Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

Can't speak for JB but I've had a BLAST so far. .... now where did I last sleep?? Lol

 

Crap!!! You saw that?? You said you didn't bother with the GPS. Oh well, at least it has something useful for ya now.

 

You got that right!!

 

Even as a trainer I refuse to get into a backing discussion. What I will say is this. If you are out solo, you and only you will get the backing conquered. I will tell you exactly what I tell every trainee I've had, it doesn't matter how long it takes you, how many pull ups, or even if you have to go around the block twice, if you hit nothing and got the #### thing in the hole, you did good. Practice makes perfect.

 

Backing is a skill for sure and as such, can be improved on with practice. But I think its also a basic instinct folks either have or not. Not impossible to get good without it but much easier with it.

 

Each school /state is a wee bit different. The school I attended in Farmington NM. We first started off practicing with shifting on a private farm roads. Then we did some road driving, then finally to the backing range. We started off doing strait line backing, then offset back and then to parallel parking driver side and blind side. Finally we progressed to the alley dock driver side only. We did put in a far amount of time practicing backing up. We put in about 3000 mixed road / mountain miles by the end of the class. Farmington NM is middle of the 4 corners area, lots of highways that go on forever and ever!!!

When I tested for my class B CDL, we had five mandatory tests. That was 13 years ago and boy have times changed! 1)Straight line backing, 2)Off set alley - right or left, 3)parallel parking - driver side or blind side,4)alley dock - driver side or blind side, 5)right hand turn. We practiced on doing the serpentine forward and backwards, but not tested on it. Plus a road test that was a lot longer too. The in cab inspection is the same and pre-trip is about the same, other then having to touch the item that we talking about. Things got a little easier with a in cab 5 point break inspection going down to a 3 point break inspection.

My .02

 

Sir, there was no ridicule in my statements.

May God Bless your choices.

 

Maybe circle it in that other thing he uses... What's it called again.... Map?... No that wrong.

Atlas... Ya, that's it!!! Atlas... Circle it there.

 

And don't forget, rookies get paid double CPM for any night driving they do during training.

 

Then my training was about 2.5 months longer than needed... LOL ...