I would like advice on the best way to approach school..

I appreciate all these informed responses.. ive decided to do my absolute best but if I am bad at it im not driving.. like u saud the kast thing I want to be is dangerous.. Thank you guys. Would cool to meet up and talk domevday..

 

Learn how to be safe on the road. Take a smith system course when you get your CDL and put that on your resume.

 

Shift at 1400 in low range and 1800 (about) in high range. You just use low to get moving and gain your speed in high.
DON'T be afraid of grinding the gears, you are paying to learn. Drive in town and 2 lane roads as much as possible. DON'T take the easy way out, you do that when you're being paid.
Try to learn what speed and rpm you use in each gear. When you miss a gear you can't stop and start over in the middle of the road. You also won't come to a complete stop at traffic lights but won't downshift every gear either.
Don't drive to close. I saw an accident right in front of me last week. Two cars bumped bumpers, one spun out and ended up upside down on the side of the road. Rain here in Florida. We almost saw another when a car was passing us on a two lane. They were beside the cab when another car pulled out of a side road . The one that pulled out went halfway into the grass and the other cut hard in front of us. We were going about 60 we only had time to say #!&$:_& before it was over. Learn to leave yourself and others room and strive to be a professional driver.
Have fun, back over cones, run over the lines, grind the gears and get better every day.

 

One thing hubby and I did that helped a lot was we went in early and stayed late to practice our backing skills. Putting in that extra time helped!

 

http://www.smith-system.com/training_solutions/on_the_road <<<<<------ Go here and watch the video.

As for shifting and such, learn how the trans works and practice shifting. Grinding gears is a bad thing to do and you want to get to the point where you don't want to "feel" the shift while driving at the same time make it second nature (it isn't hard to do) while having a mental note of what gear you are in. If you want instructions on different transmissions go to Eaton's website and look at them, you can download their shifting instructions (which do help) and hit Youtube too.

 

I am attending Roadmaster in SA right now. This is my last week. First and foremost the first day is dot physical and drug test. Every class loses someone because they did not pass the wiz quiz. If you cannot pass it reschedule. Also, the first two days is studying for your permit. The instructor goes over a lot of the questions that trip up the students. Towards the end of the day they give you study guides with the questions and answers. The study guide has 50 to 100 questions and your tests at dps will be 20 to 50 of those questions depending on the test. Know the study guides and you will be okay on the tests. Just fyi the pretrip is only a written test in Texas and you do not have to perform it live for dps. Anyways have fun, study your study guides, and the rest will come to you.

 

Going on the second week at Roadmasters tomorrow. Tomorrow will be my first time in the yard. Classroom was packed will information. I passed everything. Log books seems kind of dated, but its good to learn as much as possible, I guess. Is it normal to be thinking of the road test aleady? A bunch of people took it last Thursday and they looked nervous. Best of luck.