CDT School In West Babylon, NY

Yes it is interesting. Good luck to you.

Week 3 - Day 9: Late start today, 10:30AM. The day was dedicated to “application and wellness,” something that was supposed to be done earlier in the class but for some reason was not. Basically it was a review of things we already talked about, including but not limited to reasons you can be disqualified from driving a CMV , driving impaired or fatigued, and staying healthy on the road.

After lunch we opened up our handy-dandy safety regulations book one more time and went over some other miscellaneous things like whistleblower rules and such. Not much else happened, it was a boring day overall but at least it was short.

Day 10: Today was dedicated to engines and transmissions. For the engines, we mostly talked about the differences between a car and a truck, including but not limited to the fact that pretty much all tractors are turbocharged inline 6 diesels and how they work, how much oil, coolant, etc., a tractor will use, and an example of a cylinder and sleeve.

Following lunch was a more detailed description of transmissions. We were handed some papers with pictures of the various types of shift patterns we’ll see, including 6 speed synchronized transmissions (the trucks we’ll be driving first have this kind of transmission, I had no idea they even made tractor trailers with synchro transmissions), 7 speeds, 9 speeds, 10 speeds, and 13 speeds. We also talked about the differences between synchro and non synchro transmissions as well as double clutching , progressive and skip shifting, floating gears , and knowing when to shift.

I also finally received a driving schedule. It will start on Nov. 11th with a break longer than a week after Thanksgiving in the middle. My road test will be on December 9th.

Day 11: Today was the final exams. They were a bit tougher than the DMV tests but not too much harder. I completed it in about 2 hours with a short bathroom break in between and a lot of double checking of my work. There were a number of questions I was unsure of, and I struggled a bit with the log book portion, but I am confident I passed with more than the 75% required for the school certificate.

Day 12: I received my finals scores back and I averaged an 87% on the tests so I will receive a school certificate once I get my CDL. I should’ve wrote this yesterday but the test included defensive driving (97%), air brakes (90%), HazMat (93%), log books (82%), and “air brakes match” (73%). Frankly I feel like I should’ve done better on the match test because I did better on the practice quiz we received for this than the real test, but a 70% is a passing grade so I’ll take it. I also don’t understand how to do the log book completely but it’s going to change soon and I surely won’t be using a paper log. I understand the hours of service fairly well but not filling out the front page and such, I’m sure I’ll figure it out with the e-Logs I’ll surely use in the real world.

The last classroom day was dedicated to map reading and trip planning. We were each handed a road atlas and we went through many of the informational pages, including what determines a truck route, a certain type of highway, and the other various features of the roads. We looked through some of the states, including NY and the metro area, and compared it to our own knowledge of the area. I think a lot of people had a bit of a “eureka!” moment when the way the interstate numbers were laid out, with the southernmost and westernmost numbers being the lowest and vice versa for the highest, as well as the loop system.

Finally, there was the trip planning part. We looked at how the index pages worked and performed a few exercises in regards to finding the best way from point A to point B. We had to find the mileage, the time required to travel from each point to the next, and the best routes. We did a number of these scenarios until the end of class.

And that was that. Classroom time is over, starting next Friday I’ll finally be behind the wheel.

Week 4 - Day 13: Today is the day I’ve been waiting for - the day I actually begin driving a tractor trailer! This week is not really a week, just one day before a full week of driving next week. During the days off I applied to a few companies and was pre-approved by Werner, and I’m thinking very hard about joining them. I’ll also have an interview with Schneider soon. I also voted for the first time in my life, lots going on over here!

Onward with the day. We broke off into groups of 4 to be shown how to do the pre trip. I realized quickly that this part has absolutely nothing to do with actual mechanical knowledge and a lot to do with memorizing parts and saying what the examiners want to hear in a certain way. That became very clear when the instructor never opened the hood and said “that’s it.” We all did it to the best of our abilities following that.

The rest of the day was dedicated to clutch control and straight line backing. The trucks we are using for this part are 90’s era International 4600 day cabs and they are some very tired looking trucks to say the least. Perfect for us newbies.

The trucks have 45 foot trailers so while they are not full size they are certainly close enough to the more common longer trailers. We each took turns backing across the yard and very few cones were killed. My first hurdle though when I got into the truck was getting it into gear. I couldn’t find reverse or 1st to save my life so an instructor did that for me. After a few attempts though I found the gate for myself and that was no longer an issue. The concept of trying to feel the springs in the shifter is totally new to me so I had to get used to it.

The next hurdle was clutch control. The clutch in this particular truck matched the rusted out body just below the cab, it was totally soft and hard to feel any significant friction. I played with this a lot throughout the day, trying to use the clutch to control my speed. At first it was difficult but the more attempts I had the more I understood what I needed to do. I only stalled once in the beginning, when I forgot to push in the parking brakes. Also, did I mention that these trucks have no trailer brakes? Because they don’t have trailer brakes. Yeah…

The actual backing was not very difficult. I’ve spent a lot of hours on American Truck Simulator practicing backing maneuvers like this and it helped a lot, I was able to put the truck in between some cones 1.5 truck widths wide pretty evenly from the start. After that, they spaced out some of the cones behind the tighter area about 5 truck widths wide and put a couple behind us to see how well we could judge when to stop. I did pretty good until I got past the tight part, then I lost my reference points and started losing the trailer a bit. I realized I have a bad habit of looking in just one mirror and focusing on it, I need to work on that.

