I Need Help With A Short Girl Problem

I work with a driver who is 4'11" tall. She is the senior most driver on the Walmart account and surpassed 700,000 miles last month. Currently she is in an automatic, but the past six years a 10-speed manual.

I typically see her once per week, when she is coming in and I am headed out...I will ask her how she adjusted her chair to reach the controls.

I am 5'1 and about 150 pounds. I just graduated school the end of November. I also had the same issues as your wife. My instructor suggested I used a boat seat cushion or any other type of pillow. They are allowed when u test or at least here in Wisconsin it is. I managed to make itvthruvthe whole 5 weeks. She can also try and lower the seat so her feet are flat on the floor. I hope it all works out for her.

My wife and I were in truck driving school together at Crowder College but today they made her withdraw from the class. We were in a four week program. She wants to come back in February to try again in a five week program they have. She is 5'1 and about 135 pounds. She pulls up so close to the steering wheel that when she shift gears she needs to sort of reach back and around and that causes her to turn the wheel whenever she has to shift gears. She also had problems with the clutch because she had a hard time pressing in it all the way. I'm going to finish up the four week program and get started with CFI, and she plans to return to Crowder again to try once more. So the question is, do any of you know of away to over come the problems she's having from being short?

We need a Hall of Fame for topic titles. "I need help with a short girl problem" is right there with "I Don't Have A Job!"

I drive for may. They plan on having all automatic fleet by summer 2017.

Apparently I too have a short girl problem. Virtually all of my steady girlfriends up to and including my late wife have been under or just above five feet tall. LOL

JJ

We need a Hall of Fame for topic titles. "I need help with a short girl problem" is right there with "I Don't Have A Job!"

I totally agree! I suddenly remembered an old girlfriend who was 4'11" when I saw this topic. Hadn't thought of her for years.

Lyght, when I was a kid, my neighbor was a truck driver I knew only as Shorty. He was about 4'10". His son and I were buddies, and one day when we were about 8 years old we got in his truck that was parked outside their house. Shorty sat on two thick telephone books and a cushion, and had 12" wood blocks attached to all of the pedals. This was a cabover truck in the '70s so probably the seats are a little more adjustable now. I'm not sure if he had any alterations to the shifter, but he definitely had modified his seating to make it work.

I have heard there are pedal extensions. I don't know where to buy them or if they're allowed during testing.

I would think a pillow or 2 might help.

West Side Transport has a fully automatic fleet, with the exception of the training trucks. They prefer to train in a manual, but in my orientation class we were certainly asked if anyone had a restriction requiring an automatic. At that time they did have a trainer in an automatic but I'm not sure if it was because she was new at training and they hadn't changed her truck yet.

If you live in the Midwest and interested in checking them out, it wouldn't hurt to call them and ask.

Hello everyone. I am the short girl in question! Thank you for all your help and feedback. I plan on taking some time to recuperate and give the program another try. I will ask about the automatic trucks, though I would rather not have that restriction on my license because my husband prefers driving a manual.

With the pedal extensions how hard are those to swap out? We were wanting to team drive so any adjustments needed for her to drive would either have to work for both of us or be some what easy/fast to be able to change them out and put them back during our pre and post trips.

Hey Stacie, I've seen some really vertically challenged Ladies out here doing this. You can do this, don't get yourself defeated in your mind before you've started working out the basics.

I think (just my opinion here) that driving a big rig is so intimidating at first, that it may just be the overwhelming total experience that is throwing you a curve.

When shifting properly that shifter should slip right into position with very little effort. It sounds like you are really trying to push hard on it just to get it into the next gear, and that is more than likely what is making you turn the wheel. If you place the blame of the issues you're having on the wrong thing it will be that much more difficult to correct.

There is some critical timing going on inside that transmission that has to be picked up on so that you can shift with ease. It is not easy for anyone at first, but probably even more challenging for someone having trouble reaching everything.

When you go back, pay special attention to what the instructor says about engine RPMs and road speeds as they relate to shifting. I also recommend you ask the instructor to drive foe a little while and let you observe them shifting. Listen to the sounds of the engine. It will rise and fall (the RPMS) easily and almost identically with each gear change.

I think paying attention to the sounds of the engine when someone proficient is driving it will help you get a feel for how it should sound when you are shifting. Most new drivers rev the engine way too high before they shift which causes them to have to put too much pressure on the shifter because it won't naturally fall into place until the RPMs drop to the proper speed.

I realize this is all theoretical at this point, but if you can grasp how it sounds when it's done properly, I think it will help you tremendously.

I'm pretty sure that once you start feeling your way into that proper shifting rhythm you'll realize petite ladies can handle this just as well, or maybe better, than a big old burly brute.