Earned my CDL...the search begins

First, many thanks to Chinatown for the advice on tankers out of Savannah. That's the direction I'm most interested in and am applying for the positions available right now. Later today I'm heading down to begin the TWIC card process.

I attended Orangeburg/Calhoun Technical College in Orangeburg, SC, for the past two months and yesterday I passed my CDL test. (For those of you who are curious, my out of pocket total cost was $2,184 with the help of the SC Education Lottery, which provided me a grant of $1,200. When I read about people paying four grand or more, I wonder why they didn't go the route I did. I checked a couple other technical college rates online and they're also very reasonable, but I digress.) I was worried about parallel parking and even as late as last week I wasn't getting it, but one of my classmates gave me a tip on positioning the right side of the trailer with the back right cone and another told me to just slow down, and after getting those tips it became very easy. The instructors were very good but I have to credit my classmates for passing parallel parking!

An incident that happened during my road test yesterday: After I did an emergency pull-off, I was getting ready to get back on the road (a two-laner) and saw traffic was clear, except for a log truck quite a bit in the distance going pretty slow. I pulled out and checked my mirrors and he never got close to the back of my truck. At the next stoplight (the road became four lanes by this point), I was in the right lane and he was next to me in the left, and he was irate, yelling profanities at me and everything else. So maybe he had to slow down a little for me, but if I made an honest mistake that didn't compromise his safety, his road rage was 100 times worse. My tester told me I didn't do anything wrong and to just wave "hi" to him, which I didn't do. In retrospect, I maybe could have gotten his truck info and reported him to his company - not that they would necessarily care - but I was so involved in passing the test I didn't even think about that (probably a good idea).

From reading all the information on this site, I realize my first year is about gaining experience and that you have to pay your dues in order to have more opportunities later down the road. I look forward to this new adventure, realizing it's not all going to be peaches and cream, but I'm determined to not be one of those drivers who do things that cost them miles and fulfillment in their careers.