How is it possible to get your CDL but then not know how to road test??

3rd party tester letting them slide

 

It happens. Years ago I took a guy on a student trip and the whole thing was a disaster.
He was the first truck driving school graduate I'd ever ridden with. He took great pains to explain to me that since he'd been to a real genuine fully accredited truck driving school that he was therefore fully educated and qualified to drive a big rig and resented the fact that anyone should have to ride with him.
He was pretty bright, well spoken, and he knew all his rules and regulations right down to the chapter and verse.
The only thing he couldn't do was drive. Not even a little bit.
We had a single axle Pete with an empty set of pneumatic trailers. Starting out of the yard he killed it twice and couldn't quite get the shifting down and bounced out onto the highway in about three great convulsive leaps...and stalled out. He blamed the clutch.
The truck had a ten speed, about the simplest transmission ever built, and he couldn't find a gear without a lot of rowing and grinding...lots of grinding... and bursts of power. I could smell the clutch,
He stalled out twice more before we got a mile down the road. He blamed the truck.
When he did manage to keep it moving he had no idea where his right side was and he constantly wandered over the fog line into the gravel.
The last time he stalled it out I had him switch seats with me and I drove it back to the yard. He was angry and accused me of sabotaging his road test. He said that he couldn't be expected to drive as smoothly as me and if I just let him take a truck out by himself he'd probably do better. After all, he'd been to school and he knew stuff that a lot of us old guys probably didn't know.
When we parked I just pointed at his car and told him not to even bother going in the office. We couldn't use him.
He blew his stack. He was going to sue. He was going to call people he knew. He was going to complain to every state and federal agency he could think of...on and on and on.
We never saw him again and we never heard from him either.
He wasn't too bad of a guy but some school somewhere sold him a bill of goods. The told him if he passed all the tests he'd be a truck driver. He believed them.
I heard later that he got on with some tomato hauling outfit and snap-rolled his back trailer the first day. They said he claimed the load was side heavy.

 

The cdl "school" knows the test routes. They run the students down those routes over and over and over. Every mistake they make gets corrected, they get told the reference points for shifts, turns etc. He learns one 1, maybe 2 trucks and he knows the sound and feel 9f those 2 trucks and their shift points. Once the student can run the route blind folded, they "test" him, and VOILA, he passes.

Then when he goes someplace new and he has to think and make judgment calls, he can't because he has never had to think about driving before. He is driving a "new" truck where the gears haven't been ground down and the shifts need to be precise. Toss in some nerves for garnish and you get a poop sandwhich.

 

Almost every guy I fail says this or a close variant.

I always respond "I'm not looking for perfection, or even proficiency, I'm just looking for competency"

Or "if you can't do it with me watching, how are you going to react to an angry mob telling you to move that *@#%$!##! rig this instant"

 

You're right, I never expected perfection. A guy taking a qualification ride is going to be a little nervous and he might goof up a couple of things. Human nature. Nobody gets flunked for that.
But you can tell if a guy can drive or not and it doesn't take long either.
Perfection? No, of course not. Simple competency will do,

 

Now what if said fellow came in with a little humility. Instead of insisting he was the greatest driver on Earth, said he could use some mentorship and guidance on the road the first little while. Would you have hired him and trained him?

 

If y'all remember the regs in '03 .. I LITERALLY had to go take a buck sixty course... that I could have trained. They offered to hire me, yep...nope. Carrier I was working for required the dang diploma. FOUR days. Not weeks...paperwork and test. SIMPLE COMPETENCY is so correct.. HECK i forget the FMCSA regs myself nowadays, and ring up the wife, the dictionary girl.

I was actually NERVOUS yet I had years on the 29 y/o female testing me out.

 

With the company I was with at the time, we very probably would have done just that. They had a lot of harvest hauling...field to elevator...and a lot of rookies cut their teeth on that.
LOL...It was usually such a short haul on dirt roads that they didn't need to shift out of low range.
You're right about the attitude part. Given enough time and patience almost anybody can be taught to drive. What you can't teach them...what they have to provide from day one...is a good attitude and a willingness to learn.