Comments By Eric P.

Yeah. You may not operate a commercial motor vehicle with a tractor-trailer (any combination of vehicles with a gross weight of 26,001 lbs or more if the vehicle(s) being towed have gross weight of more than 10,000 lbs).

With that being said... I PASSED this time around with flying colors and I can now go to the DMV and pick up my new shiny UNRESTRICTED! Class A license. Going this saturday to pick it up. This'll give me a couple of days to study up on Tanker and HAZMAT endorsements so I can get those at the same time.

I passed my test! WOO HOO right? not so much

So I had finally called ProSafe CDL to schedule my test in Indiana for my class A cdl. I told them I wanted to schedule my class A skills test she asked me what kind of vehicle I wanted to be scheduled in so I told her a Truck and Trailer preferably a daycab. Sounds right... right?

The day I showed up they show me to the vehicle I'll be testing in and it's a Straight truck with a pintle hook connector and a trailer about 25 feet long kind of like a car hauler. I asked the inspector if testing on this vehicle would get me my Class A and he said Yes it would. GREAT! I performed my pretrip and only missed 1 or 2 things wrong because I had never driven that type of vehicle before. Nailed my in-cab and air brakes and we proceeded on to skills test. Absolutely no problem there. While I had to compensate for working with a shorter trailer ( Turns SOOO much faster than a 48 foot trailer) I still had no problem with the striaght back, off set to the right and the parallel was a breeze because I could see out the back of the day cab window and the trailer was low enough that I could see everything. Parallel was of course the only thing I was worried about. The road test itself was a breeze.

SO we get back and after I find out I passed I head on over to the DMV to get my shiny new Class A only to find out I now have an O restriction for those that don't know what that is It prevents me from driving a TRACTOR/Trailer CMV. Lucky me... Ah well I'm scheduled again tomorrow to get the Restriction removed and I have no doubts that I'll get it done right this time!

Oh and some other small tips... I forgot to mention don't try to down shift until your RPM's are around 1000 and remember not to try to shift to a gear you're going to fast for. As an example if you're going faster than 15 you most likely won't be able to get into 6th.

It took me a while to get the hang of Down shifiting as well. Where Up shifitng is a 2 step process: Step 1: Clutch, Neutral Step 2: Clutch, Gear.

Down shifting is a 3 step process: Step 1: Clutch, Neutral Step 2: REV! get up to 1400 rpm at least. If you have a heavy foot and rev high, pause just a moment to let the RPM's start falling back down Step 3: Clutch, Gear

So I'm finally ready to schedule my examination to get my CDL and I'm wondering how the pre-trip section will work with the examiner. Will they ask me about each section or just tell me to perform a pre-trip inspection and follow me around the truck while I perform the pre-trip?

So I'm getting really close to the time when I'll be testing in front of the S.o.S. examiner and I'm nervous because I'm not sure exactly what to expect.

I've been told varying things such as the examiner will just randomly tell me what he wants to know about i.e. Steering Components and after I tell him about what I'd look for there he could move into the side of the trailer. I've also been told that I would just preform the Pre-trip as I would explaining to the examiner what I'm looking for and moving on to the next item that I would normally check.

Another thing. My school is teaching me the see it say it method but, if I'm not allowed to open the hood of the truck on test day it'll be kinda hard to not only name some of the things I'm checking but, Also harder to make sure I'm not forgetting something either.

last thing not involving pre-trip. I'll be testing in Indiana and for the skills part I have to do Front stop, Back stop, Off Set to the right side and Parallel park to the right side. I'm doing well on the others but, parallel is kicking my butt and it doesn't help that I'm going to school in Illinois and they teach Front stop, back stop, measured right turn and 45 degree backing... Any tips for parallel? Reference points that I should be looking for in my west coast mirrors?

So I've heard many horror stories about the Indiana testing facilities. Mostly that they're excessively hard and will fail a person just to get them to come back and pay the testing fee and truck rental fees multiple times.

Anyone have any locations that they went to where the SoS examiner was fair?

I was thinking of the Prosafe South Haven/Portage location

The Tractor Protection Valve is tested with the Fan Down test. For Indiana at least I need to say that at 20-45 PSI Both Knobs should pop out showing that my tractor protection valve is working.

Most states I believe say that the RED knob should pop out at 20-45 releasing the Trailer (red) knob applying the trailer spring brakes and closing the tractor protection valve.

The trailer air supply control (also called the tractor protection valve control) should pop out (or go from "normal" to "emergency" position) when the air pressure falls into the pressure range specified by the manufacturer. (Usually within the range of 20 to 45 psi.) If the tractor protection valve doesn't work right, an air hose or trailer brake leak could drain all the air from the tractor. This would cause the emergency brakes to come on, with possible loss of control.

They're teaching us about the 4 different brake tests.

Tractor parking brake test where the yellow knob is out, red knob in and slight tug to make sure it holds.

Then the trailer spring brakes where red knob is out and yellow is in and slight tug test to make sure the trailer spring brakes work

Then the brake pedal service brake test, release all brakes, move forward in lowest forward gear up to 5 mph and depress brake pedal making sure tractor/combination brakes work and vehicles stops in a straight line showing brakes are in proper adjustment and finish with the trailer (johnson bar)brake.

I'm not saying this is set in stone especially since I'm still in school myself. But, One of our instructors told us we could also use the Trailer Hand Valve (Johnson Bar) to also help keep from rolling back.

To be honest I don't think I would bother using it though. Using the Johnson bar only engages the trailer service brakes where as using the brake pedal utilizes both the tractor and trailer service brakes. Seems like a better idea to use both.

So yeah ease up of the clutch until you feel the friction point, ease up of the brake while coming off the clutch at the same time.

You do the same thing in a manual transmission car to keep from rolling back when stopped on a hill. Let your clutch hold you in place.