Such a nice driveshaft........OUCH!

[madjack]

Rocky, they are not as bad as they were because the general level of experience has come down so much...JB was one of the first to take people fresh out of a 4 week school and send 'em down the hi-way...there are many other companies doing the same now so that JB's drivers are not the only inexperienced ones out there...be afraid...be very afraid.......
madjack

p.s. the other thing is that 20+ years ago when JB first made their big play in the trucking industry, they (the company) was undercutting everyones price by about 50% to buy market share and that left a lot of ill feelings towards the company......MJ

[sledge]

I know your right Madjack, the door frames at Davy Crockett Truck stop where I used to work, are made from I'd say 12" steel I-Beams or maybe bigger than that , and everyone of them is bent all to hell........ from Truck Drivers running into them. And believe me , Not All of them was going Backwards. those old storys about Drivers who can back down a blind street for 3 city blocks.......... Well, lets just say there ain't many of THEM left.. And even though I'm not really into that work anymore, I still have friends who are, and I hear now , instead of them being on Pills............NOW they are on Crack, and Meth, and thats gotta be worse.

[madjack]

I know your right Madjack, the door frames at Davy Crockett Truck stop where I used to work, are made from I'd say 12" steel I-Beams or maybe bigger than that , and everyone of them is bent all to hell........ from Truck Drivers running into them. And believe me , Not All of them was going Backwards. those old storys about Drivers who can back down a blind street for 3 city blocks.......... Well, lets just say there ain't many of THEM left.. And even though I'm not really into that work anymore, I still have friends who are, and I hear now , instead of them being on Pills............NOW they are on Crack, and Meth, and thats gotta be worse.

...oh the stories I could tell.........................................

[BrwBier]

I once worked for a large plumbing manufacturer who shall remain nameless because Ira's pissed at them, but that's another story. On a Friday after spending hours loading a trailer with bath tubs, sinks, toilets, and things like that, all pottery or enameled cast iron, I was going out for the night after work. Well, as I was leaving town, at a stop sign buy the highway, here sat the truck I just spent hours loading. The rear axle was out the back and a few hundred thousand dollars of plumbing fixtures were smashed all to h*ll. It seams like after moving the axle he for got to push the pins back in.
Brwbier

[sledge]

hey BrwBier , I have went out on Road Calls for the same kind of stuff, sometimes they will ride them for Hundreds of miles before the get on the brakes hard enough to slide the tandams out like that, but it happens more than you would believe.

[bobhenry]

I once worked for a large plumbing manufacturer who shall remain nameless because Ira's pissed at them, but that's another story. On a Friday after spending hours loading a trailer with bath tubs, sinks, toilets, and things like that, all pottery or enameled cast iron, I was going out for the night after work. Well, as I was leaving town, at a stop sign buy the highway, here sat the truck I just spent hours loading. The rear axle was out the back and a few hundred thousand dollars of plumbing fixtures were smashed all to h*ll. It seams like after moving the axle he for got to push the pins back in.
Brwbier

Since Sheboygan is +/- 40 miles from Koehler Wisc. can anybody quess which plumbing manafacture ???

[BrwBier]

A slight correction, Sheboygan is +/- 4" from Kohler.
Brwbier

[bobhenry]

A slight correction, Sheboygan is +/- 4" from Kohler.
Brwbier

I'm a hoosier with Christopher Columbus syndrome I try to never leave the state because the world is flat and I coudl fall off of the edge. Did get to Beaver Dam Wisc. once though, Drank my weight in beer and ate my weight in Brats. Hum !!! maybe thats where all this weight came from!

[BrwBier]

Beer and Brats, maybe you should consider coming to "Cooler Near The Lake" in April. Theirs a good chance both will be available there.
Brwbier

[angib]

those old storys about Drivers who can back down a blind street for 3 city blocks.......... Well, lets just say there ain't many of THEM left.

Well, I've found at least one. I stopped to let this truck reverse and was left stunned by his manoeuvre, which was worth a coupla minutes drawing:



This was done in one smooth move, 2-3mph the whole way, the trailer was longer than the road was wide and the loading ramp he was reversing into was sharply uphill. I thought of clapping, but worried the guy might think it was sarcasm.

Andrew

[sledge]

Hey angib, did you just forget to Mark all the spots where he HIT the Wall ?????? ........ All jokes aside, there are a Few, who can back, and also can go forward with out hitting anything. BUT , not many.

[madjack]

...correction sledge...there are many that can back like that...it's just that the roads have been flooded with 4 week wonders...when I was an instructor at a truck driving school, one of the demonstrations was for one of us instructors to back into a dock area at a 90* angle from start position...blind folded...just to show the new students how easy it was...we would also take 2 trucks and back them in opposing figure 8's...of course, all of us instructors where old timers with lotssa practice both in the real world and on our backing pad.....
madjack

[JunkMan]

...correction sledge...there are many that can back like that...it's just that the roads have been flooded with 4 week wonders...

I guess it all depends on the driver. I was one of those "4 week wonders", and was paired up with an old timer when I started driving over the road. Whenever we got to our destination, he would get out and "take care of the paperwork", then come out and tell me what dock to back the truck / trailer into. At first, this made sense to me, because I had no idea of what I had to do when checking in with the dock foreman. After a couple of weeks, I figured out that the guy couldn't back worth a darn. Even though he spent many years on the road, his backing skills sucked, unless it was a straight shot in to the dock.

Most of the focus in my driving school was backing. I grew up in Detroit, and that is where I went to truck driving school. Since many of the drivers being trained would end up being local drivers, we spent a ton of time backing into docks off of narrow alleys, and other tight places.

In my short carreer on the road, most of the drivers I met that drove over the road, weren't that great at backing into crappy docks, unless they regularly delivered into places like Detroit, Chicago, New York, etc. where there a lot of crappy docks. Most of them were used to delivering to truck terminals and large warehouses, that had nice straight on docks, that were easy to back up to.

Although I haven't regularly driven a "big rig" in over 20 years, the skills I learned in truck driving school still come in handy on a regular basis, backing up campers and utility trailers. I regularly pull a 21' car trailer, 35' 5th wheel, and 21' boat, and if it will fit, I can probably get it in there!

[madjack]

Jeff, you are right about many long haul drivers having questionable backing skills...the local guys, that hit 5,10,20+ docks a day(often crappy dock locations) are usually the best...I spent the first 2 years of my trucking career pulling a chip wagon which had to be backed up an 80' x 9' ramp to dump and back thru much machinery to load...it made me VERY proficient at backing...at the school I instructed at, we spent a majority of our time on the backing pad, telling the students that any monkey could be trained to drive down the interstate but it took a real driver to back up proficiently....
madjack

[sledge]

The bad thing about the Truck Drivers on the road is, They can pay for it, and get their CDL's no matter what. And........... about 2 months ago, only 30 miles from here there was this big wreck between a Truck and a Car...... well, sad part is As Always the Truck WON. I'm pretty sure the car driver Died, Didn't hurt the Truck Driver at all..........he Jumped out and run. after some checking, they traced down the owner of the truck, the Driver had like 5 counts of DUI , Boose and Drugs. Hadn't had a driving license in YEARS. And yes unless he has a lot of money they will hang him........BUT,. He's not the Only One Just Like that. They're everywhere.