I’m about to enter week 3 of training. My trainer said I’ll be doing all the driving, paperwork, navigation etc.
Last week we were doing things his way. He said he doesn’t believe in preplanning. He drives until he’s got an hour left then tries to find a spot. Most nights we’ve lucked out but a couple not so much. One night we shut down on a soft shoulder and the truck was leaning but we didn’t sink in so it wasn’t really a problem.
Wednesday I found us a couple of places on Truckerpath (a walmart that allowed truck parking and a Pilot with a few spots open) but he wanted to get a bit further down the road. Along the way we passed up a half dozen decent onramps with wide paved shoulders and very little traffic. Then just as we were nearing the largest city in the state he throws on the hazards and pulls onto the side of the road under an underpass in a congested area and says “Welcome to trucking.” The situation looked sketchy as fuck and I told him as much but it fell on deaf ears. When I asked if I should put triangles out his reply was “what for?” Not wanting to argue anymore I just shut the fuck up at that point but needless to say I tossed and turned trying to get to sleep.
Was I over-reacting?
I know the second I finish hooking up and scanning my paperwork he’ll be ready for me to roll out and as soon as I pull out my phone to hit truckerpath and google earth to find a shutdown location he’s going to jump on me about how “in this industry you gotta keep it rolling” and this that and the other but the way I see it 10 minutes spent preplanning can save 45 minutes of aimlessly wandering around looking for a spot and all the stress that goes with it.
