Comments By Roadpilot

Well today was the first day of Orientation for me at the Columbus terminal.

Pretty straightforward start of the day, checked in and got seated in class. We started with 12 people in class, 3 from the Academy. This morning was basically the outside guys taking pee tests, physical and for the experienced folks, road tests.

We watched a few videos on Whistleblowing, Driver Wellness, Driver Qualifications,and the Bendix Stability Control. Also watched a video on the CDL Defender legal service that's offered. I signed up, for what it covers it's worth the $30/mo. Also watched another video on the Truckers Against Trafficking program. I highly recommend anybody coming into this career and those who's already doing this job to take the time to check it out. For the people being trafficked we are probably the ones who will see it the most (as sad as that is).

Had a free lunch courtesy of Swift....you actually get free lunch all 3 days. After lunch we did some paperwork including the first run through of your preferences for a mentor. Personally I don't care if it's a women or a man, a non smoker is a little more of a priority for me. Supposedly tomorrow we'll talk to somebody else to refine our choices. As I want to go to the refrigerated side of the house I'm really hoping I can get a trainer that does reefer so I'm not getting thrown to the wolves when I go solo. We did some work in our Driver Orientation workbook on the subject of Safe Work Methods. After we got released early so we got back to the hotel by 3. Tomorrow is supposed to be a very full day from 7am til about 430p so it will be balls to the wall to get this workbook completed.

So the great adventure begins......have a great night folks

Roadpilot, congratulations on passing and hoping you have fun on your next step, hope you keep the diary going and can't wait to start mine in the future, are you allowed to take like tablets or computers with you on the road ? hope to hear from you soon, michael

Michael, I would recommended your tablet, just for space reasons. Not sure if you're gonna be coming to Columbus but the hotel here has free WiFi......most hotels at least offer that so it's been a godsend for my tablet. I also have a hotspot enabled phone so I'm hoping that will work well on the road. I have a laptop at home that I'll bring out once I get my own truck but for now the tablet works and can slip into my backpack

Well I tested today and I PASSED!

Today was a super early start as the testing sight is about 2 hours away so we left the yard at 430am.

4 of us tested, 2 passed.....the guys that failed did so on the skills portion. I cannot stress this enough, you have 2 Get Out And Looks per maneuver (except for the straight back, only 1 there).....use them wisely, both guys exhausted them early and got screwed in the later stages of their backs.

How the skills test works in OH is that you have to do the straight back, an offset back and then either a parallel (sightside or blindside) or the 90. I got the 90. I took no points on the straight back and offset and 8 points on the 90 so I was clear to head out on the road. Did about 45 miles on rural, city and some highway time as well, as well as multiple left and rights. Only picked up 5 points on the driving side.

Right now I'm so happy I passed the first time, I put alot off pressure on myself during the test, literally to the point that my back is killing me from being so tense.

So now what happens you ask?

Well I go home probably tomorrow for a couple days and come back Sunday afternoon for orientation Monday. Then I should be out with a mentor either Wednesday afternoon or sometime Thursday. I will definitely do a diary of my time in orientation and with my mentor.

Hope you enjoyed this diary as much as I enjoyed the training lol. If anybody as any questions feel free to ask and if I don't know the answer I'll try and find someone who know.

Have a great day folks

Had my state test today and passed it with flying colors!

Just want to thank Brett for creating the site, it helped me figure out if I really wanted to do this, helped with studying for my permits and the wealth of information not only from Brett but the other contributors is invaluable. I just want to say, I may not post alot but I do lurk quite a bit and the info is A1, so don't ever think nobody is reading you posts guys and girls.

Well next Monday I'll be in orientation back in Columbus for Swift but for now I just can't wait to get back to the hotel and take a long hot shower.

Congrats on passing your road evaluation and thanks for sharing your days with us! Swift @ Corsicana is on my shortlist, so I'm thankful for your posts!

Roadpilot

Congratulations on passing your road test! Enjoy your day off.

Scot

Thanks guys, it's most appreciated.

Mon 8/7 Day 18

Not much to report today. As usual it was a screwy Monday. One instructor didn't come in this morning and another had to take people to retest so that only left on instructor for the range and road people. So they sent half to students home for the morning while a few of us stayed and did pretrips and worked on backing until lunch then we got released for the day and the folks that went home this morning went in for the PM. This issue is the only pet peeve I have about the program, 3 range/road instructors is streaching things pretty slim, they really need at least one more maybe two. I would have liked to get some road time in today but I'll have to wait for tomorrow.

Test day is fast approaching!

Have a great day guys!

