What Are The Rules For Posting Here?

Oscar, I'm not a vet in this industry yet, I'm new, and was you about 4 months ago. The only differences were I had some experience in what the lifestyle was.

Exactly what has been said here. I can tell you this, in training your not going to have the time or ability to think about what is goo for you to eat. You need to be learning, making sure nothing is waiting in you, and doing all you can to stay safe. You may not think about trucking accidents now, just sit behind the wheel for one hour in the road. It is nothing like driving your personal vehicle. I spend almost every waking moment thinking about how do I prevent an accident from happening when those wheels are rolling, even if they roll under 5mph.

The rest of the time I'm thinking about how do I get better at the aspects of the job I'm not so good at.

If there is anytime left I run in grab whatever food and drink I can and then sleep.

I hope this helps you understand. I'm not goi g to say that if I have a moment I may think about the things I want in my truck or how I'm going to live in it. But that does not last long. I remind myself I can think of those things once I prove myself. This is very much an industry where you need to prove you can do it. It's not something you just jump into and can get by.

Oscar Graham defends himself:

I have not been yet formally trained and educated about this job.

Correct no formal training yet. However your education started when I sent you the below links, over a week ago...

• Truck Driver's Career Guide
• Brett's Book: The Raw Truth About Trucking (free online version)
• High Road Training Program

Have you read any of them? If so...what are your thoughts?

That plus the replies that myself and the others have made is all about educating you, giving you some reality in what I and others are concluding from your posts. I stand by what I said thus far, my replies to your posts are educating others, not you.

Take it or leave it. As they say on Shark Tank, I'm out.

And Oscar,...I highly suggest reading Charlie Mac's thread: A Motorcycle, two dogs and new underwear. It's near the top so you don't need to dig for it.

I'll just add that even the most well planned trip can get ruined or have major surprises. Blowouts, accidents, reefer or securmemt problems. You name it.

There is no way to expect the day...each day is completely different with different challenges, detours, customer problems.

You want to know who can make it? Those who are flexible.

G-Town, Rainy-D, Brett, Patrick and everybody else here:

Here is my promise on my own future grave:

I won't dare start any NEW threads here until I have read:

Truck Driver's Career Guide Brett's Book: The Raw Truth About Trucking (free online version) High Road Training Program

PLUS

Charlie Mac's thread: A Motorcycle, two dogs and new underwear

You can all hold my feet to the fire on this one.

Perhaps, most if not all of my personal concerns will be covered in the readings above. Perhaps, I should have read everything and did all my homework before getting diarrhea of the PC mouse and keyboard here.

Having been a semi (5-ton/class 5/ diesel/airbrakes) driver in the army as well as a motor pool mechanic, I did learn to use the Johnny bar on the steering column to override the tractor brakes when going down hill to prevent a jackknife. The trailer's brakes only apply and hold the tractor back so as not to push the tractor down hill. My section sergeant also told his soldiers that by habitually using the Johnny bar, the tractor's service brakes get saved from wear as the trailer will often belong to a customer outside the section. Wear his brakes out not your own! The army 5-ton trucks had no Jake brakes, however. Not even a blower!

My apologies for long winded threads....now, off to reading I go!

Oscar's expectations:

I was expecting to hear from those with first-hand experience. If one has been driving for a couple years, i figure those people can easily say what exactly is out there along the routes and what is not.

And this is what you will get on Trucking Truth. If anyone starts a sentence with "I hear that ...", that's red meat for us to question veracity. You certainly can post things you hear about, but if it's too far off the mark, many of us will explain things for you.

The disconnect, Oscar, is the "diva" thinking of things your are concerned about - food, cell phones, and so on. As you get into this career, you will have to come up with your own smartphone, your own food plan, and so on.

You will get almost 100% "experience" in your answers. I suggest you might wait a bit in asking some questions until you see what they say in your CDL class.

Oscar, it is good to ask questions, but most of your questions are based on the trivial.

Which cell phone. Pick one that suits you. Just understand that you will be using it ALOT. Verizon and Cricket are about the best choices for completely unlimited plans. T-mobile has a lot of dead spots. (I used to have them before I started trucking). Straight talk can be efficient, but you will run out of data quickly. Then it will slow to speeds that makes dialup from the 90s a good idea. To get the highest data plan at straight talk is around $65. Cricket for unlimited everything (no throttling) is $70. If you do automatic bill pay, Cricket will take $5 off. Whether you go will metroPCS, Cricket, Straighttalk, Family Mobile (Walmart brand, but uses T-Mobile), T-mobile, AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint is all up to you. Find out which best suits YOUR needs and budget.

