Cdl weekend course

I know, that was then, this is now, but what a crock, you people have to go through, really, just to drive a stinkin' truck. My 1st trucking job, I filled out a 3x5 index card with names of next of kin, a 5 minute ride in a tractor trailer, which I never drove before, but the boss seemed to think I could handle it, and I was trucking that very afternoon. So you can see why I can't understand why you would go through all that, when it was just a joke to me. The real joke was on me, however, I spent the next 35+ years in this biz.

 

I do weekends right now. I retain the information easily. The biggest bull is he pre trip. It’s the toughest for me to remember because the NYS DMV changed the way they test pre trip and now there’s 92 items you have to remember and you have to word it certain ways. It’s ridiculous. Up here though, you only have to pre trip the entire truck if you are lucky number 21. Otherwise, the computer will spit out certain parts of the truck or trailer you have to do.

 

My pretrip in a test environment starts at the drivers door. When I open my big mouth and start pointing I would probably cover about 8 items just there. By the time I am at the left steer working top down in the engine bay on that side it's over 20 items. When I come around to the right steer and add a bunch more pointing everywhere

The tester glazes out when he realizes what is coming next down the trailer. OMG thats enough we drive now thinking I am some kind of a savant. Which is a behavior I groom for certain situations.

 

I'm the same way being as how I was a wrench before lol. They used to say at UPS that I could make sure any truck would get get red tagged if I wanted to.

 

Don’t just go through the motions on inspections. Know what you are actually doing.

Don’t point at a brake chamber that isn’t there for example

 

I’ve been in it for 3 months. Got 3 more to go. I had to take the longer weekend course because it’s the only way I could get the financial aid I needed.

 

Most important thing is hands on time, the smaller the class size the more you should get. Second most is paying attention when someone else is doing something, esp backing if you're outside. Follow other student's pretrips for good ideas and bad.

 

I don't mean to be the "old man" in these threads, those were different times. Still, the reason, the MAIN reason, I became a truck driver, was it was the least amount of hassle, school and outside education wise, to earn a living. I can say without reservation, if I had to go through the hoops today, for me, it surely wouldn't be worth it, especially when I can stock soup cans at Walmart for about the same wage.