What things should newbies never do

What you should do:

1) Drive legal both on the job and off. A ticket is a ticket and they effect your ability to make a living.

2) Look ahead of your vehicle. WAAAY ahead. Your hood ornament does not need constant surveillance. It'll be just fine with only an occasional glance.

What you want to see is what is happening up ahead so you can react before you need to react RIGHT NOW!

3) Plan ahead. The second light in front of you will have bearing on how you go through the intersection right in front of you. Don't speed up too much just to have to slow down fast because the next light changes. The road ahead disappears into the trees, did you note the signage and determine at what speed you wanted to launch yourself into the unknown at? Lane reduction ahead, have you figured out when and where you are going to get into the through lane so you can maintain at least some forward motion.

3) Focus on the world surrounding your truck and the truck's operation. Ignore your phone, the idiocy of other drivers (unless they force you to not kill them), the distractions in your cab, the fight you had with your dispatcher/wife/boss/shipping clerk/mechanic/dog sitter/favorite sandwich artist, etc.

Don't:
1) Don't forget that you are responsible for the safe operation of a very expensive and deadly piece of equipment.

2) Don't let yourself get excited and stupid. Calmly, calmly you go. You can have a mad after you get parked and log off duty.

3) Don't forget that what you are doing is a job. You have a lot of freedom and loose supervision but you are being paid to get something done. Do that something first, then you can amuse yourself.

 

You seem to have a lot of close calls with rear ending people and your solution was to buy a truck?
For the sake of the people you're gonna run over stay a company driver so their families can at least get a decent check out of it.

 

Never trust the weight stated on the bill of lading to be wholly accurate. They're often just a standard "estimated weight" or don't include pallet weight. Not to mention sometimes loaders make mistakes and perhaps put 1 or 2 pallets too many on.

After a while you'll develop "spidey senses" and when these go off, weigh it. But until then, never take unnecessary chances rolling the dice regarding your potential gross weight and weight distribution.

 

I'm gonna channel my inner x1Heavy here:

Back in '91 I was working an over night security detail at a large construction project. We had just had an ice storm and the majority of people in the region had been without power for three days. It would be two weeks before I saw power at my place in the city. It was a national news story.

So in pulls a flatbedder with dock levelers for the docks at the site. He asks me when the receiver would be in in the morning. I told him the site was shut down until the state of emergency was lifted. He had no idea. I asked him when the last time he pulled into a mid sized city that had no street lights, no working traffic lights or any house lights on was? He got pissed off and threw a fit right there.

He was complaining that he had other deliveries on the truck and couldn't wait around. I refrained from pointing out that if he had listened to news radio, or looked at a national paper in the last couple days (Pre-internet) he would have been aware and could have planned for this.

He dumped the levelers off the trailer by hand into the mud and left. I have no idea how that worked out for his company. Today a driver has even less excuse for heading blindly into that kind of situation.

 

Never allow distractions while fueling or performing PTI's. Try to avoid getting caught up in conversations in person or on the phone if at all possible. If you must, abort the PTI until the conversation is over, then start back at the beginning as if you never started.

 

Lol hmmm what things should newbies never do? Hmmm ok I know, pick me pick me I know I know!
DRIVE!! WAS that the right answer?

 

Be the tortoise, not the hare.

 

Tortoise


Hare

 

Because he's an idiot.