Signed up for a 3 day refresher course with Jiffy Truck School, DMV Drive test in 4 weeks.

Thanks for your comment, I notice your profile says State of Jefferson ? This must mean we are from the same part of Northern CA. howdy neighbor

 

I am just 1 week from my 3 day crash course with Jiffy Truck School. Booked a Hotel for my 3 days there and have been studying / rehearsing my Pre-Trip and Air Brake tests every day for the past 2 weeks. I think I will be Ok as long as I can get past the Backing Skills part. My DMV drivers test is scheduled for Wed Sept. 23 @ 12:45 pm. I am told I will be driving and testing in a Day Cab Semi with a 28 or 33 foot flat bed trailer. Kinda wonder some say its actually easier to back a 53 ft trailer than a short one but my most recent experience is driving a Dodge Dually with a 24ft gooseneck stock trailer and I can back it pretty well. I have never driven or pulled a 53 ft trailer even when I had a CDL years ago I mostly drove a day cab with a 24~28ft flat bed with construction materials or a crane rig with a 24Ft trailer in tow.
If I pass my Driving test I have been told I will likely be put to work right away driving a water truck on California Fires. The fire season here goes thru November and there is a shortage of available drivers plus the ones on them now need re leaved because they have been on them for weeks now.

 

Well here I sit after my first full day of intense training at Jiffy Truck School in Redding Ca.
I spend the first 3 hours of the day going over and over the pre-trip, In-Cab and Air brake tests. One of my problems in the pre-trip was using the words Properly attached and secure. My instructor said this DMV wants to her Securely Attached and no missing parts. Proper is to broad a term according to him and has cause issues for other students. Other then that I pretty much came well prepared for that portion it seems.
The Second part of the day was all about backing. I was able to do pretty good at straight backing and even better at ofset backing. When it comes to Parrellel parking I can back in on the passenger side OK but driver side I need a little work yet. Alley dock parking was actually not as bad as I originally thought although I did have to do a few extra pull ups on a some attempts but my instrucor said as long as I nail the straight and offset backing I would have a few points to spare and its better to pull up and loose one point that to hit a cone and loose 3 or even fail if you lose to many points on the other backing maneuvers. Tomorrow I have to be there at @ 7am and we will do a full pre-trip and air brake test before doing some driving to see where I am at. I am told the afternoon will be more skills practice and whatever they feel I need more practice at. On Wednesday I will again be in the yard @ 7am and we will do a simulated full road and pretrip before going over to the DMV for my Test @ 12:45.
All in all I feel like I am going to be OK but am glad I signed up for 3 days and not just the 1 Day truck rental that a lot of others are doing and failing.
Today the Passed 4 drivers and only one failed.
I will post update as things go along.
Dave

 

Day 2 update:
I spend the first few hours of the morning going over all the Pre-trip and Air brake inspections and stuff with my instructor. He informed me that I was doing really well and should have no problems as long as I don't get in too much of a hurry and forget anything because I am nervous.
We then practiced a few backing maneuvers and especially worked on parallel parking since I felt that was my hardest to do. Again he said I was doing just fine as long as I slow down and do not try to rush or over correct I should be fine.
We took a break for about 15 minutes and then went out on a fairly long road trip, through the city, across some rail road tracks and made lots of left and right turns. We practiced shifting and downshifting, changing lanes and just general city driving. After about 45 minutes of city driving we headed out on the freeway merging into traffic and got on and off a few times just to demonstrate I had no problems with freeway driving and merging traffic. After that we headed back to the training site and took a short lunch break. After lunch we drove a little more and than went an practice our In Cab and Air break tests. We did a couple more backing maneuvers and were done for the day.
At the end of the day my instructor told me he felt I did excellent on the driving portion and he felt I should do well tomorrow when I actually go to the DMV for the real test. We will have about 4 hours in the morning to do a simulated drive test and go over anything else I feel I need help with.
All in All I feel good about my progress and hope my next post will be about how I passed and have My CDL.