I've been a trucker for the last ten years but now I am back home at "Camp Chaos" and I will be working at the Fontana terminal as a safety specialist. I hope now that I'm home I'll have a lot more time for blogging!


Email Me.
I check my email whenever I get a chance.

King Pins
trucker terms
mars pictures
e-trucker
prairie home companion


Blogger Buddies
punkin
comfortably crazy
California Fever

 
Home again after 4 weeks on the road.

Trying to teach someone to drive an 18 wheeler is an interesting job. I had been a trainer 5 years ago before I bought my truck but up till now it was not possible to train students to be a company driver if you owned your tractor. As it turns out my company desperatly needs trainers and we owner operators have been slowly going broke. So being a trainer has great financial benefits. I get paid for all the miles the truck goes whether I am driving or my student. This allows me to just about double my miles.

I thoroughly enjoy training. It is rewarding to see a new driver master the many aspects of this job. First, our trucks have 10 speeds instead of four or five; in fact some trucks have 13 speeds, my truck only has 10. Truck and trailer I am about 75 feet long. When we back up we turn our steering wheel to the right to make the trailer go to the left. It is not somthing you learn in a fifteen minute session. Typically our students are on a truck for 5 to 8 weeks before they get a truck of their own.

My current student is a 50 year old man. He has done many things in his life. He is an expert carpenter. He has been one of those men on a scaffolding 50 stories up on the side of a new building. He is a jack of all trades and he has mastered most of them. So he decides to learn to drive a truck. The first step is truck driving school. Generally truck driving school is desiged to familarize a person with the basics of keeping a truck between the lines and learning how to shift from one gear to the next. The real learning begins after truck driving school. In school you learn how to back a truck up to an imaginary dock, just four red cones set out in a square about 15 feet apart. Crank the steering wheel all the way to the right and back the trailer around till it lines up between the cones...presto you have your "CDL" Commercial Drivers License.

In the real world it doesn't quite work like that.

We pulled up to a company to pick up a load. The sreet dead ended in a cul-de-sac. The building was the last one on the right with a driveway off the cul-de-sac leading to a single dock. The floor height of the warehouse was about four feet above the ground so in order to access our trailer with a forklift required digging out a four feet deep hole next to the building. Then build concrete retaining walls on both sides. Allow about 4 inches clearance on each side and then assume we are talented enough to back our trailer squarely into that hole without hitting either side and end up with our trailer snugly against rubber stops. There is a metal dock plate that extends out into our trailer allowing the forklift to drive right off the warehouse floor right into our trailer and deposit the pallet of goods.

In this case, since the warehouse was the last building at the end of the street on the right hand side, how does one put a trailer into that dock. There was barely enough room to do a hard left U-turn using all of the cul-de-sac just to get turned around. My student took one look and said there was no way he could get that trailer into that dock! So I had to figure a way to do it. Obviously if there was a dock then other trucks were getting into it so I must be able to do it. Thankfully there was another driveway going straight ahead at the end of the cul-de-sac so I pulled up into the driveway and then had to back blind aound to the right and hope my trailer was heading correctly into the narrow dock. I had to get out of the truck several times to see where I was backing because I couldn't see where it was going. If we back our trailer to the left we can look out our window and watch the trailer come around. But to back to the right is what we call a 'blind side back'. Not any fun, even for an experienced driver. Somhow I turned the steering wheel just the right amount and the trailer went right into the dock pretty much the first try. I just got lucky I think. My student got into the truck after I set the brakes and said "boy, if that is the kind of docks I'm supposed to back this trailer into, I'm not so sure I made a good decision to drive truck!" I assured him is wasn't as hard as it looked but it is harder for some drivers than others. He has been on my truck now for almost 4 weeks and he is still havng trouble backing that trailer. He needs to turn the steering to the right so the trailer comes around to the left and he does just the opposite and the trailer heads towards the fence instead of the dock. He gets so furious with himself. Sometimes I just have to keep quiet and let him work out for himself why the trailer is going the wrong way. Meanwhile the forklift driver is waiting on the dock tapping his foot on the floor wondering how long it is going to take the driver to get this trailer into the dock so he can get on with his job. I feel bad for my student but he has to learn how to do this. He can't get off my truck and get his own truck till he can demonstrate his ability to back a trailer between two other tailers, starting from a 45 degree angle to the two trailers. This is the hardest part for students learning to drive a truck.

We have seen some beautiful country these last four weeks. We started from Phoenix Arizona, bounced around the west coast for two weeks then got to Portland Oregon, then to Bend Oregon where Kasey saw us, to Columbus Ohio, to St. Louis Missouri, to Salt Lake City, Utah then back to Denver Colorado, then finally home to southern California where I am taking four days off. My student is visiting his son in Chino Hills.

My strudent has decided to go on a diet while on the truck. I think he saw too many drivers in truck stops with 44 inch bellies and decided he wasnt going to look like that!
So... it's Slimfast for breakfast, and lunch and maybe one good meal a day. I get a real kick out of his ability to stay on this diet. He will open a can of chocolate Slimfast, start drinking it and then he looks at me and says..."Wow, Polynesian Chicken, with sauteed mushrooms and for desert he is enjoying Blackberry 'Puddin"... Boy I just dont see how they can get such a great meal inside that can!!". Yesterday morning as we're driiving down though Utah toward southern California, he opens a can of French Vanilla Slimfast and this time he says "I'm really disappointed, ... Continental breakfast, ... cereal and a donut." He keeps me quite amused.

Bye for now. Tomorrow I have to finish installing a drip system for my wife's tomatoe plants so they wont die when she flies back to Chicago for our granddaughters birthday the end of May.
posted by Tom at 11:54 PM

 
Mom has joined the blog. This is a test
posted by Sue at 7:48 AM

 
Have you seen Tom the Trucker in your town? Kasey did at Jake's Truck Stop in Bend, Oregon, home of the pancakes that flop over the side of your plate. If you've spotted Tom the Trucker maybe you would like a t-shirt to prove it! Check out the Tom the Trucker Cafe Press Store! Hurry and get your Trucker Mug while supplies last!

Dad is heading out of Portland on his way to somwhere in Washington where he will pick up a load going to Fairfield Pennsylvania... near Gettysburg.

Keep your eyes peeled!
posted by SAJ at 7:47 AM

 
Why oh why does my Dad not blog?

Because he's trucker that's why and he doesn't have wireless internet. 'Tis a shame. I should start a fund for my Dad to get him connected. Can you imagine the stories. If only I could be a fly in his cab and record some of his long rambling conversations. My Dad is a great story teller.

So the news on Dad at this moment is that he is in Phoenix getting his windshield fixed. He had a bird hit one window and a rock hit the other. Does anyone else see a theme here? Serioulsly, every time I talk to my parents they have yet another report on some truck work being done. Reminds me of Job. A little.

Dad has a student with him, his name is Mike.
posted by SAJ at 12:40 PM