In CDL School Getting Really Discouraged, Is It Time To Call It Quits?

DO NOT QUIT...

I jumped in a TT for the first time in school - and said to myself "yeah, you've been driving stick since before you could walk almost - no sweat" (my dad taught me at 10 years old in his old Volvo CAR). Most of my cars have been sticks.

After one loop around the course - I looked at my buddy in the passenger seat (good friend of mine took the course at the same time) - said "WTF made me think I could do this - WTF am I doing here anyways". He told me to SHUT UP AND DRIVE.

My big mistake was learning to "float gears" right away - when it came time for my road test, the examiner said, OH NO - DOUBLE CLUTCH (can't float during a road test). I failed my first road test with 24 BAD SHIFTS. Never lost the gear or got stalled - but I missed the shift that many times. Next day I passed - but the examiner (my instructor - all the instructors were also examiners) told me he thought I was going to rip the shifter right out of the floor - but I only missed two gear. I got better with time.

This is a NEW SKILL - NEW MUSCLE MEMORY. Shifting a truck (and double clutching) was NOT THE SAME as my Corvettes or any other stick I drove through the years.

BE PATIENT. Training of ANY KIND WILL ALWAYS TEST YOUR COMMITMENT.

You'll get a little more lattitude to learn the skills from a private school (or county vo-tech) than a company training (where it's LEARN OR GO if you can't get it quickly enough). Same goes for backing, parking and alley dock. I could PARALLEL PARK better than I could ALLEY DOCK.

Eventually - I got all the skillsets down.

As others have elaborated - unless you cannot walk and chew gum at the same time - it's a matter of PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. Even the worst young lady in my class, get sent back to the next class (one month setback) - eventually got her skills up (and was still out there driving last I heard).

Rick

I was complete garbage until test day. And even struggled more after going solo. I know it sounds cliche, but just keep reminding yourself that you can do it.

When I started my schooling for my cdl I was terrified of them so I crammed 3weeks of trucking schooling in 7. Don't give my friend

Sorry, I meant to reply to this yesterday but I forgot which seems to be happening more as I get older.

Anyway, I had similar thoughts about quitting. I thought I was the worst shifter and backer to ever sit in a truck, I was constantly comparing myself to the other students thinking they where leagues better than me. Maybe I was because between my dad and grandfathers there is 120+ years of truck related experience and I thought it would click faster than it did. But it did finally click just stick with it.

One thing that I noticed for me at least was sometimes there was too much practice, I would attempt to back and get it 2 or 3 times then any attempt after that would progressively get worse and I would get down on myself so I would stop practicing if I got it right on my first 2 tries. That proved I knew what I was doing, same for driving I had a good am session on the road and then turned down the opportunity for another road session so I could end on a high note. The instructors didn't seem to understand but I passed with no points on the backing and pretrip portion so it worked for me.

3 years later and I am constantly ranked in the top 100 to 150 range for drivers ar OD when it comes to how they score our shifting. If I can do it you can too.

Anything worth learning isn’t going to be easy.

You are very nice people here, it will tell you don’t quit. I’m not one of those people. I’m going to tell you you made a huge mistake.

Your mistake was not doing research first and learning that this is a commitment and as a commitment you either do it or you don’t .

So you either man up, and take the bad with the good or you find something else.

Trucking is not just a job where you hold the steering wheel, it is a lifestyle and the lifestyle is not easy on everybody, and this is where your big mistake was not talking to people and learning this first.

I started learning about the trucking industry several months before actually getting a CDL.

One of the first things I learned is that your first year is going to suck no matter what and so will training and it’s there you have to make the decision do you commit or not.

If you’re going to do this, do it safely and do it with a real commitment that no matter how bad it gets you can go to bed get some sleep and then approach the problem again tomorrow. Otherwise you’re too dangerous to be on the road, not because of lack of skills but because of lack of decision making ability.

Otherwise you’re too dangerous to be on the road, not because of lack of skills but because of lack of decision making ability.

I guess I am going to quit on Monday, since I am too dangerous to be on the road. After all I considered quiting both school and the job.