Comments By Blair

Greetings TT!

I found a mentor this week the day before Thanksgiving. He has 23 years, about 3.3 million miles, and is a highly rated driver in the Swift world. We left on Friday at 11 from PHX to Henderson, Nevada, delivering a live unload to Costco. All told about 8.5 hours between on duty, scaling out, drive tine, and unload. Not bad for a first trip! Weather was mixed, offering fairly gusty winds, rain, and some blowing snow.

Trip 2, Vegas to Lacey, Washington. My mentor said he would like to get as much winter mountain driving in as possible over the next few weeks. Day 1 of trip 2, we pulled out around 12 noon north on 93 through eastern Nevada. We stopped in Ely to try and get more day driving the next day.

Day 2, trip 2. Trial by fire! I drove through snow, had to chain going west on 84 in Oregon, and capped a fabulous first leg with a trip down "Cabbage Hill." Thankfully no snow, dry conditions. Significant fog was present, i could only see 3 dashed white lines ahead. Jake set to full, truck in 8th gear, and a ride down at 27 mph in the dark about 6pm. Honestly it wasn't as bad as i anticipated. Loaded we're 64k, so things could have been much more interesting. I fully expected to shart, but managed to pull through. Tomorrow we deliver with a pre plan to Cali.

Night TT!

- Blair

I just contacted my mentor. As I suspected, everyone needs to get past the holiday and will start fresh. Our home locations are in the greater PHX area and we are starting Friday afternoon. This gentleman appears to be more organized with specific markers laid out during our tentative 5-ish weeks on the road. I remain cautiously optimistic this will be a better fit to begin my OTR training. Happy holidays everyone!

-Blair

Greetings TT, Here is an tale of how 24 hours can significantly alter the timing of getting started. My training partner graduated with his CDL November 7th around 9:30 PM. He went to MVD early Nov 8th, upgraded, and was assigned a mentor within 30 minutes. They coordinated and left Saturday Nov 9th for the wide open road.

I graduated with my CDL November 8th, just one day after my partner. We were part of the evening class, so I finished about 9:00 Friday night. Our MVD was closed for Veteran's Day Nov 11th, so I would have to wait until Tuesday the 12th to finish my paperwork. I also chose to wait 1 more week before leaving my job, delaying my upgrade until Nov 20th. First potential mentor is on home time beginning the 26th so they passed; second mentor did not want a student at this time; third mentor accepted me and then cancelled 12 hours before launch to also take home time (lease ops from what he said.) The company is very focused on coordinating me with someone at my local terminal so we can take home time simultaneously. I can appreciate the effort to make family time during the holidays a priority.

Here is where things get funny! The fourth mentor was arriving at the terminal Sunday morning and was ready to go, but she is also taking home time this week. She had a load to Colorado and a pre-load back to Phoenix where we could be home Thursday or Friday. Great! Let's roll! We pack up, and her truck won't start, throwing error codes for maintenance. We drove over to the trailer drop off area, crawled to the maintenance shed, and now we are back to square one. Realistically we won't be rolling until Friday or Saturday after the holiday. I like this mentor and I know we will get along fine, just a lot of Murphy's Law this month delaying my start. I have the feeling once Thanksgiving is over we will run without too many hiccups. Until then, all I can do is roll with the punches.

Dumb as it may sound this lesson in patience, even before I start out of the gate, is a good reminder to impact change when you can and go with the flow otherwise. Even if my partner and I upgraded the same day I still may have encountered similar challenges getting started with me waiting until closer to the holidays to begin. My mind keeps going back to that 24 hour separation between CDL's, and how just a few hours can dramatically change life's schedule. Stay safe this week everyone!

-Blair

Thanks, everyone, for the support!

One of my main priorities remains realistic expectations for the first year. Resources here at TT and corporate trainers have allowed me to plan for the CDL phase pretty much without incident. My partner already has a mentor and is on the road to Ohio! Have a safe weekend everyone.

