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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;RoadSideDown, post: 11655375, member: 314577&quot;]DAY 13 / WEEK 3</p><p>We are in a routine to strengthen and polish our skills. Most will go through pretrip practice in the morning, then between breaks and lunch we rotate through backing, shifting around the terminal and road driving with an instructor.&nbsp; Yesterday we watched some backing videos to help those still having issues.&nbsp; Most of us are solid on all our backing and shifting.&nbsp; Everyone has been on the road at least four times.&nbsp; I&#039;ve been getting many compliments on my smooth shifting and downshifting, road awareness, hill starts, etc.&nbsp; Today the instructor cut my drive short after 30 minutes saying my driving is excellent, nothing more needs to be instructed so lets give time back to those students more help.&nbsp; That was fantastic to hear. Today I really worked on slowing down for stops way ahead, calmly shifting down through to 6th, and easing around corners. My instructor kept up a steady conversation and while I enjoyed it as we have some common background experiences, but I kept my primary focus on my mirrors, the road, my speed and RPMs, intersections, etc.&nbsp; My pretrip is pretty smooth and complete and we can miss up to 13 items so that should be a no brainer.&nbsp; My backing is solid and now my road driving is practically perfect.&nbsp; We have just over a week left in training.&nbsp; Tons of time with the instructors.&nbsp; We got a fourth instructor this week and two students depart for finishing up at Kansas, so next week it will be 4 instructors and 5 students.&nbsp; At this point, the only way I could possibly fail the DMV exam is to get a terrible case of nerves and slam into the examiner&#039;s car or something!&nbsp; I believe I could test out anytime this week successfully. Yet we have 1.5 weeks to go to get even better.</p><p><br /></p><p>This has been an incredible training program.&nbsp; I think it is partly due to really great student camaraderie, largely to good instructors who are both focused on the exam requirements as well as practical driving skills/knowledge, and also ready access to a truck and trailer for every student.&nbsp; Obviously a ton of time was put in by the lead instructor to design the class structure, arrange facilities and trucks and practice area.&nbsp; We have some ancient equipment to work with but I would much rather have lots of time with old beater trucks than far less time with the newer Volvos.&nbsp; Over the 2.5 weeks of class I have had at least 24 hours pretrip practice, at least 20 hours each for backing and yard shifting, and 4 road drives of about 5 hours total.&nbsp; By the end of the class I will likely have about 34 hours pretrip, 30 hours of backing, 30 hours of yard shifting and 15 hours of road driving.&nbsp; Plus the 2 days of classroom instruction and 35 hours of federal standard video courses.&nbsp; If I needed more time on anything the instructors would be right there making sure I focused on the that until mastering it.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;ll keep posting to let you all know how the YRC CDL program finishes out and whether I actually pass the DMV tests or not. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie8" alt=":D" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>So far I see no downsides to this training program.&nbsp; Free, no payback.&nbsp; High instructor to student ratio.&nbsp; 4 solid weeks of well organized instruction and instant access to an instructor for help on a problem or to ask for change in task. Lots of trucks to use. All day access to a large practice yard in which we can have two offset backing areas, a parallel parking area and two areas for alley dock backing.&nbsp; Then we have the drive lanes around the terminal perimeter we can use, plus the freeway, state highways, industrial streets and downtown Portland streets.&nbsp; I&#039;ve only needed 5 hrs road driving to have that down plenty good for the exam.&nbsp; But I will likely end with 15 hrs road time.&nbsp; If I needed more I could easily get it arranged with the instructor.&nbsp; I&#039;ve read of guys in other companies&#039; programs getting only 3-4 hours behind the wheel for backing, shifting and driving and not feeling ready to test.&nbsp; It has been many times more than that here.&nbsp; I&#039;m not even sure if 1:1 tutoring/training would be better.&nbsp; Sometimes it is good to have 2-4 instructors who tell and show things differently so if you don&#039;t click into one of them, maybe the manner of one of the others makes more sense to you.&nbsp; I&#039;ve not heard one student complain of not having enough time practicing a task.&nbsp; Usually we are just worn out at the end of the day--we can only do so much and then need time to refresh over night and come back at it again the next day.&nbsp; Our instructors have incredible patience and good humor.&nbsp; It reduces the stress tremendously.&nbsp; We bring enough stress on ourselves as this is a very important goal for all of us.&nbsp; Having calm, at ease instructors makes learning much, much easier.</p><p><br /></p><p>Anyway, 2.5 weeks into the 4 week program and it is pretty much in the can for passing the exam.&nbsp; Just keep drilling and improving, keeping it fresh.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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