One thing drivers need to be is resourceful. In particular, repurposing items that they may have, or by adapting equipment that has broken. We all know about reusing plastic bags as garbage bags in the truck, but Canada has recently pretty much made them illegal. You can buy garbage bags at a grocery store, but they’re rather difficult to use, as they don’t have a handle to hang off the arm rest. BUT…. If your tire chains come in a plastic pail, you can use that as a holder for your garbage bag. A cleaned out 5 gallon paint pail would work just as well. If the sound of the turntable rattling around in your microwave annoys you, roll up a towel and place it in the microwave to reduce the rattling. Paper plates will serve the same purpose in a toaster oven as well.
If you pull a flat deck, you will have chains for load securement hanging from your headache rack. Use the hooks from broken bungee cords to “fold” the chains in quarters to keep them from becoming a tangled mess in the tray. When you fold and roll your tarps, secure your end tarps with 4 bungees, use 3 bungees on your steel tarps and use 2 on your center tarp. That way, you know which is which at just a glance.
Use 1 gallon ice cream pails to keep your odds and ends (T-hooks, bailing wire, binder clamps etc) tidy in the jockey box and easy to find. Carry at least 3 snipe bars in case one breaks, and have one of them shorter for use with step decks, especially when using chains.
If you haul a lot of temperature controlled freight, have a mechanic make you a fuel cap for the trailer with an air inlet, and get an airline with a gladhand on one end and an air chuck on the other. If you ever run the trailer dry of fuel, it’s a lot easier to prime the reefer or heater with compressed air than to do it by hand.
