Graduation & The Test

5 pm Thursday May 22, the graduation ceremony for us eight trucking students. Craig's wife and two teenage sons were there, Lalo (aka Eduardo Martinez) had his mom, brother, sister-in-law and wife in attendance, and "Biker" Ed, one of our three Eds (also including "Special" Ed, the FBI agent, and Lalo), who rode a beautiful Harley to class each day, his fiance. The rest of us were stag. A nice group to hear the final exhortations from our instructors: "Slow down and watch your mirrors!" Apparently when students stop back who have had reportable (mostly minor) accidents the cause is either "I was going too fast" or "I forgot to check my mirrors." The most dangerous time, they say, is after about six months of driving, when you can get a little cocky. Everybody got a certificate and a class picture (I'll try scanning it).

Earlier that day "Biker" Ed and Lumpy (real name Clarence, so maybe Lumpy isn't so bad), passed their CDL tests. Craig and I were scheduled for Friday morning. I felt pretty comfortable about my chances when I left school Thursday, but, of course, that didn't last. I kept thinking about the right turn, which is the first of the four driving skills you must demonstrate before you take the road portion of the test. You get a total of 9 points to work with on the four skills. The problem is that if you hit the cone on the right turn you use up 6 points right off. If you miss it by too much, you can get as many as 5 points off. I was notable during the practice sessions for several times getting no more than 9 points total after hitting the cone. Skill two is a bumper stop--stopping at a line you can't see from the cab before the truck's bumper crosses it. It's not that hard really. There's a cone next to it and as soon as you see it in the vent window you stop. I routinely zeroed it. Skill three is straight-line backing--showing you can back the tractor and trailer in a straight line for 60 feet using just the large driver's side mirror. Again, not very difficult once you learn to sight along the trailer and make the proper steering adjustments. An easy zero. Skill four is the 90 degree alley dock backing maneuver. So if you hit the cone and get six points for the right turn, you have just three to work with on the alley dock. In practice, I usually managed to get no more than three points, but I surely didn't want it to come to that in the real test. So my anxiety level was up there Thursday night and when I woke up Friday morning I was dreading that right turn.

I remained anxious Friday morning until I sat down for some quiet time during which I turned over the whole thing to my Higher Power and settled down a lot. I headed for Zingerman's Road House for coffee with a book that had nothing to do with trucking--a WW II memoir by the late CBS newsman, Eric Severeid. His descriptions of London during the blitz simply transported me there. By the time I started for the school and my test, I was as relaxed as I could have been. I left in time to get there by 10 am for my 11 am testing appointment.

In the previous post I mentioned that Craig had not made it past the alley docking. I have to admit that I considered that was a possibility based on his visible lack of confidence on Thursday. I figured if I got there around 10, and if the truck we had both picked to test in was in the yard, I might be able to test early. That was a little cold, I guess. Yet I was genuinely sorry to see the truck sitting there when I arrived in Taylor.

Sandy was my examiner. A pleasant, motherly sort of woman I judged to be in her early 50s. Nevertheless, she had a reputation of being a tough examiner, though not as tough as our instructor, Sharon, is supposed to be. In that regard, we were lucky she couldn't test us. After doing the 113 point inspection of the truck (I missed five points; you can miss as many as 23 and still pass), she carefully described the skills that I was to demonstrate. Using a tip Lumpy had given me the day before, I got 2 on the right turn. I then zeroed the bumper stop and the straight line backing. That meant I could get 7 points on the alley dock and still pass, but I got just 3 points for a total of 5 on the skills, and it was time to go out on the road. I had heard from Lumpy and "Biker"Ed that Sandy was good at putting them at ease during the road test. When you think about it, that makes good personal survival sense. She took me through the streets of Taylor, including a turn off Telegraph that's preceded by a merging lane that requires you to move the beast over three lanes to get to the corner. No problem. In fact, I did really well on the substantive parts of the road test, all the time carrying on a pretty lively conversation with my examiner. That could have been distracting, but she must have known what she was doing because it actually helped me keep focused on my driving without white knuckling the wheel. I was pleased at how at home I felt in the cab. You do sit well above the traffic, but somehow it doesn't seem to me that I'm all that high up as I look through the windshield. Of course, I'll have much more to say about what I see from the cab when I'm really on the road.

The next step is to get a job. I have three applications out: U.S. Xpress, Swift and Garner. The latter is a relatively small company based in Findlay, Ohio. Only 80 trucks. The other two have hundreds. I'm excited. Ready to roll!