Dave Kyle 0:04
One of the things that I have people ask me about, what do these trucks get side by side on and you can't get around them. What happened to me a week or two ago, I was coming home from Green Bay, Wisconsin, set behind these guys for 15 Miles side by side. I knew what was going on, but I still wasn't any happier about it.

Steve Fast 0:28
Life behind the wheel of a big rig, the romance of the road, the long hours in search of a good payday working in an 18 Wheel office. Welcome to random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. I'm your host, Steve fast. Today we've got the 1044 on the secrets and myths of truck driving and what it takes to operate an 18 Wheeler. Let's put the hammer down and introduce on trucking expert.

Dave Kyle 0:53
I'm Dave Kyle, and I'm a instructor of the CDL program here at Heartland Community College. And what we do is we take folks and train them how to drive a commercial Big Rig 30 days, and it's possibly one of the very few things you can take a 30 day course and come straight out to a $50,000 a year job. So obviously

Steve Fast 1:11
you probably haven't been teaching your entire career you probably spent a lot of time behind the wheel as well. But

Dave Kyle 1:17
you know I did in my misspent youth, I went to college and majored in radio broadcasting back when that was something you could major in Columbia and Chicago, and came out of there and what my dad owned a truck. So I wasn't going to make a lot of money as a DJ. So I started driving a truck and kind of got trapped in it. And I stayed there for about 20 years, I had a really decent job where I was home every night. teamsters union made good money. I did that for about 20 years. And then I got to itch for aviation. So I bought an airplane while I was still driving the truck, learn how to fly, and ended up spending the next 2025 years in the aviation industry, which I still keep my hand and today I'm announcer at air shows across the United States, and Canada and El Salvador, UK all over the place. But I decided I could retire about eight years ago or nine years ago. Yes, it was. And after about two months, it's like you know, I can't really afford this, I need a part time job. And this job came open. And I had the qualifications for it. So I started doing it. Now I'm going to be starting my ninth year here in December.

Steve Fast 2:20
So are there any commonalities between driving a truck and flying a plane?

Dave Kyle 2:26
A lot more than you might think one of the things I stress to students is situational awareness, which you of course stress in aviation as well as truck, be aware of what's going on around you at all times. keep you out of trouble.

Steve Fast 2:37
I'm sure that there are a lot of things that people that haven't been behind the wheel of a commercial vehicle, have no idea when they see the other commercial vehicles on the road with what they're doing that might be make it tougher for drivers. When you did for 20 years drive a truck. What kind of things did you haul?

Dave Kyle 2:55
Well, I hold a little bit of everything, a lot of those years worth of flatbed, Georgia Pacific Corp had a distribution center here and normal. And I worked for them for 17 years, delivering plywood lumber building materials. That was the good home every night Teamster job that I actually walked away from to go fly. So that was in my career, I've done the box trailers. And actually, when I had the office at the airport here for several years, they actually hold jet fuel themselves into the FBO fixed base operator out here. And when their guy was off, I would hold jet fuel for them every now and then just to keep my hand in so to speak. So I've done a little bit of everything with a truck. When you talk about

Steve Fast 3:33
hauling jet fuel, do you need to have any kind of special qualification or license to drive something that's flammable? Or a different sort of load than Yeah, your

Dave Kyle 3:43
your your driver's license needs to have a tank certification and you need a hazmat hazardous materials certification. So yeah, those are two things, you have to have to haul any hazardous material.

Steve Fast 3:55
We'll talking a little bit about the program here at Heartland, what does a driver need to know the basics that they need to know in order to get a Class A license? Well,

Dave Kyle 4:03
as I understand it, the criteria is pretty easy. You have to be 18 years old and have a driver's license. But you have to pass the test. Well, yeah, yeah. Then Then you come to us. And we spend 40 hours in the classroom. And studying for the test is the state of Illinois written tests, which there are three general knowledge, a combination vehicle and air brakes, air brakes, seems to be the Achilles heel of everyone that has a problem with it. But we study for that. And once you pass those three tests, then we move to the truck and it's all hands on from that moment on

Steve Fast 4:35
our air brakes, the toughest part of training for most of the people in the program, what requires the most practice

Dave Kyle 4:43
airbrakes in the in the written test, and we're just talking to written test driving. The Written test is especially with people who have no mechanical background, you know, we'll get a farm guy who's been around mechanical stuff I was like, has no problem with it. We get folks out of the big city, which we do have a lot of folks from Chicago in the program and they're Like if they know how to put an automatic transmission in Drive, let alone know anything mechanical, so they have problems or that. So we work on that a lot to make sure that they understand what they need to understand to pass the test,

Steve Fast 5:10
what requires the most training behind the wheel is backing up an issue?

