Student Driver

I have a Ram 2500 diesel as my personal vehicle. I used to start in 2nd all the time. At least till I had to change the clutch. Now I always start out in 1st. Just scale that up.

If you do start in a lower gear, the added time and lower fuel mileage are invisible. Start in the lower gears, and never stall out!

...when I'm taking a turn I tend to take it slow and my trainers saying that I can't take it at that speed...

I don't know much about 10 speeds as I drive an automated, but as far as I know, you can never take a turn too slow. If you're comfortable with taking it slower, then by all means, take it slower. If you're in the drivers seat, YOU are in control of the truck, not your trainer, not the guy behind you yelling at you on the CB, not the 4 wheeler telling you you're number 1 (flipping you the bird). You're the captain of your ship, remember that.

No offense to 6 String or anyone else, but I've never understood the skipping gears thing. When I started with this company, the guy I rode with for a day was telling me that when I got back in driving shape (I'd been out of a truck for a few months), I could skip gears "both up and down" to save fuel. He also wanted me to upshift faster for better mpg.

I "got" shifting pretty quickly when I started out, and have floated on both up and down shifts since I was in TNT. I never quite understood why I was being coached on when to upshift. It goes fast and I don't see a big difference between shifting at 1200 or 1250 or 1300, although I suppose those 100 rpms make some difference in fuel mileage in the long run. But usually I only start out from a dead stop a handful of times each day. Why should I obsess about that when I get it good enough and would rather spend time thinking about whether someone is going to do something stupid and run into my truck as I'm pulling out into traffic?

I also didn't understand why I was told that I should be skipping gears to save fuel. How does that save fuel, seriously? Lots of engineers at lots of different companies have spent countless hours and effort figuring out how to build a solid transmission that will last a million miles under heavy loads. In their wisdom, they have incremented the gears the way they have. I think I'll drive the truck that way. It works as designed.

After a month of driving, my truck is fourth in our shop for mileage, even though it has more miles on it than all but one. Yes, the guy who was telling me this is first or second all the time, but he has a new day cab. How am I going to beat a truck that is six years newer on fuel mileage? And again, I want to do as good as I can to help cut costs, but I'm not going to obsess over it when there are other things I can spend time thinking about that will make more money for the company, like how I can run this load to set myself up so I can get one more load in this week.

Brett's right, there's a lot of silly things that drivers can become obsessed with. Who cares, as long as you get the job done safely and efficiently?

In the long run, none of this matters in that everyone will be in an automatic soon :-)

I had a senior driver show me how you can skip from 3rd to 5th, and I have done it ever since. I don't think I'd call it laziness, and I'm certainly not saving any time in doing so, it's just one less step and I find it's easier. I don't know about skipping any other gears, I've only learned and mastered how to skip from 3rd-5th. I suppose it's most handy when merging from an on ramp where you have to come to a complete stop before you can get started to merge onto the highway.

Skipping gears is like when you skip steps on a stairway. Skipping a step puts a but more stress on the "stepping" leg, but you really get up at about the same speed anyway. And if you are carrying a heavy load, you certainly need every step to get up there.

As for "saving fuel", consider this: drive from downtown St. Louis to downtown Atlanta. Of those 500 miles, how many miles are in any gear lower than your top gear? It's really microscopic so any special shifting to "save fuel" isn't worth it.

I find myself starting out in 2nd and skipping to 4th gear often. But I mostly do it out of boredom honestly.

Skipping gears is like when you skip steps on a stairway. Skipping a step puts a bit more stress on the "stepping" leg, but you really get up at about the same speed anyway. And if you are carrying a heavy load, you certainly need every step to get up there.

I agree with this completely. Skipping gears isn't going to accomplish anything other than skipping a gear. It won't give you better mileage or anything, and in fact could either force you to over-rev the lower gear, or lug the motor in the higher gear, hurting your mileage in the end, for what tiny bit it's going to effect it anyhow.

If you just don't feel like hitting all the gears then you can skip one, but Errol's analogy is dead on. It does have the same effect on the truck as skipping a stair has on a person's legs.

Now if I was rolling downhill and I was loaded heavy and the truck wanted to accelerate on its own I would skip a gear once in a while simply because the truck was doing the accelerating on its own. Hitting all the gears might actually hold the truck back a little in that instance.

Since we're on this type of subject, here's another one I always thought was odd. The whole "being out of gear means you're out of control" thing. I never understood that line of thinking when it came to rolling to a stop. Like anytime I was coming to a stop sign or traffic light I would kick it out of gear and coast to a stop. That's an automatic fail on a road test, and of course you would never do that going down a mountain grade or anything. But to coast to a stop? I never saw anything wrong with it.

In fact, I used to laugh because that's exactly what automatic transmissions do, at least the ones I drove a number of years ago. They would downshift to 6th and then kick it into neutral all the way to a stop. I used to laugh to myself and say, "ooooh nooooo.........I'm out of controooool!"

For fun I had always wanted to ask a safety director about that. If being out of gear means I'm out of control, then why are your trucks sending us out of control every time we come to a stop? Obviously there's no answer for that so I never bothered to ask. But knocking it out of gear and coasting to a stop was always one of those things I did.

Actually, driving with two feet was always one of those things I did, too, even in a car. In fact, literally the first time I ever drove a car was on the way home from getting my permit. I was 16, and I drove with two feet. My dad says to me, "Hey, you're only supposed to use one foot, not both." I was like, "What sense does that make? There's two pedals and I have two feet. Why would I only use one foot for both? I can react a lot faster and it's more comfortable this way."

He said, "I don't know, but that's what they want you to do."

So when I took my road test I drove with one foot. That's the only time I've done that in my life.

You're the captain of your ship, remember that

This above statement is the truest statement in trucking in my opinion. Just as with my topic on here about the safest areas of the country I care to run in. Ultimately anytime, you are the captain of that ship. Only you know if you feel safe doing something. No one else does. ALWAYS take the safer road, whether its in life or in trucking. If you stay in the safe road, you will have a lot less problems out here. As Master Yoda says: "Safe you must be in everything you do".

That's the one thing with my trainer he said first day I got on his truck safety first and now he wants me to floor the pedal and says that we need to go faster and it's certain areas that are narrower that I see and down shift to 9th or when I can't see to much road and think theirs a down hill or down grade I tend to slow it to 9th and usually at 50 mph and he says that I shouldn't be doing that and to upshift and take it in 10th

You're the captain of your ship, remember that

This above statement is the truest statement in trucking in my opinion. Just as with my topic on here about the safest areas of the country I care to run in. Ultimately anytime, you are the captain of that ship. Only you know if you feel safe doing something. No one else does. ALWAYS take the safer road, whether its in life or in trucking. If you stay in the safe road, you will have a lot less problems out here. As Master Yoda says: "Safe you must be in everything you do".