Cape Fear Community College Truck Driver Training Log
Topic 31771 | Page 6
Managed to get perfect attendance and the overall safety award in class as well as my certificate.
For anyone curious the total hours listed on the certificate were 394 hours.
Any idea how many driving hours?
Congratulations on the Perfect Attendance. The Army or Marines probably hand out a ribbon for that.
Glancing at my log books about 40 or so driving. Maybe +/- 10 as in the early part of the course we swapped frequently and didn't log so I had to sorta estimate there.
Any idea how many driving hours?
Congratulations on the Perfect Attendance. The Army or Marines probably hand out a ribbon for that.
Congratulations on CDL and the birth of your daughter!
CDL:
Commercial Driver's License (CDL)
A CDL is required to drive any of the following vehicles:
- Any combination of vehicles with a gross combined weight rating (GCWR) of 26,001 or more pounds, providing the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of the vehicle being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
- Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds, or any such vehicle towing another not in excess of 10,000 pounds.
- Any vehicle, regardless of size, designed to transport 16 or more persons, including the driver.
- Any vehicle required by federal regulations to be placarded while transporting hazardous materials.
Congratulations on CDL and the birth of your daughter!
Travis;
Once again, DITTO on all the congrats! How's the CDLA? How's the new baby?
Stop back, man!!!! We need UPDATES, for sure! Hope all is great.
Stay safe, stay blessed, and stay between the lines~
~ Anne ~
CDL:
Commercial Driver's License (CDL)
A CDL is required to drive any of the following vehicles:
- Any combination of vehicles with a gross combined weight rating (GCWR) of 26,001 or more pounds, providing the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of the vehicle being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
- Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds, or any such vehicle towing another not in excess of 10,000 pounds.
- Any vehicle, regardless of size, designed to transport 16 or more persons, including the driver.
- Any vehicle required by federal regulations to be placarded while transporting hazardous materials.
Today was day 1. It's now an 8 week program(Class starting April 21 2022). I had heard previously it was 6 weeks so this is updated info if someone else has reported in previously.
The first day was just handing out a few extra materials on arrival, meeting a couple of the instructors and other staff from the trucking program. All the staff seems professional. Our coursebook is a JJ Keller ELDT Obtaining A CDL Book (ISBN-13: 978-1-68008-493-1) along with several other Keller books and 2 log books. We will be covering through Chapter 30 at basically 1 chapter a day with daily online, open book, at home on PC/mobile. There is an additional weekly test we get Friday online that is due by Sunday 2359.
In the afternoon we went to part of the practice area and looked at a truck, an instructor went over a quick rundown of a pre-trip(we will work this more in depth tomorrow) and sliding the fifth wheel and tandems while were out there. We'll start shifting and getting ready to do first driving early next week.
I was actually surprised while doing some stuff on what to look for during a pre-trip they pulled up some pages from truckingtruth dot com showing ABCs!
Hey Travis! I joined TTT just to reply to your posts about your experience at Cape Fear CC. I haven't finished reading, but I intend to. Thanks for recording it!
I'm currently in a community college trucking program in NC (the same one for the second time in 25 years--long story), but am not happy with the way they're doing things. Lessons are inconsistent, instructors are not on the same page regarding processes and give their personal preference for how they want us to do things (which is obviously confusing), and we were lucky to get any kind of organized handout for pre-trip. Expectations are not necessarily clear; they get defensive and snarky if you question anything. One instructor stewed in contempt and made snarky comments when we made mistakes on our fourth road instructional ride (manual). They set us out on the road with manuals on the third day without any real practice on the field. They don't use much in the way of visual aids or available technology in class. Not to mention the hella old equipment they're teaching us on. Etc, etc...
While I don't feel as if this program fully prepared me for the real world the first time I went through it 25 years ago, I do not remember it being anywhere near this bad the first time I went through it. I re-enrolled thinking they may have changed things over the years. (Aside from adding a simulator, they didn't change anything.)
I am considering withdrawing from this program and getting into Cape Fear CC instead.
Would you say that your instructors at CFCC remained professional, fair, gave positive feedback, and were willing to listen to your questions and/or to repeat things so that you understood a concept? Did you practice backing in the large 53-foot tractor/trailers in many situations, or just two or three setups?
Thank you for any information you can give.
CDL:
Commercial Driver's License (CDL)
A CDL is required to drive any of the following vehicles:
- Any combination of vehicles with a gross combined weight rating (GCWR) of 26,001 or more pounds, providing the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of the vehicle being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
- Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds, or any such vehicle towing another not in excess of 10,000 pounds.
- Any vehicle, regardless of size, designed to transport 16 or more persons, including the driver.
- Any vehicle required by federal regulations to be placarded while transporting hazardous materials.
Tandems:
Tandem Axles
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".
Tandem:
Tandem Axles
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".
DOT:
Department Of Transportation
A department of the federal executive branch responsible for the national highways and for railroad and airline safety. It also manages Amtrak, the national railroad system, and the Coast Guard.
State and Federal DOT Officers are responsible for commercial vehicle enforcement. "The truck police" you could call them.
OWI:
Operating While Intoxicated
Welcome to the forum. Travis hasn't been active here in quite a while. If you're not getting the quality training where you're at, the everpresent recommendation here is to go through company-sponsored training so maybe you can get on with one of those. Just so you know though, some won't take those who started training elsewhere. If you post about that or anything else in the general section, you'll get more views/responses. Good luck.
Company-sponsored Training:
A Company-Sponsored Training Program is a school that is owned and operated by a trucking company.
The schooling often requires little or no money up front. Instead of paying up-front tuition you will sign an agreement to work for the company for a specified amount of time after graduation, usually around a year, at a slightly lower rate of pay in order to pay for the training.
If you choose to quit working for the company before your year is up, they will normally require you to pay back a prorated amount of money for the schooling. The amount you pay back will be comparable to what you would have paid if you went to an independently owned school.
Company-sponsored training can be an excellent way to get your career underway if you can't afford the tuition up front for private schooling.
HOS:
Hours Of Service
HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.New Reply:
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Yea, given my situation I'm probably gonna need a larger carrier although a couple of smaller ones with good sounding home time policies may work.
I'll actually be back home Saturday and finally get to see and hold my baby but already have a few irons in the fire and one firm date that I'll likely stick with unless a unicorn comes along.
Terminal:
A facility where trucking companies operate out of, or their "home base" if you will. A lot of major companies have multiple terminals around the country which usually consist of the main office building, a drop lot for trailers, and sometimes a repair shop and wash facilities.