What all is involved in getting your cdl license?

We are about to but a dump truck and dozer, and I need to got mine so I can haul it.

 

You will to take a written test to get a permit and then take a road test. Once you do both they let you pay a fee to add the endorsement to your license.

 

its basicaly the same as getin your drivers lic, like above you need the writen and road test.best thing to do is ride with some one that allready has a cdl and learn the ropes

 

You have to have a certain amount of driving with a CDL license holder on your permit before you can take the driving test, also.

 

Take the test at the dmv, general knowledge test, air brakes. Then find a third party tester bring your truck, Do the pre trip inspection, take the road test. Go to the dmv with the certificate and get your liscense!! The pre trip inspection is the most important thing if you get so many things wrong you are failed right there!! Study study study that pre trip, And make sure you do it every day if something breaks on that truck and by doing the pre trip you could have caught it , it all goes back on the driver so it is very important step alot of drivers don't do, It only takes a few minutes every day. The road test is really a joke because it is taken in a empty truck anybody can make a empty dump truck go down the road, Load that puppy up and it is a different animal!! Always check your front tires with a gauge every day those super singles can look like they have 110 psi in them but they could just have 60 psi, If you lose your front tire in a dumptruck you are just about dead!! Do not get the steerable air axle, the straight ones will make the truck handle better going down the road, you just have to lift it on tight turns, the steerables will wander a bit and make for more steering corrections which will make you more tired at the end of a 10-12 hour day, plus they have alot more parts to go bad!! Get a Mack with the ami370 and t310 trans and 46 rears. The multi speed reverse is nice when you need to back up in a hurry!! It is easier just to speed shift that mack tranny most guys don't like it they say it is hard to shift, Just don't try to be nice to it just ****** that lever into gear like you mean it if you baby it it will grind!!

 

I don't know about your state, but in CA you were required to have the trailer with you as well for the skills/road test. They did the airbrake test first and if you failed that you were done, you didn't even get to the pre-trip/skills/driving part. I found it was helpful to observe other people taking the skills test at the DMV site, then set up cones in an empty lot in the DMV pattern (it should be in the driver's handbook) and practice. It's just like your regular driver's test, it needs to be done by the book, not the way you 'usually' drive. We often develop driving habits we're not aware of, and it may hurt you on the test. The good news is, once you pass that test you never have to do it again!

 

I didn't get tested on the airbrake portion till I was was done with the external pre-trip and was in the cab completing the pre-trip. And blue beast is right, study that book and pay particular attention to the pre-trip. When I took the test they didn't actually have me perform the pre-trip, just explain in great detail how I would do the pre-trip and what I would be looking for. You'd better have good verbalization skills to make the inspector happy...that's where I blew it my first try...(that, and it was snowing and the gal who was testing me had already said she didn't want to do a test in that stuff and was looking for an excuse to fail me...!)

 

My woman just got her cdl For a major theme park in florida(yep) They are very strict on their pretrip during testing there they won't even let you drive until you nail the pretrip, If it takes 2 days or 2 weeks they drill it into the drivers heads!! It is a good deal she got if you live in central florida and need your liscense the theme parks will put you through school and not make you sign anything guaranteeing you will work for so and so time before quitting, alot of people sign up get the license and quit!! Seems kind of like a bunk deal for them but they do it all the time. It is easy to not do your pre trip once you are driving but take the time if it is dark when you start out and you drive the same truck everyday do the inspection when you park it and have daylight, You'll never see a cracked drum with a flashlight, when it's 30 degrees in the morning!!
Do a quick one in the morning though kick the tires(keep your foot planted after you kick you'll feel a number of reverberations on a properly inflated tire) always put a gauge on the front tires on a single unit vehicle, check the oil, look for leaks underneath and check all your lights especially backup lights/beeper if someone gets run over and the lights aren't working guess what!! I can go on and on I was lead truck at the last company I worked at!!

 

I got my CDL back in 1968 driving a Chev 5 ton with 4 lifts of 16' 2x6's loaded on it.

We couldn't make the delivery before my testing appointment so I had to drive it loaded.

The tester said he was quite impressed as this was the first time driving a lumber truck ....all the Concrete Mixer Trucks were busy that day.


If you did anything show you are conscientious about safety.

 

Man, I wish there were more guys like bluebeast driving. All the time around here I see dump trucks with missing lights, lights covered in mud or garbage that you can barely see, if they even work. It's pathetic. No one takes pride in their vehicles anymore. Good luck 79-400! Pay absolute attention to everything you do and even come up with a routine or certain order that you are comfortable with for the inspections and won't forget if you're nervous at the test

 

You ain't kidding I am thinking of becoming a Dot officer, Some of the crap I see at the pits. No mud flaps, no lights working, only one turn signal, the wrong brake chambers on the rear end with the parking line capped off and blatantly hanging there!! Not to mention some companies I have worked for and left in a few days, You may want to save money but I am not killing someone to save $1500.00 dollars sure it sounds like a lot of money, but in reality if you kill someone because the brakes wouldn't stop the truck, How much does that cost??? Like that episode of Dirty jobs I know you saw it, When the truck starts rolling down the hill, I would have took that truck to the owners house (on the back of the wrecker of course) and rolled it through his house, What a freaking j@ck@ss He is lucky there wasn't a cross street with a school bus coming full bore like they do!! Ohhh God you got me started, Watch I guarantee as soon as you make your first two weeks driving if you have kids that ride the school bus you will be taking them off it quick and your wife will be taking them to school, Any driver here will tell you a good majority of school bus drivers take unneeded risks with trucks, pulling out across their path, slamming on the brakes because they forgot a bus stop (always check what is behind you and make sure they can stop as FAST as you can) Backing into a blind curve. My bosses kids were the last stop on the route, every morning with a bus full of kids they would pull into his driveway to turn around(3 point turn!!), well the bad thing is it was in a blind corner that had a 25 mph limit, But that didn't stop the sod trucks from routinely hitting 50 around it. No matter how many times he complained they wouldn't require the driver to stop in the road and then go down a half mile where there was a perfect safe paved driveway to turn around in, So backing into a blind turn is the better thing to do than burn an extra mile of diesel twice a day!!

 

Here in Kansas, you have to take the written tests, pre trip insp., skills tests, and if you can pass all of that, then you take the driving test. 79-400-Power I'm assuming you were going for a class A CDL, even though you did not say. I got a class B CDL in 2000 when I worked for a CO-OP and up graded to a class A last year. As the other posters have said, the pre trip is a very important part of tests, so study.

 

I have one more thing to add. Make sure that everything on your truck will pass the pre trip inspection before you go to the testing center. Like others are saying the pre trip inspection is a very important part of the skills test.