Stories From the Road: Trucking School

[Droopy]

My adventurous career in trucking began on December 1, 1996. That's when I hopped in my little '89 Isuzu pick-up and headed for New Buffalo, Michigan. It had been a couple of weeks since the trucking company had agreed to foot the bill for my training and hire me on as long as I worked for them for a year. I had been filled with a mixture anxiety, glee, fear, and hope since then. The overall feeling I had about it, despite my fear, was that I had been saved. I imagine it's a feeling akin to what Christians feel when they are born again. I had been going through a really hard time in life for the previous four years and I felt like someone had bailed me out. I was 24.

The school I attended was called the Professional Drivers Institute (PDI). I don't know if they are still there or not. There was a little no-tell motel on the property next to the school and that's where all of the students stayed during their training. The trucking company I signed on with had picked up all of my expenses. I just needed to bring enough money to feed myself. They even offered to bus me in, but I preferred to have my own wheels.

School started on the third so I had a day and a half to kill. I had a room mate. You might find this odd, but if you get into trucking you might find yourself shacked up with a total stranger on more than one occasion. But we got along okay and decided we would celebrate the beginning of our new careers with some beer and pizza. Later, on the first day of class, I found out that alcohol was prohibited for the students. It was also on the first day that we had the drug tests. That whittled the class down from about 25 to 19. We all knew it was coming. I don't know what those guys who failed were thinking when they hopped on that bus. Through other reasons, several more students didn't make it through the training and our graduating class was 10. Yeah, folks, not everyone can drive a truck. It isn't easy and requires skill. Clean pee and less than three moving violations on your license also helps.

I was crazy at the time I went to school. People knew I was a little different, but I don't think anyone knew just how fucked up my head really was. But I was able to hold it together and I was feeling so good about starting my life over again that my symptoms almost completely disappeared while I was in school.

The first couple of days we just did classroom work. We went over logs, pre-trip inspections, laws, safety, and such. Our instructor had 10 years of experience on the road and he would take little breaks from the book stuff to tell us stories about his experiences out there. I was enthralled by the whole experience- book stuff and stories.

After a couple of days in class they turned us loose in some 18 wheelers. Not on the road, yet, but in a trucking yard filled with an obstacle course of orange cones and barrels. The first day all we did was try to back up straight which is tougher than it sounds. We were in lanes marked off by cones. About the best I was able to do on that first day was 3/4 of the way to the end of the lane before I had to pull up and start over again. They would not let you try anything else in the yard until you proved that you could back up straight, and I was a little discouraged. I got it on the second day, though. Damn straight. Not everyone could do it, however. It claimed at least one potential driver that I remember.

The rest of the obstacle course was driving around the yard without running over any barrels or cones (tougher than it sounds, it was pretty tight) and a couple of different backing situations- a 90 degree dock and a 45 degree dock. There was also something called the "serpentine" section where you had to guide the truck through some curves. The course was designed to give you a feel for what it's like to operate a vehicle of that size. They told us to think of all of the barrels and cones as cars, people, telephone poles, fire hydrants, etc. After the first week, all of the people that were left were then allowed to hit the road.

The road trucks were International cabovers with a sleeper on them, the kind of trucks without a hood- they are rapidly disappearing from the road although I still see one from time to time. Our trailers were 53 foot dry vans- just your standard box trailer. They would stick three students and a trainer in one and we would take off. The hardest thing about learning how to drive a truck, besides backing one, is learning how to operate the transmission. With the amount of gear grinding that was taking place, it made me wonder how sturdy truck transmissions were. :)

I was very slow in the beginning, even for a student. I'd start slowing down for stop signs a half a mile before I got to them just to be sure I caught all of the gears when I was downshifting. It earned me the nickname "Slow Motion" and I still use it to this day for my CB handle.

Well, ten of us made it to exam day. I had heard a rumor from the students that the examiner would fail you if you stalled your truck during the test. The examiner was a woman and that made a few of the students less trusting of the situation. If you are a woman you can get into trucking and make the same money with the same benefits as the men. It's one of the truly egalitarian professions in that regard. But that won't change the way you are treated by your male colleagues, especially on the CB. Most guys are alright, but there are some who will really give you a hard time.

So it got to be my turn to take the test. I showed the examiner that I could do a pre-trip inspection, then I showed her that I could safely maneuver and back the truck. Then we hit the road. We were in town and I had come up on a stop light. When the light turned green I let out on the clutch a little too quick and stalled it. Fuck! For the rest of the test I thought I was doomed, but I went through it without any other problems.

When we got back to the yard I was sure she was going to tell me that I had failed. So I was very surprised and gloriously happy when she told me I had passed. I told her that I thought I had failed because I had stalled the truck. She told me that since I got it fired back up again and moving and didn't impede traffic that it was alright. I was elated.

Ladies and gentlemen, the graduating class of December 1996 from the Professional Drivers Institute. The guy in the pink shirt was our classroom instructor. I'm the guy in the blue and black jacket with the white t-shirt poking out of the top next to the guy with the red hat.