Profile For Dead Money

Remember most of the loonies you associate with California are actually born in other states and moved to California.

We wouldn’t look so crazy if y’all would stop exporting your village idiots.

After 4 weeks of phase 1 training, with a trainer who in my opinion didn’t give much training other than drive straight forward. I was assigned to a truck as 2nd seat. The 1st seat is 5 months into his 9 month contract. 9 month because of his military background. So I struggle with backing because of the lack of training and I guess this annoys the 1st seat. Two weeks into this adventure he explodes over something amazingly insignificant.

We are parked at a rest stop east of St. Louis on I-64. There was a Amber light out on the passenger side of the trailer that I noticed the day before. So to start my pre-trip inspection I turned on the 4 ways, and looked in the right side mirror. Before I had a chance to get out of the truck 1st seat informs me I can’t see the light on the right side because that side doesn’t have the skirt. My response was, no, I can’t see the light because the light has a flush mount cover, not a dome shape cover.

He proceeds to rant about how I shouldn’t question a 1st seat, and after all, I clearly didn’t know how to back up the truck. He then listed everything he felt like I had done wrong during the 2 weeks. Clearly he had been keeping score.

At that point I simply said, ok we are done. I called the driver manager weekend fill in guy and told him, I was getting off the truck. His interest was only in getting the load to its destination. Since the 1st seat had just finished his shift, he was out of hours until midnight, while I had enough hours to complete the delivery that shift. I gave the DM an option, I’ll deliver the load if he informs the 1st seat to remain silent until the load is delivered, and I have left the truck.

After 3 hours of waiting for a response, I gathered up my belongings, and exited the truck and went into the rest stop. I ended up calling Uber to get me to the St Louis airport, where I rented a car and drove back home in Atlanta.

On Monday I contacted the regular DM and to my surprise, I was not fired, and even more of a surprise, I was assigned to a truck as 1st seat with another driver who had 2 weeks of experience.

Right out of the gate we were assigned loads from Georgia to Florida, Florida to Washington, Washington to California, California to Florida, and finally Florida back to Georgia for pre-scheduled home time.

Since the new guy had even less experience backing than I did, I tried to schedule unloading to happen on my shift, and daytime shift change parking to happen on his shift.

The result is, I got a lot more practice backing up the truck, and have been able to make the connection between what I see in the mirrors, to what I need the steering wheel to do to achieve the desired results.

At this point, I simply look in the drivers mirror, and steer the tandems to the desired position in the box. Experience now tells me what problems I can solve while backing, and which requires a pull up to solve.

So here I am, 8 weeks into this adventure with a partner 4 weeks into his, and we are getting the job done.

Now I just need to get comfortable enough to really sleep while he is driving.

The funniest part is how different we are in every possible way.

I’m a California “kid”, while he’s 100% New York City, my background is in software development, he’s learning how to use notepad on his iPhone. Etc, etc.

When Chuck Norris gets drunk, he doesn’t throw up... he throws DOWN.

No pics of previous dog on this phone :(

Hmmm no pic uploaded!!!

No pics of previous dog on this phone :(

I have a few concerns however; I'm aware that CR England trains on only automatics and at the end of training you'll have an only automatic restriction on your license, would this help or hinder me in the short term?

In CR England’s job listing, there are some positions requiring manual transmissions skills. They seem to be day cab type jobs. Maybe those only go to the vets, or those trained outside of England. Recent training didn’t have an option of manual transmission. Maybe at specific schools, just not where I went.

The rest of your backing skills you will develop once you go solo, and that takes several months to a year to become even halfway decent.

They risked their lives, give up their personal space, and take on a huge pile of responsibilities helping you get your career underway and for all of that you show no appreciation whatsoever?

Everything the trainer gives up or risks, the trainee does as well, and the trainer is financially well compensated for it.

I felt at risk because the trainer was constantly speeding (hard to imagine that in a truck governed to 62mph) and constantly had the cell phone in his had while driving.

While “sleeping” the curtain was closed, so communication was rare. I say sleeping in quotes because I heard a lot of phone calls to what sounded like girlfriend(s). When he was driving, again curtain was closed, and phone calls continued.

Also, I was assigned strictly to the top bunk, even while he was driving. I now know that was against company policy, if not outright illegal.

As for others “knowing” how much training I received because I passed my cdl, that smacks of some serious arrogance. Without knowing what tests I passed, and what knowledge I had before entering the school, you can’t possibly “know” how much I was taught.

Straight back was simple about keeping the tractor in front of the trailer. What they didn’t teach in that section was keeping the truck centered between the cones.

