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Post by qcsueh on Apr 27, 2004 7:36:33 GMT -5
Thank you Scott, I wiil keep you informed in how I am doing, I have alot of emotions going and having a problem with sleeping. I start school May 3rd. I am excited and nervous at the same time. I have driven a school bus but this is different and the truck is bigger. I will be back asking questions alot. I enjoy this message broad very much every day I here and read all of the messages. I live in Michigan and will start school in Ohio. just over the state line in fact. A company has hired me and sending me to school. Thank you for all of your support and i'll keep in touch. qcushe
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Post by Scott on Apr 27, 2004 14:38:03 GMT -5
qcushe, The very 1st thing you really need to do is RELAX!! This isn't rocket science. You're a little ahead of the game already driving a school bus. You should be used to checking mirrors. That's a big part of driving a truck. Just think of that rig as a big bus with a hinge in the middle! You also won't have a bunch of screamin' young'uns behind ya. That would drive me nuts!!!! You'll find that I tell it like it is. The OH tests are tough. When the Instructor tells you to study the pre-trip, (he better anyway), don't blow it off. It's my opinion that the OH pre-trip is the toughest of the 3 tests you'll take. Speaking of your Instructor: If I remember my OH laws right, if you were to get stopped by a cop, the Instructor would get the ticket, not you. The reasoning behind this is that the Instructor has the license and is SUPPOSED to know what he/she is doing. What I do is to keep the student about 5mph under the posted speed limit. That's just me. But I can pretty much guarantee the first couple times on the road you won't be going anywhere near the posted speed limit. Trust me on this one!! One last thing before I go for now. Don't try to make it harder than it is! One of the biggest mistakes a student will make is over thinking a problem.
Keep thje questions coming. I LIVE FOR THIS S**T!!!!!!!
Scott
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Post by qcsueh on Apr 28, 2004 9:32:57 GMT -5
Scott,
Thank you for the answers, I scream'in youngest were hard to handle that is for sure. I do over think everything I do. I feel that I have to be the best in whatever I do. but I love to drive, it makes me feel that I am going places and doing things (which I will be,) I get very restless when I am in a shop or office when I do not have a window to look outside. I grew up on a farm in Michigan and that sense of being outside I truly miss. I know that this will be hard but anything worth doing will be hard. Thank you for all your answers, and I will be asking more questions.
qcsueh
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Post by Scott on Apr 28, 2004 9:43:05 GMT -5
Now ya sound better! Once you get in school, just listen to what the Instructor says. Remember, you're going to have good days where everything falls into place and bad days where the truck just doesn't want to cooperate. Take it all in stride. The same thing will happen when you get on the road. Every driver out there has what I call good backin' up days and bad backin up days.
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Post by truckertom on May 2, 2004 15:19:12 GMT -5
Every driver is going to have days when he just can't get it to go right. We had a driver that had to run a slightly illegal log book to get the parts to the assembly line intime. He was gone! I backed his trailer in for him about 3:03 am. He thanked me.
When I got to work at 2:30 pm the next day, he was still sleeping it off! He was just too tired to do it the night before! It happens.
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Post by truckertom on Jun 30, 2004 19:55:42 GMT -5
Well, it happend again this week. We had to tell one of our students that trucking wasn't for him. He had no chance at driving a truck.
One of our instructors was trying to teach him to turn corners, and the student nearly took out a stop sign turning like a car! The instructor grabbed the wheel and tried to straighten it out and the student just turned the wheel harder fighting the instructor...He had to pull the spring brakes on him.
Not everyone can become a trucker.
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Post by Fozzy on Jul 1, 2004 6:32:54 GMT -5
I've only had to pull the brakes on one person we were driving down the road and the just about to the intersection the light turned yellow. Students SLAMS on the brakes and immediately jams the truck in gear (REVERSE) and starts to back up! All this time my protests and prodings to STOP were obviously unheard. I pulled the brakes the truck groaned to a stop and I asked;" Why did you do THAT?) ..his reply?" I don't know." Ahhh the fun of it all! LOL
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Post by truckertom on Jul 1, 2004 19:40:12 GMT -5
I hate to say this because of all the discontent we had on the depression issue, but this guy was slightly retarded or something. Once in awhile we get a few state funded students in. The School really hates turning students away for obvious reasons, but some times you have to.
