Today, being a new year, I will keep a running journal of my life as a truck driving instructor. This should prove to be very interesting. I just hope that others will enjoy my writings as much as I enjoy my job. This is the first job that I have ever had that when my alarm goes off, I am not looking to hit the snooze button. Rather, I get up and am happy to go to work to meet my daily challenges of teaching people how to drive truck properly and safely.
Let me start out today with a little bit of history of myself. I started out in the trucking world back in 1990. I never really thought that I'd even consider doing this kind of a career. Trucks were only big vehicles on the road that got in my way when I wanted to go somewhere. They were slow and it seemed that they took up a lot of space.
It wasn't until one day that I realized that if it weren't for those truckers out on the road, I wouldn't have anything. I wouldn't have my house, my clothes, my food, my toiletries, my car, the gas to heat my house, the gas for my car, etc. In fact, truckers move everything that I use in my life. Even if it moved by rail, truckers still had to move it from the rail yard to the stores so that I could buy whatever it was I needed to survive.
That is when I decided to join the ever-growing industry of trucking.
I went to school to learn just how to move one of those big-rigs down the road. They are usually pulling a 53 foot trailer, the truck and trailer combination is approximately 65 to 70 feet long. There are 18 wheels on one of those rigs including the trailer.
The one that I started on was a small Freightliner CabOver truck. That is a kind of truck where the cab of it is over the engine. Therefore, the term "CabOver." I was pulling 2 trailers each at 28 1/2 feet long with a dolly in between the two. This connects those trailers together with a 5th wheel, air lines and electrical cord for the lights.
After driving that for 3 years, I then went to a Freightliner FLD conventional truck. This truck has the engine in front under a hood, so I was no longer sitting on top of the engine. I was then pulling a 48 foot reefer trailer. That is a refrigerated trailer that hauls ice cream, produce, meat, poultry, eggs, and anything else that needs to stay cooled or frozen.
I did that for about a year and then went on to a Freightliner FLD 120 conventional. This still had the engine in the front under a hood, but this one now has a double bunk in the sleeper. This is just like a bunk bed in the back. I also had a microwave in there, television, VCR and my computer. I was also pulling a 53 foot dry trailer. This could haul paper to be used at the newspaper printing places, clothing for department stores, foods like cereals, flour, sugar, and other dry goods. Paper products such as bathroom necessities, female products, kitchen products and such. Many other items could be hauled like food for animals, and gardening supplies.
Other drivers that pull flatbed trailers, these are the kind that don't have walls on the sides, could haul wood for new homes, pipes for natural gas lines, or sewage lines and such. They could also haul large equipment to be used to make new roads, dig holes for basements to homes or businesses and such.
Then there are the tanker drivers that haul our gasoline and diesel to the stations. They keep our vehicles going by keeping the stations full.
I know that there are many other types of trucks out there, but can't think of them right now. There are so many that do so many types of jobs. I didn't experience any of those, but have seen them on the road, so I knew that they kept everyone going.
One of the trucks that I have driven is the truck and trailer. These look like doubles, but the front 28 1/2 foot box is mounted to the frame of the truck and the other 28 1/2 trailer is hooked by a long pole that can slide back and forth by using a button in the truck. That was a Peterbilt cabover truck. It had a 13 speed transmission in it. That was pretty intersting. It also had a Silver 92 Detroit engine in it. I didn't like that too much because you had to be really fast in order to shift the transmission. I wasn't real good at it at first. I was good at making a lot of hamburger out of the tranny, though. Got that down to a science!
Other transmissions that I have experienced, and did a little better than that previous one, was the Super-10, regular 10-speed and even a 15 speed transmission. You don't really use all 15 gears, though.
I had different engines, too. There was the Detroit 60-series. That is a pretty good engine. The Catepillar engine. The first one I had was a 3176 back in 1991. It was pretty experimental then and it had a few problems. But it was a pretty strong engine. Then there is the Cummins. I really like the ISX engine.
I found out that ISX means "Integrated System" and the X is just the model of that particuar engine. The integrated system is a computerized engine that talks to the rest of the truck to keep things going like they are supposed to. It is pretty cool.
After driving on the road for a few years, I decided to share my knowledge and experience with new drivers coming into the industry just as I had several years previous. I became an over-the-road trainer. There, I would have a student driver with me for up to 6 weeks at a time and I would teach them to do the job that I had done over the years.
