Private School Training

The time has come for me to start my CDL classes! At the time of this post, we've already gotten through the first week, so this will be a short recap of what has taken place. For starters, I'm attending Indian Hills Community College in my hometown of Ottumwa, IA. This school, from what I learned in the first week, has a really great reputation for producing top quality students all learning on only manual transmissions. Recruiters come to this school and many have hired on the spot! Our main instructor has 4.2m miles of safe driving, no accidents, no tickets, no blemishes at all! We have 2 driving instructors, both of which are considered to be, as our main instructor calls them, professionals, not "truckers." He was hired for that purpose; to teach professionalism in a business overloaded with what he considers nonprofessionals. Without further delay, lets dive into my experience in the class thus far.

Week 1: Since this is a 6 week class in a college, we are required to have so many hours of class time and so many hours "lab experience" which, in this field, is time spent in the truck. The first week has been mainly in class, going over testing material, learning the dead art form of map reading, log books, and the like. Our instructor likes to tell stories about his experiences, mainly with Wal-Mart; alot of class time has been him telling us said stories. There was, however, a wrench thrown into the plan. Our instructor had to be out of town for a meeting all day on the last day of the 4 day class week, so we get to be in the truck. Finally, some actual hands on training! Oh my god... I knew coming into this class, knowing that I have zero experience with clutch, that I'd have a huge learning curve to overcome but wow, I didn't think it'd be this bad! Going 3 to a truck split between 2 instructors (we only have 6 in the class at this point, started with 8), we each take turns driving around the privately owned property (CLP isnt needed for this). I go 2nd in my truck following the only girl in the class, the first thing I do is kill the engine! I knew this was going to happen so I shrug it off. I get going, take a left turn perfectly fine, get some shifting in from 2nd to 4th, not too bad, but then get to a stop sign. First of all, actually stopping a clutch transmission vehicle was a little shaky, but I get it stopped behind the stop sign with some issues, but then I had to start rolling again. Killed the engine twice in a row there! I take 2 laps around only doing left turns as per the instructor, almost killing it at every stop and go. Shifting honestly doesnt seem that bad, I'm remembering to flip the switch into high gear before going into 6th. After the 3rd guy goes without having any issues, other than a few bad manual habits like resting his right hand on the stick, we take a lunch break. We come back and the girl takes 2 laps, this time we go down a different path and take a few right turns. She has a few mistakes leading to curbing the tractor and trailer, but recovers decently. My turn! I get going without killing the engine, awesome! At the first stop sign, I kill the engine twice again, I start to get a little frustrated at this point. Time for the right turn. I turn too late and badly curb the tractor, I check the trailer and its completely in the grass; my frustration level is rising. I get to a stop sign where I need to make a right turn, the issue though is that theres a truck that needs to turn right onto my road and he needs the whole road to make the turn. I start to feel rushed and I kill the engine multiple times here with the instructor slightly rushing me every time as soon as I restart the engine. My frustration peaks, my blood pressure rises, and I start to get cotton mouth which is NEVER good. Since this was my 2nd lap, I park it and I NEED to get out of calm myself down. I go inside and rehydrate myself, splash water on my face, and give myself a pep talk, thank god no one else was around haha. After a few cigarettes, my group comes back around after doing 2 laps, and I get back in with just me and the instructor. He tells me not to compare myself with them, that I can only improve from here. I do 1 lap of only left turns perfectly fine, almost killing the engine once, and kill it on the last stop sign before my 2nd lap was completed. He said I did much better than the last time, which is always good to hear. Class is over at this point and I am relieved...

It was a really rough day... I have alot of improving to do, but I already got it into my head that I'm going to succeed, I need this career. Even if I have to find another school that allows training on automatics, I'm going to get my CDL one way or another. On monday, my group will get a chance to be in the other instructors truck, which we're told is a little more forgiving, so hopefully I'll do better in his truck. As long as I'm confident in my abilities and not get so frustrated, I think I'll do fine, its just hard knowing that I'm the only one in class who's seemingly struggling at basic clutch performance.

Like you I'm 3 days into training through a company and have never driven a manual in my life. I also have similar feelings about needing to get this down. When you start your day though, you have to get that fear of failure out of your mind or everytime you make a mistake you'll start to think of those reasons you "need" this cdl and it'll make everything 100x worse.

