Something That Bothers Me

but if someone has to hold their hand and be told to do stuff step by step and they don't have the ability to think for themselves then trucking may not be the job for them.

Whaaaa? What if the instructor/trainer had said, "Take this next right turn." Would the trainee have rolled the truck as he blew through the stop sign turning at full speed??

What a dummy . . . I think that's a perfect example of someone who shouldn't be driving a small building on wheels (I think Daniel or Brett describes the big trucks that way).

Jopa

Sounds like a person listening to a navigator. When it gives you the directions, you still have to obey the traffic lights and signs. That would not be a very valid defense when getting your traffic ticket.

All right, maybe this will get a nicer response. I wanted to make everyone mad at me and think that I was a jerk. I try to anger people and make them take everything I say so completely literally that it turns into something I didn't mean at all.

Please note the sarcasm font on my previous message...

Seriously guys. At one point there were no fewer than 80 trucks slid off the road on one stretch of highway! I guess they thought they could do it and then they couldn't.

Guyjax, the guy that drove off into the green, likely wasn't paying attention, fell asleep or hit some wind. Or had some sort of mechanical trouble that caused that. Our company just had a rollover because a guy looked away for a moment and didn't start turning soon enough. Then tried to turn anyways and flipped over.

I just want people to be aware of their own limits and don't push it too hard. I am sick of rescuing loads. "Oh I hit a patch of black ice and slid off" "The wind was stronger than I thought" Or whatever excuse they had. I don't know about other companies but this one will drive you nuts with weather messages. FM's will send you shut downs based on the reports they get. They tell you about all the accidents, the csa points, weather, roads, routes, and more things than you ever thought you could use.

Maybe some people out there don't have those niceties but this company you can't say you didn't know what you were getting into. I had no fewer than four messages in one hour telling me that there were patches of black ice on the road I was going to be on in the next hour.

I won't dare to contradict anything anyone else says on here because I got chewed for this one. Run however you think you should. Thanks for getting me through the schooling and for the tips that I gleaned from this very same forum. I don't think people disregard safety but a lot of them aren't thinking about it as much as they should. I'm not saying anyone in particular on this site isn't. But for those newer people, they need to think about it. For the old timers, they shouldn't get too comfortable and lax. Murphy's law can happen to anyone.

That's all you had to say - make sure you put safety first always. Simple as that. Don't implicate TruckingTruth for not talking about it enough. Don't blame "most drivers" for "disregarding safety". Just simply say "safety first always" and we all say "Amen to that!!!!"

The day that I am referring to is January 8th on the I 70 in Il. My final total for that day was 80 four wheelers and 67 big rigs (there goes my dyslexia again, I can't stand numbers. They just won't stay where I put them). I had to look it up on facebook but that day set it in my mind that a lot of drivers drive out of their skill set. A lot of them aren't being as safe as they should be. I know there was one wreck where it looks like the second big rig was following too close. He didn't have a cab anymore. The whole cab and engine compartment would have fit on the front seats of my truck. If that driver survived he/she should thank their lucky stars. I don't see how they could have but who knows. The snow wasn't white near that truck...

It breaks my heart to see these people hurt, for whatever reason it is. When I go pick up a load, I take something hot to drink and some sandwiches to give to the driver who has to sit by the busted truck and wait for the tow. I saw one trailer at the tow yard on one of my pick up that was literally twisted like a candy cane. That takes some force to do that.

I am not saying the majority of drivers, or a massive amount of drivers. I am saying a lot of drivers. More than a few. Too many. Even one driver getting too close to walking that path you don't come back from, is too many.

Ill say this. This winter caught alot of ppl off guard. We are drivers. We typically drive in things others wont. Ive pushed myself from time to time. Never with the intention of being unsafe but hey it happens. I happened upon a white out on a clear stretch of 80 in WY wind was whipping up the fallen snow and it looked like I was driving in the clouds. One minute it was nice and sunny and the next I couldn't see ish. Wasnt anything I could do but gear down and try to make it out. Couldnt tell the shoulder from the road. Point being is this. No one sets out to kill themselves. Sometimes its as plain as they just dont know there own limits or their reaction to someone elses actions wasnt on point. It takes a simple misstep and your whole day is ruined.

I'll add a question to this. At what point is it to bad to drive?

I've driven through monsoon rains in Florida with no issue. Cautiously crossed missive hills& mountains only to find otherrigs in the dditch. Even though I was not sliding. And what about days when you wake up, see nasty snow and ice, to only to have clean dry pavement 5 miles down the road. kind of hard to know the best course of action.

I got a question for anyone who wants to comment. I live in Truckee on the Donner Pass (I-80) where we watch it snow sometimes like you've never seen anywhere else in the country (average snowfall for the winter is 42 feet - record so far is 72 feet winter of '51-'52). I once drove to North Dakota in the spring time and I witnessed first hand what RedGator was describing in Wyoming. It was such a whiteout and looked so bleak you felt like the whole world had disappeared and you were the only one left on the planet. That same trip, I (more accurately, we) was/were headed back to California by way of Montana and we got more spring snow crossing I-8. There were literally cars along both shoulders in the ditch - at least one per mile - and I was crawling along in our little red Ugly-Bug (which VW's were no stranger to winter travel) and these big rigs were blowing by us at 60+ MPH without a care in the world. The road was pure white and icy as all get out and I was terrified - especially of getting run over by those trucks. Now, being from the California mountains, I am no stranger to tire chains and it is axiomatic that when in shows here, your gonna wear chains, like it or not. My question is, do truckers use the chains as an option other places? You have no choice in California cause CalTrans sets up manned stations with CHP sitting there and you ain't going past w/o chains. I think if I were crossing Montana (or Wyoming) in those conditions, I would pull over and put them on for traction. I used to be a "chain ape" so I can install chains correctly in my sleep and when they are done right there is no "Clank, slop, clank" noise as they slap against the bottom of the trailer. I feel for those truckers who have to listen to that noise for forty miles and damage the trailer sometimes because they don't know anything about the proper installation of those gig 'ole hunks of metal. So any comments about optionally installed chains in bad weather? To me it seems obvious but I'm used to vertical where you won't go anywhere if you don't have 'em. When it's mostly horizontal, I don't know what the rules are.

Jopa

Actually that driver that drove into the middle of the highway on the grass during a bright and sunny and I will add dry day went off the road to avoid stuff that was laying in the road but did not correct back in time and the shoulder of the road grabbed him and instead of forcing the issue and possibly over turning he stayed straight once he left the road as you are supposed to do.

Although the pic looks bad the driver had safety on his mind by avoiding trash in the road and when that went seriously bad he kept the truck up right.

All those cars and trucks that you counted ,while someone them....Most of them messed up cause they were doing something other than driving, a lot ended up there because they were trying to avoid something even worse.

Don't let this one post scare ya off from post and voicing an opinion. We all have them. I can't count the times me and Brett have be at odds over a posting. Many many times but the main point is you push through it.

I don't care if people disagree with me or not. That is their right just like it's their right to be wrong for disagreeing with me. But don't let this post be your last. This is how we learn. Even if this post did not go exactly the way you intended it to the main point still got across and that is all that matters in the end.

There are a lot of Type 1 personalities in trucking and put that together with an Alpha type types and through in a big mixture of Intervert and you have a strong willed person which is exactly what it takes sometimes to push through the hardest parts of trucking.