CDL training begins!

Today is January 30, 2012, the first day of a 3-week CDL training course and I have finished it. Let me tell you about it.

The day began with a pretty bad night's sleep, which is pretty unusual. Since my retirement one month ago, I've slept very soundly all night. Not so last night, probably because of my excitement about what I would start today. No matter, in very cold temperatures and yawning all the way, I drove the 30 minutes to Grandville, Michigan, the home of Western Michigan CDL, my home-away-from-home for the next three weeks. I had to be there at 6:30 a.m. to sign papers and give them copies of my Michigan CDL Temporary Instructional Permit, my DOT medical card, and my Michigan driver's license. I met Bob, one of the senior staff - and one of several state-designated CDL testers that I might have to deal with later on - Mike, the owner, and Doug, our first range instructor. After a couple of hours in the classroom talking about the course, defensive driving techniques, and why you "4-wheelers" really need to understand more about us truck drivers (See? I'm already developing "The Attitude!"), our class of four students moved out onto "the range," which really means a huge parking lot owned by the company in which we will train for much of this week. As an aside, we will be going out onto city streets tomorrow.

We spent half the morning and the afternoon working on these basic CDL maneuvers:

• Straight-line backing: This is backing the tractor-trailer combination in a straight line between two sets of cones. Sounds easy, but it's not that easy. It is, however, a whole lot easier than the next one.
• 90 degree alley backing: This is setting the truck up 90 degrees from the same "alley" and backing in. It is one of two "most difficult" maneuvers and one I need work on. The key is getting a sight picture of where the rear of the trailer, which is leading the charge, so to speak, in the right place to put the trailer in between the same cones as aboves. It is not easy and I did much better than one, as well as one, and not as well as one of the students.
• Left turns: Not much excitement here, actually, because of the way we drive in this country - in the right lane.
• Right turns near a curb: This is much more difficult because a 60' tractor-trailer combination does not turn like a car does. It takes some getting used to the new sight-picture to make it work.
• Hooking and unhooking the trailer: We spent about an hour doing this, which is pretty straight forward.

All in all, I learned that my left foot - the one that used the clutch - hasn't forgotten everything it knew; that I'm pretty good already with backing in a straight line and making left turns; and need a lot of work on 90 degree alley docks.

We will tackle blind-side (the right side) parallel parking next week. Try to imaging how THAT will go!

More tomorrow and I hope to continue posting these progress reports, so I appreciate you reading, dear reader.