Simulation for CDL prep

Truck Driving | Houston City College (HCC) | Local Focus. Global Reach.

Look at community colleges - best bang for the buck.

 

That's the option I took.

Easy, peasey. Close by. Short commute.

Slept in my own bed. Ate my own food.

Meanwhile -- got a CDL....& at a reasonable pace. Laid back.

Graduated out with no commitments -- or strings attached.

No worries about things like...will I get fired (justified, or not) before I work off my contractual agreement (& thus have to write a carrier a big check)...?

--.L

 

All good points, but you missed the most important one - its the best training. Guys who graduated from a ptdi accredited school have no problem passing any company's orientation- at least in regards to skills, behavior is another conversation.

 

I went to a tech school. 10 week program. 4 days a week and kept my night security guard job while doing it.

 

Look...

Prime had these simulator machines over 10 years ago when I attended their school. It was fun. I'd had previous experience driving rigs in the 1990's, so I can attest that simulators make for good gaming. As for training or finding out what you'll have to do or deal with in a daily basis, not so good. You see, if you crash in simulation you can just be reset and do it again. In real life, lives and careers end. If you scrape a tire in simulation and it goes "flat," computer fixes it in seconds or minutes. In real life, you are easily sitting at the side of a road in the middle of nowhere for no less than 3 hours before anyone arrives. An hour more to get it changed. In simulation, you can reset your clock - cheat codes, whatever. In real life, if you do that you are jobless and never driving a truck again. Can even get your CDL immediately disqualified.

Backing up is also far different in real life than in simulation. Even the expensive machines aren't all that good emulating the ease AND difficulties of simple docking. In a computer game, you can use a keyboard to "turn" the wheel. In real life you must use the oversized sometimes in the way steering wheel. In simulation, taking a turn too fast does not affect your body via gravitational pull...which makes it easy to recover. In real life, that simple pull can ensure a crash since the driver is off-center and grabbing on for dear life. Big difference there.

Traffic in simulation isn't at all close to what you see and feel in real life.

In short, the danger factor is just not there. The big machines CAN emulate several factors, but it only gives a taste. It cannot give the real experience. I mean, anyone who has used the games or machines...when was the last time it told you to chip off ice from your wipers or stop to check brakes before rolling down a hill tailor-made for skiers (in winter)? When was the last time it fogged up your glass because it rained (in summer)? Lastly, when was the last time it pulled you over for a Level 1 and found OOS issues? Does anyone ever pretrip or posttrip a simulator? Has the simulation ever had you late because you found issues and HAD to get them fixed?

Super Lastly (no, really, this time): the simulators do NOT show the sometimes harsh lifestyle. Even if things IRL are going well and smooth, one still wishes to be home a bit more often for DAILY showers without waiting 5 hours of the 10 just to grab a shower at a truck stop. And for those like me who got tired of that wait, having to use the slightly inferior liquid hospitals use for sponge baths (does the job, but not like water after a full week or more).

A simulator is fun but it is nowhere near the training level you'd need to get more than a hint of the best parts.

I play ATS myself. Why? So I can basically Grand Theft Auto as I wish as a decompression technique. Kind of like the 1990's racing games where I'd purposefully drive the wrong way on the "track" just to head on everyone else.

 

Even today, Prime, Inc. has some of the best training in the industry.

 

I essentially used MS Flight Sim to teach myself Instrument flying between college and getting a job as an aircraft mechanic. Simulation is a great way to learn IFR flying but a terrible way to learn VFR flying. IFR flying is intense focus on the instruments and interpreting what you are looking at and making the machine do what you want. Computers are great for that kind of task. Computers are terrible at producing the stuff that VFR flying needs. The issue is you will "teach yourself" on the truck simulator and may get pretty good at some difficult tasks and then bring that with you to truck driving school which will require you to do things their way. That conflict is called Interference Learning. If you try to do what you are proposing it will make things more difficult in school, not less difficult, IMO.

Both trucking and aircraft simulators have the other feature that you know you are safe and anything you do in the sim you will remain safe. It promotes a degree of recklessness because it's just some stuff on a screen, not your face hitting a building.

If you were going to do this no matter what, you need an experienced and calm truck driver watching you use ATS so you don't learn to drive the truck like EVERYONE in a 4-wheeler thinks you drive a truck. Showing up to CDL school with lots of experience of doing the wrong thing will not help you. Imagine a teenager learning to drive a car from 200 hours of playing Grand Theft Auto. Nobody plays GTA like a safe driver. You might be able to learn some of the backing maneuvers on your own, if you watch the right YouTube videos from truck driving schools. Truck driving instructors at CDL school will most definitely want you to do things the way the school teaches them, not the way you figured out on your own. The sim could make it harder for you in real life.

 

There is/was a real life truck driver I know who used to put out YouTube videos recreating real trips on ATS. I think the ATS videos are a few years old so you will need to search for them. I know most people will NOT look for a video more than 3 days in the past.

https://www.youtube.com/@EllieODaire

 

Nobody criticized you for asking the question. You were criticized for dismissing the answer from an experienced driver saying you don't need to buy a toy and play with it to learn this job. The fact you changed what happened into "asking a question" is what suggests you don't want any answer but "go buy your toy and play with it and it will do everything you expect."

 

Having experience with the standard transmissions in passenger cars and SUV/pickups will make it HARDER to learn shifting gears in a truck. You don't use the clutch the same way. Your past experience will hinder you learning how to use the clutch in the semi-truck. In a car the clutch pedal is either pressed all the way to the floor or your are not touching the clutch. The goal is to move the clutch quickly from full-up to full-down, spending minimum time in-between. Doing that in a semi-truck will break things and war out the clutch-brake.

Semi-trucks have lots of torque, cars do not. In the semi-truck you only press the clutch pedal more than say 1/3 travel when you are absolutely stopped, not almost stopped. Driving a semi-truck is not just driving a larger version of a car or SUV. They share some features in common, but lots of truck driving is NOT doing what you would do if you were in a car or pickup.