I would show them how to get dispatched on some freight that needed to be hauled. Then how to navigate across America using their atlas. We'd communicate with the customers as to our arrival, and then deliver the frieght. Along the way, we'd keep impecible records of our duties in a book called a Log Book. We had to keep track of our morning inspections, stay within a strict driving timeline, fuel the truck along the way, take the required rest periods to avoid fatique, and when we'd shut down at night, perform an extensive post trip inspection to be sure that our vehicle was still in tip-top shape.
I was able to share my experience with several drivers over a 3 year period. I had driven for a few years as a trainer and a few just as a solo driver. Sometimes that could be lonely, but other times it was really nice to be alone. After doing that for a few years, I had met a guy who later became my husband. He is also a truck driver. After 2 years of being on the road as solo drivers, we decided to go driving as a team. That way, we could share the responsibilities of driving and make a lot more money. The truck could virtually be on the road 24/7 as long as we were legal according to the Federal Motor Carriers Association.
We drove like that for 3 years until he got a job in the office of the company we drove for. That is when I got off the truck also for about a year. I replaced my career of driving with an old job that I had done when I was younger. I went back to waitressing thinking that I might enjoy being home everyday. Big mistake. Although I did enjoy being home everyday, I found that I was hitting the snooze button over and over again because I didn't want to go to work. I missed being out on the road.
So, I opted to go back in the truck to be a local driver. That way, I had my career back, but was also able to be home every night. I did that for 1 1/2 years when the phone call that I had dreamt of over the past several years finally came through.
I was asked if I wanted to be a trainer again since it was in my resume from a few years back that I had been an over-the-road trainer before. I told the guy that I'd love to, but I was not interested in going back long haul again. That is where I'd be driving all 48 states and possibly Canada again. I was told that I wouldn't be doing that, but instead working out of the main terminal and showing up every day to train people that come through our weekly orientation class. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was being offered a job to be a driver instructor and to work out of the main building of the company. Two dreams were being offered to me.
I then began a simple negotiation regarding my pay. I said that I would take the job as long as I could get paid fairly close to what I was currently making on the road as a local driver. I had figured it out and found out what I had averaged. I was offered an amount, but it was much lower than I could afford to cut. I had to sadly decline the offer. Then I was given an offer that was much better and I couldn't refuse. Besides, I was being offered to realize a lifelong dream, how could I back down. I knew then that I could easily adjust to my new career and happily accepted the offer.
Since then, I have had 73 students, and have also been able to move forward with teaching classes of drivers in our orientation. I was trained to teach about Hazardous Materials, which in fact was my worst subject. HazMat scared me because it can be so complicated. But once I learned how to teach it, the subject actually began to make sense.
I also teach drivers about Winter safety and how to manuever their trucks safely down the road in adverse weather conditions that include rain, fog, snow and wind. I also show them how to properly put chains on their trucks and trailers, hooking a truck to a trailer and doing a full complete inspection on their vehicles.
Then, when I get my individual students, I focus on their weak points and make them better and safer drivers. We spend 5 days with them and go through a thourough pre-trip inspection inside and outside the truck. We hook to a trailer and continue our inspection. Then we go out on the road and conquer fears such as driving over high bridges, construction zones, freeways and city driving. We also focus on backing, right and left turns and manuevering in shopping centers.
So far, every one of my students have told me that they have learned more over the 5 day training that they go through with me than they did in the 6 week course that they paid thousands of dollars for or in the several months of driving they have done in the recent past. They go away with more confidence to do their job safely and how to keep those of us in our personal vehicles safe. So many times, we forget that the trucks out on the road are there for a reason and they need more room and space to get around. I teach our drivers to remember those people that think we are just in their way and be kind to them and give the right-of-way to them.
We have been told that we are "number one" many times, but I teach my students to deal with "road rage" by accepting the kind jestures given to us. It's okay to just let them go about their previous duties because those people will soon forget that we were in the way and causing a minor inconvenience. Our jobs and our life isn't worth getting all worked up over a small minor detail.
Look forward to more entries about my wonderful and rewarding job as a Truck Driving Instructor. I may also include a lesson or two about how we do a thourough pretrip and some photos to go along with what I am talking about. That way, we can all be all the more educated, right?
Have fun with my new site, as I know I will.
Happy trails to all, and safe traveling....Jenni
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