High-Seas to Highways

[devildice]

Good luck on your start.

Thanks!!

[fireman932003]

Keep up the good work their Chief! Just put a big "U" number on the side and paint it gray and you will be able to drive that truck in your sleep! You will think your still on a float!

[devildice]

Keep up the good work their Chief! Just put a big "U" number on the side and paint it gray and you will be able to drive that truck in your sleep! You will think your still on a float!

Now that is FUNNY!!!!!!

[devildice]

Driving Day 3 of CDL School 6/20/07:
I had no idea what today was going to bring. I did know however, that I was scheduled for 3pm to 7pm. So as usual, I arrive early (“early is on time and on time is late”). As I pull into the parking lot, I noticed that the truck was gone. I was wondering what could be wrong since they just got the truck back from the KW shop yesterday. Then it dawned on me…..the trailer was gone too. Uh oh…it must be time to drive out on the road, leaving the comfort of our secure little range. The nerves went into overtime. All I can think to myself is “no way am I ready for this. We are only on our 4th drive in 3 days, are they crazy??” :shock: The truck returns and sure enough, the other student is driving.

After my pre-trip inspection, the instructor drives off the school lot and takes me to an industrial park that fronts the interstate about 5 or so miles away. While we are heading there he is explaining that there is nothing to be nervous about. That I would simply be doing what I have on the last 3 drives, up shifting, down shifting, turns to the right, the left, backing, etc except in a more “real world” setting. I think….”yeah right, easier said than done”.

We arrive at the industrial park and he drives the route explaining that I need to be careful here because of oncoming traffic, be careful there because of the tight turns, etc, etc. So again I am thinking to myself “how am I supposed to relax when there is so much to worry about??” He pulls over and says it’s my turn. I get in the drivers seat and swear that the seat will be leaving with me when this is over as it already appears to be attached to my butt.

I start off on the route and have all these thoughts running through my head about watching out for this, watching out for that, be careful here, be careful there, and at the same time trying to make sure I remember everything I learned about shifting, turning, etc. and, the icing on the cake is that I am driving a truck which, because it was in the shop, I have only had a couple of hours behind the wheel prior to today. Whew…what a brain overload.

I kid you not, within 5 minutes I was completely relaxed and was driving like I had been doing it all my life, I felt so comfortable. My shifting, both up and down was smooth, my turns not too wide and not short. The only way I can describe it is that it felt so natural to me. It was exhilarating!!!!! As the instructor sees that I am comfortable and doing fine, he starts challenging me with different turn, different routes, etc. He then has me turn left and go down this long road. If I had to guess, I would say it was close to a half mile long. There, he had me complete a couple of straight backs and then some blind side parallel parking. Although still a little rough, I did much better with the parallel parking than I did the other day. At least I am improving.
We get ready to leave when I realized that the road we are on is a dead end and it’s only about 20 feet wide. Before I could ask the instructor what to do, I could read the answer on his face. I said “you’re joking right?” His reply was a solid no and that he had confidence in my ability to do it. So I backed out the entire way which included a curve in the road that bent to the left and of course 3 cars parked on the right hand side to boot. We get to the intersection and G.O.A.L, the instructor stays out to control traffic if needed as I backed sight side into the road. It was a little nerve racking but exciting at the same time.

So now we are done and I pull over in preparation to switch seats with the instructor so he can take us back to the school. He just looks at me with a grin and of course I know what he’s thinking. So I drive back to the school in traffic, through construction zones, stop lights, etc and loved every minute of it. I felt like a kid on Christmas day.

I could not stop smiling the entire way home and wonder what will tomorrow bring?

[Longsnowsm]

Sweet! That is awesome! Way to go! Congrats on your first "road" trip. You make it sound like fun!

Longsnowsm

[devildice]

Sweet! That is awesome! Way to go! Congrats on your first "road" trip. You make it sound like fun!

Longsnowsm

Thanks Longsnowsm.......It was fun, but then again, I try to make anything I do fun

[devildice]

Driving Day 4 of CDL School 6/21/07:
Today was interesting to say the least. This was day #4 but drive #5 and it was a 20 mile figure 8 through the city. Dealing with traffic, stop signs, stop lights, left turns, right turns, some from a single lane, some from double lanes, through construction zones, etc. “Real World” training is what I called it.

