Learning to drive a semi tractor....GGGAAHHH!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So a “friend” of mine earlier this year offered me some part time work driving a dump truck with the company he works for. He said “take the knowledge tests at the BMV, take the medical exam, and get the CDL learner’s permit, and we’ll train you and put you to work.” So I did all that, then my “friend” ghosted me.

I went to the trouble of getting the permit, so I figured I might as well keep going and get the license. So I found another company to train me…then of course the pandemic happened and they suspended new driver training for the time being. So I reached out and found another guy to just give some private instruction - distanced as much as possible for the safety inspection study, and masked inside the cab - so he’s a responsible guy, which I appreciate. He started me out learning in a bob-tail Freightliner semi tractor. Yesterday was my first day.

The thing is, he’s also a pastor.

That’s not something I have a problem with. But do you have any idea how hard it is to learn to drive a 10-speed manual transmission…with the heaviest clutch known to man, and the clumsiest shifter known to man, AND the most hair-trigger brakes known to man, and hold myself back from swearing?

I can’t say fuck, shit, cocksucker, asshole, son of a bitch, JESUS CHRIST, or even “Damn!” At one point I ground into a gear and said “damn it,” then immediately said, “sorry, darn it.”

This guy is taking time out of his schedule to help me and I appreciate it more than I can say, so there is no way I am going to be disrespectful to his highly ingrained policy of PG language - I simply can’t do it. BUT GGGGGAHHHHH, it’s a test of willpower such as I have never experienced in my entire LIFE! And that’s no shit!

If anyone has advice on operating these things, now would be the time. I’m 33. I’ve done a lot of different jobs. I’ve driven literally hundreds of vehicles - but never a truck like this - and I know that the play in the shifter and the clutch is always the wild card of each individual vehicle. I know there’s no way to fully assimiliate the muscle memory other than simply giving it time, and I have nothing BUT time right now so that’s ok. I’m willing to put in the time. But please - FUCK! Goddamit! Anyone have any advice?!

2

I used to have a PA Class A license, but due to lax regulation in those days I didn’t have any real training. It just takes time to pick up shifting, a lot of frustrating time. And then you have to learn to maneuver which is even harder for some people. Around here hardly anyone passes the test the first time because it’s the maneuvering that counts. Learning all this without foul language is something I can’t imagine. I wish you luck, maybe bring something to bite on as practice.

3

Darn it to heck, I don’t think I could do it. No advice, but I feel your pain, I really do. You’ll have to read up on euphemisms.

4

Back when I was learning to fly and was having some difficulty with certain maneuvers and emergency drills my instructor told me to stop saying “Oh, shit!” because that is the most common last words found on cockpit voice recorders and he didn’t think that was a good habit to get into for someone who would eventually be flying with non-pilot passengers. Also said I could not substitute the French word for same.

So I substituted shouting MARMALADE!

Other than substituting a different exclamation, I got nothing. But if the man is truly a man of Christ I’m sure he’d forgive the occasional lapse if one does happen.

5

Mork’s swear word rolls comfortably off the tongue: shazbat!
~VOW

6

Do you know that he is offended by the words? Surely he encounters them from time to time. Perhaps ask him.
Speaking for myself, the only ones that would really bother me if I were in his position would be blasphemy–the ones that take the Lord’s name in vain and such.

And that’s pretty much my own policy for swearing, which leaves a pretty good array of bad words still available for use.

7

I met someone who was a Kroger manager. She learned to backup the trucks because if Kroger had a strike, union truckers would drive to the store but not backup to the loading dock. Strange but true.

8

Could the OP quickly become fluent in a foreign language?

“Huh choo-shung tza-jiao duh tzang-huo!”
“I’m sorry, son, I didn’t quite catch that.”
“Oh, uh, nothing, Reverend.”

As long as the OP’s pastor friend was never a missionary in China. Or a Firefly fan.

9

That’s why pretty much every curse word in English has a euphemistic alternate that starts with the same phonemes. It gives you a chance to switch to a more innocuous expression mid-word.

Shhh…oot!
Fuuu…dge!
Go…sh darn it!
Son of a … gun!

10

This guy is not the “cool, hip, former bad-boy turned pastor” pastor. He’s not the kind of pastor where you can swear. He’s just not. At one point he said something like “find that cussin’ gear.” In other words, substituting the word “cuss” for an actual cuss word.

Finding fourth gear is the trickiest thing for me. This truck has a 10-speed Eaton transmission where reverse is left and up, first is left and down (but he says nobody uses first), second is straight up from neutral, third is straight down, fourth is right and up, fifth is straight down from there, and then you gotta flip the range selector switch and go back to the left and down for sixth. But the fourth gear is damn hard to find. If you push it all the way to the right and go up, that won’t do it. It’s like just ever slightly to the left of the upper right corner of the shift pattern. None of the other gears are so hard to find.

