Sage Truck Driving School - Phox

Hey Phox,

Be careful in and around San Antonio, please. I have In-Laws, Nieces, Nephews, and Friends who live around the area where you're driving.

Congrats on your accomplishments, and good luck with US Xpress!

Do you ever get near Sea World in your travels?

/758/

well unless you're related to one of the 3 curbs I hit today your family is safe so far haha. I have had very little real road experience so I'm still kind of learning the right turns thing. but 3 curb checks out of at least 40 right turns isn't to bad for the little exp I have had so far. Of course I need to be at 0 curb checks for the test cause that's an auto fail if you even hit one.

I have been to sea world here in san antonio once, wasn't very impressive to me... crap tone of walking to get to each ride, only 1 show at a time and they're only like 5-10 min long then like an hour apart. the rides were not very impressive... I like six flags more. Luckily the sea world trip was free for me cause I got free entry for helping them and local red cross chapter with a water safety awareness event they do every year with local media and school officials. after the event we were welcome to stay and enjoy the park.

Once I'm solo with us xpress I'll be driving on eastern half of usa. I think KS is as far west as I go. during training though I could be anywhere in lower 48.

Today's drive went well, drove on some very bumpy back roads to i-10 access road then along that for a few miles, for the most part did a loop that went around the landfill starting from the TA going east on access rd then south on the road for landfill (see one of my previous posts for a map that shows it but other way around) then right turn at a light another right turn at another light, back to ta... did that loop 2x then took a break then drove into town (into san antonio.... urban part of town, lots more cars, traffic lights and an active school zone... at 4:55pm), drove around a bit then into another shipping area, practiced parallel parking then drove through more of town, during some peak traffic time, then eventually made our way back to the 410, got on the freeway (for my first time) and up into 10th gear (for my first time) and headed back to the yard.

Trainer is very impressed with me and I'm driving with him again tomorrow 10-2, said first 2 hours will be more of what we did today, driving in city and practice parallel parking more and then 2nd half he'll prob take me to the DPS route so I can start learning that. Normally I still have a couple drives but he thinks I'm ready to start working on getting that down. Oh and I also learned how to start on a hill without rolling backwards... lot like a motorcycle, hold break and then release clutch just till you get to friction zone, then when you go to release brake there's enough tension to not go backwards and you start going fwd. I got it on first try, trainer said I'm one of the first he's taught that too to get it on first try and not create any brown stains in his drawers.

overall a good day. I think I will do real good when test day comes next week on thursday.

Did you notify the curbs next of kin?

Sounds like you are doing good, phox. Keep up the great work!

Do a 34 in Sandusky, OH, and go to Cedar Point!

Stay safe

Did you notify the curbs next of kin?

Sounds like you are doing good, phox. Keep up the great work!

Do a 34 in Sandusky, OH, and go to Cedar Point!

Stay safe

I have always wanted to go to cedar point. I lived in Columbus, OH for about 3-3.5 years and never got the chance to go there OR kings island :(

and no my curb checks were hit n run.... left the scene of the accident

starting to lose count on which drive i'm on... I believe today is my 6th 4 hour drive... more than halfway done and super excited to start with us xpress next monday

My drive today (drive 6) went very well today.

I only hit 2 curbs and only one of them was while doing a right turn at an intersection, and even it was unavoidable without waiting for the other direction of traffic to get their green light to go. Basically I had a traffic light intersection and had to make a right turn, standard cut it as wide as possible except there was a car in the turn lane who had pulled about 3 feet to far past the stop line (the line you're supposed to have bumper at... not your seat people!). I almost made the turn but right at the last check I just barely hit the curb... probably would have done fine if not for the other driver. technically during the test the right thing would have been to wait for the other car to of gone but that also would have meant blocking traffic behind me wanting to turn... my trainer said sometimes the DPS examiner will tell you to go anyways, not sure if they still auto fail if you hit the curb since they told you to go in a situation where you could not make the turn... The other curb I hit was even more stupid, going down one of the roads on driving test route and it has a sharp turn in the road and the sidewalk sticks out like a sore thumb, you have to really ride the center line as close as bloody possible without going over to make it around the bend without hitting the curb... I did it the first time but 2nd time I bumped the curb... that's just a matter of remembering that and making sure I'm more careful on that turn from now on.

As for the rest of the drive, I did a lot more freeway driving, lots of merging and stuff and I also did a lot more city driving with a heck of a lot of cars and traffic lights... no issues there. I did all my shifting without any problem, very little grinding of gears, think the only time I had a major issue was when I was about to turn left the light as red so I was preparing for a stop and in 6th gear, I hit the range switch to low range and was going to put it in 4th once I came to a full stop but before I came to a stop it turned green so I started going and when I tried to shift into 7th the low range was still activated so it was trying to go into 2nd instead of 7th... lots and lots of grinding and a heck of a lot of confusion, then I realized what happened, flipped her up and shifted into gear... then told my trainer what I just typed in terms of realizing what happened and he was like "yeah that makes sense and easy enough mistake to make, but you recovered just fine"

At some point during the drive we practiced the parallel parking in one of the 2 areas the examiner has us do it. I nailed it on first try :D

about 1:30 we started driving on back to the yard, no problems there at all and I even backed into the loading dock area were we park the trucks at in 1 try. no pull forwards or anything. lot easier when you have cones on both sides of area you are parking on instead of 1 cone on 1 side at the point where front of tractor will be when you are done backing... for the most part in the real world I understand shippers and receivers have lines on the ground, we do too but ours are not lined up with the doors... not even close... and once you get so close to the loading doors you can't see em anymore so that only works for about... up until 50 feet away still haha.

