getting my cdl

Hey, im new to the forum, did not see anyone sharing their experiences of getting their licenses, so thought id share mine as i got my class a today. first off, i got my permit last july, so it was almost 7 months between then and getting the license. I had never even driven any vehicle with a clutch as of last summer, beleive it or not, and im 22. So i rented a big old uhaul truck for 2 days, one of the older piece of crap gmc 5 speeds. I beat the snot out of that for 2 days while getting a feel for the clutch, and then started getting a little experience driving my dad's truck.

My dad has a 2000 W900 kenworth day cab, with a nice steel benson dump trailer. anyways, so im from massachusetts, and got a road test for last tuesday. of course its my luck that the closest test site is 45 minutes away, even tho i live ina heavily populated area near boston. so i went last tuesday for a 12:30 test, got there nice and early and all that. at the beginning of the test, guy says you have an hour and half to do your whole pretrip and your maneuvers. well this was news to me, as it is not listed in the cdl manual and nowhere had i heard this. i swear the second he told me that, it went out the other ear cuz i was so focused on remembering to point everything out. so did my pre trip and air brakes, he kinda busted my balls a bit with making me check so many tires for air pressure, but i went quickly and thoroughly through the whole inspection (he didnt make me do my in the cab inspection, thankfully). then we started with the maneuvers, aced the forward and back and first parallel park. then guy motions for me to get out of the truck, tells me only 6 minutes left, wont have time for the final 2 maneuvers, thanks and have a nice day.

 

(..continued) so what did i learn that day? well, try to streamline your walkaround. dont do things the order the book has them in, be able to start at the front of the truck and just keep working your way towards the back so you wont be all over the place, like me. bring a tire guage in case he wants you to be exact, but bring a tire club or whatever the manual says they approve of. guy kept telling me he would have accepted a tire stick or whatever its called, and that would have saved so much time. if you gotta take a wiz, do it before or after, tho it can screw up your concentration with your maneuvers if you gotta pee, so maybe it cannot be avoided.

so then i booked a test at a different site for last thursday. i went and bombed, couldnt do either of my last two maneuvers (blind side parallel and alley dock), so i failed for real. got some practice in over the weekend with some cones, and went again today, did the maneuvers each with 2 pullups, and went out and did fine on the road. i plan on finding some dump trailer work in the near future, even a triaxle dump or 10 wheeler would be good, as long as its not an automatic. i felt in my learning process that the transmission and maneuvering are perhaps equally tough to master, as im far from mastering either. and i didnt even have to learn with any kind of weight, so i had it easy. hopefully some other people can share their experiences too. - Dan

ps - the enclosed pic is my dads truck, a nice rig if you ask me.