What if it Snows?

Some of this new technology makes my head spin .

 

Its not the snow.

I had a 89 Volvo intergrated sleeper tractor with a gigantic cat for it's time, a brand new 89 model. We were runnign west virginia in any winter conditions which includes all of it. Blizzards, ice, freezing rain, sleet, everything. Not a problem even at 3 feet. What a joy.

Todays over computerized rolling puzzle palaces get trapped on 3 inches of snow and flat roads. You watch. It will be spinning off it's forward axle trapped on the news somewhere.

 

I hate when that happens... keeps me up till late... Good luck driver...hopefully someone will arrive soon.. and will stay away from your.. what is your truck's name? Sorry, I forgot...

 

Ohhhh God.. why did you say that...? I have been sooo freakin afraid of the next truck I will have to drive if I go back to my company... That's all they will have... not to mention the freakin noises.. those noises, I don't think I will endure more than a week or two... if they don't find a way to turn them off.. I will be looking for somewhere else or something else..
But the new automatic stuff... That's why I told my company when I left back in August.. that even if I finished everything I had to do in Brasil in December or Janurary, I would not be back in the truck till March... or later... cause I definitely will not face the snow and ice and all in a new automatic truck... no way...

 

Autos are fun in the snow , never know when its gonna shift gears and spin ur tires and throw u into a skid, keeps u on ur toes lol

 

Seriously.. I don't need to be on my toes more than I already am... cause I am anxious by nature... don't need more stress... no no no...
But many of the drivers in my company are old old guys.. have been driving for over 30 and 35 yrs... many said they got used to the automatic and once they learned how to use it, they like it a lot...
I don't care much about what they think... there's a HUGE difference between them and I.. besides, there are those drivers that left my company after all these new changes...
Unfortunately, most companies nowadays are buying automatic trucks cause it saves them fuel...
Good for them.. but bad for me...

 

Ive been in an automatic for almost a year now and i just dont understand how people say they get used to it... Im like you, i dont trust the auto and dont want one, but i like getting paid so i dont have a choice anymore...

 

We had a auto with wife and I for FFE in 2001 time period when it was our last year OTR.

Wife had a tractor jackknife on us after I-40 had steepened upgrade and turned tighter in curvature in the shade during a light ice storm on top of one inch of snow. As soon we hit that west of knoxville she lost her feet And tried to fold into the trailer. We were number one of 7 or 8

I hopped on the dash and added wheel into the tractor skid to get traction back, told her to freeze as she is like statue. So whatever the foot was telling the engine to do the auto followed us down making large shifts until we climbed out of that skid. Number two did the same thing. But we lost the next 4 or 5 going into the canyon in the middle. One was a flatbed and used the last of his power spinning drives in interlock to keep the whole thing upright as he fell backwards into the hole. (In the median)

The highway was essentially closed at that point.

Im just happy the auto did what it needed to do when it found that we had traction. Normally with a manual any gear you got will do. But there was not the time and place to be teaching HER about how to learn to use any gear any way you can get one in a manual truck. (That came later when we ran medicine loads with a 13 speed)

Just a little annoying inch of snow then a bit of sleet enough to glaze everything ontop in ice.

Slide baby slide. If I was not awake doing what I did, she would have folded the tractor into the trailer and probably rammed the rock wall of the mountain we were climbing with a great deal of damage and possibly fell by gravity onto the pile of trucks in the canyon.

 

Yeah.. I have been driving for only 11 yrs... that's not much compared to most here... I have always been a company driver, solo OTR. Love the long lone road... like living in the truck even with all the sacrifices involved... but all the joys of this trucking thing is being taken away one by one... since the electronic log.. and then the monitoring equipment, and now the automatic transmission that takes away A LOT of the control and then the SUPER annoying noises and accident preventative systems... At the end... I will be left doing something that I don't like anymore... and I don't even feel safe any more doing it... there's no freedom in trucking for me.. not as a company driver with all these things in the truck...
So now.. for the first time.. even though I REALLY miss the road in a big truck, I am not looking forward to go back in a truck cause it's not going to be the same...

 

OMG!!!