The Newest Advancement in Training for Truck Driving
By Katie Feuz

Truck driver training just got a little more sophisticated. The CDL training program at San Juan College in New Mexico recently acquired a brand new $200,000 diesel truck simulator designed to replicate real life driving conditions. The simulator can duplicate hundreds of different driving scenarios including icy roads, blown out tires, and hitting a curb. The driver's seat even shakes and the steering wheel will jerk to further dramatize such situations. The settings on the simulator can also be changed and increased, to simulate particularly bad situations when things go wrong.

The simulator also helps to train students on a particularly difficult maneuver: learning how to avoid grinding the gears on a big rig, which can be one of the most difficult parts of truck driver training. A federal requirement, students must be able to double clutch the transmission in order to pass the CDL exam that is they must take the clutch down one movement to take it out of gear, bring the clutch back out, and then another clutch movement to put it back in gear. The simulator allows students to learn this with room to make mistakes without damaging a transmission.

In addition to teaching the students how to handle such a large vehicle and become comfortable driving it, another goal of using the simulator is that students will make their mistakes in the simulator rather than on the road. Obviously it is not a perfect replica and cannot duplicate certain conditions such as hitting another automobile or even a pedestrian. However, having such a teaching resource helps to bridge the gap between classroom learning and students actually learning to drive. With more truck driving jobs becoming available and drivers in higher demand, it is critical that students are as well prepared as they can be when they begin their driving career.

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