New soon to be swift trainee!

Hey guys, update! Good news and bad news. I passed some test and failed one. The offset parellel is giving me problems. Tomorrow and the rest of the week I have to practice my backing skills again and I'll test on Saturday. So I'm pushed back a week but that's ok I get more practice and comfortable in the rig. I rather it this way, where I can practice, than passing here and getting to the DMV and failing there because I wasn't good enough at a skill or another. By the way I'm in Texas. Anyone know which 3 skills Louisiana DMV tests on? Thanks! Also I promise I'll keep this thread updated as it happens, phone Internet was down so had to get that fixed in order to get back on. Have a great day guys!

 

Thanks! Well the academy second in command told me that lousiana only does 3 tests but they don't know which one they will be so they would rather have us be prepared to do any,and,or all of the skills. Also we will be practicing with a 53' foot trailer in volvos.

 

Today starts my Week long session of backing and pretrip inspection. I really like pretrips, I'm not mechanic inclined, or better yet, I was not mechanic inclined before the academy. Trucks are beautiful machine. Everything about them is exciting. I'll let y'all know how my day goes! Later

 

Mid afternoon update. Having a great day, having a blast with these big rigs! I'm on lunch now. When we got here to the academy I did a throurough pre trip inspection on it and practiced straight line backing and coupling and uncoupling until our first break. Then after our first break I was told by the instructors to back around this trail marked by cones. It was pretty tight at first with the 90 degree angles but eventually I got it down and backed up sight and blind. It was really fun. Then I practiced 90 degree angle back until lunch. Will go back after lunch! Last week I was frustrated; today I'm excited and desiring to go back out to the range and get it down! I'm going to love this career so much. Next update coming later tonight!! Thanks guys!

 

Yeah my two instructors randy and paul are really great teachers! They are really dedicated to helping and teaching potential truck drivers. I didn't do so good on my offset backing and struggled a little bit on the 90 degree backs, so randy thought up a way for me to learn how to make small turns of the steering wheel while backing so that I could get rid of my over steering and over correcting. Backing that trail, blind side and sight side, had helped tremendously! My 90 degrees are 200% better than when I started today after the debacle Saturday was for me. They deserve a lot of credit cause without them I would not be learning anything today and I would not still be here if not for their hard work and their help when I wasn't doing so well.