David Longanecker retired at 70 after a 45-year career in higher education policy. Then he went back to school.
Truck driving school.
Longanecker (’68 Socio.) “loved big trucks” for as long as he could remember.
As a kid, he relished stories of his father’s and uncle’s trips in an 18-wheeler. Later, he loved riding in the cabs of semi-trucks when he hitchhiked to Washington State University.
Here, enjoy excerpts from his book, The Late Truck Driver: Following the Dream (Archway Publishing, 2021).
From “Training to Drive Truck”
Similar to what aircraft pilots do before every flight, truck drivers are supposed to do a similar precheck of the combination tractor and trailer before every trip. On the first day of class, learning each of these 181 tasks seemed like a mighty daunting assignment. I must say, however, that I was quite taken by the names of the different parts. My favorites include glad hands, which connect the air brake lines from the tractor to the trailer; the slack adjusters, which connect the brake push rod to the brake cam; the entire tractor/trailer coupling system (including the apron, fifth wheel, sliding fifth wheel platform and assembly, kingpin and jaws); and the splitter, which simply splits the gear sift between the lower five to eight gears and the upper five to eight gears. My training was on a ten-speed transmission.
Next up was driving, the skills component. It might more appropriately be called backing the damn truck. The first is simply learning to back the tractor and trailer in a straight line. That may sound simple, but I can assure you that backing both the trailer and tractor between the cones, at least initially, was no mean trick. It’s just easy to forget that as the trailer goes one direction, the tractor, just like your car, is going the opposite direction. Second up was learning the cross-over backing exercise, which included learning both the cross-over from left to right and from right to left. Ouch! Next up was to learn to parallel park. Finally, the fourth skill was the alley park, which requires you to pull in perpendicular to an alley and back the trailer ninety degrees into a parking spot.
From “I’m a Truck Driver; Now to Find a Ride”
Job listings called for at least six months’ experience, often more than a year. I had a total of about 150 miles. After some understandable delays, I was scheduled for a test drive with American Furniture Warehouse. The tractor was a beautiful red Kenworth T680. It was much nicer than the older Kenworth on which I had trained, but it was also a bit different; it was a 13-speed transmission rather than 10 speeds, which meant the gears were differently placed. The trailer was also much nicer…it was thirteen feet longer than the trailer with which I had trained. No big deal, or so I thought. The drive went reasonably well, from my perspective, though not as well as I had hoped. We returned to the yard to perform the skill test of alley parking the trailer between two other trailers. My initial pass was nearly disastrous. I had not pulled forward enough to fit the trailer in and nearly hit one of the trailers in backing up. The following day, Mike called me to indicate that they just didn’t think that my driving was up to snuff. Mike at AFW had suggested that I talk to Swift Transportation because they have a true training program for novice drivers.
From “Driver’s Purgatory”
On the following Monday, I did, indeed begin my employment with Swift Transportation. I soon discovered that the employment of new drivers for Swift was a multistage purgatory of sorts, and I was only on the first stage. I was assigned to be mentored by Edward Gomez. My first time behind the wheel of Ed’s 2017 Kenworth T680 was driving out of Denver Swift Transportation terminal just after midnight, headed to the Walmart warehouse in Loveland to drop off a load of cardboard boxes. This was already a new experience because I had never driven at night, which meant I didn’t have my usual cheaters for staying in lane. Then there was the blind angle backing into a tight space between two trailers in the Loveland yard – no cones to park between this time; real trailers don’t just fall over when you hit them. All went well however, so we were off bob-tailing (the term for driving without a trailer) to pick up a load of meat.
My second day driving was through snow, drifting because of heavy winds, and ice roads because of lowering temperatures. The I-80 truck stop was where I fueled Ed’s truck for the first time…there are essentially four fuel tanks that must be checked and fueled…filling even three-quarter empty tanks can be an expensive proposition…(Later) I drove through another blizzard. The winds were very strong, and I often had to hold the steering wheel about one-eighth to one-quarter turns to simply keep the truck going straight. I felt like I was a sailboat tacking against the wind. At times, the blowing snow erased the road and only side markers along the highway gave any clue as to where one should go…So ended my first two weeks as an over-the-road truck driver. We had traveled just under 6,000 miles and had been to 15 states. The gig had been every bit as enjoyable and valuable a learning experience as I had hoped for.
