Not As Easy As I Thought It Would Be.

All paper testing 90% or better. Skills, not so. Straight Line backing easiest. Offset backing can be disorienting, good you can get out and look, especially when they have you go Left to right , the right to left. Nailed passenger side Parallell first time. Drivers side is killing me. Been struggling to repeat consistently. Alley dock nailed first time. No issues since.

Shifting I'd give myself barely passing. Keep forgetting the Hi/Lo switch.

Log book as simple as it is, gives me the worst headaches that I have ever experienced.

Waiting to go back and complete skills test.

Got my Pre-Trip out of the way. The tester was very patient with me. Worried the night before that this one gal who was always blabbing her confusion and messing others up, that she would do that on the way to test sight. Only got 2 hours sleep. I been praticing Maneuvers several days a week when there was an opening. Was to finish testing yesterday. Ice storm killed that. Waiting now for another opening.

Doc S. I am really curious how and why you thought this would be easy? I think your response might be good information (and interesting) to help level set expectations for anyone considering trucking.

Thanks. G

Log book as simple as it is, gives me the worst headaches that I have ever experienced.

The vast majority of large carriers use elogs , and nearly all companies will be required to use them in the not so distant future. Of course, you still need to understand paper logs, but it's exceedingly rare for you to have to complete them. I hate paper logs with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. They are annoying and unnecessarily time consuming.

Good luck on your testing, and with training. The bad news is school is not even the hardest part of your ongoing saga. During the first several months of driving there will be times that you will be so frustrated you could spit. The good news is it will start to get gradually easier. Hang in there!

US Xpress (the company that just hired me) uses e logs, but requires trainees to keep a paper log as well for training purposes. If our driver tech system goes down we have to use a paper log... they won't let us use e log apps on our phone... no good reason given. I even tried proving that it complies with dot regulations and if needed could email or fax them from phone and make a pdf to print as well. pretty much anything our driver tech could do I could too, but easier.

good luck on finishing up testing.

All paper testing 90% or better. Skills, not so. Straight Line backing easiest. Offset backing can be disorienting, good you can get out and look, especially when they have you go Left to right , the right to left. Nailed passenger side Parallell first time. Drivers side is killing me. Been struggling to repeat consistently. Alley dock nailed first time. No issues since.

Shifting I'd give myself barely passing. Keep forgetting the Hi/Lo switch.

Log book as simple as it is, gives me the worst headaches that I have ever experienced.

Waiting to go back and complete skills test.

Got my Pre-Trip out of the way. The tester was very patient with me. Worried the night before that this one gal who was always blabbing her confusion and messing others up, that she would do that on the way to test sight. Only got 2 hours sleep. I been praticing Maneuvers several days a week when there was an opening. Was to finish testing yesterday. Ice storm killed that. Waiting now for another opening.

Doc S....sounds pretty familiar...some of it still applies after driving for a year. Keep plugging along. It will get better, but it's gonna come in small steps. Go get it done bud!! I

Doc S. I am really curious how and why you thought this would be easy? I think your response might be good information (and interesting) to help level set expectations for anyone considering trucking.

Thanks. G

Like I mentioned in my post, the paper testing was easy for me. Failed to say I used to have my own lawncare company and backing trailer in a tight garage was a breeze even though it was a zigzag pattern getting therebefore I would have to line it up straight. , but then I wasn't doing any paralell parking and I wasn't always using my side mirrors, Plus I could look out my back window. Anyways, Tomorrow I am spending the entire day at the range for what i hope to be final preparations for my driving & skills test the following day.

Drivers side paralell has been eating my lunch. I might nail it 1/5 of the time. Passenger side I do better.

This site helped me a lot for the written tests. I'll let you know how things go Wed.

Drivers side paralell has been eating my lunch. I might nail it 1/5 of the time. Passenger side I do better.

If it makes you feel better, you'll rarely if ever have to parallel park the truck out here in the real world. And even then you probably won't do it the way it's taught in school. I know you still have to master it to pass the test, but at least once that's over you won't really have to worry about it.

Drivers side paralell has been eating my lunch. I might nail it 1/5 of the time. Passenger side I do better.

If it makes you feel better, you'll rarely if ever have to parallel park the truck out here in the real world. And even then you probably won't do it the way it's taught in school. I know you still have to master it to pass the test, but at least once that's over you won't really have to worry about it.

Although in principal I agree, but in a practical sense I don't. There are many Walmart docks that require the same maneuver you would perform if it was a pure parallel parking setup and back. There is one dock in particular that has a wall on both sides and a permanent obstruction on the drivers side about 100 feet from the dock door. In essence it's a parallel parking setup then straight back to the door. Many of their dock areas are boxes requiring the setup offset from dock ramps.

If a driver has the skill to parallel park either blindside or sight side it helps considerably when dealing with close quarter backing situations.

In my experience OTR , I've almost never had to parallel park. But I rarely deliver to retail stores. I'm mostly going to/from large distribution centers and the like. We ran a local walmart account for about a week last year as a favor, and I know what you mean about some of those docks. I was glad when they didn't need our help anymore.

C.S. says:

In my experience OTR , I've almost never had to parallel park.

You may be right about parking, though there are some rest areas that were designed for trucks to actually parallel park.

(Think about this: parallel parking is just a tighter offset move.)

As G-Town describes, it's not always along a curb, but the skills you learn to parallel park will come in handy in the real world.