Well, dear reader, I have completed Day Two of my CDL training and I have to say there was much improvement from yesterday. The straight-back, left turn, and right turn maneuvers weren't much of a problem and there was improvement. The big change came from the 90 degree alley dock, which, as you may recall from yesterday, really sucked. I mean badly. I had no idea what I was looking for, how to set the maneuver up, or how to see if it was going to work or not. And worst of all, I had no idea how to put any of that in my mind.
Something happened today, though. As I was watching one of my fellow students, I took note of where he turned the tractor-trailer to get 90 degrees from the dock. For some reason, it all just fell into place and my first one was almost perfectly done. In fact, all but one of them today was what the school testers call "scorable," meaning each would have passed with minimal loss of points.
All that was before lunch, which we enjoyed courtesy of a traveling recruiter from Werner Enterprises, a large, diverse, nationwide truck company that hires "lots of students from Michigan CDL," as the guy said. After that, it was out onto city streets for the first time. And I must say it was there, first doing a 15-minute pattern of left turns then right turns on streets on the back roads of the industrial park - no 4-lane major streets today - that I learned just how much there is in this business.
First, there are 10 gears, each with a maximum speed - and I need to know all those gears and their associated speeds by heart - made up of five gears in two ranges, a high range and a low range. Then there is the RPM shift range for each gear, both upshifting and downshifting, the double clutching for every gear, where to aim the tractor so the trailer doesn't hit a curb or a car in the opposite lane, and revving the engine up to the appropriate RPM, but only while downshifting, plus dealing with cars doing crazy things (like passing on a double yellow line, in a blind curve) and other 18-wheelers that are actually out there working, and you get an idea how busy my poor brain was.
My one-hour session just about took all the energy out of me and I was quite ready to be replaced by the other student, but then, right at the end, the instructor asked me to skip a gear while downshifting, something that is often done. Go from 8th to 6th, which isn't bad, because both of those are in the same range. Or go from 7th (high range) to 5th (low range). Doing that requires moving a lever on the shifter, but only while in neutral....
Oh, yeah. Like I'm ready for all this! Perhaps as you read what I just wrote you will get a sense of how much is going on. Also imagine increasing then decreasing speed to use all 10 gears, watch for traffic, watch the changing speed limits, the curves, the crazy cars, the....
Well, you get the idea. I will say I am ready for bed every night, which is good! And I definitely appreciate the 3-week course length and quality of instructors much more than I did even yesterday. I am confident I will be ready, but, OH, have I got some growing to do before then.
And homework. This week: Safety-related information, how-to-do a pre-trip vehicle inspection (which takes about 45 minutes and requires much memorization.) Next week, regulations and trip planning. Third week: more trip planning and detailed logging.
Whew.
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