June 13, 2015
First Week
Howdy all, Whistle (Grant) here, end of first week update.
We started out the week driving a truck and finished the same way. However we finished the week driving the truck bobtail, (without trailer) through all 10 gears, upshift and downshift. No biggie, right? Haha this is tough to do with other students and an instructor sitting next to you talking you through every step. Double clutching is NOT natural, especially under pressure to be “perfect”! Since I already have a cdl B licence and can “float” gears smoothly, this whole double clutch thing is kicking my but! Like most things in life, timing is everything. Let’s just say my timing is off. You can only do so many things at one time…steer the truck, watch your mirror, watch for obstructions out the windshield, check you gages, monitor the tachometer, check road speed, “lightly” depress the clutch, move shifter to neutral,release clutch, depress clutch ever so slightly, and move shifter to next gear..LOOK OUT, DON’T HIT THAT CONE!!! haha This is a muscle memory thing, once you get the rythem down it isn’t so bad, downshifting is much easier for me because it is much closer to floating cause I only really have to touch the clutch once. Hooper (Kelly) is doing an amazing job of picking all this up. Since she isn’t having to unlearn my “bad” habits, she is able to do just exactly what she is told. I am proud of her progress! She also strives for perfection in every task and is MUCH harder on herself than the instructors.
We spent the majority of the week backing up the truck at first, and then the truck with the trailer attached. This for some reason is easy for me. I have mastered backing up straight, the offset, and the alley dock. I feel very comfortable with any of these challenges. Kelly is doing as good or better than any of the other students. All the other student keep asking me what I am doing that makes it look so easy…for the life of me I can not explain it. I think it must be like riding a bicycle, all the sudden you just “get it.” She has got it, but just doesn’t trust that she has it, lol
We both feel we made a great choice going with this school, Springs Truck Driving School. The amount of “hands on” time is awesome! The instructors are calm and understanding of the challenges of learning so much so quickly. They do not apply undue pressure to perform, and continue to encourage us to slow down and take our time. When one method of teaching doesn’t connect with a student, they change their approach, of switch up instructors to allow another perspective. We each have nearly 30 hours behind the wheel, and this is just the first week. Our pretrip and incab are nearly perfect due to the daily repetition. We are comfortable with all the instructors, and the trucks. We will be obtaining our permits to drive on public roads on Tuesday, and the the real fun, “pressure” begins. We are both excited for this next step!
I wanted to write this update with a good dose of humor to make it fun to read, but feel there was little humor available due to the stress and serious nature of what we are learning. The majority of the humor was about killing cones during the backing exercises and that ends up being more of an inside joke that only other drivers and students will understand. I hope that next week goes as well as this week, and future updates will be more fun and humorous, Till then carry on and be safe!
Whistle
