The Unwritten Truck Stop Code: What NOT to do at Truck Stops

every night i gotta park somewhere a lot of the times i try to find a larger park uh truck stop somewhere good to park but you gotta remember when you go into a lot of these places there is some etiquette there are some things we do and some things we don't do we're about to pull into a truck stop here and stand by because we're going to give you some of the pointers of what we do and what we don't do when we get into one of these major truck stops [Music] so here we come we are rolling into the flying j in napanee for the u.s guys that's in ontario canada just off 401 up i guess i'd say around kingston one of the things i really hate about truck stops and although there's nobody doing it here right now on the on the right side of my truck here you see these these concrete blocks a lot of times this truck stop right now isn't full but a lot of times guys will park along here making a nuisance of themselves don't do that if you've got a truck stop that's half empty or not even a quarter empty or full you know what go out and park your truck you don't need to be uh you don't need to be parked in there it just because it's going to get you 25 pieces closer to the to the to the building so i guess the first thing we're going to do here is we're going to go over to the fuel island and we're going to see we're going to check out some business we are busy today [Music] so here we are at the fuel island and here is one of the biggest no-nos in the world this is what we've got the guy in front of us has fueled he's got all his fuel he's washed his windows he's done everything he's got to do and what's he supposed to do well what he's supposed to do is pull through the drive-through lane and park up there enabling us to pull into the fuel island to get fuel but what has he done as you can see well you can't see because i'm looking out the window and you're not he's just decided to leave his truck here and he's buggered off inside now i'm a nice guy for the most part but if i wasn't a nice guy what would i be doing i'd probably be chewing this guy a new ass on his way back like hey bud you know this ain't cool i myself personally i think it's very disrespectful i really do i don't think it's cool when you're done fueling do what you got to do there's no hurry right if you've got a pump 200 gallons of fuel you got to pump 200 gallons of fuel pump your fuel get it done wash your windows if you know if you've got enough fuel to pump and you've got the time throw your hood open check your oil do a quick little thing like that but when you're done bro get the hell out of my way so that is the big one of the probably the biggest no-no when you pull into a truck stop do not impede traffic i'm if i'm tired i want to fuel my truck i want to clean my windows i want to get parked i want to get my meal i want to eat and you know what man i want to go to bed i don't want to sit here while you know you run inside and grab your coffee and do whatever the hell you're doing you know chit-chatting to the boy whatever don't do that there's a lane ahead of this you know when you pull through the fuel island there's a lane there specifically for that you pull through you park then you run in you grab your coffee you go to the washroom throw some water on your face give a quick hello to the boys and girls behind the counter you come back out and then you go about your business either you go park or you bugger off down the road but this is a big no-no this irritates me more than anything else anything else in the world this irritates me because it's not needed it's it's it's not necessary it really isn't so this guy seems to be i don't know what he's done we've been sitting here probably well we haven't been filming at all but we've been sitting here probably 10 minutes now and he's nowhere in sight oh he's back boys he's back now the comical part of this whole situation is if he pulls through here and goes through the the pull through lane and he parks up there that's going to be funny as hell like the guy's been gone for 10 minutes so let's pull into the fuel island and let's uh get us some go-go juice [Music] no it looks like he's gonna carry on yeah well there's no reason for him to stop he just took care of business himself so here we are in the fuel island as you can see i believe it or not i don't need fuel but for the sake of this video we're driving through the fuel island and i've been sitting around with my thumb and my butt waiting for mr mr naughty up there to get out of the way so we're in the fuel island so let's just say we've pumped our fuel everything's good i washed my windshield wax on wax off everything's good i need to go inside and get myself a coffee well right in front of me usually they're marked with lanes but in that this truck stop they're not as we pull through right in front of us is the drive-through lane or the pull-up lane or there's there's a hundred names guys call them but oh you see that a speed bump in a truck stop that's to prevent guys like me from tearing it up while i'm in here and having a good time so what do we do we pull right up to the drive up lane drive through lane pull up lane whatever you want to call it now for example here i am now the guy behind me is probably going to be pumping you know 100 gallons let's just say 100 gallons well that's gonna take him probably seven eight nine minutes you know he's gotta start the pump in canada you can only run one pump at a time one side at a time you can't you can't fill both tanks at a time so it takes a little longer up here so i know i've got let's say and i've got 10 minutes okay i've got 10 minutes safely pull my brakes turn my truck off roll my window up i can go inside go to the washroom like i said