New Wannabe Trucker

The dr. must be certified by dot to do the exam. Check your dmv you might need to go to a school. someone will answer you shortly that has more experience than me. good luck

 

Doug, Welcome to the forum, If you continue to poke around here it will become habitual and you will have to go to a re-had course called TTR-Removal The Hard Way! There is a wealth if knowledge here, I'm not sure you will need a Physical for your permit, but will for the actual License. This friend of yours is a good source for trucking information, you may want to see what he offers on the truck and so forth, If you go that route you will need to get a lot of experience in that before you move on from there, hopefully you will not have to move on from that, what I'm saying is that you will need some school if you go to work for someone else, some places needs 160 hours of training with Range driving as well. There is plenty of folks here who can send you in the right direction. By the way this is my second career my first wore me out, I had done everything I could do in that industry that I could. Good Luck Stay safe.

 

Welcome Doug,
You didn't say the method you plan to learn truck driving, in order to pass your skills & road test for your CDL.
If you're planning to attend a course offered at a community college or a truck driving school, in many cases (not always tho) the school itself will direct you to their DOT approved doctor, as part of the included initial steps.

As luvtotruck said, "This friend of yours is a good source for trucking information". I agree.
Your primary goal at this point and in the near future is getting that CDL and as much hands-on driving experience as you can.
Also get all the endorsements (HazMat, doubles/triples, and tanker) right from the get-go. Even if you may not need them now, you won't regret it.
Mechanical knowledge helps a lot also, tho not required. Sounds like you may have some, with your former job/field.

Edit: Oops, I didn't refresh my screen & see your last post, before posting this.
I see it looks like you'll be getting the CDL on private training, before any school.

 

It depends on what the experience consist of, If you drive with the help of the friend with no issues and nothing to report and you want to go some place else, the other companies will probably look at you, but I'm not sure. I do know they will normally look for the schooling in your first 5 years of driving but after that I'm not sure. by the way, It is called a CDL! Thanks.