The first time I tried to stop just in front of the cones, I barely hit them. The second time I was a bit more conservative and was within 3 feet of them. I did pretty good with that exercise after that. I don’t know how many times we tried this but it was certainly more than I can count on both hands.

On a side note the beginning was extremely frustrating, being totally micromanaged by one particular instructor without him telling us what he expected from us when he started giving random signals. I was actually really ****ed off since he was constantly yelling and pointing us in 5 directions at once, then the guy says to me “dude, you’re overthinking it!” No, you don’t know what the f*** you’re doing, pick a signal and stick to it...luckily I didn’t work with that guy after that and the next instructor was much easier. Proof that you need thick skin in this industry however.

Overall though it was pretty fun to actually drive the truck a bit and I learned quite a bit.

Glad to hear you are doing well and enjoying yourself. Also, glad to hear you exercised your right to vote. Keep it up.

Fellow Long Islander wishing you luck.

Thanks, I'll definitely need it! Haha

Week 5 - Day 14: Time to do some highway driving. They’ve split us up again into groups of 4 and let us on our way. We’ve moved into some newer International Durastar tractors which have 6 speed synchro transmissions, double clutching will come later.

I let the other 3 guys go first and they all had issues of their own to work through. I hopped into the seat and didn’t do too well either. Apparently I was being too easy on the throttle and focusing too much on my right mirror and was drifting. We were driving around a bit when we came up to an intersection that lead to an interstate that was quite busy. Well I had to stop a few times and after a few stops I began stalling. And again. And again. And again...6 times!!! Horrible. Eventually we got going but not before being cut off by an impatient driver. After I came home I talked to my dad (former truck mechanic) about it and he thinks hitting the clutch that many times in a row over caused it to overheat and not grab as well. We can both speak from experience on that end because we both felt the same thing when he taught me to drive manual in a car. I finished with my first alley dock between two trucks where nothing went wrong somehow!

After lunch we went over the pre trip again and began learning left backs. We all did it a bunch of times and I think we all did okay, but it’s hard not to when the instructor is telling you exactly how to turn and when to do it so I didn’t feel like I learned much. That was it for the day.

Day 15: The same schedule as before, but in pouring rain instead of a bright blue sky. I went last and started off with a scare unfortunately, driving through an industrial park and apparently I was close to hitting some trees. My fault entirely because I wasn’t watching what I needed to, but I don’t know why the instructor had me driving so close to these trees that are right next to a 4 lane road, when I could just move over. Didn’t hit anything though and after that I did better, no stalling, less lugging, and my turns are getting better already. Still having a bit of trouble putting the shifter in the right gear sometimes but I think I will get over that soon too.

After lunch, we continued with left backing practice. Honestly the best thing our main instructor could do was leave early, because the guy that replaced him said almost nothing and that was the best I did with backing all day. I was getting it fairly close to the barrels we set up without hitting them once. Now I feel like I understand it more for myself and what to do when things go off kilter as well. I feel much more confident about my skills overall than I did yesterday.

I think that is their plan. Because I've heard it before. They drum it into you and then the next time they let you figure it out yourself. I am dreading my first time out the gate. You would think they would get that stalling out of the way before taking you out into traffic. I have to remember, this is exciting, not dread. Starting to hyperventilate again. lol.

Fellow Long Islander wishing you luck.

I am also a fellow Long Islander. My family is still there.

Day 16: Unfortunately I believe we lost a student due to an issue with his permit. There were only 3 of us in our group today and his name was crossed out on the sign up sheet, so, yeah…

Today we started out with another pre trip, one which I actually got to complete for once. I did okay but I’m going to type out everything I can remember on Google Docs to try to remember it better because I’m still having issues with it. Again, it has nothing to do with actual mechanical knowledge, but saying things in a certain way. After pre trips, I finally did my first uncouple and couple. There were some growing pains during the uncouple but I started to figure it out a bit with the couple part. Don’t pull the landing gear handle too far out, knowing how to hook up the glad hands, etc. We attempted to do some more left side backing before lunch but another student and the instructor began arguing over something dumb...20 minutes later he finally backs it up. Time for lunch.

After that I finally got behind the wheel for a bit. I was more confident today and I felt like I did a much better job of driving than the previous 2 days. Only a couple of wrong gear movements and I was easier on the clutch. Finally I feel like this is starting to come together.

Day 17: More highway driving in the 6 speeds this morning. Again there were only 3 of us in the truck and I went last of the 3 in the morning. Again, getting better at shifting and placement of the truck and trailer in turns, no major drama.

In the afternoon we started doing blindside backing. Our group was down to just 2 of us after this morning. We were back in one of the older International day cabs for this part, except we actually had trailer brakes on this one at least. Seeing the trailer from a totally different angle threw me off a bit but I was able to put it in the hole plenty of times. Later in the day there was a lot of glare in the convex mirror, adding some extra difficulty and I missed it a few times, but fixed it after a couple of tries. That was it.