Dave Kyle 5:13
Yes. You nailed it backing up as an issue, the state qualifications nowadays, you have to be able to back a truck 100 feet straight back without getting out of line. And you have to be able to do an offset, which is basically that line you were in, you need to offset the width of your truck into another situation, they scale back over to the neck, picture of warehouse, your one door, you need to backup to the other door next to you. And then here's the one that everybody loves a parallel park. If the parallel park is semi in a space 15 feet longer than the truck itself. And you cannot touch a line on either end or the backside, which they consider a concrete wall or you fail a test. That's the Bugaboo for most people there. And then what's working on that the other thing I would say would be shifting gears in the in the 10 speed transmission. Because trucks, unlike cars do not have synchronized transmissions. So you have to learn how to double clutch, which is an old lost skill. People with Old English sportscars, from the early 50s would know how to do that called Crash boxes, because there are no synchronizers in the transmission. And they shift entirely different even folks that have standard transmissions have problems learning how to shift these.

Steve Fast 6:31
That raises a question. You know, over the years, cars have really changed a lot in the technology. Almost everybody has an automatic transmission passenger car now, it's kind of uncommon to get a manual transmission, but a lot of other stuff to GPS, backup cameras, sensors, is this entering into the kind of experience that we're seeing with trucks nowadays. Yeah,

Dave Kyle 6:55
it's coming around. More and more trucking companies are going to automatic transmissions. They were very problematic in the beginning because of the weights involved. But they've they figured that out. Finally, technology's caught up with the idea. And automatic transmissions are becoming quite popular. A lot of the trucks have nowadays, Lane sensors, like you'll find on some of the more expensive cars that will warn you when you go out of your lane, a lot of them even have the radar activated speed sensors, someone cuts you off, it'll apply the brakes a lot, it actually even stopped the truck. Now we don't have any of those in our truck, when we teach everyone the old fashioned way. And actually in the state of Illinois. If you learn an automatic truck, your license is so annotated and you cannot drive anything but an automatic. So that's one of the reasons we stick with the 10 speed. So anyone graduates from our course can drive anything, it's out there.

Steve Fast 7:43
So you're talking about backing up earlier. And I know a lot of people that can't bear a little park a passenger vehicle, what sort of tips do you give your students on how to back up how to get a handle on that how to get themselves in that headspace of knowing where that trailer is going? Well, there

Dave Kyle 7:58
are all kinds of things that we use to try to give them that visual picture. Your mirrors are very important in the truck, you live and die by the big cars, big mirrors you see on the semis, that's what gets you everywhere backing. And we have our little wouldn't call them tricks. We have our little techniques. We teach people how to do this. And quite frankly, I don't recall it all the times I've driven and why by truck driving experience, I had like a million and a half miles in a truck. I don't recall ever having to parallel park one. And one of our other instructors, Roger has probably more miles than that used to be a west east coast driver. He's never parallel parked a truck. So the state of Illinois and their wisdom about a year and a half ago decided we needed to do this. Except no one knows why.

Steve Fast 8:38
What are some of the other things that you teach your students? I always wonder, is there something about the intangibles of that job that you have to pass along?

Dave Kyle 8:47
We try. One of the things we stress that you know these jobs, like I said, basically, you can walk into a $50,000 a year job, yes, those jobs are out there. And yes, almost any one of our graduates can get one of those jobs. However, those jobs are basically over the road, you may be away from your family for two weeks at a time, you may have to take your weekend break in Timbuktu, away from home and family, especially in the beginning until you get the seniority and the experience in it. And you know, there's some hardships you're out there on the road driving every day, sometimes 10 or 11 hours a day for seven days straight. But the payoffs on the back end are great. Once you get a years experience, you can translate that into one of the jobs most people want locally, because they want that one year experience. Or some people fall in love with the road and they stay out there forever. But yeah, we try to stress to people that this isn't like, you know, you're not going to just all of a sudden have this $50,000 Your job, be home every night and weekends off because it's not going to be that way.

Steve Fast 9:42
You mentioned situational awareness. And that's probably maybe one of the more frustrating things if you're driving a big truck is you kind of can't control what's around you. So those of us that aren't behind the wheel of a big rig. What do you want us to know that What are the things we were doing doing?

