Well I just finished up my first week of truck driving school at Tidewater Community College in Portsmouth, Va. It was mostly covering the basics to get your permit. I was ahead of the curve and got my permit early, so I got to go home early today (Friday). Here is a basic rundown of what we did this week

Monday: Basic school paperwork, getting to know every one, and we went over the air brake system.

Tuesday: finished up the air brake lesson, and started going over the basics in doing the pre trip.

Wednesday: Learning how to slide the tandems on a trailer, sliding the 5th wheel, and coupling and un-coupling.

Thursday: This was a busy day. Went over the basics of hazmat loads, classes of hazmat, etc. Then how to prevent fires, what to do in the situation to stop it of you can, and accident reporting procedures. Also went more in-depth with the pre trip this time.

Friday: We got to play on the simulators today, mainly to introduce us on how to shift and down shift, and they really simulate grinding gears, it痴 loud when you miss one! I was surprised how well I did. I知 good at up shifting, down shifting I missed a few gears here and there but I re-covered quickly not grinding the gears (except once, but I got her in there ) I even started to skip gears on the down shifting just to try it. The instructors were pretty impressed.


So far I知 having fun, Monday next week we値l play the simulator again and the rest of the week we get to play with the real trucks on the skill range.

NICE!!! I feel cheated, haha! Coca-Cola got me my CDL.... and their training was, ride with a driver, humo his cases all day to get done early, and drive around a parking lot! I'm DEAD serious here!!! So I really had to learn everything on my own...... I'd really love to take a course like the one your in just to see what I do right/wrong... 8)

Simulators? I am at a different Virginia C.C. driver school and all we got is a couple old Freightshakers, an International that keeps breaking air lines on the range selector, a KW that smells really bad inside the slepper and 2 ex Estes Ford 9000 daycabs.
If you think they grind loud in the sim, try downshifting the 13 speed from 8th to 5th because the pattern is so loose you dont know where 7th is.

Two weeks to go and I can't wait to be done and go back to work.
Yesterday I got an A on my straight and curve around backing test and an A on my pre-trip test.

How long is the program at Tidewater? which campus is it at?

Its 7 weeks long, 8 if you take night classes. No worries about equipment here. We have 4 tractors for road use, the oldest is an 99 century, newest an 04 columbia. We also have 4 or 6 range trucks, cant remember the exact number, We haven't seen them yet but they say they are all day cabs, and we will pull single axle 35 to 40 ft trailers at first and then move on the bigger trailers and trucks later on. You wont be driving the same truck all the time either, they make you switch every 3 days, they want you to get use to driving diffrent vehicles. Not a bad course so far, and it only cost $1300 and some change

I just started school my self but we got right to it. monday tues class wed run around yard bobtail practice shifting thur class fri drop n hook straight line backing run around yard trailer hooked. Talk about hands on.Cant wait untill we start back up next week. Week three were even going to run an empty down to ga.Taking turns driving (four people in class)

learn as much as you can and definitely make sure u cover eerything u will need. good luck

Well im going into my 4th week started this monday coming up. I think we have been coming along pretty good. Pretty much the first 3 weeks we did book work, which they call the class CTD 101 and gettin ready to get are AP Learner license. Starting last week(the end of the 3rd week) we started doing drop and hook(now we are in a class called CTD 102). Starting the 4th week(Next week)Monday and tuesday, we are going to do some more drop & Hook.then wednesday we stared Pretrip insp and we doing that for the rest of the week and next week(which is the 5th week).Then on monday and tuesday we doing more pre trip insp, then after that we test on that tuesday on pre trip.Then the 7th we start CTD 103 and we go out and go out on the range and over the road for about 61/2 week and then we test and finish the course in Dec. We started in early october and we finish in dec. I cant wait to get it done and pass my test so i can get my CDL.

you got to be kidding me,my god i got my class A cdl in 3 1/2 weeks in austin Texas at international truck driving schools at AUSTIN community college.Damn you sure are going through a whole lot of stress.Good luck anyway.

Yeah, i know its really not that bad. Once, i learned the pretrip and we start in CTD 103 its down hill from there. When we go to the range and over the road.