Watkins Shepard 30 day training as experienced by Warpdrvr

Good Luck darin....just pay attention to everything, and memorize the Pre-Trip. They break it up into small pieces. When you get to the yard, the instructors will seem like jerks, but if you pay attention and want to learn and TRY, they will do everything in their power to help you learn.

 

Yesterday (Wednesday) was day 13. We did 15 miles down the busiest street in Riverside, CA. Many, many traffic lights. Up and down shifting constantly, but all the sudden it seemed to just come together for me. Still not perfect, but passable. That street is also the main line for the city bus, so there were busses stopping all along the way we had to move around. I only made a couple of small mistakes, and only missed a couple of gears here and there.....

I have no idea what they have in mind for us today....

 

Day 14 in the books....it was all yard work, alley docking, parallel parking, straight line backing, and the measured stop and right turn. We practiced them over and over again, and tomorrow more of the same as on Monday we go to DMV for the skills tests...not much of an update, but that's just how it was today!

 

Dude! That looks so familiar...only change for me is that I'm in one of the white full van units, number 909. The red one has a straight 8, right? Ours have the Super 10s

I spent so much time watching that same thing in person today it was like deja vu!

I meant to have someone video some of my stuff today, just didnt get around to it, although I did video one of my classmates doing his parallel....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHAdFjx7Mlw

 

I would think that since there are so many different transmissions out there that they will give you a chance to learn it before they send you out on the road, but I don't know....
I never even thought of that!!

 

Rob, Wayne told me today it's usually SOP to get a check ride in a truck that you aren't familiar with so you can learn the transmission....

As for me, today was Day 15. Spent ALL DAY in the yard on skills. I can probably do a 45 degree alley dock in my sleep by now! We're off to DMV on Monday for the skills test, and just found out today we are going Wednesday for our road test! Not much practice time on the road before then, but the DMV is closed on the 2nd Friday of the month....sucks for me! If all goes well, I can have my CDL by Wednesday afternoon!!