Dave Kyle 10:02
There's a lot of things. Number one on my list is turn signals, please use turn signals and use them. Before you turn. One of the biggest annoyances is, you'll notice this going home tonight what after I tell you this, people get into a turn lane, and then they turn the turn signal on is too late. I know what you're going to do. I want to turn signal on to warn me you're going into that turn lane, and then we can talk about it. But you know, once you're in the turn lane, okay, you're just telling me you weren't paying any attention. That's one of the things and people also they tend to do this more I think around the school truck that's a student driver on it, is they try to get in front of us. We had a guy this morning over near ISU try, we dread the student that was driving at a signal on going into a left turn lane. All of a sudden, this car jumped up behind him in order to zoom around him. And oncoming traffic into the left turn lane. I was like, nope. So then he hit his brakes and pulled around beside us. And guess what he was doing? Texting. He was paying no attention. So that's another thing. And from our vantage point in that truck, we can see right inside a car, and you see more people texting than you would ever imagine.

Steve Fast 11:03
From your vantage point, you can pretty much see right down there and try to do their nails or, or read a book or, you know, fix their cup of coffee, whatever they might want to do.

Dave Kyle 11:15
And you'd be surprised at the things you see and see people reading a newspaper going down the road. It's incredible.

Steve Fast 11:20
One thing I saw somebody doing once this is years ago, I saw I'm not making this up. I saw somebody playing a trumpet.

Dave Kyle 11:26
Okay, I've not seen, I don't doubt you.

Steve Fast 11:30
Let's talk a little bit about what the average job is, like you mentioned, it's one of the few jobs where you can go through this entire course. And maybe making $50,000 a year. You touched on it a bit earlier. But what's the average workweek? Like for somebody that's driving a truck? Because it's seven days? Is it five days? Is it intermittent?

Dave Kyle 11:49
There's a variety, and it's really tough to pinpoint one. Some of our guys, we were just talking this morning about a recent student who has got a job with a local guide and Hayworth that has a couple of semis. He's hauling grain for him right now. And he's hauling fertilizer, he's home every night. He's making decent money, he's probably making 40,000 a year instead of 50. But he's the trade off is he's home every night. You know, he's working, he said Max 10 hours a day, five days a week. And then if you go over the road, some days, you're going to be driving 11 hours a day, seven days a week. And then they have what's called a 34 hour turnaround. That's your weekend, that 34 hours shut down and off you go again. So you know, they're just so many and anywhere in between. We've had a lot of students go to local, soft drink and beer distributors. Those are good jobs because you're driving semi except that's a lot of work because you have to load the the Quickie marks and things with the beer and the soda and and they pay well, your home every night. You know, anywhere in between there, you can just pick it, there's a myriad of options.

Steve Fast 12:50
So how many miles? If somebody does have one of those overnight jobs? How many miles could they potentially cover? Just in one day? You've starting out in the same place? They end up

Dave Kyle 12:58
650 700 Miles potentially? Wow. In one day? Yeah. Yeah. Some of these people are getting 3500 miles a week. And a lot of these companies pay by miles. Okay, I'm gonna

Steve Fast 13:08
do a little myth busting here. Okay, there are some things that I've heard people say, or wonder about truck drivers and driving big rigs, 18 wheelers. And so you can tell me, if it's just totally false, not your experience. You ever heard of it? Or if it's common or uncommon anymore? Okay. So one of the things is in 2018? Do drivers still use CB radios?

Dave Kyle 13:30
Yes, they do. We don't have one in our truck, because it'd be too much of a distraction. I haven't been on one for 30 years, probably. But you have the trucks still have them? And basically, I'll tell you when I miss them. Not in the truck. It's when I'm driving my car and traveling somewhere. And traffic stops. What's going on up there? You know that? So that's what truckers used them for. Mostly nowadays. Instead of the old days like the smokey and abandoned things. History. But yeah, they do still use CB radios.

Steve Fast 13:58
All right. Here's another one. Are the engines of some trucks programmed. So drivers can't speed?