Also I was shifting through all these gears in a parking lot. And it wasn’t a large parking lot. Because I was slow to double-clutch with this gigantic heavy-ass clutch, and slow to find the fourth gear, we’d reach the end of the parking lot by the time I actually found it. I’m going to ask him to find a larger area to practice.

FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!

11

I will say this much - I will be much more alert from now on if I realize that I am walking around within 50 feet of a dump truck with the engine on, cussing operator or not.

12

Forgive me for misreading the thread title as “Learning to drive a semi tractor…AH-OOG-AH!” :smiley:

13

Up shifting is the easy part, it will come to you soon enough.

Down shifting is another whole ball if wax and then there is learning to float the gears (shifting without the clutch, for the sake of your legs you will want to learn this skill). The parts that always gave me trouble was floating down shift and alley docking (backing around a corner into a dock).
Memorize and practice practice practice your pretrip inspection

If you’re not planning on driving a combination vehicle, why learn to drive a semi-tractor at all? Learn what you’re going to drive instead?

Or was it a semi with a dump trailor you were talking about?

14

But he’s a pastor that teaches people how to drive big rigs. One can only assume he’d find something else to do in his spare time if he were offended by cuss words.

15

This guy teaching me has two semi tractors and a Mack tri-axle dump truck. He wants me to start on the semi tractor - without a trailer - before I drive the dump truck. He says it’s easier that way.

Had the second day with the truck today. Everything seemed to be easier this time around - I made sure to move the seat into exactly the right position so that the pedals were easy to reach. Getting moving from a stop was easier…I didn’t lurch it violently a single time, the way I did yesterday.

I did three skill tests in the lot - backing straight back into a section marked by cones; backing into an offset section of cones from an adjacent lane; and parallel parking into a section of cones. I think the first exercise took me three tries before I got it right, but after I did it properly I was able to repeat it several more times without knocking any cones over. The second exercise also took me several times, but in this case the thing that got me was stopping the truck exactly two feet from the rear most section of cones; i was able to back into the offset space properly the first time. The third exercise I think took me two tries before getting it right, and I didn’t knock over any cones.

Then I actually drove it out onto the road and down some country roads. This part initially went well - surprisingly well - until I got to the point where I needed to switch to the higher range of gears, 6 through 10. There were several times when I shifted to 10 instead of 8 and 9 instead of 7. The shifter is absolutely nothing like the kind in a car. Also, at a stop sign, I forgot to flip the switch back to the low range and wound up taking off in 8th gear, which caused the truck to stall.

The whole time I was doing this, I was wearing a very uncomfortable mask that restricted my breathing, stuck out into my peripheral vision just enough to be distracting, and just generally added to the level of stress while controlling this very large and very cumbersome vehicle. However, I told myself that if I can successfully operate the truck even while wearing the mask - which I did - apart from stalling at the stop sign there were no problems and I got several miles on the road and back using all the gears - then that’s just a sign that I’m sufficiently focused and will certainly have no problems when I reach the point of solo driving and don’t have to wear the mask.

All things considered, the second day was a vast improvement over the first day. Tomorrow I’m off, then back on Thursday for another day of practice.

16

Excellent! Best of luck to you.

17

When I learned how to drive a semi, we called this “slip-shifting,” but the idea is the same. Get the revs up to where you don’t need the clutch, then shift. You need to know where your gears are on the stick, and hit them exactly; but with practice, you’ll know. The pattern you describe isn’t terribly unusual, so once you learn that, you can slip-shift pretty much anything.

Absolutely essential. Check your air and electrical connections to the trailer, check the tires (a kick on each will do), do a walk-round to make sure that all lights are on, landing gear up and the fifth-wheel lock holding the kingpin, and so on. I often started the truck before doing my pretrip inspection–assuming all was well after the inspection (which took about a half-hour), I could get up into the cab, and find my air pressure just where it should be. Ready to go!

Good luck–I enjoyed my time driving a semi. One more thing–make sure that your instructor teaches you about logbooks (they were complicated to me at first) and all the paperwork needed. My instructor used to get into the cab with a briefcase containing all the paperwork, like he was going to an office job. And, as I found, I needed to also.

18

It’s just a 5-speed times two, eh?
Glad the second day was better than the first, it’s onward and upward from there.

19

Logbooks probably(shouldn’t) be a worry. E-logs are mandatory now.
Lots of trucks out there with an “ipad” mounted and covering things like the ac and radio controls. It’s possible not every truck has been brought into compliance though.

20

truck transmissions tend to be unsynchronized too.