailer around in the tight parking lot so that I wouldn't have to blindside. I hear this noise, like a playing card in a bicycles spokes, and am positive I just took out the fence with my tail swing. Get out to check the fence and find no damage, but notice that my service line is MIA as I am on my way back to the cab.

Seems that it came unhooked as it got pulled tight on my jacknife turn. Fell down and got caught up in the tire, where it got wrapped around everything and the gladhand was run over by one of the drives.

Took a delicate act of moving the truck back and forth an inch at a time to get everything unwrapped. Then a while with my Leatherman to bend the gladhand back into something useable. All this while I was blocking two trucks who were in a hurry to get out and run their routes.

End result is an ugly, but working gladhand, and a service line with no more coils, stretched out to over twice the length it was before.

 

I saw this Newbie, driving down the road, passes my slow truck up, he`s got the body leaning sideways, and has his HOODIE on. This dumb arse, can not see what is coming from the side. His tuff guy style, driving a comercial vehicle is going to get him in an accident. Just plain Stupid. You should train your eye site to see things with Peripheral vision. You do not want to block this view.

 

LOL Same here. It would make many a person laugh if I were on a 24hr webcam. Hopin I wake up smart tomorrow

 

Saw a driver drive over a nozzle that had fallen off the pump at a Pilot, get it caught under his wheel, rip it off and keep going.

Saw an older trucker get out, start pumping fuel and light up next to the pump as we were pulling out. My driver floored it.