Everything You Didn't Know About Driving a Dump Truck

Driving a dump truck is not like driving the big over the road trucks you see constantly moving on the highway, at your local grocery store, or most other places. These trucks are designed in the most part to be off road, to carry a variety of loads from dirt, to the building that was just torn down.

These trucks are normally hot, and noisy for the driver. They are not meant for comfort and are not designed for your luxury ride. Most drivers will experience back pain very soon after starting in these smaller but heavy duty trucks. These trucks leave the pavement and ride hard with heavy loads that can weigh as much as 80,000 lb. These trucks have very heavy and have been built with heavier axles, drive lines and transmissions. The engines vary with desire of the company but most are larger and are older then most highway trucks. This is due to the abuse and hard areas the dump trucks are requested to go. If its being built it done with dirt trucks.

Now on to the driving of these mean machines. A driver starts his day early with a unset time to finish their day. The job continues till its done ranging from a few hours to days pushing 12 hours long. The jobs are always dusty, the sites always hard to navigate and always rough on both equipment and drivers. Bouncing around the cab loaded or empty, is just part of the job. We drivers move dirt out and pit material like rock, engineer fill, or rock in. We will tear down the old building hauling it to a land fill, drive to a pit or other rock crusher and pick up the desired product back, and continue this till the job is done for the day. Only to start a new site or job the next day, or continue hauling off the same job. Each day is unset and no guarantees to work on any given day. You may work non stop for six months then nothing for the next three, depending on the area you work.

You can expect to make between 12-16 per hour working for a company in most areas. Depending on the equipment you are to drive and the job functions. For instance, a end dump driver is lower then drivers operating a set of belly dumps, or bullet trailers. Asphalt workers may make more due to the clothing getting torn up and the amount of work required for asphalt. Most drivers will encounter times where you are asked to load your own truck. This is a chance for you to experience the equipment that loads dump trucks, and to gain the ability to see things from their point of view.

Most equipment that loads a 10 or 12 wheel dump truck, is large and can load a truck in less then two minutes. These monsters known as front end loaders, or track hoes vary in size but almost always out weigh the truck and can load or in some cases unload trucks very quickly.

Now as a driver you will be checking to make sure your load is secure a dozen times a day. making sure your tail gate is locked, no rocks or any other product is laying on the rails of your truck, or leaking through holes in you box (the truck bed). But we don't stop there, unless we want a ticket we have to kick off the mud flaps, rails that are mud covered, or any of a number of places rock and dirt will hold to your truck. These trucks are known on the highway as dirt bombers, this is due to mud or dirt breaking off the under carriage of the truck and bombing cars behind your truck, peppering them in rocks and dirt.

When you decide you wish to drive these hot, nasty, rough riding, heavy duty trucks you have to understand that where the highway stops that is where you will start. You need to know the hours will vary greatly, the companies you work for don't care about your truck or you. The industry feels you are one small piece of a large and demanding field. But you will be part of building the world, cleaning the ugly, making the road the other trucks will use, and making something that you will see as something special.