Getting A CDL-The Private School Route

I’ve been following posts on this site for some time, having discovered while researching the possibility of becoming a driver.

Maybe I’m like you or maybe not- middle aged, climbing the hill or in my case over it, ha!

After weighing all the pros and cons, i decided to move ahead, but with a long range plan. being self employed with jobs booked a year into the future, I’d have to take it slow and make a gradual switch.

Right now I’m attending a private school to get my CDL in Rhode Island. Before we get to that, hewre's a little backstory on getting there…

1. Do I want to be a driver?

Trucking Truth Forum members were a big help in my plan to move forward, with insights on the money, responsibilities and difficulties I’d be faced with on taking up a driving job. I didn’t doubt my abilities to do the memorizing and learning the technical end of the CDL manual- I’ve tinkered with cars all my life and identifying suspension parts, etc. would come with studying. The question was, could I spend 8-10 hrs behind the wheel of a vehicle daily without going crazy or dying of boredom or killing someone else? Also I work for myself- I’d want some more verifiable work experience on my resume to show potential employers.

I decided to take a winter driving job for a company that drives shuttles to move copeople around the city. It was a graveyard shift 8-4am. I upgraded my license, and picked up the endorsement necessary to get the job.

Just like trucking, employment required drug tests, smith system training, and a DOT physical for a medical card. No problem with these, so next up came the driving part...

Driving for a company:

I didn’t mind the driving, which was pretty low stress except for a few caveats:

It’s not your personal vehicle. You’re tracked by GPS for speed, location, etc. Being a good safe driver is the drill, and like ti's been noted here before it's all about liability. Don't hit anyone or anything. You in a big, slow moving vehicle- be prepared to be cut off by cabbies, other drivers, and have pedestrians walk out in the street crosswalks or not, and expect you to stop. I frequently drive through college campus areas, and students don’t appear to have any peripheral vision. They think they’re indestructible, while the stare at their phone unaware of surroundings. As for the night shift? Well, as my pappy used to say, nothing good happens after midnight. In the city, that’s an understatement. After a few months, I had not killed anyone, passengers, myself or other drivers on my 8-9hr. shifts. I had my medical card in hand- it was time to decide on the school route…

Deciding on CDL School- What to do?

I could save a bunch of cash and sign on for a year with a big carrier, but I’d have to drop everything and go or, I could go the private route, use my money and go slower and meet my obligations for work.

Trouble was, there are very few options in RI for private schools. Basically some smaller schools running around 5K or the 800b gorilla in the region that wanted 10K.

Remembering a forum members post (Old School- I think, paraphrasing) The purpose of the school was simply to acquire the license. I called and checked out the smaller school. Some of it’s grads had gone on to big carriers that hire recent grads, and the didn’t have any bad online reviews. I decided I’d go with them. To maximize my in-truck time at school I decided that before plunking down my cash, I’d get my permit right before starting.

The Permit Tests:

Here’s where Trucking Truth comes in heavy: I’d downloaded the RI CDL manual, and read it through, start to finish- twice!

I was testing on Brett’s excellent online training, and ran through that twice as well- I have to say, there's nothing on the internet this comprehensive and as well though out.

Feeling good I, arrived at the registry and decide to get as much done as I could. I tested for General, Airbrakes, Combinations, Doubles and Triples, and Tankers. My test time allotted was something like four hours. The general knowledge tests were a bit unlike the Trucking Truth questions, and phrased in a way that it seemed multiple answers were correct, so it was a little tougher. Still, in an hour i had completed all the tests, with 6 wrong answers. The DMV clerk was surprised to see me back so soon to wrap up and pick up the permit- Thanks Brett!

CDL School- Yard Work!

At school, you don’t move up in maneuvers until you master a few at a time. First, you spend time working on pre-trip, the airbrake /4 point brake test, and straight backing. No one’s going to push you there to learn, it’s up to you. Since this is on my dime, I’m there whenever I can be usually 4-5 days a week. You set your own schedule during their open hours.

Within the first week, I had my airbrake, in cab and pretrip memorized. I didn’t realize straight back would be difficult! I remebered a tip by a TT forum member, "turn towards the danger" and practiced making small adjustments instead of big ones. After a day of letting sink into my head, it finally clicked.

Parallels drove me crazy for three or four days, until I began improving my ability to follow the trailer better. This week I'm working on my offsets- Thinking of them simply as a combination of parallels and straight backs helped, but a pull up every now and then is still required.

Nice posts so far, lots of information.

Something I always tell people that have trouble remembering what way to turn the wheel when backing is, if you want the trailer more in your drivers side mirror then turn the wheel away from it. And vice versa. Good luck and keep up the hard work, it will pay off in spades after.

Nice posts so far, lots of information.

Something I always tell people that have trouble remembering what way to turn the wheel when backing is, if you want the trailer more in your drivers side mirror then turn the wheel away from it. And vice versa. Good luck and keep up the hard work, it will pay off in spades after.

Thanks for the message. The backing is definitely getting better. Building a little bit of muscle memory now, so it's not so much as which way to turn it as much as how much, which is coming along as well.

Double Clutching:

In my time I've driven a standard, automatic and motorcycle, but a truck is a whole new world, and certainly more complicated. While the concept of "clutch, neutral, clutch, gear" Sounds easy enough, it's an over simplification of a much more exact process of matching engine speed to gears with RPM's dictating a smooth shift, especially with different rpm shift points for 1-5 and 6-10. We practice road on weekends and the last four weeks have been a real "grind", pun intended.

This last weekend, after watching another youtube video of a driver effortlessly shifting gears, I took the bull by the horns and went back to my instructor wondering why my shifting seemed to lack "finesse". He basically told me the same thing he did the first time out, only for some reason this week I understood it. My RPM's were right but I was trying to force the gear shift instead of feel for the gear. "fast with the feet, slow with the hand" he's say.

Suddenly I understood, and my gear jammin' ways were greatly reduced, particularly my downshifts. Better shifting also meant a greater ability to focus on my situational awareness, signs, and road conditions. We'll see what next week brings...

Double Clutching

It's a journey.

Double Clutching

It's a journey.

A long and winding road?

Double Clutching

It's a journey.

A long and winding road?

But you wish it was more Hot Rod Lincoln. At least they went over the Grapevine!

I'm feeling pretty good about my backing in the yard at this point. I've been working this week on parallels and offsets with intentionally poor setups just to get a better feel and practice fixing things when they go wrong.

Although my on-road driving scores are going up, I've had to skip a weekend of practice, but we'll see if it has any effect this coming week when I'm moving in forward direction again...