well we just finished our first full week of driving, boy what a difference practice makes. Not a pro by a long shot, but doing pretty good.
Ran a trailer up on a sidewalk last night.. learned a valuable lesson about "driving the trailer" when going around curves!
Getting the hang of downshifting, keeping an eye on the tach makes all the difference.
The wife finished up all of endorsment tests today, nailed the double/triple test 100%..The whole class was very excited for her (and me to!).

Did my first dead stop big hill today, the guy behind me left me a reasonable amount of room, and then some butthead angled into the lane behind me, part of his car was actually part under the rear of my trailer.
Jeez... it says "student driver" in 8 foot letters. He is lucky I paid attention in class on how to start off on a big hill without any roll back....some peoples kids!....

Well was a hard and a bit streesful week, made solid progress and am looking forward to a relaxing weekend!

 

Well the weekend came and went ( a bit to fast!)
Had something funny happened to me saturday night, was driving to the ol' saturday night poker game and as I turned on to the street.... I reached for the gear shift in my little kia that has an automatic!.. I even turned my head to look for it when my hand could not find it... had to laugh out loud on that one! Then the first corner...yep... turned way wide.
Geez!
Still having a bit of trouble angle backing so I had an idea. Went to wally world and bought a small semi truck toy. Spent an hour or more backing it up on my table...really helped a lot! (if you do this, use it on the carpet..it works much better)
I spent most of the day in the yard today practicing back ups, the wife went out with the trainer for a one on one session to work on her downshifting.
Just taking two days off made for some real "rust" in everyones skill level, so we had to slow down and get back in sync with the truck.

Both of us our now at the point where we feel we are actually driving the truck and not just responding to one situation after another.
Still lovin the whole thing and still smilin!

 

Tonight was one of the training days all of were worried about....pulling doubles. Lucky us, we got to go first.
Well I will tell you now that I would rather pull doubles than a 48' van!..
It sure looks intimidating, but it was way easier!
The wife made HUGE progress on her downshifting. The trainer on several occassions was saying "now you need to go down to x gear" and she replied "I am all ready there" with a big smile. She even accidently floated a gear so smooth she was like "what happened there?".

As we spend more time on the road, I just cannot believe how stupid 4 wheelers can be!...How can they not see basically the side of a building going down the road?

Had one guy come racing up to a stop from my right (he had a stop sign) and start to go when I was like 25 feet from him going straight across. I do remember my brain saying "man you are going to mess up that car real bad!" because there was not even enough time to get to the brake pedal let alone use it.

Every time one of us do our daily drive time there is at least one, but usually several similar things.....and that is just 2 hours!

I had said earlier I was thinking of putting a video cam on my dash to make a training video, but now I know I am going to do it for sure!

The company we hope to drive for when we graduate called us to see how school was going, that was nice of them!

 

 

well things are going real well now, boy a few days of driving sure has made a difference in comfort/stress levels!
FINALLY the light went on for my backing!...now i can hit the spot about 90% of the time.

They are teaching us tougher moves now (how about a tight right turn added with a very steep down hill that starts in the middle of the turn with rail road track sitting just about where you need to shift).

Next week we will get tested on wednesday/thursday so they will take us out on the test course monday and tuesday.

Boy has the time flown by!...we are trying to ignore the up coming test but it sits in the back of your mind... the instructors have told us all the "problem kids" are now either gone or recycled and everyone left will graduate.. still....

 

Do you guys have "Student Driver" on your equipment? I noticed when I was in training people drove downright recklessly around us with the ad for the company on the side along with the "Student Driver" on the tractor and trailer. Yes we were slow, we had to downshift sequentially rather than just stopping and finding the right gear, but it doesn't seem wise to me to drive like that around students. When I was training I had cars that would try to beat me around left turns (I didn't take them too wide, they tried to beat me before the gap closed between the median and the truck). All sorts of wild stuff. While this kind of crap still happens on occasion, it doesn't happen nearly as much without the "Student Driver" on the rig.

Driving a tractor-trailer is a lot different than driving other types of vehicles, have to always anticipate someone is going to cut it close. Also there seems to be a myth out there that we can stop quicker because of all the wheels, a lot of people think that when they cut in front of us while stopping that we can easily slow down for them. Just have to keep all that in mind while driving, which I know is hard right now with all the other things you're thinking about like shifting, but after awhile that stuff will come naturally and you can concentrate 100% on keeping stupid drivers safe from themselves.

 

End of the third week, time sure is flying by!
The BIG TEST is just a few days away and that is all everyone is talking about. Last night at the start of the class they went over the actual test with us, and they have taught us aboout 1000% MORE then what the test will cover. Knowing that helped everyone a little.
They also took us on 90% of the test drive will we use, but did not tell us until the end of the class. They told everyone that if they drove like that next week, we would all pass.
All of that did relieve some tension, but......

Try as I might, I still have apprehension about the test. The wife and I have spent a lot of money and going truckin means an awful lot to us.

We both feel pretty confident, but it is a "test" after all!

Going to try and settle down over the weekend so we can enter next week relaxed.

 

Well the big day is here for me today...I take my final road test in just a few hours. Spent the last two days practicing, practicing, practicing.
Trying real hard to not get to stressed and look at it as if I am going to just take another instructor out for a ride. I personally feel that I will do well as long as I do not let the "test stress" over come me.
The wife tests tommorow so she gets another day to practice.

 

WHEW!

I pulled it off!..got my cdl!!!!
Was so nervous prior to the test I probally did not spell my name right on the test form!

Nailed my pre-trip 100%, Nailed my in cab 100%, then pulled out to the road in 2nd, shifted up to 3rd......and then promptly forgot where all the rest of the gears where!..

I actually had to come to a stop and start all over again..geez...

During the drive I drove great had zero faults...but still struggled to hit the gears right...man did that create havoc with my stress levels!

(by the way my "warm-up" drive went perfect!!..of course)

The tester told me at the end of the test that she has been testing for 7 years and she knew from the way I operated the vehicle in traffic ect. that my shift problem was caused by "test -i-ts".

I ended up in the middle of the class in test scores (nailed my backing by the way!)

I AM VERY GLAD THAT I HAVE SEVERAL MORE WEEKS OF TRAINING AT MY NEW JOB!!

The wife will test in the morning..so will follow up on that!

 

Well the wife did her test this morning. Passed everything but her backing.
She would have made it, but misunderstood one of the directions..she was VERY upset..but I told her to calm down and she just has to do the backing part again tommorow in the morning. She will do just fine.
Heck she even beat my score on the road test!