Profile For Tinker G.

I went to a private school (AIT) and was rather happy with the training that I got. That being said, my 'trainer' at Werner went to Roadmaster and I was surprised that he was not able to straight-line back. There seemed to other gaps in his training also. That may just have been him but I would not recommend Roadmaster to anyone.

I am with RedGator, I have problems between 1 and 5 am. Outside of those times I have no problems with falling asleep at the wheel even with a lack of sleep.

But now I am on a run that is overnight, every night

I have learned a few things that help:

1) Food. Candy, peanuts, Granola bars. Little things that I can munch on while driving. I can't fall asleep while eating so this keep my body busy. I do try not to overdo it. I don't need the extra pounds.

2) Soda and water, I take soda with me for the caffeine and to wash down the peanuts. Water keeps me hydrated. Plus when you are leaning forward to grab the can out of the cupholder (one, more to the passenger side? comeone Peterbuilt!), then a sip, then putting it back can help to keep my eyes from closing.

3) Music, stuff I can sing along to. If I get really sleepy I may start to tap my foot.

4) Cold air, I roll down the window, it's cold out right now (especially at 3 in the morning) and the blast will wake me for a bit.

5) Sleep, on my route I have a place to pull over for a nap every 50 miles. Once I need to start doing the things above, it is time to stop for 30 minutes.

I can relate, I am just so glad that I had several friends take the test before me and tell me the pitfalls of why people get turned away. The biggest reason (at least here in AZ) was lack of a valid birth certificate. Several people had an unofficial birth record like the one that I had been using for years. If you are over 40 there is a good chance that you need to get an official record from your state.

I am surprised to see how many people say not to flash the brights considering how often people do it to me. I also hate that because of the number of times that I have been looking at the right west coast mirror and been blinded. I will turn the headlights on and off quickly (I have a flash switch in my Pete) to signal when it is safe to come over. As for me not signally for people to come over? I only will tell you that it is safe when it's safe. You come over early or without a signal and you probably won't get the headlight signal from me.

Thank God for dash cams!

No kidding! Without it that driver would be in trouble instead of showing his mad skills.

Days 3 to 5,

Settling into the routine, it's a little hard for me to run the night shift because I preferred running in the day but it is nice not having to deal with so much traffic. The woman that I am meeting every night has not showed up before 2:30 so I know that I can go in late most nights. I do sometimes pickup from a DC and those nights I need to show up on time.

But it is so nice to be home on the weekends instead of doing shag runs or sitting at a truck stop waiting for loads.

In the real world, when do you use offset parking?

Mark

I felt that it was an exercise to get us thinking about how much we need to move the tractor to get the trailer where we want it. That being said, I have actually used it when the shipper came out an told me they meant to say dock 15 instead of 14

Well...waiting would be fine with me...IF I got paid for it....But if you are running cpm...you need to talk with someone who can see why the other driver is late. But you do this in the most professional of ways...smile and all

yep, this is a cpm gig. But it has only been two days so far and the other driver has had excuses both nights. we will see how it goes tonight, especially since this is the first night that I will have to work on the next night. In other words, tomorrow morning I have to go home and get enough sleep for the next night.

Day 2

This was a repeat of Friday night. I am wondering if the driver that I meet is going to be late every night.

Just to clear up some things for those that haven't heard about pony express runs. Every night I check out my truck, pick up a loaded trailer (usually already at the terminal) and drive 200 miles out. When I get to the truck stop, I switch trailers with a driver coming from the other direction and go back home. Grand total of 7 to 8 hours of driving a night. Waiting 4 hours for the other driver is not supposed to be part of the job.

Ours likes to say colorado driver instead of co driver. Montana'a abbreviation of MT makes it say empty. And to hear the thing try to pronounce mexican names, puerto. pooerto lolololol

I loved when I hit St. Louis because she would say street loo. I thought she was telling me of an English public restroom. Our Dallas terminal is on Peterbilt ave. but she pronounces Peter with the short 'e'. I don't understand because she can pronounce Tucson correctly.