I was a bit nervous when we started off but by the time I got started on the 2nd lap, I felt more comfortable. My only problem toady was down shifting to 5th. I would make the down shifts, but not as smooth as it should or could have been. Yesterday I was having a similar problem with my up shifting to 7th. Today, my shifting to 7th was as smooth as butter but the trade off must have been the down shifting to 5th. Oh well, practice makes perfect right.

So things are going well, I am starting my 3rd lap around this 20 mile figure 8 when all of a sudden it starts raining. Now if you are familiar with South Texas rain, you’ll know that when it rains here, it comes down in buckets. It was raining so hard that visibility was reduced to maybe 10 feet and streets were flooding. In fact, it got so bad that several cars got stuck in the middle of the road with water rushing by up over the bottom seal of their doors.

And I was just enter a construction zone where the 4 lane undivided road goes down to a 2 lane undivided, the kind where your lanes of traffic end and merge over to one of the lanes of the oncoming traffic. So here I am with torrential rain, low visibility, flooding streets, construction to my right and oncoming traffic to my left leaving me NO WHERE to go but straight ahead. Needless to say I am a bit paranoid by now and had the good ole “Death Grip’ on the steering wheel. But low and behold my instructor is calm, cool, and collected, giving me instructions on what to do the entire time. We finally get out of it just as the rain lets up…go figure.

I ask the instructor if we can pull over somewhere so I can have a smoke and calm my nerves. We get out of the truck and all I could do was laugh. Hell tells me, “Well, was that “Real World” enough for you?”

[Jackrabbit379]

devildice, I havent said much. Just reading, but best of luck, and cool beans. 8)

[Cluggy619]

Know this. A candy***** would have folded under the rain. You'll do just fine. Get thru your classes....the real fun begins when your on your own. :wink:

See ya out there, somewhere.........

[devildice]

devildice, I havent said much. Just reading, but best of luck, and cool beans. 8)

Thanks.

[devildice]

Know this. A candy***** would have folded under the rain. You'll do just fine. Get thru your classes....the real fun begins when your on your own. :wink:

See ya out there, somewhere.........

Thanks. A small part of me wanted to fold, but there was no way I could allow that to happen. I am just glad that my 1st experience like that (I know there will be many more) was with an AWESOME instructor in the jump seat.

[devildice]

Driving Day 5 of CDL School 6/22/07:
This was my 6th road drive and I am finding myself feeling more and more comfortable with the truck. Today I drove a total of 116 miles on the interstates and city. The lessons were to learn and get comfortable with entering and exiting the interstates, speed management, sight management, and to continue practicing on up and down shifting, left & right turns from various positions, stops, etc in the city. My shifting was much better than previously and I might even be getting the hang of it…..LOL

Since the truck is not governed, I was able to drive the posted speed limit of 70 mph. I also got my first real taste of….shall we say, “Less than considerate 4wheelers” as I was cut off, tailgated, and had one guy that was lingering just behind my trailer in the right lane and although I had my turn signal on, he would not let me over. I know all of this is nothing to you pros out there as you deal with these things all day, every day, but for me it was once again exciting (and frustrating with the 4wheelers).

I am off this weekend so I get to knock out some more of my never ending “Honey-Do” list. I believe Monday we will be in the school yard practicing backing, parallel parking, etc in order to fine tune our skills. Then sometime during the week we will be testing for the school as well as driving the DPS course in preparation for our road test which is scheduled for Thursday at the DPS office. Boy how time flies.

[countryhorseman]

Driving Day 1 of CDL School 6/18/07:...Next was to connect the trailer and do the exact same thing I was while bobtailing, figure 8’s and then serpentine. I have towed a boat and a few other trailers in my life but nothing that came close to being 53 feet long. The trick was to navigate the course without “killing” the orange cones. I was a little nervous at first, but that nervousness quickly turned into fun. When I started, I was making really wide turns. The trailer tandems were probably 5-6 feet from each cone. As I got the feel for it, I was able to get within 1-2 feet. Then it became more of a game or challenge to me to maneuver through them, getting as close as possible without hitting them. By the time it was all said and done, I was maneuvering so that the trailer tandems were within inches of the cones and never hit a single one. Well, I take that back, I did “touch” one but never killed it..

I agree with that one. Working the serpentine in reverse and forwards is allot of fun. Actually did instruction on that when working the yard at Stevens. The real fun is when you can do the double serpentine in reverse.

