What important skills of truck driving did you learn after your first year of trucking?

Your trainer failed you. He was probably a product of the mega fleet ‘dumb and dumber’ program.

“But Six, he was highly esteemed at Covenant!”

Covenant isn’t a third of the company they were 30 years ago. Being highly esteemed at Covenant doesn’t mean a thing. And you, a so called experienced driver, still talking about his POS trainer. Pathetic. @Chinatown was actually trying to help you, but you still have your experienced driver head up your highly esteemed mega carrier trainer’s arse. I don’t really care because no matter what you do, you will see my tail lights.

 

Yeah, I was getting at company trucks that are governed within 2 or 3 or so mph of each other. That wind coming from the front of the other truck can slow you and keep you pretty much even with the cab of the truck you're trying to pass.
Get in a fast or ungoverned truck and won't have that issue.

 

I absolutely understand your post. But you have ‘an experienced driver’ , arguing with you about something that his POS trainer taught him. Whenever you have an experienced driver referring to his training rather than experience, you have someone who’s trainer failed him.

 

I said it in another post the other day, but there’s a difference in someone having years of experience and someone having a year of experience over and over again. Unfortunately those repeating their same year of experience multiple times are the ones training new drivers and passing along their bad habits to those who don’t know any better is a huge disservice to the industry.

 

And on top of that, carrier's safety programs aren't about safety, they're about liability reduction. It's a miracle there's any decent news drivers!

 

If his highly esteemed trainer did such a good job why does he start so many threads asking about things a first year rookie should know? just sayin....

Don't quote me, I'm on his ignore list and he might see my post

 

If a driver is creeping up on my left, going maybe a half mile an hour faster than me, I’ll definitely come off of my cruise control and drop my speed a touch, long enough for him to pass and get back over. Even if he’s only going slightly faster than me, he IS going faster, so he’s not causing me any problem. We’re all better off, safety wise, if the passing lane is clear.

As for things I learned after driving a truck for more than a year, I just recently learned that an excellent way to drop a trailer such that the landing gear are at the perfect height for hooking it later is to drop your air bags THEN crank down the landing gear until they’re firmly on the ground. The trailer is now low enough so that the feet will lift off the ground when you (or someone else) back under it the next time, but not so low that you can’t get under it.