Week One at Central Ref...(woman's perspective)

James, the deal with the cost of school is this...

The total price of tuition is $3,000. Don't freak out yet cause here's the good part. There's no money paid upfront. You're part of the tuition will be $1,200 which you will pay off at $25/week once you're on payroll with Central. You aren't considered on the payroll until you pass all of the tests and actually get your CDL. This takes two weeks. During the first week, you get your permit and during the second week you do actual driving and take the state CDL tests with the instructors.

If you leave the company before you have repaid the $1,200 you owe them the balance of the $3,000. But, that being said, there is a five day grace period. So if you don't pass your permit test by Friday during the first week, you don't owe them anything. But if you leave during the second week, you owe the whole amount.

I hope this makes sense and helps with your decision as to which school you might attend.

 

Day 8 (Monday): Today we got into some real driving with real traffic. We were in an industrial area near where school is practicing turns. Nothing to difficult about this except making sure that you are lined up correctly so that you can complete the turn without hitting the curb with your trailer or swinging to wide so that a civilian car can come between you and that curb.

The way its set up for this part of your training is that they divide the class in half and put half of us on the backing range in the morning and the other half out driving. It works out pretty well, especially since our class is down to about 25 people. There are usually three trucks on the backing range and three trucks out driving. Most days there aren't more then 4 people in a truck so you usually get close to an hour of driving time. They keep changing the way they divide up the instructors though on the backing range. On the first day we only had Jeff (the classroom instructor), the second day we had three (one for each truck), and today we were back to one. Of course, the day with three instructors was really nice cause it was easier to get the help that we needed.

So, today's backing assignment was parallel parking. I know it sounds crazy, "what do you mean we have to parallel park a big truck?!", but in all actuality it wasn't that bad. In fact, for me it was way easier then offset backing. A hard right, A hard left, stop when straight, Get out and check, Continue the hard left, the A hard right, Pull up and BOOM!You've just parallel parked a big truck.

So, our pre-trip test is only two days away at this point and by now, things are coming together.

Day 9 (Tuesday): More backing and more driving. This time, we were driving in the city for real! Better hope you've figured out how to double-clutch downshift by now! No seriously, it wasn't that bad. It was even better then yesterday. Jay, the trainer that I had today, said that its because you are forced to actually use what you've been taught. Can't mess up to badly anymore cause it could really hurt someone. My shifting is awesome now. Double-clutch upshifting is a breeze. Every once in awhile, I grind the gears a little on the downshifting, but nothing major. The biggest problem I've had so far when it comes to actually driving the darn things was yesterday. I stalled out twice! I was clutching to soon apparently. But in my defense, the training trucks are pieces of crap! The one I had yesterday was the same piece of crap FLD that I had today. Today, my stopping was better, but the brake pedal on this truck is so badly out of whack that you can push it half way to the floor before it even BEGINS to slow the truck down, but keep going past half way at the same pressure and it brakes so hard that your passengers are bracing themselves to keep from being thrown to the floor. GRR!!!

Today's backing exercise was alley-dock backing. ####. This is the hardest yet! And its the one we will use the most in real life...suck! I did it three time and fortunately didn't take out any cones. I wasn't the best at it, but I wasn't the worst and the most important thing, I passed the test on it! We also tested on Coupling and Uncoupling which, in my opinion isn't that hard. Just don't forget to tell them that you're gonna do a pre-trip at the end after both coupling and uncoupling and you'll be fine.

Tomorrow is the dreaded pre-trip test. Unfortunately, they have it broken up into four different tests. One tests on just the engine compartment, the other is from the windshield to the back of the tractor, the next one is all of the trailer, and the last one is the whole #### truck. Please pray for me that I don't get the last one. Although, actually, it seems weird that they don't have us test on the whole truck especially since in the real world, you will do it every day. Everyone will be doing the incab Pre-trip test though. This includes the A.L.E. test and the Four-Way stop test. We won't actually be moving the truck to do these but we have to explain it step by step to them. I believe these procedures are described in the CDL manual, so looking at them now BEFORE you get here, might not hurt

One other thing on the final tests to get your CDL, its three strikes and you're out. You can mess up on any two of these tests once, or one of them twice if ya want, but if you do it a third time, you're going home. Now, word on the streets is that two people from the class before us begged and pleaded for another chance to pass and they were granted it. The crap thing is, they failed. So I don't know what that means for those of us that are behind them in line to take these tests, but we'll find out by Friday.

Enough chatting for now y'all. I've got a Pre-Trip test to study for!

Stay safe out there