Asides
A few ways to check a number.
Short exercises, a couple of minutes each, about how a number is put together and how to tell a solid one from a shaky one. They are tucked around the site behind a little green traveler, and they are all listed here too, openly.
No score. No timer. No streak. Nothing is saved on your phone and nothing is sent. When you are not sure, "cannot tell from this" is a right answer, often the best one. The traveler asks the questions; he does not know the answers either. You do.
Your own numbers
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Sixteen thousand seven hundred and nine gallons
Miles per gallon is one long division over the whole year, and the year is not the average of the four quarters.
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Twelve cents
A monthly cost only becomes a per mile cost when you divide by the miles you actually ran.
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The two month repair
An amortization window is a choice, and the choice changes the per mile number.
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Every fee, every month
Fixed cost is a list you write down, and some of it is only sometimes fixed.
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One truck, a thousand trucks
The same gallon has different prices depending on how many trucks you buy fuel for.
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The mile that does not pay
Cost per operating mile is not cost per loaded mile, deadhead belongs in the denominator.
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Does this load clear my floor
The booking moment check, and whether the miles you were given include the empty ones.
Checking a number
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The ladder
The evidence ladder, a passing test is not the same as a thing seen working.
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Six ways a true number goes wrong
A real number can mislead, and each way has a name that is a use error, not a lie.
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A second forward is not a second source
Independence, and that "could not confirm" is an honest, publishable answer.
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What exactly does this count?
The denominator question, ask what a number measures before you trust it.
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Show your work
An answer you cannot see the arithmetic for is an answer you cannot check.
Road safety
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The no zone
Where a truck cannot see you, spatial, not a number to memorize.
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Loaded and empty
Weight changes how a truck stops, and the real number is not something a game can give you.
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The pretrip walk
A pretrip inspection is a system done the same way every time, the order is the lesson, not the list.
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Where the weight goes
Balancing a load across axles is arithmetic under a constraint, and legality is a separate question.
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Look it up
The real skill is knowing which document holds the answer, and going to it.
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The chain up decision
Conditions and the posted signs decide, the game teaches where authority lives, not a rule.
Over the road history
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Before the roads
Paved highways were pushed for long before the trucks that needed them arrived.
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1956
A connected national highway network changed the shape of freight.
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The regulated years
Before 1980, route authority itself was a valuable asset.
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1980
Deregulation changed who could haul and how rates were set, what changed, not whether it was good.
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The shutdowns
In 1973 to 1974, independent drivers parked over fuel costs, remembered as history.
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From CB to ELD
How the day of a driver came to be recorded, tool by tool.
Just for fun
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The duck
Nothing. This one is just for fun, and we are telling you so.
More are hidden around the site, behind the same little traveler. This page has no memory. Close it and it forgets you were here, because it never knew. Nothing you do in an aside is saved or sent.