Prime Training 101, Part 6

Once you finish your 5 days at Campus, you are going to be out on the road in a live load environment to get your 75 hours of drive time and then back to Springfield to get your CDL.

Just as in the classes at the campus, ask questions. Help out on the truck. Get out every time your trainer gets out. If he has to hook up a trailer, you get out with him/her. Even if you are not required to do any hands on work, observe what is being done. You will have to do this in your TNT phase and most certainly when you get your own truck and are out alone on the road.

Shoot for the goal of the Trifecta. What is the Trifecta? This is when you return back to Springfield to take the testing required to get your CDL. If you pass all 3 tests at the same time, you win the Trifecta. In doing this you will pocket $250.00. And your trainer will benefit as well. I believe his take will be in the range of $850.00 for you successfully passing all 3 tests.

Study the PTI portion in the binder you were given on Friday. Learn it. Each time you stop to load or unload or stop for the night at a truck stop, get out and do a PTI on the truck and trailer. Take the handout with you. Learn each and every step. Study some more.

I took this a step further and after I received my binder, I read through the PTI section. I then purchased a mini digital voice recorder and recorded each step. I then had an audio version of the PTI handout. I could plug in the headphones, walk through the process of doing the PTI while listening to each section. To me this helped immensely with memorization. After many trips around the truck and trailer, I stopped using the audio version and took the written version with me. I would do the PTI, point out the part and recite the verbiage for that piece, then check the written version to make sure I had it right.

This may not work for everyone, but it certainly helped me. After a few days of doing this, my trainer started walking through this with me giving me the OTR testing that I needed. I haven’t returned to Springfield yet to “test out”, but feel much better about winning that Trifecta for myself and my trainer.