Dave Kyle 14:05
Oh, yes. Almost all of them nowadays. Our truck is specifically governed at 70 miles an hour. You can go no faster downhill uphill. It's that's it. And a lot of the freight companies I know a local freight company, a very large one north of town here that trucks are governed at 65. Some of the companies out there Governor 60 to 63. If you're a real bad driver get in trouble. We'll take you down to 60. And that's one of the things that I have people ask me about, what do these trucks get side by side on and you can't get around them? What happened to me a week or two ago, I was coming home from Green Bay Wisconsin, set behind these guys for 15 Miles side by side. I knew what was going on. But I still wasn't any happier about it. Because the one guy was going up a hill and he had more weight than the other and all of a sudden they're side by side and they're governed they can't go any faster. And neither one of them what's the load off the gas to let the cars through and so that's what causes that it's not truckers being bad guys. truckers trying to do their job.

Steve Fast 15:01
That was gonna be my next question is trucks drive side by side in both lanes for 15 miles? I think you just answered it

Dave Kyle 15:09
there. That's that's exactly why well, we

Steve Fast 15:11
touched on this a little bit earlier. Do you need special certifications or special licenses to haul certain things? We talked about flammable materials? Do you see those wide load trucks sometimes? What are the types of things people need a special qualification

Dave Kyle 15:26
to dry the wide load things, a lot of those things are just experience. A lot of the stuff like I was talking jet fuel and things to a lot of these people want at least three years experience before they let you do that. Because obviously it is hazardous. And the last time I was involved with jet fuel actually was about a year ago, somebody called up said, Hey, could you do this one load for us. And I did. But everything has changed so dramatically from what I used to do it because of TSA. They now look at that 7000 gallon load of jet fuel as a weapon. And you have to go on a specific route. And you're advised not to do this not to do that don't let cars do this to you. I mean, it's become way more sophisticated than it used to be. So that's one thing. Again, the wide loads, things like that are more just experience that really only special qualifications, you need the add ons to the standard CDL Class A CDL license is double and triple trailers, and tankers and hazmat. Those are the add ons. And actually, there's really no no criteria for any of those except the written test and the time and knowledge to do it.

Steve Fast 16:31
What about livestock? Is that just an experience thing too?

Dave Kyle 16:33
Yeah, that's a whole a whole other world. I grew up on a farm. So I'm kind of familiar with that, too. The thing about livestock Well, there's two categories there. It's still in the test, it's not so much anymore. Livestock and swinging meat. Because it used to be with those slaughterhouses, like in Colorado would ship whole carcasses to the East Coast hanging in a refrigerated trailer. So obviously, your center of gravity is high. And it moves. So when you're going around corners is a great potential to flip the thing over and livestock that are still living the same way because they can move around in there. So people try to cram them as tight as they can get them looks inhumane, but it keeps them alive until they get there.

Steve Fast 17:11
Here's some more that we're curious about. You can comment on this during your career during what made your students that might bring to the table? I don't know. But do most truckers like country music?

Dave Kyle 17:23
Um, I don't know. Maybe probably I don't. I don't I'm a rock and roll guy. But I don't say probably yes. So

Steve Fast 17:31
when you were driving, it wasn't like a prerequisite for you listening Merle Haggard you could have some Led Zeppelin going

Dave Kyle 17:36
to be a prerequisite to listen to Led Zeppelin for me.

Steve Fast 17:39
So I was wondering about that, you know, because there's so much of the truck driving law in country music, but when I'm in the car, especially when I'm gonna do a long drive. I want to listen to something that's gonna keep me awake. Get me going like Led Zeppelin or something like that. Me too. And here's the number one question that everybody wanted me to ask you today? Do truckers commonly have uses for Gatorade bottles other than drinking Gatorade?

Dave Kyle 18:07
I know where you're going with this. And I believe the road crews call them golden bombs. Yes, the long long haul guys don't want to stop their trucks had been known to use the Gatorade bottles for bodily functions, so they don't have to stop to accomplish that.

Steve Fast 18:22
Now, is there any kind of etiquette and how to dispose of those?

Dave Kyle 18:25
Well, I would think so. But apparently a lot of them just get tossed out the window. So

Steve Fast 18:30
if you ever just wonder Who threw that full bottle of Gatorade out in the side of the road and you're driving by it's not Gatorade anymore. I

Dave Kyle 18:37
wouldn't know. I wouldn't try to recover it.

Unknown Speaker 18:39
Well, Dave, thank you so much for taking the time to talk about the program Thanks Steve.

Unknown Speaker 18:49
Dave Kyle is a truck driving instructor at Heartland Community College. To learn more about truck driver training go to heartland.edu and click on train for a new career. This has been random acts of knowledge. Please check out our other episodes on audioboom, Apple podcasts and wherever you find your good listening. Thanks for joining us.