Inspired by the ‘falling interest in TNUK’, I thought I would share my experience as a new starter to the trucking world. I am a regular browser of the forum, but alas have little to contribute as a newbie.
Who knows, maybe this is useful to other potential new starters – maybe it is just the waffling of a naive newbie to the world many of you have inhabited for decades. Regardless, it turned out quite lengthy - apologies.
My background is in engineering, and I have run teams of engineers with Jaguar Land Rover and a niche Hypercar company most recently. Reaching 50 this year, I have wanted to pack in the politics, stress, hyper-competitive environments and the overall feeling that I am just building things of little value to society, just to sell to the wealthy.
So, in August, I self funded my C+E and passed my tests in the first week of September. My only experience of trucks prior was the occasional 7.5t hire when moving house, and a couple of hours driving an artic round an airfield.
I do consider all driving to be a skill, one that can continually be improved upon and mistakes learned from. I passed my advanced car and motorbike tests previously, and I think these helped me when moving up to the large stuff.
So, September was a happy day with a freshly minted licence, and a complete lack of awareness of how little I actually knew.
I decided early on that the best way for me to get experience would be in at the deep end, via an agency, and going to whatever various jobs I could to broaden my skills. I am fortunate, in that I have earned good money over my career and have a relatively light set of family bills left to service.
This meant I could be rather choosy in what shifts I did, and so I currently only do Monday to Friday days, with the odd Sunday overtime when needed.
My first consistent work was milk tankers with Wincanton, a truly magnificent firm to work for and a great first experience for a newbie – generally taking a trailer to one place, swapping for another, and then taking that one to a third location. Nice modern trucks with satnav, and a nice support structure at the end of a phone if needed.
My next consistent work was with Freightroute, delivering and collecting pallets with an artic curtainsider. This one really taught me how to drive, manouvering particularly. This was all about finding premises with imperfect addresses, often wrong company names as systems have not caught up with name changes and moving of Goods In between premises.
Lots of tight places on industrial estates where none of the workers have car parking, and thus litter the roads both sides with their cars. Many places that were on farms, or in tiny villages so plenty of having to access down tiny roads and through villages with locals brandishing pitchforks at the driver who dares to upset their tranquility.
Most recently, I have been doing some general haulage which has involved going inside the London north circular, another unique experience where places to break are rare, and places to wait to be tipped are even rarer.
Great experience though, and another place where I learned that you just have to react to what you are faced with, and deal with it – no point getting stressed. I cannot just make a 16m 44t vehicle disappear, so other road users are just going to have to cope.
So, after three months, what are my thoughts?
- I am genuinely loving the honesty of this work, the challenge of safely and reliably being in charge of a big, heavy vehicle.
- I am loving the fact that I start the day knowing what I need to do, I can generally accomplish it during the day giving a feeling of satisfaction, and that I know I can forget about it when I leave the yard to go home.
- Whilst I have never driven any old trucks, the modern ones are so helpful to us new drivers. Auto gearboxes, comfortable cabs and seats, climate control, cruise control etc. are all great tools helping the driver.
- As a newbie, never, ever compromise on safety. Don’t rush, don’t cut corners, don’t hesitate to ask for help. When manouvering in tight spaces, stop, get out and look often. Who cares if there is an impatient car driver or two who has to wait a minute.
- Because I am new, any truck is an exciting experience. The Actros’ that the regular drivers seem to hate, the mirror cams, the 1.3 million mile DAFs – all of them great to me as I have nothing else to compare against.
- The vast majority of people I interact with during the day are wonderful, helpful and up for some banter. Be that other drivers, loaders, fork lift drivers, security guards, goods in, lovely people who respond to being treated with respect.
- The knowledge and experience I got during my training and test, prepared me for the test. It understandably, but surprisingly, leaves a vast gap in knowledge compared to what a driver needs in the real world.
- Agency work is great for experience, particularly as a newbie. You are completely thrown in at the deep end though. You are expected to know everything, and be independent even if they know you are new – ■■■■ it up, and get on with it.
- The reality of the long hours only hit home when I started, despite reading and ‘knowing’ it would be the case in advance. The days still fly by for me, but there is no social life really possible around the shifts as I am generally working, commuting or sleeping. Luckily, my wife is understanding and my kids are flying the nest, so it fits for now.
- Being agency, I am paid by the hour. Thus, if the planner wants a ridiculous day from me, at least I am earning fairly – I am struggling to see, at the moment, how that would work on a salaried role, as what the driver wants and the planner wants are absolute polar opposites.
- Other drivers are both astonishingly helpful, and worryingly miserable. I struggle a little with the interactions that come from the ‘I’ve done this for 30 years, it is all I know, but I really hate it’ section of the driver community.
- Every now and again, I am enlightened and overjoyed by a simple piece of advice given freely by another driver. When faced with a low bridge mere yards from my destination, a bridge that the Nav and my maps was unaware of, another driver on break nearby was a god-send advising of another route.
Finally, perhaps it is worth me listing the various things that I have so far needed to know, that my test and training simply did not cover. This will all be completely obvious for you experienced types, but may help other newbies. Try not to laugh too much at how simple some of these are!
- Trying to find a place to take a break when you are on 4h 15m driving time is horribly stressful – start planning way earlier as a newbie.
- Even if you know the area and know where the laybys are, understand that they may be closed/full/blocked – you cannot rely on them 100%.
- Trying to find a fuel station both HGV sized, and accepting of your company’s specific fuel card is not simple – trying to do this just as the reserve fuel warning comes on is also horribly stressful. Fill up earlier, and when you have chance.
