new drivers/oughta be a law!
 

too many experienced driver sit at truck stops putting down us new drivers as rookies, duh, we are rookies. as long as experienced drivers sit on their duffs and just complain about the level of training we get, they are going to get cannon fodder for their bellyaching. uhh, maybe this industry is growing faster than they can understand. i am sure it is, otherwise us inexperienced drivers, millions of us, wouldn't of suddenly appeared. ok, we are here! on the road! at truck stops! at the shippers! jeeze, what you gonna do now? watch out one of us is gonna back into your front fender, we are gonna take out your whole front end. what you gonna do about it sucker? call my insurance? swift will pay .25 cents on the dollar. now i am gonna stop blasting america's true truckers. because this industry is growing so fast and pushing undertrained drivers onto the roads maybe they need a little help??? i have been given more training sitting over coffee from you old farts than the schools ever gave. us new drivers are easy to spot, we have yet to learn the best clothing. also who we drive for gives us away. any driver with any experience should watch out for us and maybe do whatever they can to pass on what they have learned when they were rookies. i saw a 30 year old tattooed mohawk haired driver with 10 years experience training a 55 year old short haired ex- teacher to drive. yeah our industry is changing but the favt remains that the older guys train the newcomers.

Nothing new there. It was that way when I was a wet behind the ear rookie almost 10 years ago and from listening the the CB for years before that it has been that way for a long, long time.

The problem, IMHO, is not so much in the quantity of training (though it does play a part in it) as the quality of training new drivers get. Far too many are placed on the road after 6 weeks of OTJ when in fact it should have been called 6 weeks as an extra log book.

When I first went solo I met quite a few experienced drivers who took the time to help and teach me things that I should have known but did not. The percentage of drivers though that did this was small compared to the ones who would simply sit back and do nothing more than bash.

A lot of people like to talk about the "old" days when new drivers were really trained by friends and family for months before going out into a truck alone. What they forget to mention though is how many drivers were on the road with no training at all. No school, not even a state road test, because their employer wrote a letter that said they could drive and they took that letter to the DMV and got a chauffeur's DL and off they went.

On the whole are things better or worse now? IMHO it all balanced out. Things are no better now, nor not any worse, than they were 25+ years ago.

gotta agree, things are still the same. a few do try to share and most just complain. thankfully for me i met some of the few. is josh finally retired?

So...what exactly are you trying to say??? :?

First, you are attacking experienced drivers, saying they sit at the truck stop and put new drivers down...then you go to a form of hero worship talking about how much you learn from a casual conversation with one...

I don't get it....

Your subject line mentions there "oughta be a law"...a law for what?

honestly...most "experienced" drivers I run into out here show me more what NOT to do than the other way around...

...was listening to a talk "show" today. The host mentioned that a study revealed that employees who were most satisfied with their jobs were able to "control" much of their job responsibilities/job environment. In other words, the more they were able to control their job responsibilities and environment, the more they were able to enjoy life.

Let's face it, OTR truckers--in the grand scheme of things--can control (arguably) precious little of their job responsibilities/job environment. Therefore, it stands to reason, that highly satisfied OTR truckers who relish their jobs embrace change -- and lots of it.

Certain OTR veterans-of-the-road will primarily encourage newbies, others will primarily whine/bitch/complain, while others are in-between.

Here's hoping that if you're a newbie, you can find plenty of drivers who will give you a healthy dose of encouragement (the good/bad/ugly) of whatever advise you need!

I gotta say, even tho I'm not an OTR driver, I'm local with less than 200 miles a night, I haven't run into any drivers complaining. I do a lot of lot sweeping of docks and such, and I've always got drivers giving me pointers about backing, better mirror adjustments, shifting techniques, and the one thing that always seems to rattle my nerves - lane centering.

I've found in ANY industry, it's all about YOUR attitude. If you're friendly, and appear willing to take advice, and criticism - both good and bad, then people will be more willing to help.

Ask questions - even if you get blasted for what seems like a "stupid question" it's better to ask it anyway, and get advice and help.

As an example - one of the other drivers at my job offered me some pointers about how to position the sweepers on the trailers to make the ride more "comfortable" - after listening to his advice, I gave it a shot, and what do ya know - it worked perfectly. It's not that I was doing it wrong, it's just that this more experienced guy had a better way of doing it - now I know the better way - and I'll share that with new people too.

--Dave.

Stupid question time:

what's a sweeper? :?

The sad part is that alot of these new drivers who were once targets will one day be the ones on channel 19 doing the b1tchin (if they're not doing it already) because they think its some sort of right of passage of something.

Just turn off the CB and you'll have nothing to worry about.

I don't even own one anymore.