get my coffee wash my face do whatever i want to do come back start my truck pretend we start the truck and carry on business as usual so now we're just gonna we're shooting one right now why don't you say hi hi how are you who are you i'm from montreal you're from montreal nice to meet you brother thanks man hey no problem man it's our pleasure you have a good day drive safe hey there you go baby that's why we do this that is why we do this you think i'm out here just trying to make money for myself and support my family no i'm out here doing this for you anyway what the hell was i doing i was making a video on truck stop etiquette let's get back to that so now we've cleared the fuel island so we've gone through the the pull through i went in got my coffee went to the bathroom so now what do we want to do we want to park right so i don't have a trailer hey no but i don't have a trailer i'm bob tail so but i'm going to pretend we've got a trailer and we're going to back into a spot and we're going to show you what not to do when you're backing into a spot and we just happened we kind of scoped this out beforehand so we know what we're what we're doing here and where we're going we've got an uh a truck over here that the guy seems to have uh he's not in it and he's parked for the week parked and i think he's gone home for the for the week or whatever we're gonna go over there and we're gonna do a couple of things and the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna park a little too close to him and we're gonna film it hopefully i don't hiccup and hit the truck and do any damage because well of course why i don't want i don't want to pay for anything but all truck stops well now i'm going to say all but most truck stops they have lanes right we've got lanes here um all trucks like as you can see i'm just there's nobody out here so the truck stop is wide open but as you can see these are all lanes you park your truck in the you know in your parking spot i think each each parking spot i think is 13 and a half feet wide right well your truck is only nine feet wide so that gives you ample space on either side of your truck to get your truck pretty you know dead center in the lane but how many times how many times do we see this right you're parked like this guy here he's parked actually it won't work he's taking up two spots look at this okay truck stop etiquette what not to do man this is a ripper okay so we've got a guy here i'm gonna stop the truck and he's bob tail he doesn't even have a trailer on and he's taking up two spots i don't know if you can see that white line coming out from between his two uh his two drive tires is is coming down the middle of his truck well we've got a bobtail i know that there's nobody in the truck he's not in there he's not in the shower he's not in the truck stop because i live in this area and i was through here and this truck was parked here yesterday so what has he done he's he's buggered off and he's taking up two spots where two two trucks with trailers should be parking so one bobtail is taking up two spots this is killer this is killer again if it was nine o'clock at night and this truck stop was full and i came rolling through here i'd be inside right now with management going that's ridiculous you're holding up they'd probably have him towed they would bring a company in have him towed pulled out and then they'd be calling the company and the company would be coming to pick the truck up and be getting the tow bill so there's a that's another big no-no right there most truck stops including this one back over my shoulder there is almost like it's like a little area for bob tales where where if you're a bobtail truck they don't want you out here they don't want you out here why would you as a bobtail truck take up a full truck parking spot for a truck and a trailer um this guy here realistically should be parked over there up against the tree line we're not allowed to show the trucking company we are allowed to show up but we're not going to we could show the trucking company and probably send a message hopefully somebody over there watches our channel but we don't know so anyway that's a big no-no he should be over there but as long as we're here and he's not there and he's already committing you know uh you know we've seen two big no-nos here in the truck stop and we didn't even look for these ones they just jumped out at us let's get a little too close to him now let's pretend he's in a spot now we know he's not but let's pretend he is right there is no worse feeling in the world that when i pull my curtain in the morning how close our mirrors are that's too close if he was dead center in the middle of his lane and i was dead center in the middle of my lane there'd be enough room there there'd probably be about a foot and a half worth of distance between those mirrors and that's safe because when i open my door now it's not going to hit on this one but if we were a little farther back if i open my door my mirror is going to hit his mirror or my door is going to hit his door or he's gonna open his door and he's gonna hit my it's too close i don't wanna pull my curtain and look over and see a guy this close to me i can i can literally get open this door open the door step on my my my step step on his step and walk into his truck without touching the ground that's too close folks nobody wants to be that close i don't want you that close to me and i know you don't want me that close to you let's be a little courteous here let's have a little etiquette here keep your distance if you can't back your truck into your spot and get yourself as centered as possible find an empty lot in practice that's all i'm going to say i'm not going to say oh you shouldn't be driving a truck or