My CDL Training Update.

Well, it has been a full month and I have made it through my CDL course. I take my CDL exam this coming Tuesday at 230 PM pacific STD time here in Oregon.

This has been a mental boot camp for sure, its taken everything I have and then some. I have given it my 100 percent. I am solid on my Pretrip and Airbrakes exam - it did help that I have a mechanics/technical background coming into this (IE I already knew what an alternator was, where to find it, I knew about steering boxes and linkages, tie rod ends, hoses, exhaust , yada yada). My instructor made sure that we were solid on our Air Brakes DMV exam and told us EXACTLY the wording our state DMV is looking for.

I went on my final drive test (10 speed manual) with my instructor today. I passed the school drive exam. He did mention to me that I really need to watch my speed and downshift sooner coming up to intersections, also my rear trailer tires did hit the lane lines a couple of times on some tight curves and I stalled once because I forgot to toggle down (Oregon allows one stall as long as you quickly recover and do not do it again). I thought that was weird as most states consider a stall as impeding traffic auto fail, but I guess Oregon has a 1 time grace.

I pointed out for grinding 2 times so that was like 5 points, but I still passed with all of that.

Backing.......let's just say if there is any area where I predict I will fail (and I am trying to be positive and say I will get this, because I really want it) it will be backing. I am still having issues with the 90 and the offset somewhat. My straight back is fine, however my 90 and offset are hit and miss. It takes me a while to learn applied skills (suck as backing). I have always been more of a books, movies, video games ,conversationalist ,white collar type.

I am just now learning how to read the trailer and feel wholly unprepared for backing even though our instructor tells us he has confidence in our class. We do have Monday to practice more backing , but I just have to keep my fingers crossed for Tuesday.

Overall I am more improved from when I posted my CDL backing woes a few days ago, I can at least straight back consistently lol. I wanted to update the forum about my progress and keep you in the loop.