I am going into my tenth year as a CDL truck driver and there are parts of this career that I really like however there are a number of items that I hate as a CDL truck driver. So this article we are going to take a look at what upsets me and other CDL truck drivers
Truck Stops Waiting Game – I drive a set run where I pick up in my hometown and then deliver around two hundred miles per way then I head back to the terminal. The most stressful time of my trip is when I have to stop and get fuel because the new brand of truck drivers behavior.
During the last couple of years it seems that it has become okay for a truck driver to get fuel then proceed into the store to do whatever. Now anyone who has been driving for more than a minute knows that you are suppose to pull up your truck to allow the driver behind you to fuel however the new breed of driver does not do this.
Too many times per week I pull in and out of the seven fuel terminals five or six have trucks sitting at them that are not fueling and the driver is no where in sight. If you know you are going to be awhile park your truck and walk the extra fifty feet to the store
Poorly Trained Drivers – Unfortunately the level of training professional CDL truck drivers are receiving is getting worse and worse every year. Now it seems the goal for the school is to get their students out the door as soon as possible so they can get other students to fill the seats. The schools instead of preparing the new drivers for a long career in the trucking industry are just training to pass the CDL test which has made our roads unsafe. It use to be a rare occurrence that I was cut off by another CDL truck driver and now it happens multiple times per week.
Aggressive Drivers – There has always been aggressive drivers on the road however with the passage of time there seems to be more and more of them. The new game they are playing is seeing how close they can get to my front bumper when cutting in front of me.
Here is what happens when they lose that particular game: My truck weighs up to 72000 pounds and your little four wheeler weighs less than five thousand, it would be like a sumo wrestler fighting a kid in grade one. In the last ten years I have seen a number of fatal accidents caused by aggressive drivers and I really do not want to see anymore.
New Breed Of Drivers – Over the last few years the Canadian Government has opened the door to immigrants who have flooded the truck driving industry and unfortunately it has not been a positive experience. The new drivers tend to work for shady companies who only care about making money and not actually putting the time in to train their drivers properly.
What we are stuck with is drivers who did not spend any length of period with an experience driver who would have taught them everything that they needed to know about courtesy and respect among other drivers which this industry was built on. This is not only a Canadian problem as my fellow drivers in the USA are saying the same thing. At this point I do not know what it would take to fix the trucking industry which is being torn apart
Needless to say I could make this list longer however the five areas that I mentioned in this article are the areas that cause the most concern to me and other CDL truck drivers. Being a CDL truck driver is not an easy job at times and it carries a certain amount of risk and before it was four wheelers that I was most concerned with and now it is other CDL drivers
