Taking A Ride In The Country

Today was kind of a slow day but a good one for me, not so good for a others though. In the morning I practiced my alley dock and straight line backing in preparation for my CDL test which I am told is going to be tomorrow. EEK! I am a bit nervous already, but I feel ready for it. The only real worry in my mind is my backing test.

In the afternoon I had a road evaluation that went very good. Took a long dive in the country on some very bumpy and narrow 2 lane roads. But I did everything just like I was supposed to and only ground 1 gear. I just hope I do as well tomorrow on my CDL test.

4 other students in my class took their CDL tests. John and Uhe (not sure how to spell his name but it is Pronounced "U"), Joe and "little" Dave all tested today. Only John and Uhe passed. Joe messed up on is brake test and has to retake that part tomorrow morning but sadly "little" Dave failed, bad. Dave made a bad left hand turn and hit a stop light. He didn't take it out but did cause some minor damage to it. It was a simple mistake, one that any one of us could make. He got into an intersection and the light changed on him and he tried to hurry through, but forgot about that 48 feet of trailer behind him. Thankfully no one got hurt, other than Dave's pride, and the damage was repaired even before the police arrived to fill out the incident report.

If you have never driven a semi truck with a 48 foot trailer you might be tempted to say something like "Man that was stupid, how could you not see that?" But let me tell you, it is a very easy thing to do especially considering the total disregard the 4 wheel traffic has for semi's. We have to CONSTANTLY watch for a car or pickup truck cutting in front of us, passing on the right, running a red light so they don't have to be behind us, etc, etc. The general motoring public really has no clue just how many times they come soooo very close to getting either into a major accident or killed because of their lack of patience, common sense, and just poor judgment. It requires 90% of our attention just to watch out for idiot 4 wheelers that we only have 10% left to concentrate on our own driving. Pretty sad if you ask me. It shouldn't be that way, but it is.

Well it looks like tomorrow is my big day. Cross your fingers and say a prayer for me.