Pinellas Technical College

Here we go with Day 12 and the beginning of week 4.

Today was a very trying day, I found myself questioning if I really wanted to continue. We were continuing the alley dock back and learned the conventional parallel park today. I nailed the alley dock first thing this morning and that is where everything went down hill. I just could not get myself positioned properly to get my trailer in the hole. I tried and tried and tried and I just could not do it. I got out and looked and paced it off and nothing would work. I did not give up though, I kept trying and trying and by the end of the day I still could not get either of the backs complete.

Tomorrow is a new day and I will be switching to a different truck, I think I have wore out my welcome in the Freightliner, that is what I was driving all day today. We have a Peterbilt and an International Prostar to choose from as well.

 

Day 13 is in the books.

So today we got our Test Dates. We will do our Pre-Trip Inspection Test on Monday, our Skills Test next Thursday and our Road Test on July 7th.

We lost one guy today, he was not progressing like the rest of us and they had "the talk" with him. Gave him the option to stay and continue working on the range but he would not move on to the next phase, which is city driving. He decided to quit. So now there are two of us. The other guy remaining with me is progressing very well, however he has missed a lot of time and is close to the 32 hour limit that we are allowed to miss.

Again it was a very trying day, I just could not get my backs until a light bulb went off. I was driving the Peterbilt today and it is a little longer than the others we have been driving and I was not compensating for that longer wheelbase, it was just about a foot longer but a foot is a lot when maneuvering a tractor and trailer. I moved to the International Prostar just in time to park and listen to a recruiter presentation. I was getting there in the Prostar, I did get a couple of attempts in before parking for the day. ...... So I will try again tomorrow.

The recruiter today was from Coventant Transport, seems like a pretty good company but they seem to push you into teaming. He made it clear they were not a team company like a lot of people think they are. He said 30% of their drivers are solo drivers. They also own Southern Refrigerated and Star Transportation and he talked a little about them as well. The thing I do not like about them is their training. Their training is 160 hours with a trainer. You will be driving with the trainer in the passenger seat for the first 40 hours then you will team drive for the remaining 120 hours ... not good in my book. After that they throw into a truck with another newbie for 60 days and you team drive and hope your co-driver does not kill you while are you are trying to sleep while they drive.

 

Day 14 ( yesterday ) is in the books.

Today my classmate and I did no driving at all. Our instructor was out so we were the other class that is preparing the graduate. We went on a road trip with them to visit a scale house. We visited the Westbound Scale House on I-4 in Seffner, Florida. If you have ever driven on I-4 near Plant City/Tampa you know the one I am talking about. Pinellas Technical College is the only CDL program that visits and they absolutely love for us to come by and see what they do and learn about the process.

When we arrived we went through just like any other truck and got weighed and pulled around and parked. We then went inside and got to see the behind the scenes of how the scales work and their different computer systems they use here in Florida. They explained how the plates in the ground on the approach work, they set different parameters for those plates and that is what tells you if you need to pull in or bypass. It is a lot of cool technology in use there. They went over the Pre-Pass system and the DriveWyze system and how those two systems work and the differences in them. Basically when you are sitting on the scales they are checking your tag and DOT number to make sure both are valid, if something looks off they call you in to take a look at your paperwork.

After hanging out inside for about half an hour with the weigh-master we moved outside to hang out with a couple of FHP Troopers who went over what they look for while they are out on the road. They both repeated over and over this is what they look for, however other officers could be different. FHP Sgt. Chris Weed did a Level 1 Inspection on one of our vehicles while we were there to show us what is involved in that and what we can expect when we get pulled in for one. It was really cool seeing the truck and trailer for the underside, completely different view of things under there.

After the inspection we heard a couple of stories of drivers blowing by the scales and how they have to sometimes chase down drivers that do that. Just the night before there was on that lead them on a chase for almost 6 miles before he finally stopped. He jumped out of his truck and put up a fight, needless to say he went to jail for battery on a law enforcement officer.

We then pulled out and headed south on I-75 and took I-275 North toward St. Petersburg and had lunch (30 Minute Break) at the Sunshine Skyway Rest Area, then went over the bridge and headed back to our campus.

Overall it was a fun and educational day, I really learned a lot about how the scale houses operate, at least here in Florida.

Monday is the big day .... we are taking our Pre-Trip Inspection Tests. My classmate is first thing at 7:30am and I am at 8:30am. Then we will probably be driving through the city of St. Petersburg again and then work on our backing skills as we have that test next Thursday .... and I need a lot more practice. I would rather do that the entire week than drive around the city.

 

They said we are the only school in Florida that does that, and there are very few around the country that does it, if at all. If all schools and states would do it I think it would make the roads a lot safer. It just shows how much this school goes above and beyond to make sure you are prepared when you get out on the road. They do not have to do this but they do because they care about their students and their success when they move on.

 

19396909_1904418593139037_6986651233452023525_n by wfutch79 posted Jun 23, 2017 at 12:36 PM

Here is a photo of us at the weigh station listening to the presentation. That is me all the way to the right ... with my ghost white legs ... they are blinding .. LOL. That is what you get for working indoors your whole life.

 

The Sunshine Skyway is actually our "mountain" for mountain training. Sounds weird but it is pretty close to driving up and down a mountain. I have watched video after video and read our PTI script over and over and performed it every school day since Day 2 so I think I am pretty confident in it. They are very generous on the points you can miss to pass so I am sure I will knock it out of the park. We do not have to do a full inspection either, its randomly generated by a computer so we could have to do the entire inspection or only two or three sections of it.

I forgot about one other activity that is due on Monday too. We were assigned a mock trip to plan. We started off in Inverness with a load of tomatoes. We drop off a few pallets in Port Allen, LA then the rest go to Sioux Falls, SD. From there we head empty down to Canon City, CO and pick up a few pallets of meat and then head to Scott City, KS and pick up more pallets of meat and bring it all back to Publix in Inverness. We have to fill out Bills of Lading for each load, a Dispatch and Trip Report and of course our logbook for each day. We were given a 2017 Motor Carrier's Atlas that we paid for with out tuition for the assignment, we can not use any technology or GPS to plan the route ... they will know if we do too. This is something I hear not a lot of schools is teaching either. We are just planning the route and following the 70 hour rule. We are not planning fuel stops, that would be to much of a pain in the ### according to Laura. We are just planning out our route with a 30 minute break and our 10 hour break and we must have a 34 hour reset in there somewhere too. We must not go over an average speed of 58 MPH on the interstate and no more than 50 MPH on back roads, it has definitely been a learning experience.