RDTC: a rundown

Ok, here goes day one.
The day started at 6:45 am, we met one of our instructors, the other was helping out another class (I believe they call it phase 1, people who already have their cdl, but lack experience. Making sure they are up to Roehl's standards) My instructors were Kevin and Dale. We started with Kim taking us each in one at a time to get our paperwork squared away. For those of you who have already filled out the paperwork online prior to or at the same time as applying to RDTC, make sure you fill out the forms in the welcome packet. While it may seem like you are filling out those forms again, the forms in the packet are needed to do the school. Kim takes the payments for the school (whether it is for the whole amount or the smaller $175 payment for testing and the $400 for the hotel). She makes photo copies of all of your paperwork and a receipt for your payments. The instructor (Kevin in my case) will make copies of your Social Security Card, Drivers License, learners permit, and Birth Certificate/Passport (if you have it). After everyone was doe with this we were given a break while we waited for some other people from the school to talk to us. Sadly, I cannot remember their names, but they went over why each of us came to Roehl in particular, to show we had many of the same reasons,and to talk about what to expect at Roehl in the future. They also had our DOT physical paperwork that was sent to them from wherever we took our DOT physical at (the long form, to go along with our card.) After this we went out on the range with Kevin and he started showing us the pre-trip inspection on the cab of the truck. Around this time it was 10:30 am and we were sent to go take our wiz quiz at a chiropractors office near the hotel, and we were to be back by 1pm (essentially a 2.5 hour lunch). When we got back from lunch we met at the truck and he showed us the rest of the pre-trip on the trailer, and the proper procedure for backing the truck to the trailer and hooking it up. Since we were still waiting on the other instructor he showed us the cab inspection processes as well. Once Dale got there we split into two groups, one with Dale and one with Kevin (I was with Kevin). He took us to the range and showed us how to properly perform double-clutching both up and down the gears. Since there wasn't much time left in the day, he only had time to have one of us drive (I volunteered). I took a few laps around the training area, shifting up and down as I went. He is having us just use the engine power and no gas initially to get used to the shifting process (I was able to get up to 7th gear without using the gas, so the truck can handle it easily). We ended the day by stopping the truck, doing a post trip inspection, unhooking the trailer and parking the truck. He said tomorrow the other two guys will drive while I sat in the back seat watching. We were to start the day with starting the pre-trip when we got there. The home work that night was to read the first 7 chapters of our textbook (it's about the size of your typical college textbook), which come out to the first 145 pages, not too difficult of a read, though.

Noble, I agree with Buffalo, the instruction is fast paced, but seems to adjust with learning speeds pretty well. Classes vary in size but do not exceed 6 (3 per truck/instructor) this smaller size lends itself to a more personal type of learning, but also helps, because someone may ask a question that the instructor may have missed, or people didn't know to ask. Also, with me being with the group of three, it gives the instructor three people to instruct how to drive, allowing room for more mistakes, which allows us more room to learn from each others mistakes.

Thats about it for today (probably a good thing, I seem to have gotten diarrhea of the keyboard) Keep the questions coming and I will try to answer them as I go.