Comments By studpuppy28

He is a trainer at a company sponsored school it was a company truck he did not finish his teaching tasks while we were on the pad i don't wanna pay them unless they let me finish the school and give me my certificate tht was the agreement and they have to fulfill their part of the contract. It's not my fault that my teacher's truck broke down and we didn't makeit back to the terminal yard in time to finish practicing. Plus he stayed out on the road way too long wanting to get loads. The company paid him to teach me but he took the cash and PLUS got the loads ya see what I mean ? he was earning double and if they paid him for my driving miles he actually made triple

So what you haven't told us yet is if you were in a private trucking school, or at an actual trucking company learning to drive from their company sponsored training. Who is "they"? Whose truck broke down? Is he a trucking company driver/trainer, or an instructor at a trucking school? This is all good information needed to help advise you. Thanks.

Old school, I asked them to let me finish my course the fleet manager said no there wasn't enough time. I have yet to be taught the parallel parking and my teacher only did a few of the maneuvers a couple of times each. That is not adequate to learn proper backing. My teacher's rig broke down for two weeks almost and that caused us to miss valuable time on the pad that we were supposed to have. I asked them to let me practice with a driver who was willing on his off hours and stay at the pad and train with me and they said No again. The person in charge of the whole training program wants me to be there but the fleet manager is not aware of this and has told me no so far. does that help explain it?

Studpuppy, you've got to help me out here. I'm even more confused now, and I want to help you out. My concern is that you get a certificate for your training. That certificate is more important for a new driver than the CDL itself. No one will hire a new driver without that certificate - it is going to be required by their insurance carrier that you successfully completed so many hours of certified training. And the only acceptable proof of that is the certificate.

Now, from your response it sounds like you were in a company sponsored training program. Am I right in that assumption? And are you still in that program? Because if you left and didn't finish they will be hounding you for payment for what they did. Fill in some details for me and I'll do my best to advise you on what to do.

hey Mandy, you might wanna take a variety of gloves one thick leather pair for handling truck and trailer parts and one comfortable light duty pair I like to wear the brown cotton gloves they r comfortable but when driving you wanna use just your hands to help feel the gears and steering wheel characteristics etc oh and if you have a set of two way radios take them and/or a voice headset the other students can talk 2 you on them when you r practicing your back ups on the yard usually its a cluster of students together with a teacher like between 3 and 5 students while standing around watch and learn from the others mistakes. have the students call out how far you have left to go when backing up have a student on each side and the teacher will be there as well. also get familiar with the degrees of turn in the steering wheel and look down and see how your steer tires are responding look at where you are and do good setups on the range when backing aim your trailer tandems toward where you wanna be so when u get close to the space front, all you need to do is adjust your angle and go in the space also find a remote stretch of road and practice your gear shifting also when you do your road driving while you are in the passenger seat, take a small pocket voice recorder and hold it and ask your teacher lots of questions while they are there and speak what they said into it then play it back when u need it on the road test if you remember the 8 or 9 no-nos and avoid them, then you will make few errors if any and have plenty of points to pass the test you can have like 28 errors and pass so if you ace the pre-trip and the backing up, you can lose points on the road test and still pass easily the hardest part of the pre-trip is the air brakes part its not hard really just important and you can use a memory aid strategy to remember the parts of the truck n trailer you need to call off etc

Mark, I think she means like when you hit 25mph on road speed the RPMs will already be at the right spot to shift up to 7th, then at 35mph, shift to 8th, then at 45mph go to 9th gear and at 55mph, you should be in 10th thats the way i did it when I drove the truck in other words, with a ten speed, at every 10 mph increase, you shift up a gear

Thanks so much RedGator great advice i am writing that down to use in practice i think with your and star car's and Daniel b.'s advice i can markedly improve my gear shifting i'm not saying I can't shift heck i drove all over the northeast and we got everywhere pretty smoothly i just wanna be a master gear shifter i got the upshifting down it's the downshifting that's more troublesome the 2 plus 5 thing is great what about the next part? what do you mean by 10,20, 30? and yes I drove a 10 speed double clutch it was a freightliner cascadia model i believe by the way, what is the best gear for city driving like when you are on an expressway that is rather open but has frequent redlights? and what's the best gear for a congested city area ? I will give you some cash tips if i see you on the road for these answers okay IF i get on the road again

The advice I was given applies to a 10 speed or 9 speed only. Look at your speed gage and it will almost always tell you your gear. 25 (2+5=7) shift on the tens (10, 20, 30ect) low side shift between 1000 and 1200 rpms, highside shift between 1500 and 1700 rpms. Downshift at 1000 to 1200 and rev to 1400. Now every truck varies alittle but this is just a guide and really helps if you lose a gear.

