Watkins Shepard 30 day training as experienced by Warpdrvr

Well, my 2nd full week is completed now. Today we spent the morning going over the Pre-Trip and the COLA-P yet again. It must be sinking in as I was running over it literally in my sleep last night, and other guys said the same thing!

After our break, we started working on coupling/uncoupling. We worked on that until lunch.

After lunch, one of the instructors called the yard boss and told him we were gonna use the practice truck to start straight line backing. I did ok, just brushing one of the cones. They make us back for 200 feet, when the DMV only requires 100, so if you can get 200 there should be no problem doing the 100. I have to say, I've backed my share of 45' travel trailers including 5th wheels, as I used to work at a campground and had to spot trailers for the customers and it was NOTHING like backing that beast.....

A cool note, the straight line backing area is on the opposite side of the yard from where the trucks are parked, and when we were packing it in for the weekend, one of the instructors said to me, "Ok Watkins, take the truck around the yard and get it backed into it's spot". I was totally jazzed that I got to even drive it just that little bit. I got it around the yard and into the spot with no pull ups!

We are taking our trip to the DMV on Monday to test out on our Pre-Trip and COLA-P. I'm nervous about the COLA-P part as it's a straight Pass/Fail thing...today I was practicing and I lost my focus for a second and would have done an automatic fail as I had the parking brakes off and pushed the clutch in at the same time....I'm sure I'll do fine on Monday though...I'm just gonna run through the tests in my head all weekend and be ready for it...

 

Most definitely. Our instructors told us to push as hard on it as we can for the applied test...thanks for the heads up tho!!

 

Week 3 Day 1 is finished now, which would be Day 11 I suppose. Got to the yard at 6am for a trip to the DMV. I rode with one of the instructors, who is actually the yard boss (and will be my road instructor), and one of the guys who did not pass his road test last week.

We got to the DMV a few minutes after 7am and there were already a bunch of other newbs there to take their tests. All our class was doing was the Pre-Trip and the COLA-P test. I was the 4th to go in our group, and passed. I only missed 4 on the Pre-Trip, and it was on things that we weren't told about, such as the actual belt tensions for the belts and stuff. Basically they had to find something to dock you for....

I was watching some of these "fly by nite" schools, the ones that are only 2 weeks or so, the students from there were failing skills left and right. Basically they are told how to pass the permit tests, and given keys to a yard truck and told "go practice" with no one teaching them how to alley dock or parallel park.....it's sad.

After lunch, we started working on parallel parking at the practice range, but ran out of time before I could get in, so I'll be one of the first tomorrow.

I also went over to the place to get my fingerprints done for my hazmat endorsement.

All in all, a good day as I got one more part completed. Instructor says we should be on the road later this week...look out!!

 

Wow...brain fart and I just lost my entire post...

Anyways, yes Robert, I am at United. I'll tell Wayne you said hi. He's actually my yard instructor as well.

Day 12 was supposed to be spent in the yard practicing skills and such....wrong!

We went to a place they call the "weed patch". It's in an industrial park off the end of the runways at Ontario Airport. The street is basically deserted so it's a perfect place for us to practice on the road. We practiced right turns and up/down shifting for the morning. It is much harder than it looks, and all the habits from driving stick in a car must be un-learned as you all know.

After lunch, we were back in the yard practicing skills. We did alley docking and the other group did parallel parking. Our instructor would ride the running boards the first time and tell you exactly what to do and when to do it and it went perfect. Then he said, let's see what you remember and we did it all on our own. I did my dock and then was told it was the best of the day, and would have been a perfect score at DMV had I not used 1 pull up just to make sure I was straight...

It seems to be coming together for me, but time (and the DMV) will tell...