Next drive will be tomorrow same time, 10a-2pmbut it will be in the yard practicing everything I have learned so far for the actual test. Then while it's not scheduled yet director said he'll try to schedule me 1 drive each for mon, tue and wed to complete my 3 drives I will have left to do then test will be on thursday... whoop whoop! I feel like I'm def gonna pass it. No idea what time test will be as director emails dps supervisor a list of names of who needs to test, next day or two later he gets a reply with a list of who's testing when, so I won't know till Tue or Wed as to what time. Hoping i'm not first, cause first person has to do the pre trip, everyone else except in rare cases just does a brief walk around, checks lights, etc then goes onto the brake test. Not that I can't do a pre trip, it's just nice when you have less things to count against you... know what I mean. Would you rather have 80 things to lose points on or 100 things..

I will report back tomorrow with an update on drive 7.

I'm not related to any of the curbs in and around SA, but I hear the streets with no names and the sidewalks have been notified :-)

You're doing well, Phox, despite the occasional grinding of the gears and the extremely minor mistakes. All drivers make them. As further proof of how well you're doing, here's one of your quotes:

At some point during the drive we practiced the parallel parking in one of the 2 areas the examiner has us do it. I nailed it on first try :D

To me, that's an accomplishment to be proud of!!! Try not to hurt your arm when you pat yourself on the back, though (just kidding).

Keep up the good work!

Try not to hurt your arm when you pat yourself on the back, though (just kidding).

Keep up the good work!

yeah I think I might have dislocated something doing that the other day hahaha

nah truth be told my instructors are either way impressed or super nice cause they keep talking about how fast I am learning this stuff. maybe they're trying to make me blush. I have always been a fast learner though, as long as I get to do it. I don't learn well from lectures and reading stuff I am a textile learner and learn by doing.

Today's drive practice was interesting to say the least.

It was in the yard but they had me use the truck we test in... I don't like it... at all and this was first time I used it. the shifting box is way way smaller than the other trucks and it doesn't spring back to central from the 4/9 / 5/10 side of gearbox, it'll literally just sit on that wall... I have a feeling when I go to drive it on the street on my next drive I'll be going into 4th/9th when I'm trying to go into 2nd/7th, but that's why we practice!

As for what I did, it was pretty much practicing for the school test (not drive test but the schools test to see if you can do everything) which included doing a pre trip, brake test (which I did without my cheat sheet for first time today, had it in case I needed it though), then un-cupple the trailer and then re cupple it, then did a straight line back, then an offset back, then I learned how to do serpentine (not something on the driving test but school teaches it because you may need to know it) and reverse serpentine (same as previous), then parallel park and finally ally dock backing.

everything was good except the reverse serpentine... took me like 15 tries to do it once. that one is a royal pain. and I killed the same cone 5 times... the 5th time I flattened it and it didn't re inflate itself... had to do mouth to cone haha. I also had trouble with the parallel park because unlike the other 2 trucks I have driven, this one has these little fuel saving fin things on the back of the tractor that I guess limit the amount of air that gets between tractor and trailer and it made just about everything I learned on how to parallel park the truck go out the window. I was taught in the other trucks that after I turn the wheel 1 full turn to back until you can only just barely see the corner of the trailer in mirror... well with those dang fins I lost sight of that corner much much sooner than the other trucks so it wasn't angled far enough to really even go to the sidewalk at all. so I had to pretty much relearn how to do it. I basically said the hell with it i'm just gonna watch the trailer in my mirror and go with the flow. I managed to do it with passing standards... prob will lose points but not enough to fail. truck and trailer were straight with curb just a little bit further than they want for a 100% pass. oh well that's why we have 30 point worth we can miss.

Everything else I did just fine without an issue.

Don't know the dates and times of next drives yet, director said he'll let me know before the weekend is over, which I translate to: tomorrow.

So I got the schedule of my last 3 drives. Tomorrow 10a-2p I will have my 8th drive, then Wed I will have 2 back to back. They will be 10a-2p and 2p-6pm, then I'll be doing my test sometimes Thursday.

So I got the schedule of my last 3 drives. Tomorrow 10a-2p I will have my 8th drive, then Wed I will have 2 back to back. They will be 10a-2p and 2p-6pm, then I'll be doing my test sometimes Thursday.

Nice, so you will have an 8 hour day in the truck.

Stay safe.

So I got the schedule of my last 3 drives. Tomorrow 10a-2p I will have my 8th drive, then Wed I will have 2 back to back. They will be 10a-2p and 2p-6pm, then I'll be doing my test sometimes Thursday.

Nice, so you will have an 8 hour day in the truck.

Stay safe.

yup... on wed. my first day was like that too cause someone canceled they had me take his spot so I got 2 in 1 day back to back

Hey Phox,

When you're doing the pre-trip, when do you do the air brake test? I am asking, because I am confused, based on what I read in the manuals.

The Seven Step begins with the approach, then the overview, then the engine compartment, then the in-cab. What I have been unable to find is consistency on when the air brakes should be tested (S.A.L.E . = Static, Applied, Low Pressure, Emergency, Parking Tug, Rolling Stop). One manual suggests doing the air brake test during the initial in-cab, while another manual I read recommends doing it after the walk around.

When does SAGE recommend performing that examination?

Thank you, and keep up the good work, Phox! You'll be out there on the road burning up the miles safely in no time, and getting paid to do so.