Around here as long as you have a clean record the school bus company will hire all comers and pay for the CDL licensing.

In Illinois, don't know about all states I took my Military License in that showed the King Pin Hitch on it and all I had to do was take the written test to get my CDL.

 

Good luck in class and on the road.i've been there.Lil advise,watch out for ALL four wheelers.Especially the ricers.They cut me off,tailgate me,and come to an almost dead stop in front of me.Be very careful around them.

 

Good Luck

 

good luck and keep it safe get out there and see the open road

 

well had my first day today, nearly 12hrs worth of it. Started out in the classroom from 7am to 12:30 and went through about 30 chapters of info and 5 30 questions tests. After that we begun practicing our backing skills on a modified riding lawn mower with a lengthened rear frame and a makeshift 5th wheel plate with home made 15' or so flatbed trailer, after that we watched some vids on backing up and coupling/uncoulpling, and took another 30 quest. test. Then i began drilling the pre trip inspection....HOLY ****, for every item i look at i have to say "securely fastened, not bent cracked or broken" we can NOT say good or good enough or anything. I def. need more work on PTI! After that i went and practiced backing a trailer with a smaller daycab Sterling truck and a 20 some foot flatbed trailer.

IM POOPED!

 

sounds like they are pretty strict down there.... the pretrip inspection i did on my road test involved walking around the truck , and telling the examiner what i WOULD do during a normal pretrip, I just basically pointed at everything i saw and told her i would check to make sure it was good. When i did the uncouple/couple part of the road test , the examiner stayed in the truck , because it was raining a little. I passed with flying colours , and i had only spent 7 hours TOTAL in a truck my entire life....

 

If you can get good at backin that 20ft trailer everything else will be a snap. Them little short pup trailers are a pain in the tail end, after them everything else is a cake walk.

 

yeah its much easier to back a long trailer hands down, where i work most of the trailers a pup trailer (28ft) and they respond so much faster that you only have to turn the wheel a little and they will go

 

I agree with Uncle Bubba and stkdram55 that it will only get easier when you move up to the longer trailers.
Keep your pre trip inspection in the same order every time and you will be less likely to miss something.

 

we have an actual DOT "cheat Sheet" pre trip card we go through and read right down the lines.

You can see some info on the training at this site with some pics of the white day cab pup trucks

Northland CDL