Learning to drive is definitely a learning curve and much more if you haven't ever driven a manual. Word to the wise and keep pushing forward and learn with the manual. Reason being is if you test on an automatic, you will be restricted to automatics only and there will be a restriction on your CDL. I do recall when I was interviewing with Schneider, having that restriction was a no go for them, you had to have tested out with a 10 speed. Are they teaching y'all to double clutch or float the gears (shift without using the clutch)? Keep your head up and give it some time, most importantly relax! You'll get it! Best of luck!

Are they teaching y'all to double clutch or float the gears (shift without using the clutch)? Keep your head up and give it some time, most importantly relax! You'll get it! Best of luck!

We're being taught to double clutch. I'm only having a couple issues remembering to double clutch, I do it most of the time. But like I said, the main issue I'm having is starting and stopping.

Like you I'm 3 days into training through a company and have never driven a manual in my life. I also have similar feelings about needing to get this down. When you start your day though, you have to get that fear of failure out of your mind or everytime you make a mistake you'll start to think of those reasons you "need" this cdl and it'll make everything 100x worse.

At least I'm not the only one! And yeah, those reasons why I need this cdl is a little worry-some considering my house is riding on this, but in my mind, it gives me more of a reason not to give up and just keep at it. Some people learn better by making mistakes, I like to think I'm one of those people.

I am reading this thinking about how I felt going into CDL school. Everyone has different reasons for getting into this, the "reason" needs to assist as a motivator and not a distraction.

You are going to make mistakes, panic in frustration and possibly think about quitting. Focus on recovering and learning from the mistake, figure it out, ask for help, but try to resist the inclination to worry about the risk of failure. Focus on the "do" not the "what-if".

Single minded focus is a very important characteristic going forward. In the midst of a variety of distractions and chaos, a driver must block all of that out and focus entirely on safe operation of their truck.

Good luck, we've all been through this. You'll get it!

Oh i feel your pain! Double clutching , for me was a nightmare in school. Ive driven vehicles with a standard transmission for 32 years and my ex and i owned trucks, so id driven before about 19 years ago on a permit, but as i had no real intention of obtaining a cdl in those days, he taught me to float gears from day 1.

Anywho, fast forward to the now required CDL school. A classmate/friend mentioned id driven before, much to my horror lol. I quicky told the instructor that i had BUT id never learned to double clutch and had only very rarely backed even in a straight line.

Our first day in the truck my terrified classmates quickly throw me to the wolves and proclaim im going first. My instructor asked me if id go first and told me he would let me float gears for that day only, because he wanted to see what i could do.

He was impressed and told me if i could float like that hed get me double clutching well enough to obtain my cdl. The second day.... Double clutching. OMG it was excruciating. I had the worst time learning to double clutch. I was the worst one in my class too so dont you feel bad or give up. I could float up or down smooth as silk but that clutch was my sworn enemy. I struggled with it alk through school and failed my first road test because of it. Luckily on the day i passed and got my cdl it was snowing like crazy. That snow allowed me to slow down enough that i never got above 8th gear (and 35 mph).

I never looked back and went onto my first job and company training. My company allows floating. OMG that learning to double clutch really ruined me and now i was having trouble floating?? Sometimes id float and sometimes id HAVE to clutch so i was using a crazy combination of both. My company trainer was a beast with a manual. Youll never see his feet move at all AND he shifts soooo smooth youll swear you are in an automatic. Within a few days, he had me back to floating relatively smooth again as well as double clutching with ease.

After company training, i tested out and went solo, in.my freshly issued AUTOMATIC volvo lol.

Fast forward to the day he annou ced he was quitting training and asked me to team with him. Oh dear how that automatic ruined me. The first 2 days back in that truck were a struggle and Mr. Perfection was apalled. We had more than 1 argument about whether he should turn in his training truck for our fleet standard of an automatic transmission. He was for it and i was vehemently against it. As a rookie i know i didnt have the experience to switch back and forth from an autoshift to a manual without difficulties. We still drive his training (manual) truck as a team and yes, my shifting recovered a 3rd time lol. My biggest fear is going into an autoshift and down the road changing companies and being unable to shift again.

It will be ok so dont give up and make that manual transmission your biatch!

