Manitoba Road Test = Double Clutching?

I started out double clutching on my road test last week. After a couple rough downshifts, I went back to what I'm comfortable with and things smoothed right out. I lost 1 or 2 points for not using the clutch, but 91/100 was good enough for me. I think most people make some minor mistakes when the guy in the passenger seat is writing things on a clipboard and staring at you.

 

Any new driver should first learn how to double clutch because that's the standard. After you get that down you can become creative and do as you like. But you need an understanding on how to shift before you go without the clutch. I have seen transmissions damaged by drivers not knowing how to match everything up and miss the shift. It's not the grinding or rubbing that I would be too concern with, it's when the gear is not all the way into the whole and when power is applied it will pop out with a loud bang and you know it's not good. However, if you're grinding (badly) all the time more training is required.

During our road tests we let the driver shift the way they like after they show us how to use the clutch and proper gear selection. More important is to match the road speed with the proper gear. Once that is demonstrated we like to see the driver skip gears and know at all times what gear the truck needs to be in. You may also find out that just about all the DMV road testers require you to double shift. Any school that does not show you how to shift with the clutch is doing you an injustice.

When you drive all day long in the city you get tired. I'm not about to hit every gear going down and I skip gears. With our loads being maxed out at 110,000lbs you need all the gears going up. But going down with our 10 or 9 speeds you can skip rather easy and we all do it. For an example if I'm running down a surface street say at 45 mph and there's a red light ahead I'll just let the truck slow down in the same gear until I need to select another gear. So I might go from 9th to 6th or if I need to stop I'll go 9th to 5th then stop. In 5th gear you're just creeping along anyway. So no matter where I'm at I know which gear to be in at any given speed. So if the light is red they goes green I may go from 9th to 7th and power on. Of course these gears are used for examples because every truck is different and you've got to know your equipment. It becomes so easy after a while and you can do all that without the clutch if you know the truck.

 

Drive it like it doesn't have brakes.

 

Practice the pretrip till your dreaming about it. If they test anything like they do here they will try to trip you up. They will ask you about something, then ask you again later when your on a different part of the truck, then reword it lol, there tricky ########