Check Your Tandems: Owner Operator, Month 1

This is an “as-told-to”: The nearly-real time chronicle of a first-time truck owner. Keep in mind that this is all said from a general point of view. Simply to give you an idea of what owning a truck is really like. Some of the numbers aren’t accurate but ballpark figures. It’s just to give the…

Check Your Tandems: Why can’t I slide my tandems here?

Why do so many shipping and receiving yards care if you slide your tandem wheels? When driving a big truck with trailer into a shipping/receiving yard, in my trucking tenure I estimated that about a third of them required you to slide your trailer’s tandem wheels all the way to the doors. This was usually…

Check Your Tandems | Dumb car tricks: Passing hazards

Part memoir, part tall tale, part instructional manual: Chris DeBrie’s “Check Your Tandems” is from the perspective of a truck driver as he moves from newbie “greenhorn” to seasoned professional. Most automobile drivers are careful to move aside when they see a policeman’s blue flashers up ahead on the highway. They are careful when they see the red…

Check your tandems | Trucker Logs: Slip seat

Part memoir, part tall tale, part instructional manual: Chris DeBrie’s “Check Your Tandems” is from the perspective of a truck driver as he moves from newbie “greenhorn” to seasoned professional. What is “slip seat trucking”? It is for the tractor trailer driver who does not own a truck. This variety of driver is known as a…