I came to the school I went to without knowing a thing about trucks. The very first time I hopped in a tractor trailer was when learning how to straight back. I got so frustrated and overwhelmed my first time straight line backing because no matter what the instructors were telling me, I couldn't get the hang of it. My truck kept drifting one way to the left or to the right and then I would panic hoping my truck wouldn't hit another truck doing straight line backing, so I would ride the clutch and cause the wheels to spin. It was a scorching hot day and I was in a group with 4 other people trying to learn how to straight line back. We all rotated 10 minutes each. It got to the point where I got so frustrated and sweating that I was close to getting out of the truck and walking away since I was out there the entire day from 7 am to 4pm.
Then an instructor told me to hop in on the passenger side and demonstrated to me how to do it. He went back and in forward for a good 20 minutes telling me how much I should turn my wheel to correct the trouble and what to look for to know when it's straight. Other instructors showed me, but their way didn't work for me. This instructors method worked best for me, because after he got done showing me how he did it, I am able to do it perfectly.
The following week was learning how to do maneuvers which were right and left offset, sight side/blind side parallel and the 90 alley dock. Again, I was overwhelmed. Thought I'd never get any of them. I couldn't offset to save my life, my parallels looked like complete crap that weren't all the way in the box and don't even get me started on the alley dock. Eventually, being out there day after day, and taking tips from other classmates who had done their maneuvers perfectly, I picked the methods that worked best for me. There was one classmate that did his parallels perfectly every single time and on the rare occasion it wasn't perfect inside of the box, he showed me the method of how to correct it. I studied his method and I can get the both parallels in easy every single time.
Next week was learning how to upshift and downshift. Not on a simulator, but on a real road with real cars and traffic! We never got a simulator to start out with. Instructor drove 4 of us out to a location where cars were everywhere and gave us a 30 minute demonstration on how to upshift, downshift and how to make turns. He pulled over to the side of the road and I was the first one up. I could not tell you how nervous I was with cars flying past me and my first time driving this monster. He said "when it's clear, take off". I took off and got on to the road and I became overwhelmed when trying to upshift and don't even get me started on downshifting. I know he showed us how to upshift and downshift, but it's a lot different when you're in the drivers seat with cars all over. I was pulled from the drivers seat very quickly and another classmate hopped up and he didn't do any better.
As time went on, I am now able to upshift smoothly and control my lane and not get so nervous when driving. There was a big problem with my downshifting and coming to a stop without being in a gear. I now understand how recovery gears work.
This school only gives you 2 times to pass the DDS test. If you fail both times, you go home. I failed the first time and had to wait nearly 2 weeks to take the test again. They offered me a ticket to spend some time at home while waiting for my next test date, but I declined and spent the entire time at school to learn more.
This school is accelerated and I would have most likely been better suited for a community college, but it is what it is and I started this thread to learn why the truck was lugging the way it was so I can improve and learn from that mistake.
Is stalling the tractor an automatic fail on the road test?
Discussion in 'Questions From New Drivers' started by bluejet, Oct 24, 2016.
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