Well, just got home last night from getting my CDL in Salt Lake City. I went through the Swift program. It's really the Salt Lake Community College that has the program, swift just pays for it (you pay them back over time). Three weeks of hotel living was not my idea of fun, but i got through it, and now I have my CDL. I go back up there next week for orientation and then I hit the road for 6 weeks with a mentor.
I had little to no internet access so I wasn't able to provide updates while i was there.
The school itself was very very crammed. Teaching someone to drive a truck in such a short period of time is no easy task. Here's a quick and dirty breakdown.
Week 1:
Monday - spent the day at swift, took our physicals, drug tests and workwell test.
Tuesday - First day at Salt Lake Community College. Spent the entire day studying for our permit tests.
Wednesday - spent the day again studying for permit tests
Thursday - Got my permit
Friday - spent the entire day learning about log books and how to use them, driving time laws (14 hour, 11 hour, etc. )
Saturday - Spent the day in the little range they have practicing backing skills. Really we only did it for about 4 hours. Only did straight line backing and sight side parallel parking. Both were easy for me to do.
Sunday - Day off... watched football
Week 2
Spent monday through thursday driving around salt lake city and surrounding areas, learning to shift and turn and all that good stuff.
Friday we learned about trip planning, no time in the trucks that day
saturday was more backing.. but for only about 4 hours again. did blind side parallel and alley docking
sunday was another day off.
Week 3
monday - we did our backing tests.. only 8 hours total with backing practice and they wanted us to take our backing tests. i passed, had some trouble with the alley dock.. couple pull ups.
tuesday - we did a bit of mountain driving. went down a canyon with 6% grades.. that was fun. i didn't get to drive today because there wasn't enough time. sucked.
wednesday - pre trip test, easy test. i missed 6.
thursday - road test.. wasn't too bad, i got knocked 13 points.. but passed.
friday - morning i got my cdl, afternoon i went home.
So that's the quick and dirty of it. my total driving and training time was only 70 miles in the 5 days we were on the road. pretty ridiculous.. but there were 4 of us in the truck and we had to take turns. i can drive a truck without much of a problem. alley docking will be a source of trouble for a while, but it'll come with time.
Your backing will improve with time. Just remember to keep safety as your top priority. G.O.A.L, pull ups are free in the real world and don't be to proud to ask for help if necessary.
