By the end of the second week last Friday I was feeling pretty good about my progress. The most important milestone was going out on the road last Wednesday with the tractor pulling a 53' trailer. My double clutch shifting had gotten quite good by that point so that I wasn't worrying about it. I did miss some shifts, but I was able to recover well by going back to the previous gear. There was a minimum of grinding generally. The instructor was impressed, especially considering the bad scene on Monday. So I was able to concentrate on the problem of turning the behemoth without hitting anything. Except for a curb coming out of the school lot, I didn't. I'm feeling more and more at home in the driver's seat. Traffic was moderately heavy on the streets we covered in the city of Taylor. Maybe it's because I've had experience on a road racing course, but I wasn't bothered by the traffic passing us. But, as the instructor says (the male instructor): "Hey, this ain't a race you guys...SLOW DOWN!"
The biggest challenge is still the 90 degree docking maneuver, i.e., backing into a narrow space starting with the truck at a 90 degree angle to the "dock." In the "real world" (as opposed to "cone college") we'll be able to pull up several times in such a situation, but for the skill test to get the CDL, you only get one pull-up, though you can stop as you back up to see what corrections you need to make as often as you want to. Everybody in the class is struggling with it.
This week on Wednesday, we have a career day at one of the WCCC campuses when we'll get recruiting pitches from 9 trucking companies.
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