From “Free at Last”
My time with Ed, my mentor, lasted slightly more than five weeks. It was quite exciting to pick up my truck. I was assigned a 2016 Freightliner with 160,000 miles on it. The Freightliner Cascadia is a nice truck with a comfortable sleeper unit, including two bunks, a small refrigerator and a nice heater. In the five months I drove for Swift, I had six days off. As a company driver one doesn’t arrange her or his own trips; rather, this is done by trip planners. These trip planners have access to your electronic driving logs, so they know how many hours you have available to drive and work to match the time required. Most drivers don’t actually load or unload their trucks. That task is left to folks called lumpers. Interestingly, though, although I didn’t load the truck, I was responsible for the load. If the load is not balanced, the driver must move the trailer or rear tandem axle back or forward, depending on the maldistribution of weight. I also soon realized that perhaps the toughest aspect of driving was parking and docking the trailer, be that at a truck stop, a shipper or a receiver. After a long day of driving, after your mind is a bit numbed, backing into a tight space between two other trucks is no mean trick.
You don’t get to choose good weather and fair conditions. Within 24 hours of driving for Swift, I had driven through snow, sleet, black ice, rain and heavy winds. And you don’t really have a choice but to drive through these in most circumstances. If a road is not officially closed, you are expected to travel on. If you are delayed in receiving a load, it may be necessary to drive all night to deliver the load on time. So, yes, I did drive when I was sleepy. In fact, I believe that soon self-driving trucks will replace manually driven ones, at least on the over-the-road trips. And I believe the highways will be safer as a result. Robots won’t speed, fall asleep, be distracted, have difficulty backing their trailer, or give any lip to the clients.
As my confidence grew, so did the joy of driving, which was why I had gotten into the business in the first place. Operating the machine itself is a joy. And the vistas are amazing. One of the very special aspects of over-the-road driving is seeing America. The sunsets and sunrises remain perhaps my favorite e part of driving through the prairies.
“Here Come the Dickheads”
The standard ethic is to be courteous. I suspect that is why most drivers really dislike those few drivers who think they are more important than any of the rest or who fly off the handle at modest inconveniences. The title of this chapter is actually a quote from a CB conversation during a traffic backup near Evanston, Wyoming. A jackknifed truck and trailer had led to another eastbound closure…the State Patrol asked that all truckers get in the right lane to allow emergency vehicles and four-wheelers to move through. Four-wheelers (that would be cars or pickups) were allowed through because they could maneuver around the accident, but there just wasn’t room for semis to do so. As time wore on, some folks became impatient and broke ranks. On person on the CB, noting the approach of some trucks in the left lane alerted us all, “Here come the dickheads.”
Four-wheelers can also be dickheads, though more often than not their transgressions are born of ignorance, not arrogance. I personally found three standard behaviors of auto drivers problematic. First and foremost are those four-wheelers who drive in the truck driver’s blind spots. Duh: that sign on many trailers that reads, “If you can’t see me, I can’t see you” is so true, but apparently an alien idea to many auto drivers. One of the most serious causes of truck/car accidents remains cars that tailgate and then rear-end the truck when it brakes suddenly. Perhaps even more serious are the accidents that occur when a truck turns into a lane that it believes it can clear, but clips a car that is in the truck’s blind spot. The second auto driver behavior that really bothers truck drivers is the tendency of four-wheelers to pull into space in front of a truck in heavy traffic. Truck drivers don’t leave space between themselves and the vehicle in front as a courtesy to allow naïve auto drivers to change lanes. Rather, they leave this space so that they have enough room to stop their 80,000-pound truck if circumstances require them to do so. By crowding into that space, the four-wheeler increases the likelihood that the truck may run right over the top of them. The third aggravating behavior is the common practice of passing a truck and then slowing down. If you want to be in front, which is certainly understandable, at least maintain your speed. Remember, truckers get paid by the mile, so when you slow them down, you reduce their salary.