What are the best ways to ensure you don't get in accidents

Also, get your freakin sleep! Never let your company pressure you to drive if you don't feel rested and alert. When they want you to flip on an hours notice just calmly explain that you're not a robot. By flip, I mean changing sleeping/driving routine. It's happened to me plenty, I'll get up and deliver coming off a solid nights sleep and next thing you know they want you to pick up at 9pm and drive all night.

 

make sure you get plenty of sleep. Watch your mirrors near on ramps to make sure you don't have a car coming down that is gonna try to squeeze in front of you.

 

Strange practice I experience father east, people stopping in the merge entrance lanes/ramps. Make sure you watch the lane your merging into and the vehicle in front of you.
GOAL it is a way of driving. You don't have to always get out, to look. Always pay attention to your surrounding, it changes constantly.
Driving space. Don't tailgate.
First benefit, less stress. Easier to drive. Yes it might take a few seconds to get where you want. But safer. If you get in an accident it will take much longer.
Good luck.

 

Great post. I'd like to focus on this often overlooked aspect of driving a big rig.

Many people are petrified driving around large trucks. Heck, not just 4 wheelers, there's plenty of truck drivers new to the game that get pucker factor driving in close proximity to other trucks.

Take this into consideration as you manage your space. YOU aren't safer tailgating anyone and increasing the fear level of folks around you makes EVERYONE less safe. Especially in rain or snow you kick up a lot of spray. It's hard to see. If a 4 wheeler is having a difficult time passing you in the rain then help them out and back out of it so they can get through that wall of blinding spray quicker.

 

Take it slow.
This isn't a timed competition.
The object is to navigate this truck and trailer through the course without knocking down all the cones.

Circa 2009 at my first truck rodeo.
Tow show in NH to be exact.
They let me enter the entire competition even though I didn't have a class A cdl.
Won 3rd place trophy.

That advice was given to me by the 30+ year vet and owner of that truck.
He gave me the keys even though I didn't have an A license and taught me the old school way that day.

And I got a trophy because of it.

I've made a few mistakes out here my first 13 months.

Woman ran into the trailer in NM.
Non dot reportable, not cited, not on my mvr or psp. Werner is still holding that over my head.

Trailer slid in a mall parking lot doing a front door unload in a blizzard. Knocked a stop sign off of its post.

Last one I had a bilateral ear infection and influenza A.
Popped tire and rim.
Learned a big lesson that day.
This isn't towing. This Chinese crap people buy isn't worth running sick. Especially in a big truck.

 

Use Google Satellite View and Street View when going to an unfamiliar location. I do this every time. Frequently the address you are given and the route on your GPS will get you in trouble. With Street View you can read that sign that says "NOT A TRUCK ENTRANCE!!! TRUCK ENTRANCE IS ON 10TH STREET!!!" If I hadn't seen that with Street View I would have had to figure out how to get turned around in a truck restricted residential area.

By using these tools I can "drive" the route before I get there and it seems I have been there before as I actually drive it.

 

I flip schedules frequently. If I get a full "night's" sleep and wake up without a dispatch or load plan I get busy and TCB (Take Care of Business). In that case my JOB is to SLEEP.

Learn to sleep and sleep some more. Sleep when you can, where you can. Learn that your sleeper berth time is the time to TCB and SLEEP. It ISN'T time to play video games or watch movies. You can do that on a 34 hour reset.

Because I have learned to sleep when I can, I have been able to be the driver that is willing and ABLE to run any load anywhere at anytime. I run flip schedules SAFELY. I know that I will get sleepy during the run, and PLAN my schedule to take a nap on my 30. I may take more than one nap on that run. I never stay on the road if I am having trouble staying awake.

 

More power to you. I can't take that risk, and won't. I cannot depend on a cat-nap to get me through that. Please, if you don't mind report back to us as often as you can and let us all know where you're at so that we can all make sure to not be on the same road that you're on.

Taking care of business and trying to sleep doesn't guarantee that you'll get good sleep. If I'm going to guarantee that I'll be somewhere I need to know that I'll be able to sleep.

 

If you do a lot of longer runs, like cross-country, that have extra time, don't drag your feet early. Get close then relax. Never know what nature and bad luck will throw at you. Having problems causes loss of time and if you burned all your "free time" early sleeping late and screwing around, then you find yourself stressed and hurried late in the trip trying to make an appointment and you should always strive to avoid that.

 

Could you repeat the question please?