My Adventures at Atlanta Truck Driving School

First let me start out by saying that I've thought long and hard about my decision to begin a career as a truck driver over the past three months. My background is 100% white collar; I am from the world of securities trading where I've worked for three companies over the past 8 years. I've ridden my fair share of rises and falls in the market, and the rises and falls in business that come along with it. I somehow managed to avoid succumbing to multiple waves of layoffs with each company I've worked for, but my luck ran out this past May.

Fast forward to Friday August 15th, 2008, which is when I enrolled in the Class A program at Atlanta Truck Driving School. There are a handful of schools in the Atlanta metro area, but I chose this one because I felt it would give me the biggest bang for my buck. The tuition is $3300 if you pay in installments, or $3000 if you pay up front. This is pretty typical of what you'll find at the other schools in this area, but the difference here is that they promised me self paced 1 on 1 instruction, and that's what sold me.

This is where it gets interesting.... since it's self paced, there's no set time for you to be there in the classroom, and there really aren't even any classroom materials. You pay them $3000, they hand you a CDL manual and tell what sections to study. They set you in front of a computer or tv (with headphones) and you watch a couple of videos, take a couple of tests, and you KEEP studying the manual, watching videos, and taking tests until you and they are confident you'll pass the permit test. Once you get used to taking the tests it really becomes committed to permanent memory. They give you a week, so you are required to try for your permit by Friday of your first week at the school. I got my permit on the first try last week on Tuesday, so I literally had no reason to show up for the rest of the week. I spent the rest of the week at home continuing to study the rest of the manual because I plan to apply for all available endorsements later on down the line.

The second week, which began today, is where I start behind the wheel training. This part is actually structured in that I meet with my instructor (one student per instructor/truck!) for two hours each day. This week I'm with him from 5pm to 7pm. Today we spent about 45 minutes working on some pretrip, which was pretty cool to me because I finally got to see up close and in person what I've been memorizing for the past week. For the next hour or so, we worked on straight line backing. He demonstrated it a few times first taking his time to explain everything he was doing, then I got behind the wheel and gave it a few tries with him in the passenger seat. Once I gained some confidence, he jumped out and watched me from outside of the truck to make sure I could do it a few times without his help.

The last 15 minutes today was spent on driver's side parallel parking. He demonstrated it a few times for me, once again explaining everything he was doing as he did it so I would understand why. He gave a few helpful reference points to use in my mirrors at different stages in parallel parking; stuff like that goes a looooooong way. I didn't have enough time left to try it today, but I will be trying it tomorrow along with blind side parallel parking. Depending on how I do tomorrow, the next steps would be right and left side offset parking.

Sorry this post was so long winded, I wanted to get my background out there and let everyone know how I arrived where I am today. I'll try to update this thread in case anyone is interested in reading more about this school. Feel free to ask me any questions and I'll answer them as best as I can for you.

Thanks for reading!

Ken

 

Tuesday: Spent more time reviewing pre-trip inspection w/ instructor. I'm memorizing it section by section, so each day I cover more and more of it. Did some more straight line backing just to demonstrate that I've mastered it, then same for driver side parallel parking. Then instructor showed me passenger side parking and by the time I got the hang of it, it was time to go.

Wednesday: Started out with some pretrip... started to realize that a lot of it is repetitious (with a few exceptions) when it comes to tractor brakes and trailer brakes, tractor front susp and tractor rear susp, wheels and tires... etc. Instructor asked me to demonstrate driver side parallel parking, drive around the lot then come back and do a straight back at least the length of the truck, circle the lot again and then demonstrate passenger side parallel parking.... all while he watched from the corner of the lot. I did okay, actually did better with passenger side parallel than driverside. Then he showed me how to pull up properly to correct myself if my parallel parking isn't quite right.

Today (Thursday): Started out with, you guessed it, more pretrip. I've gotten about 60% of it committed to permanent memory so far. I should have it all down by the middle of next week. He went over how the road test will work and I got some good news. Of the 6 basic vehicle control skills, the state tester will only ask me to perform three of them. Of course it's up to the tester to pick the three, so I won't know which three I'll have to do until the tester decides. I also found out that I get two free opportunities to pull up in order to correct myself, the third and subsequent ones will count as one point deducted. Today I worked on alley docking from a 90 degree angle, which proved to be a little tougher than it looks. I can't quite do it without the instructors help and input, but I'm working hard at it. Tomorrow we're going to pick up where we left off today.

Overall it feels good to be making some progress. I'm looking forward to mastering the pretrip stuff though, just to get it behind me!

 

It's two free pull ups overall, not for each maneuver.

 

Ok, now I'm scared....LOL

One thing I'm not clear on is the ability to retake the driving test. I thought it was progressive, meaning I'd have to pass the pretrip portion first, then move to basic vehicle control, and then move on to the driving portion after passing that. The info I have from the school says that if I fail a part of the road test, that I will only need to retake that part. Doesn't really make a lot of sense.... what if I fail the pretrip, I can't imagine the tester would let me move forward.... in theory I'd be driving a truck that I wasn't 100% sure is even roadworthy.

I gotta ask about that tomorrow.

How does it work in AL?

 

This was an interesting week.

I've memorized ALL of the pretrip... FINALLY. I'm going to keep studying it though because it's easy to forget a couple things here and there.

As far as behind the wheel time, I've gotten all the vehicle control skills down pretty good. I can do most without having to pull up even once.

On Wednesday, I started spending some time out of the parking lot finally and was bobtailing around with the instructor learning how to shift. Their trucks are older volvo's with Super 10 transmissions. It took a minute to get used to using only the hi-low selector (e.g. going from 5th to 6th) and then clutching without actually moving the shift knob.... I've owned manual transmission cars since I was 16, so it's ingrained in my head to clutch and shift... I'm adjusting to the ways of the Super 10 though. My downshifting needs some improvement, so I'll definitely be back at it come Monday.

Hopefully sometime next week I'll be practicing out on the streets with the trailer.

 

Wow, it's been a good minute since I've updated this thread.

Since my last post, I have moved onto driving on the streets and highways locally with my instructor and all is going well. I was hoping to be able to take my road test this coming Friday, but it ain't gonna happen. I have 6 hours left in the program, but my road test is scheduled for Oct 2nd. So what the instructor and I worked out is that I'll pretty much have the rest of this week, and all of next week free, then I'll return on Sept 29th, 30th, and Oct 1st for two hours each day, and then I take my road test on the 2nd.

I'm excited about it all, but I just wish I could've gotten on the schedule a little sooner for my road test. I'll just have to find something to do to keep myself occupied between now and then. I have applied to Roehl and to Watkins and Shepard. Both have done all the employment checks, background checks, MVR checks...etc. I really can't go any further until I get my license, then I can move on to do the company physical for Watkins and Shepard (my first choice) and do the drug tests for both companies. I'm hoping to start training by mid October.

I'll update this thread again with a yay or nay about passing my road test on the 2nd.