Friday, Feb 17, 2012, was a good day!

I passed the Michigan Commercial Driver's License practical test! Let me tell you about it. The test has three parts:

• The pre-trip inspection test 
• The basic vehicle control skills test
• The on-road driving test

Let me briefly explain each of them so you know what I did.

The pre-trip inspection (PTI) test. The applicant walks around the commercial motor vehicle and points to or touches each item on a lengthy list and explains to the examiner what is being checked. For example, the steering linkage, which on a truck is pretty complex, as you can imagine. I would point to it and say, "The steering linkage, steering shaft, pitman arm and castle nut and cotter pin, drag link, upper steering arm, lower steering arm, tie rod and steering arm are securely mounted with no cracked, bent, broken or missing pieces. There are no loose or worn joints or sockets, no loose or missing nuts, bolts or cotter pints." There are 17 pages in my manual that contain the items to check. The PTI took about 40 minutes for me to complete. Because all parts have to be repeated in case of failure like I had yesterday, I did better on today's inspection than yesterday's. In fact, I did not miss any; I was allowed to miss 29 items.

The basic vehicle control skills test. This test consists of four basic off-road (meaning not on a public roadway), the forward stop, straight-line backing, 90-degree alley dock (the task that kicked my butt for a couple of weeks), and a right turn (the reason I failed yesterday.

1. The forward stop requires driving into an "alley" (lines painted on the ground with cones at strategic places) and coming to a stop as close to, but not past, the end line, without looking out a side window or standing up to see the cone or line. It's harder than it looks, but I did not miss any points.
2. After that event, I leave the "alley" and position the truck for the straight-line backing. Then, on the examiners signal, I back the truck straight back through the alley until my bumper is clear of the other end. I did not have any problem with this one pretty much right away, so it was a 'gimme.' Not so the next event.
3. The dreaded 90-degree alley dock requires positioning the truck 90 degrees on the sight side to the alley. Then, at the examiners signal, I back into the alley, taking care not to hit any cones or touch any of the boundary lines and coming to a stop as close to the back line as possible. Keep in mind the back line is 60 feet away from the driver, so making that judgement is tough. And those cones and lines represent things like buildings, cars, and the alley dock itself into which a driver spends much of his or her time backing. This kicked my butt good for a long time. I was penalized four points yesterday and only one point today. Good show!
4. The right turn is the final event on the range and consists of making a right hand turn around a simulated corner with a curb, coming as close as possible to, but taking care not to touch, the cone on the corner. I killed the cone yesterday and did not come close today, so my total score was one point!

On-road driving test. After completing both of those parts, the examiner, applicant, and truck head out into the world for "real life" driving. Small city streets, Interstate highways, multilane road, school zones, busy and not-busy intersections area all included. There is no backing but there are lots or right and left turns, curves (some were pretty 'good' curves for a 60 foot commercial vehicle!), railroad crossings, urban and rural lane changes, and awareness of bridge, overpass, and regulatory traffic signs - the one he pick out for me was a "Bridge May Be Icy" sign somewhere in the middle. While following his directions, I was graded on speed and lane control (refer to 'good' curves comment above!), clutch usage, brake usage, proper gear selection (there are 10 forward speeds from which to choose), vehicle spacing, steering, my decision-making, and the one thing that cost me most points, traffic checks.

An applicant can miss 25 points on the on-road portion and still pass. I missed 10; the examiner said the average applicant will miss 15-18 and anything below 15 is "excellent." So having not done so well yesterday, I was pretty happy with the result. Even though my CDL does not show any grade, I came away from the test knowing I will probably not kill anyone (like I did that 5-year old standing on the 'curb' yesterday...) as I make the next step in this journey.

Next step for me is to go to work. I have picked a company called WEL Companies (http://www.welcompanies.com) based near Green Bay, Wisconsin, because they offer the best balance of equipment, range (how far do they really go?), pay, and whether I can take the truck home during my home time. Right now, my plan is to start their 3-day orientation on February 27, after which I will drive locally with one of their trainers for one week then go on-the-road, or OTR, for 4 weeks all over the country.

I am glad my initial training at West Michigan CDL is over. It was challenging, rewarding, very frustrating at times, and very intense at all times. I would not want to repeat it nor would I want not to have done it. And I think I am well-positioned for the next step on my path to become a professional truck driver.

There might not be many posts for the next week or so, dear reader, but please look forward to more as I move on to become a driver for the WEL Companies!

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.