As I look back over my youth, through nostalgia colored glasses, I fear I am a dinosaur who has too long survived the meteor strike. As I remember the “glory days” of Convoy and “That’s a big 10-4, good buddy” it is easy for me to forget that I came up through an age rife with testosterone stoked bravado and amphetamines. An era of “Legendary” companies and drivers, such as Monfort of Colorado (the “Monfort Lane”) and Sonny Prewitt along side such news stories as:
“Witnesses report seeing the driver of the tractor-trailer, asleep with his head bowed to his chest, one quarter mile before slamming into the toll-plaza (ten miles from my house) at an estimated speed of sixty miles per hour, killing eleven people including a pregnant woman. Tests conducted, show the truck driver, surviving with only scrapes and bruises, had high levels of amphetamines in his system and reportedly, in statements to investigators, he admits he had not slept in more than a week.”
The truck that I cut my teeth in was a “Triple Digit”, 450 hp to the ground “Cumm-a-part”, twin stick double overdrive, 16 speed, ‘73 Cabover “Freight Shaker”, rolling on 22 inch bias-ply tube-type rubber on three-piece split ring aluminum Budd rims on the steer axle and two piece steel Daytons on the drives. The truck started it’s service to my family as two chassis rails and one month later, assembled from the parts of four different make, wrecked or retired trucks, a beast ready for the road stood on it own ten tires.
I was “allowed” to stay home from school to help my Daddy build this truck. My whole life revolved around my Daddy, who’s life revolved around trucking and this truck (his opus). This was how he provided a living for his family and like any man, his livelihood was an extension of his persona. Although he did not see himself as an outlaw, he was his own man and, in his opinion, there was not a rule that was not meant to be stretched or broken.
Late one night, on route 52 (now I-395) just south of Putnam, Ct., at the age of 10, I looked over from the passenger seat and boldly told my Daddy, “I’ve been watching you and I know I can do that.” He asked,”You think so?” I said, “HELL Yah!” He didn’t say a word, pulled over, got out and walked over to the passenger side, opened “My” door, looked up at me and said, “So slide over and show me.” I proceeded to show him that, after I was able to get the beast to roll without stalling it out, I could get her to go in a straight line as long as I did not have to shift or something resembling shifting. After about fifteen minutes of bouncing and grinding down the breakdown lane, Daddy said, “Well, go ahead and stop before we get lit up with blue lights or have to pick the drive shaft up off the pavement.
In October of ‘81, after I quit school, a month before my sixteenth birthday, I began my “real world” over the road education with him. I thought I was some pretty hot stuff, and inside our group of industry friends maybe I was. I was a barely 100 pound kid taking advantage of her “born privilege”, learning from the example set forth by her Daddy, on sidestepping all rules and regulations governing driver qualification. After about six months, my Daddy was sleeping behind me, all night, as I drove through my “Queendom of Darkness” I wonder what my driver’s education instructor would have thought had she known that this girl, who didn’t even have a license to drive a car, was putting 5-600 hundred miles a night, behind her, fueled by adrenaline and defiant confidence.
Looking back I know how idiotically dangerous this whole scenario truly was. An unsupervised sixteen year old, who thought she was a truck driver, behind the wheel, blasting through the night, sometimes at speeds approaching 90 mph. Though an exceptionally good driver (pat pat pat), I was lucky to have never been faced with having to deal with an at speed mechanical failure or a four-wheeler hic-up. If Daddy could do it, so could I, despite his admonishment that I was to go no faster than 65.
While I can not in good conscience advocate the method of training that I went through, when I consider the current training culture of unleashing unsupervised individuals with less than 3 months of real road experience, on the general public, I can not see where it is any better, today. There needs to be developed, different methods of training. The first order of business should be to push for operating a Commercial Motor Vehicle to be considered SKILLED labor. This will more strongly fortify a stance for demanding a system of proper training methods. If we are able to achieve this, perhaps we should take a cue from how other industries of skilled labor, train their next generation of tradespersons.
Perhaps a training system with tiers of increasing proficiency.
The first, an entry level tier, of a period of time no less than six months, where an individual is mentored, by a SEASONED driver with a decent record of at least three years of “unsupervised” driving experience. The truck used for first tier training would be designated as a single driver operation, this way when the trainer’s available on duty hours are up, the trainee is not left to drive unsupervised.
The second tier would be a period of no less that a year, with the trainee as second seat in a team operation, with a first seat with no less than three years of “unsupervised” driving experience.
The third tier would be as a solo driver position or if they so chose, a position in a team operation with a driver of equal or greater proficiency.
With a decent record of “unsupervised” service for a period of three years, a driver could then be chosen as a trainer, of first or second tier trainees.
I know we can and most certainly must find a more efficient and safer way of providing adequate training than the way it is currently being done. It just does not seem to make any sense. We have trucking companies who refuse to train or even accept individuals with less than a certain level of experience and at the complete opposite end of the spectrum we have “training” and equipment leasing companies who masquerade as trucking companies, who take advantage of people, endangering their lives and credit ratings, while putting the general public at great risk. There has got to be a better way.