you but find enough to find an empty spot or find an empty lot and practice get yourself centered and there's nothing worse as well when you're pulling into a truck stop and you see some guy that's parked and he's he's hugging that white line and you're trying to back in beside him he's taking he's taking angles away from you when you're trying to back your trailer in so that's why i say try to get in the dead center of the lane that way anybody on either side of you as they're backing in they've got that extra you know 18 inches of clearance when there's trailers swinging in to get into that spot you're not going to clip them and they're not going to get clipped so that's a biggie right there try to get yourself centered and then there's just a bunch of common courtesies with truck stops don't touch anybody else's truck personal story here got myself uh got myself into a little bit of trouble but i also was able to get myself out of a little bit of trouble i pulled into a truck stop and went in to do my business i was parked truck was parked everything was good i came back out and there was two guys the guy was parked beside me and there's two guys they were in between my truck and his truck and one of them was sitting on my truck and i wasn't crazy about that so as i came walking up to the gentleman i said you know it's really not cool to be sitting on my truck and he decided that you know he wasn't going to take that kind of lip from me and we had a bit of a what do you want to call it a kerfuffle it was a bit of kebab don't touch my truck don't touch anybody's truck you've got your own truck you want to play with something play with your truck don't play with my truck don't touch my truck don't touch anybody else's truck don't touch their equipment don't be messing around with other people's stuff i paid a lot of money for this don't be messing with it i will protect it and ninety percent of the guys that i know that work out here that do this that are owner operators they will protect their equipment as well you don't need that kind of hassle that kind of headache don't touch other people's stuff playing your own basically play in your own yard you've got a truck play with your own damn truck don't be playing with mine that is a that is another one don't touch other people's equipment and then there's the other you know the only other thing i can really say for truck stop etiquette is take your damn garbage with you do not leave your damn garbage now believe it or not i'm looking around in here there's no garbage usually in the morning first thing in the morning when all the trucks pull out of here you'll look around the empty lot and there'll be a garbage bag on the ground here one over there but as you can see like right here just off to the left there there are one two three four five there's five garbage cans over there you know if i was parked where i'm parked right now how hard is it for me to take my bag of garbage walk over there and stick it in there and right behind me there's five more i know that if i go over to the other side over there there's five more like this truck stop has truck stop this truck stop has adequate garbage facilities like it's got garbage cans everywhere there is no reason to leave your garbage on the on the on the ground what's happening guys are getting up in the morning they're doing uh they do start their truck they're not getting they grab their bag of garbage they open the door drop their garbage there and put the truck in gear and bug her up down the road do not do that two reasons nobody else wants to drive over your garbage actually another reason is the people that work here they're not paid to pick up your garbage they're not garbage haulers they're not garbage people they've got jobs to do yes but they get to empty the garbage cans but at least you could take your garbage from your truck to the can quit leaving your garbage and more importantly i don't want to drive around it i don't want to have to drive my truck and trailer around your bag of garbage because i'm not running over it because i don't know what's in it so don't do that so there you go there's some there's some real simple truck stop etiquette man um these aren't hard these aren't difficult there's there's nothing here that any one of you can't do it's not like you're gonna sit there and go well i can't do that yes you can there's nothing here that is too difficult that you can't do a lot of it believe it or not is common sense but in in 2022 common sense uh seems to have taken a hike right out the window it's gone so use a little etiquette use a little common sense show some courtesy give a wave hey no but you know what don't impede traffic at fuel islands you know just be a good guy or a girl common decency be polite we've all got jobs to do i got a job to do you got a job to do let's get it done let's do it as nicely as as politely and as common with common currency as we can anyway hit that subscribe button punch that like button give us a thumbs up turn on your notifications i think i got them all that's it man we'll see you down the road [Music] you

Channel: ET Transport

Views: 1,491,665

Keywords: Licensed truck driver, Truck driving, Trucking, truck driver, ET Transport, truck driving, flatbed trucking companies, owner operator, construction, dangerous, kenworth, 2022kenwortht680, review, truck, driver, trucker, Kenworth, T680NextGen, Freightliner, volvo, w900, international, peterbilt, interior, steering wheel, dash, fuel, savings, tips, advice, learning, cruise control, gas station, respect, road rage, tires, engines, motors, paccar, cummins, canada, truck stop, etiquette, mistakes, fueling, parking

Id: K_8AnlIV1aU

Length: 16min 25sec (985 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 17 2022