This Is Amazing!

Alright, I'm currently in week two of CDL school and I'm having a blast. I absolutely love the feeling of being behind the wheel of a big rig. Straight back was no problem, cross-over not too bad (still have a little work). The two things that worry me are pretrip and parallel parking. Advice for nailing those two?

Practice and repetition. No substitute.

For pre trip I studied Daniel's pre trip study guide pdf. You can get if free here. Just hit the cdl training materials menu and then hit pre trip inspection study guide. Scroll down for the download link.

Parallel and offset are very similar, if that helps.

Most of the backing instruction I got in school I don’t use at all anymore. It was too specific to school settings and the real world of backing is much different. Backing is a trial and error process for a new solo driver. I learned so much from sitting in my cab at truck stops and live loads/unloads and observing other drivers. Pay close attention and observe their set ups and technique. If an experienced driver sees you struggling, many will leave their trucks to come over and help you. This happened a number of times with me and I’ve been able to return the favor a few times to others. By far the truck driver community is friendly and helpful, at least in my experience.

Most of the backing instruction I got in school I don’t use at all anymore. It was too specific to school settings and the real world of backing is much different. Backing is a trial and error process for a new solo driver. I learned so much from sitting in my cab at truck stops and live loads/unloads and observing other drivers. Pay close attention and observe their set ups and technique. If an experienced driver sees you struggling, many will leave their trucks to come over and help you. This happened a number of times with me and I’ve been able to return the favor a few times to others. By far the truck driver community is friendly and helpful, at least in my experience.

Totally agree with this. Biggest thing to learn and to pay attention to is your setup and which way the back of your trailer is going. I to watch people back in every day and some of these guys amaze me. I also have had guys get out and help me especially when I'm blind side backing. I am getting better but I know the veterans can tell I'm a rookie because I keep GOALing... when I see drivers get out and look and I know they're a veteran it makes me feel good. They are just reinforcing to us new guys the importance of it.

Parallel and offset are very similar, if that helps.

I've noticed that while observing other students doing it. The more I see it the less I'm worried about it. I'm just anxious to get in the truck and start working on it myself. We got a little behind last week with nailing pretrip and yard testing.

After you parallel park about 400 times you will have it down pat. :)

For pre trip I studied Daniel's pre trip study guide pdf. You can get if free here. Just hit the cdl training materials menu and then hit pre trip inspection study guide. Scroll down for the download link.

I've studied over it and watched videos on YouTube (do better when I see it). I also ran through the pretrip packet they gave us. I scored a 94 on my yard test (consisted of In-cab, coupling, Pretrip A,B, and C). The more I'm doing this the better I'm feeling about it. This is the best career move I've ever made. Everyone is amazingly helpful and showing us different ways to set up. I had an instructor that watched me massively mess up setting up for an cross over, but let me figure out the best way for me to correct myself instead of coming over and telling me how to do it.

Glad you're doing well on pre trip. One less thing to worry about. Now you can concentrate on backing skills. I found that working myself out of bad set ups helped me learn more about how to maneuver the trailer...helped me get more comfortable with it. I hope it helps you too.