Blair

Greetings TT!

I am pleased to report I passed my CDL exam Friday evening!

My class mate passed the day before with no issues and I finished out the week. The exam consisted of pre trip, straight back, offset, and parallel backing skills along with a road test. I pulled off the best parallel yet! Traffic was heavy but manageable and lasted 45 minutes. I report back on Tuesday after upgrading my license. Mentor training awaits!

Blair

G-town,

Thank you for the input. My whole post appears foggy, but what I think I was trying to say is that CDL school teaches knowledge to pass the CDL exam, not the daily "pro tips" of learning a new industry. Paperwork, dispatch, Qualcomm, time mgmt, HOS navigation, all are taught on the road after graduation. Swift's approach has been excellent in my perception, and I am due to test out either Thursday or Friday of this coming week. Everything we have been taught is an asset and I feel confident on passing the first time. Perhaps that is short-sighted, but a goal I have for myself none-the-less. Have a good weekend!

-Blair

Greetings Everyone! Today we near the end of week 5 in training. Week 4 saw a turn in skills, and I finally feel comfortable parking with straight line, offset, and parallel. There comes a point when you have to "feel" a maneuver rather than analyze, and I believe my classmate and I have reached that threshold. Let's also be realistic and acknowledge these are skills to pass the CDL exam, which don't always translate to real-world applications as smoothly. This week has been range and road, with a pretrip thrown in here and there as we work toward test day next week. I have missed a couple days with a sinus infection so I am probably going to test early in week 7. Our academy here in PHX is very accommodating to students and is willing to continue to invest time and resources if you are showing progress. That is about it for now. Have a safe Halloween!

-Blair

Greetings everyone, Week 4, and our first two days were split between road and range. I am struggling to locate various markers when backing. School is at night, in a very average parking lot with very average lighting. Our parallel backing has standard cones. Here in PHX we had a dust storm, leaving little light from the overheads, no stars, no moon to guide me into cones I cannot see. I appreciate this is "real world" conditions, but everyone in class was frustrated and unable to locate our markers. We even asked instructors to demonstrate this, and they agreed, reluctantly, they were unable to complete this maneuver as well due within MVD CDL test guidelines ( 2 GOAL, 2 pull ups before points).

Here are my major concerns which I am still tweaking -

1. I need to move my seat back. Although I cannot move my mirrors during backing procedures, I can still move my body around to see what I need to. When we do road skills tonight I will play with these settings.

2. I also need to stop completely between directional changes in backing maneuvers. When I continue to roll between corrections my reference points become null and void.

3. I might be night blind and not know it? Our straight-back and off-set cones are reflective. I can see these better (duh) when our 4-ways are flashing off them and can still pick out terrain and changes. Our parallel boxes are set up so the truck is between the light source and non-reflective cones, diminishing vision further. I don't believe I am night blind, based on my research and recent eye-exam. I think last night was just a rough experience.

I still feel very confident in my ability to pass. Last night was just one of those nights where everything was skewed, much like days or weeks I will encounter out on the road.

Week 3, the first week of road and range skills is complete. I missed Friday but some things are just unavoidable. My classmate and I are forming a solid bond during training, feeding off each other to improve each day. I aced my pre-trip drill on Wednesday and am drilling this weekend to stay fresh. Thursday was our first road day, 4 right turns, 4 left turns, and "figure 8" for a 3 mile loop. I am shocked how much torque an empty combination vehicle has considering inertia and mass. We both received nice compliments from our instructor about driving safety and spatial awareness. Almost immediately the awareness during city driving was present. I thought my head was on a swivel during back ups! This seemed to pale in comparison to working through intersections, commentary driving, and getting a feeling for acceleration and braking. Our training truck was almost side-swiped by a Fed Ex pulling doubles and a few 4-wheelers with no patience. What an eye-opening experience sprinkled with some great fun and excitement! Stay safe this weekend everyone.

-Blair

Congratulations! Full speed ahead!