California Truck Driving Academy, SoCal

Well, I'm finally getting around to posting my experiences with CTDA
in southern california.
I started on 11/30/2009, since then alot has happened in school.
First, I went to their building in santa ana for class for about a
week and a half. The classes taught me about warehouse routing
and the variations in equipment, the state laws, the air brake test.
driving general knowledge and some pre-trip inspection stuff.
I enjoyed the class because the instructor kept it interesting and
made it easy to understand some things with which I have absolutely no
experience, and I didn't have to take any notes.
Next, I went to the fullerton dmv and took my tests and passed all
of them except the class c test. (DOOH) So, I studied the class c
handbook overnight and aced the test the following day.
This week I'm in the lot trying very hard to learn the skills in the truck.
Yesterday, I just straight backed the 28' trailer. Well, some of it
was straight anyway.
Today, I straight backed some more and am getting pretty comfortable.
Then after some lecture I started the ally dock. one shot it on the fourth try.
Still kind of hit and miss with that. Well, maybe tomorrow I'll get it right every time.
but, I don't know about a one shot on every try. Nonetheless, I'm having a blast.
I'll try to keep this thread updated with my progress.

 

The class is going pretty good. We went to some long and straight streets to practice shifting sat and sun. Today, we were in laguna hills practicing. there are 2 other guys in the truck besides me. I definetely feel my progress in forward gears is improving.
I can actually downshift correctly most of the time by floating the 10 speed. It really sucks when I miss the gear though. I'm not very comfortable recovering from that yet. The instructor really drills us in the truck. The driving part is really not that hard, just staying wide and not hitting anything, scanning the mirrors, watching signs, signaling, etc. Tomorrow, we are back on the lot practicing the skills test (straight back, alley dock, parallel park and right hand turn.) I definetely like going forward alot more than going backward. Hope I get it right tomorrow or I'm going to get an earful from the instructor.

 

Woo Hoo! Passed the pre-trip, skills and drive test today. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Since my last post, we had class tues and wed last week. Tues was practicing streets, freeway and hill driving.
Wed. we pulled a 53' around town instead of the 28' pup trailer. The instructor had me go through a parking lot full of christmas shoppers to the rear of the stores. That was fun.
This week we had class sat and sun. Then the test at the DMV today.
Sat. we did skills testing in the lot again. Same stuff, parallel parking, alley dock,
straight back and right hand turn. Sun. we had our final exam. Aced the pre-trip.
I messed up on the skills though. I kept doing these little corrections at the last
minute while setting up. Definetly not a good idea. The instructor was cool though,
he let me retake the test and I only had 2 pull-ups on the parallel. 2 pull-ups on the
alley dock and 3 points. Your allowed 5 pull-ups each and 10 points.
Today, I drove some of the way to the DMV in san bernandino. I don't know what
happened, but I was screwing up on shifting, bad. So, I was not off to a great start on test day.
The instructor had another driver take over. When we were getting close he pulled off the freeway and I got another shot.
I pulled it together this time.
The examiner had me do an air brake test, first thing. Immediate dismissal if you don't
pass that. The rest of the pre-trip was pretty easy, just point and tell.
I kind of screwed up the parallel park, but got it in there sweet.
The alley dock went really well. Same with the right hand turn and straight back.
I almost lost control (coasting) on the drive test, but that frickin thing was going
into gear and did in time. Just had to slow down a bit and try again.
So, Woo Hoo I passed. I just have to take the endorsement tests and thats it.
From my perspective, I don't know if this was a good or bad school.
The instructor was shall I say very passionate about teaching.
I started late in the class and had no expectations of getting my license with the
rest of the class at the time.
I do know this was definetely very challenging for me and there were many
opportunities to give up, cave in and quit.