Trucking…

Just finished my second week of truck driving school.

The first week was all classroom stuff. This week we got to drive the big mutha. Tuesday and Wednesday we bobtailed back and forth on a country road practicing shifting gears. (“Bobtailing” is driving the tractor without a trailer.)

Today we hitched up the trailer and actually did some in-town driving in traffic.

Shifting a big rig is different from the shifting I learned when I first drove a car. For one, you double clutch. Clutch, shift to neutral/clutch, shift into a higher gear.

It’s not symmetrical shifting low and high, and shifting down is harder than shifting up. To shift down you: clutch, shift to neutral – rev up the engine to 400 rpms higher than when you went into neutral – clutch, shift down.

And always remember, never depress the clutch all the way to the bottom unless you are shifting into your starting gear from a dead stop. Never shift gears on railroad tracks (loss of license for various periods if you’re caught doing that,) on a turn, in a curve, or when changing lanes – unless you are changing into a turn lane.

Remember all this while keeping an eye on your gauges, mirrors (all four of them, plane and convex,) and roadway, and never forgetting you are controlling a huge, powerful machine that is potentially lethal to anything around it.

Turning corners is scary, and again not quite a symmetrical procedure left and right.

When I started this course I thought, “Is this going to take six weeks?”

Now I’m thinking, “Is six weeks enough?”

But it’s a rush. I find I really want to make controlling this powerful machine second nature, an extension of my nervous system. And obviously town driving is the un-fun part. The best has got to be the open road, and in the north central states there’s a lot of open road.

Each thing you learn means you’ve got another challenge ahead. I’d almost forgotten the feeling physical accomplishment that kind of progression gives. I’m looking forward to my CDL test with that anticipation-sweat nervousness I haven’t had since my first black belt test many years ago.

Next week, backing.

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