Swift Truck Driving Academy

Day 7, First day on the range.

The people who didn't pass the written tests yesterday all passed today and we got one person who was left back into our class. So we had 13 today.

We got to the class room and we went over what we were going to do today. The instructors took us out to the Trucks and showed us the pre-trip, and 7 step air break test. After that he pretty told most of us (me included) theres the truck back it up 53 feet and come back to the line. So we practiced straight back driving for the whole day. I will admit I was a little nervous at first but I got comfortable real fast. Never hit a cone and the instructors never said anything to me, so that tells me I did pretty good. Had a blast today.

 

Days 8 through ....uh....Now.

Its was a long week. Getting in and out of a truck every ten min makes you very tired at the end of the day. All week we did straight line backing, parallel parking, 90 degree ally dock backing, and off set backing. I think I did pretty well with all of that after all they let me go on to the next phase. We had yesterday off, since I have no money I stayed in the room the whole day. Today we started on shifting. We were assigned trucks, before we just paired up with whoever we wanted to. We had 5 trucks running three to three trucks and 2 to the other two. I lucked out and was assigned to one with only two people in it. The man I was assigned the truck with is non other than my room mate, don't know how that happened. There is a quarter mile of road on the side of the terminal where we practiced. It was dry shifting only so no accelerator. We were told to only shift from 2nd to 6th, witch gave us a top speed of 8 miles per hour (a lot faster then we have been going). I decided to take her up to 8th gear after awhile. I got 25MPH out of her. I would come off the line 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and then 8th gear. By the time I got into 8th I would shoot past the truck coming the opposite direction and they would just look at me dumbfounded. They would ask me later how I just shot of the line it looked like it was doing 25MPH, and I told them I was doing 25MPH 8th gear will do that.

 

Well I just tried to post a detailed report and when I hit the spell checker it all when away so I am just going to keep it simple this time.

Started the road training on the 2nd. Two things stick out in my mind. First on my first day and second time behind the wheel the instructor decides he wants me to work on lane control. So he has me make a few turns and soon I am going down a three lane road in the middle lane with construction on the side walks and rush hour traffic. So here I am never driven a truck before on the street and now I am surrounded by 4 wheelers having to constantly shift my gears up and then back down and trying to keep a 53 foot trailer in my lane that is continually drifting to the right. I stop at a light and the instructor tells me to pull up a little. I am wondering why cause from what I have been tought I stopped at the light perfectly. I saw the three white lines in front of my hood. He tells me that when I stop I have to make sure that he could see the girl in the car next to us. I stopped right in the middle of two cars so he couldn't see anything.

The other thing that sticks out in my mind was on Wednesday morning. I hooked up the trailer and pulled out of the terminal, he had me hit the highway and we were going down the highway I was doing around 63 -65. He then turns to me and says that I may want to scrunch my neck down. I start to ask why when we come up to a bridge, normally no big deal but then I see the hight. 13' 7" and I know my truck is 13' 6" so he was right my neck lost about two inches of hight.

Took my test on Thursday went I took it I thought I failed, in my mind I did so bad there was no way they were ever going to let me test again but I did pass with an 83. There were two things of note that happened.

The first was when I had first pulled out of DPS. I had pulled out and stopped at the first light. Standing there at a bus stop was a woman and her daughter no older than 4 years old. The little girl waved at me and the tester and we waved back. Then the little girl pumps her hand in the air in the blow your air horn sign. The I wasn't going to because I was in the start of my test but the tester encouraged me to so as I went through the light I hit the air horn twice and the grin on the girls face was priceless.

The second was at the end of the test, we were coming up to DPS and I asked the instructor if she wanted me to pull into DPS cause she hadn't told me to yet. She said "Well do you want to test to be over?" and I answered "Oh, God yes!"

We had 11 people who get there CDL "A" that day. Only one had to retest. That night I was home.

I have orientation on the 21st, I will keep ya'll posted when I can.

 

Thanks Vale, the tuition is 3900. The sitting fee is 150 non refundable (for the most part) food is up to you. Swift dosn't feed you while you are there. After you are done and get you CDL you are responsible for changing over you license to your home state if you do not live in the state you got your license. I am the only TX resident in my class so I am the only one who dosnt have to change it over.

Hope this helps.

 

In Dallas for oriantation, I know its spelled wrong. Sue me.