Just started at C1 Ft Wayne

I did egears and read the cdl book. There is a lot of stuff that is not in egears. PAY ATTENTION in class. Listen to the instructors. Ask questions if you are confused by something. Keep in mind their only job is to make sure you can pass your cdl test. But good instructors will give you extra information that's not in any book. Stuff you only learn by driving. Write down these gems and remember them. I also read everythig I could on these forums. When I started class I was already prepared.

 

lol. Just for my permit I needed my birth cert, ss card, 2 different proofs of address, plus temp address change form. Then for the company I had to provide 3 years of employment history proof and a list of 4 references. Since I was self employed I had to dig out and copy 3 years of income taxes. We had one student leave. Apparently he used to work for a trucking co as a mechanic. He hurt his knee and wound up sueing the company. He has also had 2 back surgeries. The co sponsoring his schooling told him they will not hire him now. He's just to big a liability. Honestly imo the guy should have known better.

 

Well my girl suprised me and drove the 400+ miles from PA and got here about 5:30am saturday and just left at 10:00pm sunday. So I didn't get as much studying in as I had hoped but it was nice to see her. Interesting story for those of you planning on relying on GPS. When she went to leave our tomtom may have bit the dust as it would not aquire a gps signal. My map and trip planning skills I just aquired came into good use. I told her to take i30e but there is no i30e from ft wayne...thats because there is a spur of 30, i930e that she needed to take. I made a list of routes and mileages for her until she got to pittaburgh from there she knows the way home. That made me feel pretty good.

I did go to the range saturday and practice PTI, and I got to help some of the 3rd and 4th week guys which was great because they showed me some little things the instructors look for, and I helped them with a few things they would forget. For instance I pointed out to one guy that every point he missed could be fixed if he remembered one thing...Every part that holds or transports fluid (including air) needs to be checked for leaks. Hoses, reseviors, pumps, steering gearbox.....it's easy to remember when you realise if it holds or transports a fluid it needs checked for leaks. He gave me a high 5 and got a perfect on every practice pti we did after that.

I got a good nap today so I'm going to study and hour or two before bed. Goodnight all.

 

If you were there last week you probably heard about the crazy guy that drove his motorcycle there from PA lol. People I never met know who I am. If you knew the guy everyone called Neo (black leather trenchcoat, black sunglasses) he passed today and got his cdl. And another poor sob failed his cdl test for the 4th time

So yesterday was interesting. We were short an instructor because Andre got arrested. We thought it was really serious but he was back today. But Floyd had 2 ranges yesterday so those of us that looked like we knew what we were doing got put on range 2 to practice on our own while he worked with those that needed it.

Andre was back today and I was with him on range 1. He has a really good system that works. I'm using it for now to keep him happy but I do better with my system which allows me to parallel park without stopping. No crap when I did it first shot with Floyd yesterday he just grinned and said "whatever works, but when you do your dot test they want you to get out and pace it off".

Then we find out through the grapevine a student sideswiped a minivan today. It turned out to be a classmate and friend. Its an interesting situation because the school director told the instructors not to take students out to this particular place because it is beyond the skills of first time road drivers. Well what happened was he was pulling out of the truck stop and tried to shift while turning (nono) and missed the gear. Then he looked down at the gear shift and cut the turn too tight crossing the double yellow with his trailer and boom, minivan has new pinstripes. Now who's at fault here? I'm sure it can be shared but sadly poor Dennis now has an accident on his dot record because the instructor failed him.

I did my first road driving today and have a few bad habits I have to break thanks to driving T plate manual dump trucks. I have this bad habit of pushing the clutch to the floor when shifting which engages the clutch brake and results in me making hamburger. My other problem is somewhat related as when I am parked in gear with the clutch in I keep my foot on the brakes which likes to bleed the air out for the brakes. Other than that I didn't get yelled at much but I did forget the leakdown test on my 4pt inspection. Total brainfart as I have simulated the 4pt correctly in my room sitting in my chair dozens of times.

I took time today to memorize the coupler part of my pti today. So far it was the most difficult part. Everything else has an analog on regular vehicles which I have worked on a lot, but trying to remember sliding 5th wheel locking pins was a pita. I now have the entire pti memorized save the in cab stuff.

 

Yeah Ken is cool. A computer gaming geek like me. I got to ask him how much clothes cost in the matrix hehe.

There was another guy there, always wore an orange hoodie. He failed behind the fence for the 5th time today and they told him to pack his bags. Pretty sad. And he is on the hook for 6 grand now too.'

Anyway we get on the range and I do my range manuvers second. I finish in well under 10 mins including the walk back during the parallel manuver. I finished with no points the one walk around and one pull up which I didn't have to use in the parallel box but I did just to make it look pretty. So Andre was letting everyone else practice and had me resetting the truck back to straight line each time which was cool I didn't practice manuvers but got more seat time than everyone. Then we notice the front drive axle inner tire has broken steel cords sticking out a good 6". So we stop driving and tell Ron the range cordinator and he says run it till it blows lmao. yay. Then I was supposed to get road time this afternoon but a bunch of tornado clouds decided to roll through. We saw clouds circling, horizontal rain, lightning and hail. Sat in the class building for 2 1/2 hours until they finally let us leave. Oh I drive my bike to school every day too. Hail can hurt.

Andre is going to test us on range friday and hopefully pti mon or tues. PAM orientation tomorrow.

BTW I can't believe I actually got the pti memorized. Right off the top of my head I can recite the whole #### things including the 4 point brake check. Never thought it was possible.

 

Today first thing I go on the road and the instructor informs me I am being tested. Seriously this is my first time actually driving in town. So I do my driving and I got shifting down, obeying and remembering signs, watching school zones, turning, even got to put it in 10th on the highway and get it up to 60mph. And I pass! At the end of our road test when we park we always do the 4pt brake test. No problem I can do this in my sleep. So at the point where I shut the truck off then turn it back on I do not realize I turned it all the way back to accessory and when I turned it on I actually only turned it from accessory to off. Serves me right for not checking my guages. I was so pi$$ed I just walked around the range the rest of the day looking for a dog to kick. Technically the 4pt is part of the pti not the road test but here they like to give you as many oppurtunities to autofail as possible so we have to do out 4pt twice once in the pti and again for the road test.

But tomorrow is another day and I get to take my road test again, and I can take my range test too, then saturday I can take my pti test and assuming I pass everything tuesday I can cross the fence for the real thing and get it done.

 

Well today I am a bit discouraged. I did start off with the range manuvers and did the first run with no points and 2 pull ups, second run was no points one pull up. Passed those perfect. I go do my road and hit a curb right out of the gate, autofail. I hit another curb later and realize I really have not made any right turns out of an intersection yet. So now I'm all annoyed because instead of improving I actually took a step back. Then I find out instead of going in saturday they want us to go in monday, memorial day from 8-1...I already made plans with my girl for saturday through monday, reservations have already been made. But I guess a lot of guys are skipping monday because wed we were told we had it off then 2 hours before class ends they say they want us to come in....That don't fly. Its different when I'm driving and getting paid. But I'm not paying them to pull this crap because they don't want to pay the instructors overtime saturday.

So yeah I'm a little crabby, and I'm stuck waiting till tomorrow for my girl because she wasn't coming till tomorrow evening because I was supposed to have school tomorrow. So I got 3 days till school and a half gallon of jaegermeister. Cheers!