stupidest thing u have done or seen a rookie do?

The first truck that I drove solo had a broken fuel gauge. I once ran of fuel literally 300 feet from the truck stop. It was a nightmare.

 

Stupidest thing I have ever done?

Got a CDL....

 

If you stay on the road long enough you encounter about everything.The air lines and pig tail slamming against the back of the truck is never a good sound. One time I hooked onto trailer pulled the hand brake to make sure the fifth wheel was locked and it appeared to be so I pulled it out of an uphill dock and went about 2 blocks down the road when all of a sudden the truck got a burst of power and I glanced in the mirror to see the trailer coming off of the truck.I quickly flipped the jake on and got the truck stopped with the trailer sitting on the Right rear tandems of the truck.Luckily the situation could of been a lot worse but it was rather embarrasing cranking down the dollies and rehooking up the trailer in the middle of the street.

 

It was only 15 years ago. In some ways it seems like last week and in other ways it seems like 100 years ago. Here I was, a wet -behind-the-ears, fresh off the farm noob. A noob at least to any and all kinds of articulated trucking. Hell I had driven my share of straight trucks and knew everything there was to know. Fresh out of driving school by 4-5 months, I was a pro. I lucked into a local job delivering soda pop with a pup trailer. Back then it didn't seem quite so hard to get into the seat of a big truck. One day after my route, the boss said "I notice you have a doubles endorsement, you interested in doing the doubles run to the plant on the night shift"? I thought for a minute about the extra bucks, and the thought of just having to run trailers and not hump cases of carbonated crap and said absoultely. The boss asked "You have hauled doubles before haven't you"? And of course me being the "I know everything" guy I was, I said "of course". He told me I could start the following week as the second shuttle driver was in his last week before a transfer. Back then, and I guess in a lot of ways now, there wasn't much I wouldn't try, I always looked at everything as "how hard can it be"? So after intently watching the shuttle drivers in the afternoon hooking up their units for a few days, there I was, a pro at doubles. Everything was going great, I had been doing the run for 2-3 weeks and thought I was on top of the world, a doubles driver, "The Man". So one night I am getting ready to head back on my last run from the plant and the load supervisor tells me I am going back with a single, I say OK, no problem. I hook up my front trailer and hook my dolly to the back. I look at my watch, it's 2 am, gotta get goin, runnin a little late. I take off from the plant, just another night for a professional doubles jockey. I take off down the side road heading too the main crossroad to get to the big road. All of a sudden, I feel something, what was that, a vibration? An impact? What the hell is going on? I look in my mirror and see this idiot coming around me in the other lane with no lights on. I'm first thinking, "did he just hit me"? Then as I see him come along side my window, I was utterly amazed to see that he was driving my dolly. The invisible guy did a pretty good job of keeping it in the lane for a little while, then he drove it into a ditch and took out a little stretch of chain link fence. I never found out who he was, but I did learn to check that chain on the dolly, it is there for a reason.

 

I've done that,,, Not once, but a few different times.


Last night I would have to say I probably did one of the dumbest things ever. Sitting at Iowa 80 listening to the CB... This one guy kept talking & talking & talking & talking & talking & taliking over stupid idiotic stuff.

He had a good sounding radio, so I asked him what he had. He replied with a Cobra 29 & said that he just bought a S3 but haven't hooked it up yet. Then he went about his talking & talking & talking & talking & talking.....

I finally broke in again.... I told him that everyone was walking all over him & he really need to hook that S3 up. After he has it installed he & I will go to another channel & I'd instruct him how to set it so he has the walking & talking power.... You know, since I have a S3 myself.

By the time I was finished instructing him how to set it up.... It was a quiet night.

I got him on the side bands & then disappeared with no instructions how to get off the side bands.....

 

My very first night as a solo, decided to run to Truck World in Youngstown, OH for dinner. Got off at the correct exit ramp, turned right instead of going straight, and got the Driver's tour of Hubbard,OH. Found a grocery store parking lot to get turned around, went to the wrong exit lane, and almost took out a lot light. Took me, the store manager, and one of the store employees about two hours to extricate my truck without damaging the light pole, or the truck. Fun, fun.

Silly rookie, trucking is for professionals!

 

On my first trip to Canada I came out of Canada at Sault Ste Marie, MI and was so happy I had real phone service back i called my wife and missed my exit for route 28 to Marquette, MI not once but three times before I told her I had to go needless to say Its 10 miles each time to turn around. I've changed my phone habits since..............thank god

 

They should have sent you the other way out of Tracy. I run molasses out of that Crockett C&H plant often. A good place to take your 10 is on cummings skyway which runs between the 4 and 80. its the second to last eastbound exit before the bridge. Trucks park up there all the time.

 

well,. you guys all have great stories, but i have u ALL Beat!!....my last days at SuperService, mind u i had Already given my 2 week notice, and after this stunt they forced me back to the lead terminal early and wanted me to remove my stuff and find my own ride home, almost 700 miles from home...i was able to convince my dispatcher to convince the terminal manager to get me a load back to the NC terminal which is 2 hrs from home...(and have family come pick me up)
anyway...so im on my last 2 weeks and im stting at a TA up in OH somewhere waiting to go deliver down the street...i wake up late, check my tires quickly and jump back in the hot seat...push the brakes in and back out of the Idle-Aire spot....NEXT time i'll remember to REMOVE Idle-Aire from my passenger window first b4 backing out! *Shatter*
so much for mirrors!

 

LOL thats funny...