Profile For Brian F.

Wyoming is a favorite state among homeless RV people

As was said earlier the school is very intense. You and you alone are responsible for getting what you need out of it to pass the CDL test. What school you go to depends on where you live. I'm in NY so I went to the C1 school in Indianapolis. 3 weeks and I did pass the test the first time despite being dry mouthed nervous wreck. I was in a mentor's truck a couple days after orientation in Syracuse NY. I bailed after 8 days for mentor related reasons and they bussed me back to Syracuse and started looking for another mentor. In the interim I decided for personal reasons to go back to my old career at least temporarily. I will most likely go back to trucking at some point but it won't be with Swift. I won't bash Swift but I saw some things that were very unimpressive. Word on the street is that the "things" were probably Syracuse terminal specific. Anyway, if/when I do go back I will insist that my trainer 1) speak understandable English. 2) Take showers more often that once every 8 days 3) Be OTR and not dedicated. I found the learning opportunities in dedicated were very limited relative to OTR.

This is gonna sound stupid but when I was a kid I got ear infections frequently for a couple years. My mother would make a pancake in a frying pan and wrap it in a kitchen towel then make me hold it against my ear till it cooled off. Hurt like hell but infection was gone every time. Makes sense when you figure a fever is your body's way of trying to kill infection.

Once when my codriver was sick and needed to go to the ER, we were at our home terminal and they were going to give me local drops to run for the day, but I told them no, and accompanied him to the ER. They had no problem with that.

This past week, I've been battling an ear infection in my right ear. Our company gives us free TelaDoc service, but i knew we were trying to get home this weekend (and away from the ice), so I loaded up with ibuprofen for the ear pain and continued to run. We got here last night. Started running a fever this morning, got my consult and my antibiotics so now getting plenty of rest and on the mend. TelaDoc is wonderful but it's sometimes difficult to get into a pharmacy in a big truck, or have the time to park and get a cab to one. You do what you gotta do, but if you're so sick you aren't safe or okay to drive, you better shut down and inform your DM. It's a DOT violation to operate a CMV when too ill to drive.

Having just recently obtained a CDL from the Swift school in Indiana I will say this. Don't even study before hand. Study everything else but not pretrip. My extensive studying of pretrip before school actually hurt me in terms of ingraining the wrong verbage in my head. On day one we were handed a 4 page pretrip with specific verbage (synonyms were not accepted) that must be used to pass the state test. The list was dynamic in that it changed regularly, in fact 2 minor changes were made in the 3 weeks I was there. Such was my experience in Indiana, your mileage will no doubt vary. And by the way, the state inspector DID expect everyone to do it in the same order and everyone did the entire truck there were no "assigned sections".

So I have been going through the pre trip inspection study materials and have a question. Is there to much to look at during a pre trip? And is there a specific sequence it should be done in.? When I do preventive maintenance inspections I always start out checking the truck while walking to it than raise the hood and check the fluids belts hoses tie rod ends and and drag link ends,brake chamber's and.brakes on the front shut the hood.... anyway I sorta have a routine I got used to will I need to modify it for the testing?

I recently sat through a company presentation on the justification of driver facing cams. I went into it feeling very much invaded but by the end I (almost) welcome the thing. To make a long story short, if you are doing everything right that cam can save your ass after an incident. They presented case after case of cam video saving a driver's career and more in court. So, pending first hand experience, I'm sold.

I'm going to be going to CDL school to become a professional truck driver and my first choice of trucking companies to get on with after school has driver facing cameras. To me, that would feel like an invasion of privacy. How should I deal with that? Should I not consider this company and go to a company that doesn't have driver facing cameras? Thank you.

How does bend it straighten it work? Haven't heard of that one.

Instead of remembering Right = Left maybe if he thought Move the Bottom of the steering wheel in the direction you want the trailer to go.

Hey all I have started training for my company I have had around 6 or 7 students all caught on and have upgraded to first seat drivers. A week ago I got a student that just doesn't seem to catch anything. I have tried to show him things like backing. He can do a straight back just fine however when I have him try to setup for a 45 or a 90 he has no concept of what the trailer is doing or which way to turn the wheel over a week practice for 7 hours one day and then a minimum of at least an hour a day and still just as bad as day 1. I hate to say it but I have no idea how to handle this student any thoughts anyone

The left/right/opposite thingy always confused me for 45 and 90 degree backs. I adopted the "bend it" or "straighten it" mindset and I could automatically translate that into which way to turn the steers.

Instead of remembering Right = Left maybe if he thought Move the Bottom of the steering wheel in the direction you want the trailer to go.

Hey all I have started training for my company I have had around 6 or 7 students all caught on and have upgraded to first seat drivers. A week ago I got a student that just doesn't seem to catch anything. I have tried to show him things like backing. He can do a straight back just fine however when I have him try to setup for a 45 or a 90 he has no concept of what the trailer is doing or which way to turn the wheel over a week practice for 7 hours one day and then a minimum of at least an hour a day and still just as bad as day 1. I hate to say it but I have no idea how to handle this student any thoughts anyone

Finished Swift CDL school and heading into orientation next week. Does anyone know if they have any available pay advances? Do they pay weekly or every 2 weeks?

Yea yea, that's it. Dam Russians.. LOL

Ummm oops

The same thing happened to me yesterday! I'll take the DENIAL route..............THE RUSSIANS HACKED THE TT WEBSITE!!!!!! LOL

I read this whole thread a month ago. I just got home from C1 last night with my red hat and reread this thread. :) I'm surprised at how much has changed in 8 months, mostly little things. They tell you now that stalling at an intersection is impeding traffic and an auto fail. Stopping or shifting on RR tracks, shifting during a turn, and a few other things are auto fail. Friday of week one we got a demo drive by an instructor then immediately after we were taking turns driving on the street. The word Terrified really doesn't cover it. All 3 backing maneuvers start Monday of week 2 regardless of whether you have even tested pretrip or not, logging class is Friday of week 2. Or maybe backing started in week 1, geez it's all a blur now. Brad is awesome. I was told Monday of week 3 that I was testing Wednesday morning at 9:30. I was still struggling with backing and freaking out. I asked Walter for help backing and felt like he was blowing me off but 30 minutes later I was told Victor would stay late to help me if I was willing to stay. Of course I stayed, why else was I there if not to succeed. Anyway, Victor taught me things no one else had which gave me what I needed to fix the parallel when I screwed it up badly at state. 4 of my group tested Wed and shockingly we all got red hats.

So what's the good word? We're all pulling for ya!

Just passed state today! I leave for Orientation May 9th in Rochelle, IL. I'm officially a CDL-A holder! Woo-hoo, Feels great!