Ask a Feeder Driver, Feeder Driver FAQ

[pickup]

What worked for me was this.....

This was with an old Mack and a pup parallel parking to driver's side.

Pull up straight until left rear tire of the pup is about a foot in front of and a foot to the right of the cone marking the forward right corner of the space.

Turn wheel all the way to the right.

Back up SLOWLY until you just see the trailer's landing gear come into your driver's side mirror.

STOP and turn wheel all the way to the left.

Back up SLOWLY until tractor and trailer are perfectly straight.

STOP and turn wheel halfway to the right so front tires are straight.

Back up SLOWLY until right rear trailer tire hits the right outside line of the space.

STOP and turn wheel all the way to the left.

Back up SLOWLY until you can just see your landing gear again but in your passenger mirror.

STOP and turn wheel all the way to the right.

Back up SLOWLY until tractor squares up with the trailer.

STOP and you should be good.

Sounds complicated but it's pretty easy once you figure it out.

Been in Feeders almost 18 months and have yet to have to parallel park.

I have had to back doubles up tho!

You've probably paralleled parked a few times, you just didn't think you were doing it.


Did you ever have a lot of room in front of the space you were going to back into and took advantage of that room for hopefully , something of a straight back in? Only to find that you were slightly off, but still could get it in the space but you were going to have to make some adjustments as you backed up so that you would not hit the blindside trailer and yet end up parallel to both trailers (ones on both side) when finished backing up . Well, you paralleled parked when you did that.

 

[QKRSTKR]

You can't go in shallow. You have to get the trailer going in hard or your done.

 

[cachsux]

You can't go in shallow. You have to get the trailer going in hard or your done.

That's a tad bit pornographic in description.

 

[barnyard]

The weeks that I was on feeders, we parked our Cach loads in another lot for the gypsies to take to Cach. I had to wait 20 minutes to park, as it was tight and while a UPSer was trying to get backed in, every time there was enough room, a gypsy bobtail would pull across his nose looking for their trailer.

Their safety ethic is significantly different than ours. Plus, I have not seen so many people, on the job, wearing flip flops, ever. Don't they make enough money to buy a pair of shoes??

 

[Dissident]

I'm a week into feeders with one day left of my 5-day productive ride. One of our supervisors gave us a curious tip during lunch on our first day out practicing with empties. He said, when you come back to your vehicle after any time away in a public place, to check the fifth wheel latch (among other things) for tampering. Apparently other truck drivers can get pretty resentful of UPS feeder drivers. After a brief tour around the internet researching the pay and practices that other companies implement, I'm not surprised.

Do any of you old timers have any experience dealing with disgruntled cdl drivers on the road? Do you ever get S at truck stops? So far the vast majority of bad drivers cutting me off have been tractor trailer units from other trucking companies, not the jerks in sports cars that I'd expect.

 

[MaceFremonti]

I check even when I'm away from the equipment on property. You never know what people are capable of.

 

[cachsux]

ALWAYS check your entire rig upon returning. You don't have to do a complete pretrip but you can easily see that everything's in place. Fifth wheels, glad hands, chains. These are the easy to get at areas to sabotage. Pull a guys fifth wheel and watch his trailer fall. Swap his glad hands and sit back and watch him try and figure out why his rig won't roll all of a sudden. Throw a chain over the hoses on the dolly and watch him be disabled the minute he turns a corner and rips the hoses off.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Package car drivers should also be doing this, especially after their meal period or when delivering in a dense residential section.

 

[OPTION3]

I'm a week into feeders with one day left of my 5-day productive ride. One of our supervisors gave us a curious tip during lunch on our first day out practicing with empties. He said, when you come back to your vehicle after any time away in a public place, to check the fifth wheel latch (among other things) for tampering. Apparently other truck drivers can get pretty resentful of UPS feeder drivers. After a brief tour around the internet researching the pay and practices that other companies implement, I'm not surprised.

Do any of you old timers have any experience dealing with disgruntled cdl drivers on the road? Do you ever get S at truck stops? So far the vast majority of bad drivers cutting me off have been tractor trailer units from other trucking companies, not the jerks in sports cars that I'd expect.

