Started PTEC in St. Petersburg, FL

Hi everybody, my husband and I had our first day of class at PTEC - Pinellas Technical Education Center - in St. Petersburg, Florida, today. It's a 9 week course and costs around $2,700 plus out of pocket costs for DOT physicals, background check, class A permits, and a few other things. The class size is small, only 6 of us. There are 3 instructors, 2 full time - Laura Kingsland who only teaches in the classroom, Al Ferguson who does all the driving instruction, and Steve who is part time and is another driver-trainer. I think Al and Steve also do some classroom instruction, not sure yet. Laura was a flat bed driver for 17 years, Steve was a o/o for I think around 30+ years, and Al was a truck driver for only 6 years but he was a school bus driver before that. Anyway, all 3 are great people and I love that the student to teacher ratio is 2:1.

Today we just went over the basics, like course content, attendance policy, dress code, etc. We watched a few videos including one called 'Marden Marvels: Truck Stops' by the History channel, that was awesome. Then we got to take a lovely 51 question test on FMCSA. At least it was open book haha.

I'm looking forward to this course. I'll try to update daily (monday thru thursday). We live 2 hours away and will be commuting daily which means a 3:30 AM wake up time!!

 

You do not need to live in Pinellas county, I live in Lee county. I think the classes do fill up fast but you shouldn't hesitate to put your name on the list because a lot of people do not show up to the class for one reason or another. I think they said there were around 16 people that were supposed to be in this class but dropped out. You DO have to pay an $80 fee that is non-refundable, that is the only really bad thing. Oh and I was wrong about the fee of the class, I paid for the actual class today and it was only $2,100 and some change. OHH!! I almost forgot, another awesome thing they just started, you no longer have to pay for the book, atlas or tire thumper, they loan all those out to you!

Sequoa, I thought they said he drove school bus, got tired of it, went otr, got tired of THAT, then went to teaching lol.

Today we learned about how to keep a driver's log book! Very interesting. Um what else... oh yea, hourse of service, and all that stuff.... read the chapter for the log books and took the test. Watched some videos, 2 of them on CSA 2010. And we got to go out and look at the trucks, fun!!! so excited, I think we might start actually driving tomorrow. The last few hours of the day was spent reading chapters. We have something like 5 chapters a week, pretty intense.

 

Yes it was totally awesome to have a REAL truck driver come in to the class to answer all our questions! But it looked like you didn't know Al was going to do that to you LOL, I'm so glad he did. We sure had a lot of questions didn't we, I think we kept you busy for an hour and a half! Thanks for doing that it was great. Oh and guess what - I had a pre-hire letter from Werner waiting for me in the mailbox when I got home haha! (Sequoia started with Werner!!)

 

Ok so I didn't recap yesterday but it was pretty simple, the first few hours in the morning we all went out and did our first pre-trips with the instructors, 3 of us went with Laura and 3 of us went with Al. Then after lunch Laura taught us trip planning, map reading, dispatch and trip reporting, and gave us an assignment that we can only work on after school and she says will take an average of 40 hours to complete. I feel a little overwhelmed!

One thing I should mention is that they have us complete a driver's log every day, even our days off. I think this is the best way of not only learning it, but getting into the habit of doing it every day. Of course now with e-logs who knows if this will be obsolete soon.

Today we went out in pairs to do pre-trip inspections and then Laura took us out in groups to show us how to start practicing on the range without shifting. Just basic stuff like putting the front bumper inside the box and straight backing. So we all took turns driving around the range and being inside the classroom reading chapters and taking tests. Then of course we got our special surprise visitor today (!!) which lasted until class was over.

I have a lot of reading to catch up on, and try to get as much of the trip planning assignment done as possible this weekend.

 

Happy Monday everyone Just a recap of the day, in the morning Laura answered any questions we had about the big trip planning/map reading assignment. We can't work on it in the class so she gives us the opportunity to ask any questions we might have. Hubby and I went to the library twice this weekend and spent quite a few hours working on it, I think we are doing ok (I hope!)

So then we went out and did our pre-trips, and then we split off in 2 groups of 3. One group with Laura, one with Al, and they taught us how to double clutch up-shift from 2nd to 5th. I own a dump truck and so I already know how to shift by floating the clutch, so I've had to re-learn how to shift this way. It takes some getting used to! And my left leg was tired by the end of the day lol. If you don't know how to shift at all don't sweat it, they will teach you. We have several students who have no experience shifting a car and they are getting it (albeit with the clutch needing adjustment at the end of the day ).

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but every morning we are split up into 3 groups of 2 and we do our pre-trips - one person has their gloves on and does the pointing and touching while the partner reads off everything from the book. Then, after they teach us a procedure, we use the same truck we did the pre-trips to practice in. So while your partner is out on the range practicing, you are inside reading the workbook and taking chapter tests. So after we learned how to double clutch we took turns practicing.

After lunch we got on the simulators for the first time, that was interesting! After that it was storming outside so we didn't get out again until 2 pm, and after only a half hour it was time to park the trucks and go home.