Parallel parking! Are they serious?

The test, like those of "truck rodeos", is more about demonstrating vehicle control and awareness than the practicality of any specific maneuver.

 

My son is becoming an expert on parallel parking due to IN CDL test - 3 of the 5 students in his class had to come back this week to practice and retake the WHOLE test just due to parallel parking portion. At least it's included in their tuition, no extra charge.

 

Your son got lucky !
Additional time at the school I went to was $125 per hr .
Retest after a parallel fail the first time was $250 for the site rental / truck / instructor and State Trooper detail .

Parallel park is no joke in some states .... I failed because 5" of my passenger side drive tire was over the invisible line . The entire trailer and 98% of the tractor was in the box ..but that drive tire screwed me .

 

The CDL parallel park maneuver is not as difficult as it sounds. If you can perform the off-set right maneuver, you can perform the parallel park. Look at them from an overhead view, they are nearly identical.

 

The "invisible line" represents the side of a building. You crossed it... you just had a preventable.

 

It was the entry line ironpony ...not the cone line in the box .
I did not hit a cone , encroach a cone , nor did I hang any part of the tractor over a cone during the entire testing process .

 

Good thing... the coneheads would be out for revenge! Still ya got to get it in the box.

Seriously... this is a good skill to have.

 

I absolutely agree its a good skill to have .

BUT ...state requirements to testing being what they are , having to limit G.O.A.L to (2) and pullups to (1) free is a little restrictive when you
consider in the real world it " Takes what it takes to get it in the hole " without a preventable is just silly IMHO .

During training I had absolutely no issues with 90 degree alley dock into a 3" finale in the cone box , matter of fact I was one shotting that with no pu's or and 1 G.O.A.L to verify the last 3" .
I had no issues with parallel driver or passenger either .

Testing is very pressure orientated being so limited as to the maximum pull ups and goals allowed before points are removed and a failure is eminent . And failure is possible without even encroaching or hitting a cone !
Testing is not based on safely getting the rig into the box , nor is it based on any real world scenario .

~S~

 

Non sequitur, single cause fallacy. There used to be no instruction. It seems unlikely the worst instruction doesn't include GOAL.

Depending on what you mean by "straight". Many if not most vehicle operators can't even maintain their lane, much less the center of it. "Experience" teaches them it doesn't matter because it didn't lead to a crash the last 1000 times they didn't do it.

Non sequitur, single cause fallacy. They could at least back well enough to pass when they tested for their CDL.