I had him for a day before I had to put that truck back together and he was hard headed but I though with enough work......Oh well.
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Post by Maverick Blaquehardt on Jul 1, 2004 23:16:59 GMT -5
Sorry to get in on this a little late. I read your first post Tom (and a few others along the way), the one thing that kept coming back to my thought. Where did this "whiteboy" stuff come from?. I really don't think it should have become a racial thing, but I am glad to read that it was dealt with in a professional manner. The other thing is if it wasn't for teachers and trainers then were would these (I mean anybody) get the basics taught to them ?. Watching videos of somebody else doing it ?, I mean these students should be grateful that vet drivers like us are willing to teach this career to them for what we get paid (which ain't enough) ;D P.S. If that one student did the "bla-bla-bla" stuff, I wonder about the first time she gets a dispatch to HUNTS POINT if she would pull that on her dispatcher. Personally I would ask dispatch "where do you want me to park the truck cause it ain't going there with me driving"...
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Post by truckertom on Jul 4, 2004 9:41:17 GMT -5
"I wonder about the first time she gets a dispatch to HUNTS POINT if she would pull that on her dispatcher."
Oh, you know what would happen. Years ago I needed a trainee out of my truck so I stopped at a truckstop with a bus station in it and said "Go get us a table and a couple of cups of coffee and I will be in after I park the truck".
I dumped his things at the bus station and left his butt there. I told my dispatcher at the next truckstop (way before cell phones) that he was not riding with me and why and he asked "Where did you leave him?" I told him where and the dispatcher says "Sounds like a good place for him".
The man was snorting crank while we were going down the road.......smart!
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Post by JiminyCrickett on Jul 10, 2004 18:08:12 GMT -5
Hi All! Haven't been able to log in for a while. Computers w/o antivirus sometimes have a mind of their own. My "star " student from earlier posts is STILL with us . His 4th try at the yard skills will be 7/27. This is his 2nd permit package so we should be free of him for at least 6 months ;D. He was supposed to test 6/22 but "no showed" on test day. Having been here since 3/1 for a 4 week course, he couldn't remember the phone number (it is on all the trlrs). This guy is really making me wonder if I made a good choice to become an instructor. But, the bottom line is that since I became the road inst., my boss says that including the rare road retests "we" are over 95% on road tests ;D ;D. Guess I'm doing ok after all .
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Post by truckertom on Jul 10, 2004 23:09:39 GMT -5
We had to send another one home recently, he had one of our trucks gear shifter bent so hard that it now hits the dash when shifting into a forward gear.
He says he will try another school! The bad part of this is, he may one day get a CDL and be out on the road with us. He nearly creamed 3 or 4 cars turning city turns like a car...and this is after a week of working with him.
Truck driving is not for everyone.
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Post by JiminyCrickett on Jul 31, 2004 18:49:06 GMT -5
Hey Group! My "star" really did it this week. Called the school an hour or so after not being on time to leave for the test site, got upset that the truck had left w/o him (2nd time), and then threatened the school that "this better happen (getting his cdl) or we would be sorry". Sheriff was called and ran a background check. Prior history of violence and violent retaliation. Sheriff wants to turn it over to the FBI, but the boss said no, but he's outta here. ;D ;D BTW, the "star" thinks Timothy McVey was a "hero" . Wrong thing to say to a vet. Almost forgot, he wants to go to aircraft maint. school next Scary huh!!
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Post by truckertom on Aug 1, 2004 8:52:22 GMT -5
"BTW, the "star" thinks Timothy McVey was a "hero""
I just got rid of one that thinks Osama was a great man for turning his back on his families fortune and becoming a terrorist!
This student will last about 2 minutes in an Alabama truckstop....But it is his choise to think like that.
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Post by truckertom on Aug 8, 2004 21:37:36 GMT -5
Aug, 6. One of our students was informed that he failed the drugscreen. After he left the motel where our students were housed, his wife call wondering where he was. His room mate told her that he was coming home and she wanted to know why, so he told her that her husband had tested positive for pot.
I would hate to be in his shoes when he gets home, I guess his wife was pretty mad.
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