WDT in RCSD CDL SCHOOL

I have started classes at Western Dakota Tech in Rapid City, South Dakota to get a class a cdl license, it is a 6 week course of 240 hours.

I had worked at an electronic manufacturing plant for 29 years( I am 49 years old so this was really bad news to me) when last Feb they announced that they were going to close the doors in July, at the time I was working in security although I have an associates degree in electronics and worked as an electronic technician and equipment maintenance tech. But due to the economy, was bumped to security, (no pay cut so I didn't complain too loud). Beginning in July they started laying people off, and by the end of September, 95 % of the 300 workers were gone, due to my position I was one of the last to be let go on Jan 1, 2010 the last 4 of us were terminated and security was contracted out, to save money they went through a temp agency.

They had to pay me for 200 hours of vacation and 1 week severance pay, the next cdl class started Feb 10, because the plant closed we fell under a gov program that would pay tuition and unemployment while in full time approved training, so I have to wait another couple of weeks to start getting the unemployment benefits.

I started classes last week and got my cdl permit missing only 1 question on the 3 tests required. There are 8 people in the class, only 1 woman, and I am guessing I am the oldest person there.

Day 1 was going through the manual for the test, day 2 am was taking the test at the DMV and pm was classes on Drugs and Alcohol, Fire extinguishers, and Healthy Eating. Day 3 was spent in a book about the truck, gauges, gear patterns and the log book. Today we will work on the simulator to work on shifting so we won't muck up the trucks tranny.

Time to goto class so that's all for now.

 

Day 4: This week we are working on the simulator to learn how to shift, going from a dead stop to 4th gear, the sim is a 13 speed just like the truck we will be learning on. We will learn the rest of the process latter. There are 8 students so 4 of have class in the am and 4 in the pm, the instructor wasn't feeling well so instead of each of us doing 3 15 minute turns we did 2 and he called the afternoon students and told them not to show up cause he wasn't going to be there. Anyways, when my 1st turn came it was a disaster, I have had way more cars with manual trannies then automatics, so I had a lot of trouble changing gears without grinding. The hardest part was not putting the clutch all the way to the floor. I was getting very frustrated and mad at myself cause the others were doing much better than I was. When my second turn came around I did much better, maybe because while the others were doing it I was watching how they did the clutch and shifter, I also watched the rpms where they were shifting, and it helped a lot. It's going to take me awhile to really get the hang of shifting, 30 + years of habit is going to be hard to break.
More tomorrow.

 

Teacher is still sick, no class today, hopefully tomorrow.

 

Day 6: The instructor was still sick but the backing teacher was there to sub, we all 4 shifted up to 4th and down to 3rd with no problems not even 1 grind or jam. When the guy noticed that no matter what we did, it wasn't grinding, you could shift from 1st to 4th and nothing happened( the transmision was not turning so it didn't make any noise ). Teacher called in the IT guy, but he had never worked on it before and was unwilling to tear into to find out, so we wasted the whole class shifting a simulator that didn't work.

 

Day 7: Today went alot better, the regular teacher was there and he got the simulator working right. Since I was the worst the last time, he put me on it first, and he had us go up to 8th and downshift to 3rd then stop and do it all over again. I did alot better this time, not perfect mind you but better. Most of the time I could go up to 8th and down without grinding, but not every time. It made me feel better that no one else could go the whole 15 minutes without grinding either.
Monday we get to drive the truck around the parking lot bobtail.

 

Day 8 Monday: We each got to drive bobtail around the parking lot 3 times, up to 4th down to 3rd then stop and do it again. Then he hooked up the trailer and we did it again, we all had a bit of trouble shifting but nothing major, tomorrow should be more of the same.

 

Day 9 Tuesday: We took the rig around the block a couple of times each, just minor traffic so it wasn't too scary but that is gonna change soon.

 

Day 10 Wednessday: We went on the interstate today, once I got rid of the butterflies it was kinda fun. The 4 of us took turns driving from Rapid City to Sturgis on I90, but I90 in the middle of the day is not very busy, nothing like driving on I40 or 75 at any time of day or night.

 

Got to do some catching up here,
Day 11 Thursday: In the morning we were on the interstate, I forgot to put down that we left the interstate at every exit to practice shifting, then got back on, I am doing really good at upshifting but not so good at downshifting. The other 4 were learning backing while we were on I90, this afternoon we switch.
O.K. now it is afternoon and we are backing, this truck is a pos, leaks every where, tires are allmost bald, but it never leaves the parking lot exept to be fueled up so it don't really matter. It took all of us a while to get the hang of it but by the end we were doing pretty good, just striaght back but it's surprizing how easy it is to get outside the cones.

Day 12 Friday: AM was spent in the classroom going over the book, PM my group went on I90 again and the other half were backing. One guy was sick so there was 3 of us taking turns, the one that does the VI (vehicle inspection ) gets to drive 1st so he drove out to Sturgis, the other guy hasn't had to go accross the scale yet so he went next, he drove almost to Rapid City and turned the truck around to head west again on the onramp and it was my turn to drive to Sturgis. I did much better today then up to this point, the teacher had finally told us that instead of fanning the throtle to get the rpms up and then having to shift as the tach was dropping, to increase the rpms up to where we needed to be and hold it. That worked much better,( he should of told us that when we were on the simulator) so we all did better today than before. When I got to Sturgis, due to the lack of time he had me just get back up on the interstate and drive back without hitting the exits. I just had to hit the scale, I downshifted really good there and went accros the scale, every other time we had to stop for each axel, but this time the light only went red for the front. The teacher said they did that some times when they knew we were empty, (we had just been there a half hour ago) so the other 4 axels just rolled slowly over the scale. Then back on I90, now all I had to do was drive back to the truckstop and keep my speed below our 60 mph speed limit, (the limit here is 75, the teacher drives 65 but the students are limited to 60) I downshifted good into the parking area and he took over to get us back to the school, we haven't driven through town yet so he does it.
When we got back to school the others were picking up the cones from backing, I talked to one of the guys (that group is down to 3 because 1 guy didn't pass his test after about 6 tries) anyway, he said that the girl was having trouble and the backing teacher don't seem to have alot of patience, so she finally got pi$$ed and just left with about an hour left of class. I think she'll be back Monday but who knows.

More next week.

 

Day 13 Monday: 03/01 We are no longer hitting all the exits, just driving so we go alot farther, we left the interstate and took a state highway. It was more fun this way and we put on more miles, also the teacher is not driving at all, students leave the school and return, by the time it was my turn to drive it was time to return. Driving the truck in traffic made me really nervous but I did all right anyways.

Day 14 Tuesday: Today we went the other way on the truck route that goes to Denver, but we only drove 80 miles of it, close to the city is all 4 lane some of it divided and some not. About 25 miles out it becomes 2 lane and there are a couple of hills, we are also learning about the splitter on the gearshift to use all 13 speeds, about half the time we forget to use it thow. I started driving on the return trip and had to go down the hill, its not much of a hill really but, I had to stop at the top before going down and do a brake check then upshift to 7th, it didn't take much for brakes to keep it at 35(the truck speed limit). After I got to the bottom of the hill the was a speed sign that said 55, so I started speeding up, teacher told me the truck speed limit was still 35, a short distance later there was another speed sign and this time I saw the little sign below it that said trucks 35. The rest of my time was uneventfull so that's all for today.