Old school: i didn't finish cuz they wouldn't let me practice backing up thats the part we didnt have time for becuz my teacher's truck broke down for two weeks and that was the time we needed to be on the pad practicing i have yet to be taught the parallel parking maneuvers my instructor told the fleet manager and dispatcher i was a good driver on the 2nd day out on the road across america , I was doin most of the driving we were out almost 2 months so that is my experience and i am still new i was all over New England and NY and PA mostly never got a ticket never did anything wrong i could pass the test tomorrow probably but i wanna be certain i havent taken it yet except for the permit which i aced the first time i missed only 2 questions on the written test for the permit but i still have a lot to learn and my teacher was not wanting to stay and practice with me since he lost two weeks drive time because of his broken down truck u r from Nac? I am from East TX too glad 2 know ya

Studpuppy, welcome to the forum! I'm a little confused here, because your profile shows you as an experienced driver, but then you've got this question about your schooling. But, I'm gonna assume you are just getting into this, and since we don't have a whole lot of detailed information from you I'm going to take a stab at answering this and hope I'm interpreting the missing facts correctly.

You say you "didn't finish". Does that mean you quit? It's hard for me to imagine a legitimate driving school to just drop you and not get you to the point of being ready for the driving test. Not many of us felt like we were really ready for it when we went for our driving test, and we get folks in here all the time begging for advice because they are so anxious about their driving test. No one becomes a professional driver at Truck Driving School, all they do is barely get you far enough along so that you can pass the test and get your CDL. That's why when you get a job as an inexperienced truck driver you will spend about a month in a truck with a trainer whose job is to try his best to get you finished off a little bit just so they can start to feel a little bit comfortable with turning you loose in one of their high dollar pieces of equipment.

Driving a truck proficiently takes time and lots of practice. All during your first year as a driver you will be continually learning everyday. There is just no way for you to become proficient by going through a school. If you are still in school I encourage you to go take the driving test, your instructors would not have wanted you to test if they didn't think you could pass.

If I'm totally wrong in my assessment here I apologize, but I just have a hard time believing they just didn't take the time to get you far enough along to pass the driving test.

Congratulations redgator so what are the class and cert. requirements to become a trainer?

Thanks Daniel B. well you know my screen name here at this website and so when I get my test done and on the road, I will let ya know where I will be heading one day and buy that dinner for ya in return for the advice you gave or for future advice I'm going to spend sept and october practicing backing exercises more and road driving in city areas with a veteran driver teacher so i expect to be on the road sometime early spring maybe maybe sooner safe journeys my friend

Hey don't worry I deliver on my promises one day you will come across me and my girlfriend on the road and we will sit down and shoot the breeze over a nice dinner and dessert on me. I also have to work on my backing up exercises like alley dock and blind sided paralllel i think i can do them for the test i did them okay in practice did my alley dock right 3 times in a row 1st try 12 minutes of a 15 minutes allowed 2nd try 7:45 3rd try did it in 6:33 i aced my pre-trip and can pass the road test too this will be my 1st attempt for a CDL test i havent tried the actual test yet I am anxious to finish it and get on the road again I'm waiting for the offseason of my current job to arrive in a few weeks so i can have 5 days off to practice on the skidpad range Here in Florida the spaces are 100 feet long and 12 feet wide so I should do well. In Missouri they were only 84 feet long and much narrower one more question Daniel B.... you can take each section of the CDL test on separate days right??? did you have a time limit on your skills control section of your test??? seems some states do and others don't

Haha! Ill remember that offer ;)

That essay is needed. Downshifting and up shifting is very lengthy and difficult to understand. The more details I give you, the more you understand. Everyone else here at TT seems to be busy tonight so I'm covering the forum tonight :) I've already done my 500 miles today so I have the entire evening off I didn't mind spending 10 minutes to type that to help you out.

Just remember to not over think it. It really is pretty easy. It's just one of those things that practice makes perfect.

Just try not to over think of, I promise it gets easier. Pretty soon you won't even have to think about it!

Thanks Special K I've pretty much gotten a handle on the upshifting, now i'm gonna take all the advice I've received and what my teacher taught me and my own experiences and combine them so i can master downshifting which is harder than upshifting. I'm getting there though