Starting out - need advice

Well, my second week has wrapped up at WTS and I figured I would post an update on where I'm at.

After starting out the week focusing primarily on Pre trips, we finally started driving in the trucks working on our skills portion of training and had a blast doing it. I felt like I was catching on very well and getting the hang of it quickly, then on Thursday we got out in the truck and began to work on shifting. Wow, did I feel like I got humbled real quick. I grew up driving a manual transmission but had a bit of a difficult time with the whole double clutching concept. I probably didn't do as bad as I thought I did, and hopefully more practice next week and I will get the hang of it.

Still looking at going with Watkins & Shepard, May Trucking or Gordon Trucking... with Werner and Stevens as a last resort.

My biggest concern with W&S is not being able to take the truck home for my hometime. It is an hour and a half drive to the Modesto Terminal. I know Gordon has a yard 5 mins from my home and I am unsure about May Trucking, I haven't heard back from them yet.

That's it for now and congrats Turtle, hope to see you out on the road some time, bro. Good luck to ya!

 

Alright, finished my third week at WTS and thought I would post a brief update.

After worrying all last weekend about having to double clutch, we went out again on Monday and for some unknown reason it all just clicked for me. I was double clutching my upshifting fairly well right from the start. That was such a huge relief for me.

I struggled a little bit with the downshifting early in the week, but seemed to get the timing down by the end of the week as well. If I missed a gear I was able to recover very quickly before I traveled the length of the tractor & trailer in neutral.

We focused primarily just on driving all week except for Tuesday which was concentrated on skills due to some previous students needing practice and going back to DMV for retests. This was quite frustrating for us current students who wanted to get in our drive time. I won't go into it here on this post though.

So, going into week four, I should be testing on Thursday and I feel pretty confident I could pass the DMV tests as of right now. I definitely want to get in some more practice just to help with the comfort level though. Especially the pre-trip portions.

The only other thing to note is that I have commited myself to go with Watkins & Shepard to start out. Should be there for their November 3rd Orientation.

Well, that's enough for now...

 

Thanks Tobin... Hopefully you will see a post on Thursday saying just that
I am very much looking forward to getting out on the road soon.

 

Okay, I know it's not Thursday yet, but we were told yesterday afternoon that we were testing a day early (Today) because DMV had goofed and had to cancel a bunch of appointments for Thursday including ours...

After quite a roller coaster of emotions this week of switching trucks and shifting testing times I took my exam at 1:00 today and I am proud to say that I made it!

I now have my Class A CDL!!!

Now I just need to go back and get my endorsements and close out my license... Wow, I am sooo glad that part is over. Whew.

 

I have spoken with Matt a couple of times, but he hasn't gotten back to me this week yet after leaving him a few messages. The November 3rd orientation is right around the corner and I hope I can get into that one.

Good luck to you as well.