Meal planning. You are the captain of your ship. Also in charge of your own diet and health. Decide what you want to eat then be creative and figure out the how. There are 12v cooking appliances ranging from heating coils that go in drinks, to heated pitchers, coffee pots, crockpots, lunchbox ovens, small skillets, rice cookers, popcorn maker/saucepan combos, etc.. if you can have an inverter installed that opens up your opportunities to a host of small appliances. You are truly only limited by what you are willing to spend and how creative you can get.

There is no cookie cutter way of accomplishing what needs done. Everyone needs to figure it out and find their own path. That is the beauty of this profession. You are, for the most part, left to your own devices. You have to figure out you. I will use the analogy of while I was on flight status in the Army. You have a kit bag. It represents the methods you accomplish different tasks. As you encounter new people and there way of doing things, if you like it, you place that knowledge in your kit bag. As you come up with your own way or modify someone's else method, you place it in your kit bag. If someone's method doesn't work for you, you pull it out of your kit bag and throw it away. In the end, all that matters is a task gets done as efficiently and safely as possible.

Drive Safe and God Speed.

G-Town, Rainy-D, Brett, Patrick and everybody else here:

Here is my promise on my own future grave:

I won't dare start any NEW threads here until I have read:

Truck Driver's Career Guide Brett's Book: The Raw Truth About Trucking (free online version) High Road Training Program

PLUS

Charlie Mac's thread: A Motorcycle, two dogs and new underwear

You can all hold my feet to the fire on this one.

Perhaps, most if not all of my personal concerns will be covered in the readings above. Perhaps, I should have read everything and did all my homework before getting diarrhea of the PC mouse and keyboard here.

Having been a semi (5-ton/class 5/ diesel/airbrakes) driver in the army as well as a motor pool mechanic, I did learn to use the Johnny bar on the steering column to override the tractor brakes when going down hill to prevent a jackknife. The trailer's brakes only apply and hold the tractor back so as not to push the tractor down hill. My section sergeant also told his soldiers that by habitually using the Johnny bar, the tractor's service brakes get saved from wear as the trailer will often belong to a customer outside the section. Wear his brakes out not your own! The army 5-ton trucks had no Jake brakes, however. Not even a blower!

My apologies for long winded threads....now, off to reading I go!

Oscar Grant The 3rd,you made a promise to Brett and everyone else on here. I do not believe that you've read everything that you "promised you would" or you couldn't possibly still be rambling on the way that you have been good sir.

Yes, there are morbidly obese truck drivers. I won't go so far and to say they're bad, but they're certainly not usually who you should be taking as an example of the industry.

But to help answer your questions about food, electronics, all that, let's take a look at what you have available on the truck(keeping in mind that there are trucks that have more than this, this is just an example of 'worst case scenario' set-ups): 2 12-volt 'cigarette lighter' type outlets up front, one additional in the back. Access to the battery. Two cupboards/closets, two shelves.

That would be pretty bare bones, but it's entirely possible that's what you'd end up with, and unless you own the truck and have it built exactly to your liking, you'll always want more, which is why truckers get creative. Back in the day drivers would go so far as to use the heat off their engine to cook, so really it's quite a vast improvement.

Not the right thread, but I don't feel like reading through your posts a second time to find the right one, but for food on the road it varies. If you have time you can find just about anything you want, keeping in mind that if you have time you're also likely making less money. So, let's pretend you are on a rather tight schedule, sticking to big parking lots and truck stops. Your options at truck stops are fast food, gas station food(though I find it to be of better quality than your corner gas station), and sometimes a sit-down restaurant. Prices are going to be higher because of the convenience for truck drivers, so to save money and eat better, quite a few drivers will get a fridge(there goes one of your 12-volt outlets) to use to store food they get from Walmart or other big box stores and cook(and there's another 12-volt outlet) in something like a crock pot or lunchbox stove.

While I applaud people who have the confidence to not need a GPS, it's pretty much a reality of the industry these days that they're needed. Whoops, there goes your last 12-volt outlet! And you haven't even plugged in your phone charger or the increasingly necessary dash cam yet! Being creative is a big part of this, if only for power management.

Needing to have things planned out might be great or a burden in this job, and realistically both depending on the day. On the start of a long load you'd be in paradise as a good, detailed trip plan will show you exactly where you'll be for days! But coming to the end of that trip you may end up going crazy because you'll have no idea even what state you'll be in the next day. Eventually, assuming you ever get into this industry, you might be able to move into a dedicated account that is far more predictable. My company has some that have some variety other than back and forth between the same two places, but with enough predictability that you should be able to know what's going to happen long in advance, but that's just not how OTR works.