Had an argument with a Driver of another trucking company…..He wanted the bay I was on( I was told by the shipping manager to pull onto this bay)…….Driver asked how long I was gonna be….told him until shipping is done…..Long story short….driver pulls in 3 Bays over picks up his 1 skid(bitching and mumbling the whole time) then leaves. Half hour later my pick up closes out…go to my truck check fifth wheel latch….yup it’s pulled….return to shipping department to notify them of what happened….They review SECURITY CAMERA………OTHER trucking company is no longer allowed on their property…..ALWAYS CHECK CONNECTIONS WHEN RETURNING TO YOUR RIG

 

[cachsux]

Had an argument with a Driver of another trucking company…..He wanted the bay I was on( I was told by the shipping manager to pull onto this bay)…….Driver asked how long I was gonna be….told him until shipping is done…..Long story short….driver pulls in 3 Bays over picks up his 1 skid(bitching and mumbling the whole time) then leaves. Half hour later my pick up closes out…go to my truck check fifth wheel latch….yup it’s pulled….return to shipping department to notify them of what happened….They review SECURITY CAMERA………OTHER trucking company is no longer allowed on their property…..ALWAYS CHECK CONNECTIONS WHEN RETURNING TO YOUR RIG

1) NEVER argue with another driver. You'd be surprised what someone can dig out of their tractor to kill you with.
2) If there's a disagreement then both of you go inside and let the customer settle it. Let them deal with the pissed off drivers.
3) Yes, as you said, always check when returning to your equipment.

 

[cachsux]

Package car drivers should also be doing this, especially after their meal period or when delivering in a dense residential section.

It never hurts to be aware.

 

[ReLooped]

So i show up nice and early for class today-instructor does a head count and says "there's too many of you here". he goes up to the feeder office, comes back and tells me i'm not scheduled. I'm upset, of course, but don't take it out on the instructor since he's got nothing to do with the screwup...now i have to wait 2 weeks for the next class. HR isn't open today but i called the cell's of the 2 i have numbers for...no answer (this is typical of these people). Seriously, what is HR around for if they can't seem to get anything right?

 

[superballs63]

So i show up nice and early for class today-instructor does a head count and says "there's too many of you here". he goes up to the feeder office, comes back and tells me i'm not scheduled. I'm upset, of course, but don't take it out on the instructor since he's got nothing to do with the screwup...now i have to wait 2 weeks for the next class. HR isn't open today but i called the cell's of the 2 i have numbers for...no answer (this is typical of these people). Seriously, what is HR around for if they can't seem to get anything right?

We had a guy who's drug test didn't come back so he went 3 weeks ago, and got kicked out of class. I was scheduled 2 weeks ago, got pushed back to last week, and so on and so on.

HR at UPS is completely useless, so you just have to deal with it.

 

[cachsux]

So i show up nice and early for class today-instructor does a head count and says "there's too many of you here". he goes up to the feeder office, comes back and tells me i'm not scheduled. I'm upset, of course, but don't take it out on the instructor since he's got nothing to do with the screwup...now i have to wait 2 weeks for the next class. HR isn't open today but i called the cell's of the 2 i have numbers for...no answer (this is typical of these people). Seriously, what is HR around for if they can't seem to get anything right?

In general in a situation like this of too many student for available instructors if they are going to push off the training of anyone READY for class then it has to be done by seniority. I.e. the lowest seniority people will have to wait.
Allowing them to just pick whomever they train/postpone WILL come back to bite those employees later on as the date of their training will become their FT date which will affect everything from vacation /job/layoff in the future.

 

[govols019]

We had a guy who's drug test didn't come back so he went 3 weeks ago, and got kicked out of class. I was scheduled 2 weeks ago, got pushed back to last week, and so on and so on.

HR at UPS is completely useless, so you just have to deal with it.

I thought just our HR was useless...Nice to see it's company wide. Where do they find these people?

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

I thought just our HR was useless...Nice to see it's company wide. Where do they find these people?

Ours is very good at what she does.


Resident know-it-all.

 

[ZQXC]

You can't go in shallow.

That's always been my #1 rule.

 

[superballs63]

I thought just our HR was useless...Nice to see it's company wide. Where do they find these people?

Community college dropouts is my guess

 

[govols019]

Ours is very good at what she does.


Resident know-it-all.

Good for you...talking to ours is like talking to a stump. Even our center manager dreads having to deal with ours.

 

[Johney]

In general in a situation like this of too many student for available instructors if they are going to push off the training of anyone READY for class then it has to be done by seniority. I.e. the lowest seniority people will have to wait.
Allowing them to just pick whomever they train/postpone WILL come back to bite those employees later on as the date of their training will become their FT date which will affect everything from vacation /job/layoff in the future.

friend/T(seniority)date here is when you bid a run and do it one day.