CDL.....F endorsment.........

Being 18 now, i can legally have my CDL in Michigan.......Im thinking im gonna try for my CDL instead of the F endorsment, that way I dont have to stay with 150 miles of home base and I can drive any kind of big truck, not just farm trucks.

Course the F endorsment is really easy to get and only costs 5 bucks.......hell I might just get both lol.

Anyways, I think thiers a few people on here licensed to drive the big rigs. How difficult are the tests and whatnot, and is their anything on them that might catch me off guard that I should know about?

Back in the day (mid 80s) when I did my truck driving test Pretrips and post trips were VERY important then.
They weren't too concerned about the sequence that you got it done. They just wanted to make sure you knew what you were looking for and that you covered everything before driving the rig. And you had to do it WITH CONFIDENCE like you knew what you were doing, not like a shy 16 yr old who is afraid to get it wrong.

I've herd of people here, failing after getting the test done correctly, road test done good but failed cause the tester felt
that the person didn't posses the confidence to operate such a big piece of equipment and keep the rest of the general public safe

parrellel parking is a MUST.. lmao..

parallell parking is easy

Well im going to tryn take the written tests for the CDL sometime this week. Wish me luck fellas. I have an F endorsment now, so i wont have to take the General Knowledge and Combination vehicles tests again.

GOOD LUCK John, but I know you won't need it.

lol good call man, passed on the first try. Got my doubles/triples endorsement right away too

WAY TO GO BUDDY !!!
YOU DA MAN.





NOW WHAT???? ANY NEW JOB PROSPECTS???

lol well I still gotta pass my skills test to get my full license, but yea I have my eye on a couple jobs. Hell, sometime down the road here in the next couple years I wouldnt mind getting my own rig and a set of dumps.....

Good luck bud!

Some states have a random drawing for testers where they only have to do half a pre trip. I was one of the lucky ones in MT that got the half and I'm glad of it. It was the only thing I was worried about because I had to teach myself the stuff since my boss and co-worker are extremely lazy about the pre-trips on our propane trucks since they are in the shop once a month getting inspected. I had to take the test in a 26 foot flatbed equipment hauler (I only have my class B so I only needed a straight truck), and at $80 an hour for renting it, I wasn't about to fail especially since my boss was paying for it.

The one thing that the drivers license testing lady told me was I didn't look at my mirrors enough at intersections. I wasn't aware that you needed to look at them before you move, in the middle of the intersection, and after you get through. Make sure you do that! I barely passed because I missed just under half of those, lol.

I have only driven about 4 times since I got my license (the big trucks anyway). I think it's just because we are kinda slow, and I also have to study about 500 pages of material on Propane, lol. As you can see, I am procrastinating on that (I'm posting on here aren't I?).

I wish you the best of luck, man! I gotta say that even though I've only had about 5 jobs, this one has been my favorite. It pays about the same as my dad used to pay me in high school, and after a few months I'll get some benefits which will pretty much bump it up to above what I was making in construction. Can't wait!

good luck drivin. im sure ya got it. i envy ya haha.