The real "fun" begins when you go backwards through the cones! :wink:

[devildice]

Driving Day 6 of CDL School 6/25/07:
Well drives #7 & #8 were uneventful as I stayed in the “yard” to play. The order of the day was simple…..backing, backing, and backing. I spent a total of 8 hours today fine tuning all the backing requirements. Straight backing, sight & blind side dock backing, sight & blind side parallel parking, sight & blind side alley backing, sight & blind side off-set backing, and last but not least, my favorite, sight & blind side serpentine backing and I kid you not, my neck is actually a little sore from looking at both mirrors all day.

This is all preparation not only for every day life on the road, but for my “Final Exam” with the school. Tomorrow I think I will be out on the road practicing for the DPS exam which will be Thursday.

I did get a bit of a shocker today when I arrived at school. There were a total of 4 people in my class. 2 of them already had their CDL’s and where there for refresher training and they finished up this past Friday. That left me and a former Marine that just retired after 30 years. He and I have been in class together since day one. Well when I went in today, I saw that his name was scratched off the schedule. I think to myself, “Ok, he must have an appointment or something”. Then as I read the schedule further, I see that every spot where his name was, it is scratched off. Now I am thinking, “Uh oh, what happened, I hope he is Ok”. Well it turns out he quit. With only 4 days left to go, he called it over. I was shocked to say the least. I gave him a call on his cell to ask why……without divulging his personal information, he just decided that this was not for him after all and besides, he was just recently offered an office job that pays well. I wish him the best in his endeavors and know that he will be successful at anything. You don’t get to the 30 year mark in the Marines without knowing how to be successful.

I am now officially a one man class….a “lone wolf” if you will.

[BigWheels]

Driving Day 6 of CDL School 6/25/07:...I am now officially a one man class….a “lone wolf” if you will.

You can't get a much better instructor-to-student ratio than what you got!

[devildice]

Driving Day 7 of CDL School 6/26/07:
Today was another long day as I completed drives #9 & #10. At 6am this morning, we hit the road and went to practice the DPS route. It was a LOT shorter and easier than I expected. I also found out that for the DPS exam, I am only required to do one straight back, and one parallel park…..that’s it! After running the route a few times and practicing the parallel parking at the actual spot the examiner will take me, I am confident I have it down.

In the afternoon, it was back to the “yard” for my 2 of 3 “Final Exams” with the school. There were 2 separate exams that made up the finals for today. The first one is a pre-trip inspection or T.O.P (Truck Operations Pre-trip) as they call it and I managed to score 100% on that one. The second was the skills test, or T.O.S. (Truck Operations Skills) which included all those backing maneuvers, straight, alley, offset, serpentine forward and reverse, parallel parking and stopping at a set of cones within 6 inches of the front bumper. I was a tiny bit rough on the alley dock but did real well with all the others and the reverse serpentine was the best, guess that just proves that every dog can get lucky once in a while. Overall, I scored a 93% on the TOS. So that was a 96.5% for the 2 test today.

Tomorrow I will be taking my last and final exam for the school. I will be graded on executing the DPS course that I practiced on today. After that is done, the only thing that I have left will be the actual road test with DPS on Thursday morning. Since failure isn’t even an option, I guess I have no choice but to blow the test away.

[flood]

your doing great, you'll do great and you will do just fine when you get out here with the rest of us.

[K.POP]

This is a awsome thread you have going Devildice. I am at the research phase that you went through. These blogs really help to understand what to expect and do release some stress about getting a CDL. Glad to here you are trucking along the course 8) I will most liky be in your shoes someday.

thanks again keep the postin goin

[devildice]

your doing great, you'll do great and you will do just fine when you get out here with the rest of us.

Thank you flood.....I am excited to get the school phase behind me and move onto the next step: "Real Training" out on the road.

[devildice]

This is a awsome thread you have going Devildice. I am at the research phase that you went through. These blogs really help to understand what to expect and do release some stress about getting a CDL. Glad to here you are trucking along the course 8) I will most liky be in your shoes someday.

thanks again keep the postin goin

OUTSTANDING!!!! I am glad you are enjoying it. That is EXACTLY what I was hoping to accomplish with the thread.....to let newbee's out there like myself know what happens at a CDL school day by day. I know it may differ slightly from school to school, but the basic I would think are the same. Also, hopefully it would help ease any stress or anxiety a person might have. I too found the journals that people wrote both interesting and educational during my research phase.

I wish you the best of luck and will be looking for your posts when you get started. I know I am still as green as they get, but if there is anything that I can do to answer any questions, please feel free to ask.