Need tips on CDL Road Test (not skillr or pre-trip)

Pay attention to all road signs. Some examiners will ask what a sign you just passed said.

 

Scan your mirrors constantly do not keep your eyes fixed on anything . Let your signal blink a few times before lane changing.

 

It's a "rule"that you will ignore almost all your driving career. One of the few rules that I NEVER ignore is shifting gears over RR tracks. If getting hit by a train doesn't scare the pants off you, you're too stupid to breathe. and YES, it's possible to not be able to get that truck in gear again, even at a full stop. I've had it happen to me. -Stuff breaks.

 

I want to remember my father telling me about a female going down cabbage many years ago and missed a gear. She almost bought the farm. My father was listening to this over the CB and by the time he got there all he could see was the glow of the cigarette she was smoking while parked and her brakes so hot they were also glowing. Yes it is possible to miss a gear while shifting and you need that GEAR RIGHT NOW. So yes please don't shift on RR tracks.

 

I don't want to be Mister "don't give a rip' here, but on Cabbage WB, just out it in a lower gear and go for it. I hear a lot of horror stories about this or that pass, but where I see guys in the ditch is I80 in Wyoming in winter on a STRAIGHT ROAD or on a curve on predictable ice. I've driven Cabbage abut 100 times and seen exactly ONE semi wreck.

Respect your weight. That's the main thing. Second, respect the center of gravity of your load.

First tells you you're gonna GO REAL FAST down a hill unless you do something about it: Have it in a lower gear, have your jakes on, etc.

Second tells you that that 55MPH curve you see in front of you means 40-45 for you. And you should figure that out the first curve of ANY kind you come to after loading.

Some long-haired hippy (Ex-navy, no surprise) driver who's been on the road 30 years told me in the first few WEEKS of my driving: "No one ever got into trouble by going too slow." And #### if that squiddly hippy wasn't 1000% right.

 

As I look back over my career I saw more accidents on I 40 about 50 miles east and west of The truckstop's in Amarillo Texas and as you said all over Wyoming then most anywhere else.. I did see what become a fatal accident as it happened on I 26 southbound near the North Carolina/ South Carolina border. The voice on that CB I was listening to that day still haunts me. The driver as you said did not respect his weight and paid the price for it. I've seen morons slipping and sliding on ranger hill in Texas. I don't care how good a driver you are. There are 2 things you can not change. First it is IMPOSSIBLE to drive on hard ice. I don't mean snow or slush. I mean hard frozen over H2O. You also can not change the effects of gravity either. I will also add you can't make that curve straight either. I have SEEN (with my own blue eyes) drivers die because they failed to respect these 3 things. I can't tell you how many times I have almost got on my knees and begged a driver to stay parked but that I can do anything mentality overwhelms their good sense and they go out in that crap. I remember sitting in my truck one day during an ice storm (I mean an ICE not a snow storm) watching truckers leave and try to make it through only to see their trucks in the medians all torn up and wondering if they got out alive. In another thread I brought up (good sense). There are 3 basic kinds of truckers. 1. the guy that really should have never got in the truck to start with and soon will be out of the industry. 2. The guy that can drive the truck and can back a 53footer on a gnats ### with one hand tied behind him, but lacks the good sense to stay out of bad situations. And 3 the career driver that is safe mostly compliant with the rules AND has that 6th sense about bad situations. I often wonder where most of the (old hands) that come in here and give advice consider they fit in those 3 situations? I learned from a man that was a number 3 and it really pisses me off to see people that are number ones and twos come in here and give advice.

 

6th gear is your go to

 

C'mon everyone ! Don't spook him with mountain diving yet ! Wyoming either , he's from CA.

 

Mountain driving is gonna get him at some point a winter time.

Hard ice is ok if you can walk on it, believe it or not engineers have 18 wheelers pressing into the earth a little bit harder than your foot does when you take a step. Fall on your ### or slip on that ice.. that truck is going to do the exact same thing. The road crown is enough to slide her off. Ergo Wyoming straight road crash. (Not a crash, nuts, but stuck good needing rescue and a tow.)

Decades ago drivers were taught how to fight tire fires (Shovel...) and disconnect where possible to save something. and what have you. Today's drivers are at risk of sitting in the cab to push this button to go and that button to stop. Not knowing anything. Don't be that smuck.

 

On the interstate cut your turn signal on at the gas stations etc sign and after hit it for which way you are heading.