- What looks like a long queue for the HGV pumps at a services may well just be opportunistic drivers simply using that bit of free space for a break. Take a little walk and suss out the situation rather than blindly queuing for ages.
- Make sure you have plenty of AdBlue before leaving the yard. Chances are your fuel card will not pay for AdBlue, and you were expected to fill from some well hidden storage tank in the yard.
- It is way too easy to eat poorly, and expensively whilst out on the road. Trucks cannot be parked in most places, so your choice of places to eat is very limited. Make plenty of healthy food, take it with you.
- I was very nervous initially about access to toilets. As it turns out, almost every delivery/collection/customer/RDC site you will be going to will happily let you use theirs – on top of the usual motorway services etc.
8 ) No matter how well you think you know the various driving, working time and rest directives – the reality of the job day to day will test you regularly. The weekly totals, rest periods and average duty time particularly. I find it relatively easy to get near the 15 hour shift time limit, and that usually knocks on to your start time for the following day also. - Agencies have their own interests at heart, naturally. They will send you to jobs you are not quite ready for – how you cope with this, adapt, ask other drivers for help and just get the job done will really define how much work you get offered.
- The client’s planner will ask more of you than you are legally capable of delivering from time to time. This is not necessarily deliberate nor malicious, it is simply that they do not know the reality of traffic, diversions, and waiting times at delivery/collections. Help them, by informing them early of delays/issues/challenges so replanning can be done.
- As an agency driver, you are quite rightly lower priority than the company permies. You will get the worst trucks, the less convenient routes, the most demanding delivery locations. Ying and yang to the flexibility and hourly pay of agency – expect it and ■■■■ it up.
- I had no idea how to open, nor secure a curtainsider. The securing straps inside the trailer also. Watch videos, ask other drivers, swallow pride and admit you don’t know.
- The trailer leg winders have three operating modes, normal speed, slow speed and neutral. Depending on where the winder has been left, the legs may do nothing (or appear to do nothing). Try pushing the winder in, or pulling it out.
- Half the trailers you hook up to have an air leak. Fact of life. Most are minor, and are not a significant concern proving the truck fills and maintains air pressure quickly. I still don’t truly know at what point to defect a trailer vs. just accepting and carrying on.
- In my experience, 20% of the trailers I hook up to have a light out. 95% of the time, it is the Susie connections rather than the trailer, unplug, re-plug, restest.
- Sometimes, unlocking a trailer fifth wheel from a parked trailer/tractor combination is hard. Dog clip out, but the fifth wheel simply won’t release – no matter how hard you are pulling the release lever. Try reversing the tractor a little, raising or lowering the tractor suspension – basically just changing the angle and distance.
- Be very aware of the type of surface you are on when disconnecting a loaded trailer. The legs will go through inappropriate surface as they have lots of weight through them. If in doubt, find something to put under the legs and spread the load.
- Connecting up to a trailer that has been parked for a while, and its suspension down on its bump stops is a bigger challenge. The fifth wheel pin will now be significantly higher than you need. Raise the truck suspension as high as it can go, connecting the air lines to build trailer suspension height will help. Failing all that, you can wind the trailer down using the leg winder on low speed (very hard to see it actually moving unless you have put the fifth wheel under the front of the trailer).
- Safely securing the spare strap of a ratchet once the load is secured is a dark art. Again, watch videos. If you don’t, you will be stopping every 20 miles to re-stow strap tails flailing in the wind.
- The CPC mod 4 test shows you how to use a ratchet strap and chains, but nobody tells you how best to use these for whatever random load you have today. Spend time watching other trailers/drivers/loads whenever you are driving and get a feel for how everyone else does it. To start with, use more straps than necessary to be safe.
- Have a truck satnav and a paper map. Always. You may not need both every day, but there will be plenty of times where you will up a creek sans paddle without. I use the Co-pilot satnav app at £8.99 per month, highly recommended.
- In my experience, gloves that are both waterproof, and allow you enough feel to do susies/straps/etc. have not been invented yet. Accept it, your hands will get wet and dirty.
- Good, warm, waterproof hi-viz clothing is important, and magnificent. Just like riding motorbikes though, kit that works for the winter will be useless for the summer.
- The words ‘Road closed, diversion’ are the stuff of nightmares for a new driver. Relax, find somewhere to stop, take some time to plan where next.
- When delivering to a new place, there is a very good chance that the business will not be at the address given. It may have changed name, it may have moved 200 metres, it may be such a long standing customer that the driver is just expected to know. Google maps is your saviour at this point.
- The simple, and sensible piece of information like a phone number for the customer? Useless! They will not answer the phone, and if they do, they will know nothing about where the delivery needs to be. Try the number, don’t worry about being disappointed.
- Sometimes even Google maps will not help, if the address or company name is completely wrong. At this point, look at exactly what you are delivering and try and guess what industry is likely to want that product – then google places in that industry, close by. Delivering drums of some sort of chemical, look for a nearby chemical plant on Google maps.
- When a place you are driving toward gets close, and the roads are starting to get really tight, stop. Get out, and walk the next few hundred metres. Going wrong, and then having to reverse/turn the truck as a newbie is not worth the two minute delay from exploring on foot.
- When manouvering in tight spaces with lots of lock and trailer deflection, the trailer tail swing can be significant. The front of the trailer will also describe a much wider ark than the cab. Just because the tractor unit has got through that hard left turn, right up against the right gate post, the front of the trailer likely will not.
- If there is someone about willing, or offering to be a banksman when reversing - use them. Their attempts to instruct you are likely to be unhelpful, but they are an invaluable set of eyes to stop you hitting the fence/car/bollard that you did not see.
Any other tips and tricks worth sharing?
Hope this is useful to someone, somewhere 
Martin.