Week 2: Everyone was surprised I came back. My instructor and the 2 other students in my truck all thought I'd give up, but I kept my eye on the prize and showed up with heaps of confidence, even though I had lost sleep the night before dreading about coming back. However, I got through the first day only killing the engine once because I forgot to "button down," I tried starting from a stop sign in 7th gear. My shifting has vastly improved, my single gear upshifting was very smooth where some are still missing due to not being quick enough, double gear downshifting is for the most part smooth. We spend the first 2 days of the week just doing our same old routine of driving around in squares along the property. We changed trucks halfway through the first day; this instructor's truck is very similar to the other except the clutch having slightly more play and 7th gear being a little touchy to find, but overall its not a huge change. The entire class of 6 is given a choice on who's truck to be in for the remainder of the course, we all however stay with our same group and I'm kind of glad. The only girl we have in the class stayed with me and shes helping me out quite a bit, giving me small tips and having an overall upbeat attitude (makes me feel like a female instructor would be amazing to have just because females USUALLY tend to be more excitable with the small conquests, which in this case is ALWAYS good to have). On day 3, we spend all day on the practice pad doing straight line backing. I told my group that, even though this is the easiest one, I'll still find a way to mess it up, I never like backing even in my car, I try to avoid it as much as possible. The instructor set up cones stretching the entire length of the practice pad so that we have to back straight in between the cones without hitting any. This really wasnt too bad. Our practice pad is gravel so there is some deviation to the trailer as it travels which is nice cause I can start learning which way to adjust if I had to. We did this for the entire day except for the last hour or so, he then set up the cones for alley docking. Oh my god.... What a pain in the ass this is. As I said before, I dont like to back, I avoid it whenever possible, but now I have to back a 53' trailer around a 90 degree curve?? We spend the first half of the next day doing this as well, I'm not really getting it. I get that I need to turn to the right if I want the trailer to go left, but I keep having issues with overcorrecting. I cant get the timing down on when I need to do a hard left to catch up with the trailer and I forget the fact that the trailer is still moving in that same direction while my tractor is straightening out. Luckily, we'll be practicing backing the first half of every day for the remainder of the course, alternating 2 days alley docking and 1 day offset backing, so I have plenty of time to learn it and get the CONCEPT down. I say that cause I know for the fact that NOTHING will ever be exactly like we're practicing. After our lunch break, we start on road trips. I finally get my first highway experience! First one to go in our truck is the girl, she takes it about 20 miles to the next town so we can get fuel and back the way we came and turning onto a different highway before coming into town. I volunteer to go next. I have to go down a fairly straight forward highway through a couple small towns and up and down a few small hills. I'm staying in between the lines alot easier than I thought it'd be and keep my speed at or below 55mph. I got to turn down another highway, cross a set of railroad tracks pretty smoothly but now things get interesting; the road slims down and get VERY narrow. It's still 2 lanes, but my clearance on both sides, let me put it this way, I could barely see pavement between my tires and the lines on both sides. I check my mirrors very frequently to make sure I'm still on the road while watching my speed and whats ahead of me and make it to the next town perfectly fine. I have to pull up to a stop sign and turn left and then get to the shoulder where the last student in my truck will take us home. As I'm pulling up to the stop sign, I downshift from 10th to 8th to 6th and intend to stop. My instructor said, "You don't have to downshift anymore." I wish he didnt say that, I took it to mean I dont have to go into 2nd to start from a stop so I try to start from 6th. I didnt kill the engine but it did rock quite a bit. I recovered and finished my route.

This was a very productive week for me, my confidence has risen from the grave and I feel like I really can do this. I also got a conditional job offer from Schneider during the week so I have something to look forward to going through the rest of this course. All I have to do is do everything right on test day, obtain my CDL , and start enjoying life on the road. (any tips yall can give me with backing would be HUGELY appreciated, thanks!!)

Click here: Backing tips, lots of them.

Without exception, everyone experiences similar frustrations with backing. Try not to beat yourself up. As you can plainly see for the above link, there are a multitude and variety of backing tips that you can review. Frankly the only thing that will get you through this is practice and repetition. Take every available opportunity to jump in the truck and back. Ask for help, ask for after-hours practice... Embrace it cause once you are on someone's payroll, the only way to unload your trailer is to dock it.

One important tip I will share with you,...avoid the natural tendency to over steer. Once your tandems are pointed in the right direction after setting up, move the trailer (in reverse) a bit to see where they are headed and then give the steering wheel minor adjustments for correction. This way you are never too far in one direction requiring an opposite over steer adjustment in the other direction. This is a vicious cycle and eventually will foul your back requiring a pull-up to straighten yourself out.

We started doing offset backing on tuesday, thats not as difficult; I was able to get it in perfect after a few screw ups. We did 90 degree alley docking the past 2 mornings and on the first day after getting a confidence boost from the offsets, I went in with a goal of getting one successful maneuver. To my surprise, I got it in there 3 times! That was a huge confidence booster.