Not 3 years ago, I decided to get back into trucking. A much more lucrative field than what I was "into", I decided I would even go over the road, though I HATED it.

I had let my CDL go, and had to go somewhere to get a new one. I used a friend's truck in getting used to driving and shifting again, and more importantly, backing, and then went to a truck driver training school that was authorized by the state to administer everything but the written test portion.

The first thing we got to, of course, was the pre-trip inspection.
I had been a diesel tech/mechanic for quite a number of years, knowing the parts on the engines, what they are called down to the names of even the nuts and bolts.

Upon opening the hood, I began to recite everything at a rapid pace, and what relevance it might have to a pre-trip. The man administering the test was older, and from what I could see, wasn't even listening to me.

After getting done with the engine, I started examining electrical lines. One particular line had was sitting on the rail, and upon picking it up - it was loose - I found it frayed - bare copper on truck rail. I pointed this out to him, noting that he should have this fixed.

Lol, this was "my mistake". This man became both grouchy and defensive at the same time. "WELL, THIS TRUCK IS ON A REGULAR MAINTENANCE SCHEDULE" he declared in a suddenly loud and aggressive voice, "IF THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH IT", he further declared, "I WILL GET IT FIIIXXXXXEEEEEDDDD!!!!!!!". Oh, I thought, this guy is mad at me, he will FIND a way to make me flunk the test.

The man continued: "I don't KNOW what those 'nuts' are called, you said they were castle nuts or something, AND I DON'T CARE, you are talking so fast, I THINK YOU ARE GOING TO PASS OUT FROM THE EXERTION!!".
This guy was mad, but it was comical, I burst out laughing. He was serious, I was cracking up, where IS this going to lead?

"I think I've heard ENOUGH of your LIP, THIS PRE-TRIP IS OVER!!".
OH, I thought, does that mean I flunked? I had to ask him, and I did.

I passed the pretrip without ever getting to any other part of the inpsection, including air brake tests, anything to do with the cab for that matter, the trailer was left out completely.

He did get me back, though. He took me to a street he obviously had pre-determined as a payback. "Pull over and parallel park". Notta problem, except - there were fire hydrants lined up ALL along this street. Well, I thought, I am just going to pull over, get the truck aligned with the curb, and see what happens. "Do you KNOW what you just DID!???" Yes, I knew, but what was I supposed to do, and told him so.

"I said pull over at the next place that you CAN pull over, not in front of a hydrant!".

He had his laugh, it didn't bother me, we became "friends" after that and I passed all tests.

 

Sounds like a bad examiner, for sure. I can't believe he would pass you on the PTI without doing the rest of it. I sure hope you DO know how to do the rest of it properly. :wink:

 

Sounds just a little thorough than the written test I took SEVERAL years ago. Texas was just switching over to the CDL as we know it now. Every driver had to retest by a certain date. An examiner came to a local company to have a "CDL Class" then administer the exam. After everyone sat down, he handed out the tests. Someone asked about the class and he told us not to worry, we had 3 chances to pass the test. Before anyone says I shouldn't have the license, I passed first time with a 98% but if anyone took a test up that didn't pass, he would mark which question was wrong and give the same test back to you. Believe it or not, there was one guy that still didn't pass!

 

I remember when Alaska was switching over back in 90.....There were guys coming out of DMV crying because they failed. Nice thing was tho, if you took the test on Monday and failed, you could come back the next Monday and take the SAME test over, they used 5 different test, one for each day of the week.

 

I thought the castle nuts had to be called castle nuts during a pretrip :shock:

I like this story.

 

And don't forget the cotter pins!