Pre Trip

I took pictures with my phone and used them to help me study at night.

 

Wow. That's one hell of a thread. No wonder you don't see any of those drivers anymore. They just quit after that

 

Just walk around your living room or an actual truck, saying out loud the part and what you're looking for.

 

As we pointed out each thing we were looking at, which you have to say and physically point at each thing, we used "....the (blank) is securely mounted, not cracked, damaged or broken..." for everything. If it has hoses they don't "leak" and the wires are not "frayed" and lights, windows mirrors are not "cracked". My instructor called it the CDB method like Charlie Daniels Band.

Its tough the first couple times. The only way to do it right is repeating it over and over and timing yourself each time. Don't stress about it just practice. You will see improvement and you'll start doing it in your sleep.

 

remember the tire tread depth which supposed to be no less than is no less than 4/32 on steers and 2/32 on drive and trailer. i have been asked about that every time i ever did the pretrip test for any company. and things like mentioning checking your tire pressure, lug nuts, and wheels for cracks or illegal welds. i have seen people fail because of not remembering these things. good luck. you will get it.

 

I totally forgot the 5th wheel on the New Mexico CDL test. Would have been perfect otherwise.

When I took the Texas test, they didn't even test on that.

 

The New Mexico test you lose points for missing something. Some it's all or nothing.

 

yea you can miss a few things but it is graded by points just like a written test.

 

The guy I had in Arkansas was a hard ### so I commented on every little thing. He got annoyed finally and made me stop. He just said forget it and had me start the maneuvers portion. He gave me a 98 out of 103 points for the pretrip. He was a former juvenile detention center guard and had no real knowledge of trucking. Every examiner is different so just name all you can think of.