8/4 Fri Day 16

Well this morning is was more on the road training. I got a hour this morning and it went pretty well until we came back to the yard and coming down the hill I decided to be cute and tried to downshift and missed my gear and had to coast a bit to get it back. There was a voice in my head that said wait until I got on flat ground to downshift for the turn but for whatever reason in my mind it didn't look like I was gonna have enough room to get all the way down to 5th gear in time.

After lunch came the road eval, and I PASSED! Overall the instructor said I drove good, my points were basically for grinding gears and dropping the clutch.....oh and I made the bonehead move of shifting during the last turn to get to the yard. Both my other classmates failed their first evals, one passed on the second try and the other got AP, so he'll have another week to practice. It was mostly nerves on his part, he forgot about the splitter placement and stalled the truck on both evals.

Well because I passed I don't have to go in tomorrow so I can sleep in, so have a great weekend

Why don't these anti-camera people ever get upset that they're on camera 95% of the time they're in public? Every store, restaurant, gas station, amusement park, sports venue, public transportation, major sidewalk, and major intersection is heavily monitored 24/7/365 by cameras. From the time you leave your front door until you return to your home you're on camera almost continuously. Why doesn't this freak these people out?

They're ok eating and shopping and going on vacation with their families and doing it all on camera. But to put one in the truck? That's just outlandish somehow. It's not until they're being paid to drive someone else's truck and put in a position where they could kill innocent people at any given moment that their "freedom instinct" kicks in and suddenly now they demand their privacy.

Pretty baffling.

Brett, I think it's more that the truck is also your living quarters that bothers people. Yeah there are cameras in public but when you go home, you go back to a place of privacy.....you can't say that with a truck.

Personally I don't care either way, I dealt with the DriveCam at my previous job and after awhile I would forget that it was even there. I think it's inevitable that a reg will come along mandating it. It's happening to all safety sensitive positions, they are now putting them on ships bridges and they want to put them in airline cockpits. It is what it is

Thur 8/3 Day 15

Well it was an interesting day here in Columbus.

I was first up out the yard driving. They had a multi vehicle wreck on I-70 so it had traffic completely jacked up first thing. However I did pretty good, my shifts were on point and there was a lot less coasting and grinding this morning. Still having problems with releasing the clutch during my shifts at lower gears but I'm making progress. One of my classmates that had a stellar day yesterday had a rough time after me though, it seems to be the belly of the beast. Traffic didn't let up as there was yet another wreck involving a TT on 70 and a splattering of other minor accidents around. After lunch I drove again, wasn't as great as this morning but passable. We got one final surprise heading back to the yard, a TT flipped (thank God not a Swifty) in front of us making the left off of Rt 40. We had had a conversation earlier about taking turns too fast and to have it happened in front of us was very sobering. In all today while fustrating was a good day. Tomorrow is eval day so we'll see if I can go 3 for 3 on passing evals on the first time.

Have a great night and I'll try to update this tomorrow

I'll combine Tue and We'd into one entry as it's mostly the same deal

Tue 8/1 Day 13

More on the road training. Upshifts are getting better although for some reason I have a tough time with going from 3rd to 4th but after that I'm usually good. Downshifting is still ugly.... I'm really had a moment where I was thinking that trucking might not be for me. Part of me understands that it's just our second day on the road but I don't personally feel like I'm making the progress I'm supposed to. Maybe I'm being unrealistically hard on myself....but I'm not giving up.

Wed 8/2 Day 14

Day 3 of road training, things are slowly coming together. My first time behind the wheel was ugly but during my second time things improved greatly, although it fell apart at the end because I shifted up and couldn't shift back down quick enough and ended up coasting and grinding until I was able to grab a gear. That's what kills my confidence but I will say I got to get on the highway for about 5 minutes and that was enough for me to realize that this IS what I want to do. I'm supposed to eval out either Friday or Saturday and Test next Wednesday but worse case I go AP, and push that back a week to get more time behind the wheel. I just have to keep relaxed and realize that "I can do this!"

Sorry for missing a day and I'll see you guys tomorrow

Day 12 7/31

Monday's suck!

Today was the first day of our road training. However we got delayed this morning as there is also orientation and a fresh class starting every Monday so that takes up some of the academy leader's time. We didn't get into the truck until after 10am and mostly just drove around the yard shifting. My upshifts are ok, downshifts are very ugly. To the point that I wish I could do the test in an automatic and just deal with the restriction. I knew I was gonna have a problem with shifting but I'm really concerned that this will be the issue that I can't overcome. I have until Friday or Saturday until the latest to get it down well enough to eval out. Hopefully it'll be better tomorrow

See ya