I am about to go test next week for my CDL here in Ohio. I have been shifting gears pretty well over the past two weeks in school. Trying to polish up my downshifting.

I dont know if it is like this in other states but here your drinving test is about 50 minutes and your are allowed to loose 30 points during your test but there are some things that are automatic fail like clipping curb, shifting over rail road tracks(obvious no no) but in your state if you go out of gear for 70 feet do you automatically fail?

One girl did fine till the last few miles of her 50 minute road test and she missed a gear and could not recover within 70 feet and she failed the road test. She has to cough up another $70.00 and wait 7 long ass days.

The screwed up thing is that there is another CDL school the takes the test at the same place we do and they have automatics........piece of cake

But my instructor is really impressed by the fact that my shifting is real smooth so hopefully it will work out but to me that rule seems kind of extreme.

In your state do you have the same rules cause I know the differ from state to state.

In michigan we have somthing like that on the test i thought it was 80 feet here but i cant really remember cause its been a while.. but they way i thought about it is if i lost a gear and couldnt recover it real quick couldnt you just stop in the middle of the road rather then coast out of gear?? i dunno just a thought.
BOL on your test though

p.s. just for the record it is pretty hard to get the 30 points to fail in my opinion.. when i took my road test i found out at the end that i lost points for every turn for not having two hands on the wheel for the turn and i still passed... i didnt even realise i had been doing the one handed turns but my tester told me he was shocked that i always found somthing to do with my other hand while turning whether it be shifting or holding on to the bottom of my seat or whatever lol..

I would have to dig to find the exact definition or the rule, but if you coast for more than the length of the truck and trailer you are considered to be out of control. One other tidbit, this doesn't just apply if you are out of gear, some people like to push the clutch in and coast to a stop. That is a definite no-no also.

Wapakoneta has the automatics that you can rent for testing. You can bring your own truck to use, but most people choose to rent their trucks because it's cheaper these days to rent them rather than pay for the fuel to drive up there and back. Don't believe the BS about them never failing anyone though. I saw two people fail the day I was there and 1 other guy who came within 1 point of failing.

Good luck.

Yea it is pretty hard to fail with a 30 point system. It is however auto fail if you roll I thought 100 Feet out of gear. But it must be 70. The reason being if you have a load you need to be in a gear or empty you should be in a gear. Not rolling.

redsfan if you are talking about wapak ohio as us locals call it I tested there 1994 for my class b and fail bad. They use to really be hard there ,but took my class a there in 2005 lot more lax on the driving course part and alot depends on who your tester is

It does depend on who your tester is, I will give you that. I heard all these horror stories about Mike, but that was who I had and we must've hit it off or something because we got along great.

Most people have the impression that it is an automatic pass at wapak, but I can testify differently. Or maybe it was just a bad day for some of the students the day I was there?

It is an automatic fail if you coast. Think of it this way, "out of gear, out of control". That is how they look at it. Basically if you are out of gear and something happens and you need to move out of the way real fast, being out of gear will not help you move. That is why they do not want you to shift over RR tracks.

As far as the reply of stopping on the street to get your gear back that is a definite no no. That will be looked at just as bad as shifting on RR tracks. Common sense says that that is just very dangerous to do. Never ever ever do that. If you need to stop to get your gear back, coast to the shoulder, and do it safely.

I tested at the Urbana, OH site and my actual road test only lasted about 30 minutes. I believe it's like 18 actual miles long(I do not remember). That included 2 emergency stops, a Hazmat RR crossing and a snowstorm. I scored a 5 on my road test. The instructor told me he could not find much wrong and that he did have to give me points, so he gave me points for turning to wide and staying to my right a little and touching the white line. Both of which after talking with him after the test you really didn't have much choice. The snow storm had covered the center of the road so it was hard to see the yellow lines and when they repainted the lines on a few of the turns they messed up and made it hard for a big truck to make the turn without either encroaching or crossing the with line with your trailer.

Anyway just relax on your test and remember if you loose you gear do not panic, the best thing to do will be to go back into the gear you came out of. If you find a gear within a reasonable amount of time you will not fail.