Offset, and parallel was about seeing the proper cones in the mirrors, turn until you see the right amount of landing gear in the mirror, then getting the tractor in from of the trailer.

The only thing we got with alley dock was to jackknife the truck until the tandems stopped rolling, then keep backing while straightening the truck.

First time I tried to alley doc with my trainer, he freaked out thinking I was about to break his truck, while I was just waiting for the tandems to stop rolling.

His teaching was to put me into remote control mode, but nothing about why each turn was made. I was supposed to magically know what he was looking at.

The only “practice” time I received was when I arrived at a destination (truck stop or customer) while he was still sleeping. Again against company policy, since I wasn’t supposed to leave the interstate without supervision.

Now I’m assigned to a team truck, where I can produce miles, but parking is an adventure, since almost all legal parking places are filled, and those not filled require more skill than I possess.

So to get 30 min breaks, I find myself as one of the masses on the side of an onramp. Transition from driver to driver tends to happen at the fuel island.

As for safe driving, I’ve got 30 years of LA driving under my belt without a scratch, or a ticket. Patience, and defensive driving skills I’ve developed on my own.

If anything, my misconception is not realizing in trucking, parking is the Wild West, where anything goes, and time is the only currency that matters.

In my case, the trainer had me driving the interstates until I was just about out of drive time, so I had very little time to learn backing

This is a common misconception that new drivers have. Rarely will a trainer give students much in the way of backing practice. First of all, you've already had a ton of practice and training in the first phase of your training to get your CDL.

The purpose of training on the road is to teach you the basics of navigation, communication with your company, payroll, fueling, and other procedures of that nature. So giving you a lot of seat time cruising the open Interstates is the best thing a trainer can do for you. They're getting you experience in a lower stress environment, which is what you need at that point.

So, yeah he’s teaching, by negative example.

I think that's an unfair statement. Your trainer taught you quite a bit, I'm sure, and he/she deserves a hell of a lot more credit that some terse statement like that. They risked their lives, give up their personal space, and take on a huge pile of responsibilities helping you get your career underway and for all of that you show no appreciation whatsoever?

First off, you have no idea if I had a ton of backing or not. I however lived the event and know that before my cdl test I was given a total of 3 attempts to execute the alley doc. With the first attempt the teacher was standing by the window telling us which way to turn the wheel etc. what wasn’t said was why we were turning that direction at that moment. Nothing said about what to look for other than the first movement was to continue until the tandems would stop rolling. Anytime someone complained the TEACHER would say something like, hey I got my CDL, it’s not up to me to make sure you get yours. While on the surface it is true, he is our resource to be able to pass the test. Consider out of the 9 people to take the test on the day I did, only 2 passed, so the teaching wasnt getting the job done.

So, if teaching isn’t going to get us backing time, and training time isn’t going to get backing time, we get to learn backing while making the guy on the doc wait. One guy said if he were to wait any more, he would reschedule our 6am appointment to 4pm.

I considered taking some time of my home time between phase 1, and phase 2 to get more time on the backing range. But time is limited, between testing, and teaching the new guys what little we got, there was no opportunity to get more practice.

So yes, I’m learning by trial and error where mistakes are potentially costly.

The one thing that saves me, is I won’t move the truck unless I know doing so won’t hit anything.

I’ve seen video that breaks down the backing process, I just don’t get a chance to try it out is an empty area.

The amazing thing is we are pretty much corralled into being a trainer after 6 months.

So if I’m going to be the solution rather than part of the problem, I’m going to have to hunt down what I’m supposed to know, and how best to teach that.

I doubt I’m going to get that info by mainly turning miles.

Each new chapter, new challenge, I try to find someone I work with to use as a mentor. Try to pick his brain and learn everything I can. When I'm done with CDL School I pray I find a trainer that is a good man or woman to learn from. I've read some of the stories on here. I get it...some that think they got stuck with the biggest prick in the world, realized later how much they learned...some just have different ways of doing things.

In my case the trainer was fine as a person, just was lacking communication skills required to be a teacher.

Also it appears the company sets up the teachers incentives in a way that conflicts with the students interests.

In my case, the trainer had me driving the interstates until I was just about out of drive time, so I had very little time to learn backing.

I was out on the training truck 29 days, and completed 13000 clean miles.

The instructor however was the one to receive a speeding ticket.

Since he picked up a new student, there has been some kind of accident in a Walmart parking lot, and the trainer is now at the hospital due to being hit in the eye by the landing gear crank.

So, yeah he’s teaching, by negative example.