Thirty Year’s Experience

For twenty-nine-and-a-half years I’ve had a Class A licence in my back pocket. I earned the licence in June or July 1978, and rewrote and passed the written portion of the test again today, on my 49th birthday. I’m good to go for another five years, and this year, I’ll be getting one of those new-fangled Ontario licences encoded with all kinds of personal information. I can hardly wait.

I got my Class A when I was nineteen, while working for a grocery distribution outfit called Lumsden Bros., based in Burlington, Ont. My Class A training consisted of riding and driving in the fleet’s tractor-trailers on Fridays — after I had accumulated 44-or-so hours on my tandem straight truck, slugging groceries into corner stores all over the province. It was tough work wrangling that heavily loaded two-wheel cart up and down stairs, and dealing with the store owners, who wanted me to pretty well put the product on the shelves for them. I was never in better shape, though.

We had one call in Hamilton on Fridays that every one dreaded — a popular pizza shop. They’d take about one hundred 100-lb sacks of flour, and we had to carry them over our shoulders, down into the basement of the place. You can imagine what we looked like on a sticky, humid southern Ontario summer day after slugging 10,000 lb of flour off the trucks.

I couldn’t wait to get my Class A — you couldn’t get a tractor-trailer anywhere near that place.

For a period of a few months early in 1978, I’d arrive at the yard on Sunday afternoons to shunt trailers for the loaders. It was a tricky setup. Back to the right off the street, through a narrow gate, and then swing left into the dock. I was averaging 30 minutes or more at first, but soon had it down to a single sweeping motion. Practice makes perfect — or pretty good anyway.

My Class A “training” consisted of driving while the regular drivers slept in the passenger seat — all except one, who I hold entirely responsible for everything I’ve done since. A patient chap named Jim Anderson talked me through most of the situations I encountered, providing a running commentary of what would be going through his mind if he were behind the wheel.

“Watch that car; he’s going to come over. Set yourself up for this turn by keeping left, it’s tight. Leave yourself an out, you’re too close, pull to the right and you’ll have the shoulder in case something goes wrong.”

I still talk to myself like that while I drive.

I guess by now guys like Andy Roberts are cringing. He’s a driving school owner that would pooh-pooh my rather informal training. I never had a lesson in my life, and having learned my craft nearly 30 years ago when the roadways were considerably less crowded, I got away with it. Mind you I had two years experience on straight trucks at the time, but I truly don’t think that kind of learning experience would work today. There’s just so much more at stake.

All of which brings me to the test I wrote today. Give or take a few questions, I wrote the same exam in 1978.

Here in the center of the universe, we have been talking about toughening the standards for Class A testing since 1997. I’ve written two Class A tests since then, and aside from a couple of air brake questions, nothing has changed.

The written Class A test consists of 55 questions: 20 on road signs, 20 on air brakes, and 15 on truck driving theory. I did review my Air Brake Handbook, and aced that portion. I aced the road signs portion (duh?), but botched two questions on truck driving theory. (“Ah ha!,” says Roberts. “See, a weakness in Park’s training.”)

I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t like the fact the test was a cakewalk, but I really do wonder what today’s exercise proved to the Ministry. I’ve had the licence for 29 years. I should know about road signs. Even the trucking theory questions were barely relevant. For example, “What should a driver look for when inspecting an air compressor drive belt? The choices were: fraying; cracks; cuts; all of the above.

In all the years I’ve been driving, I’ve never seen a drive belt on an air compressor, but I guessed correctly.

I wonder how long we’ll have to wait until we see questions about what to do if an oh-seven engine goes into regen mode while parked in a field of dry grass?