Originally Posted by vipermanden
I live one mile inside of California, and usually travel thru Nevada on my way to all of our trips, so I did not bother getting the California non-commercial class A license, because it was impassable in my setup of rig and 5ver. I passed the written and medical at the DMV, and then had to go to a Truck school to take my physical driving exam, and I passed the inspection and driving skills, until we got to the last skill, and that was the "Alley Dock" test. It was two lines 13 feet apart, and 38 feet deep, with two lines at the back, that the rear of your 5th wheel had to end up between. The problem was that no portion of your 5ver can cross the imaginary wall that extends up from the lines at any time, or he signals fail, and you have 4 attempts at passing this. Problem is we have 14 feet behind our rear wheels, and we are 58 total feet long, and they have lines you can not pass over to get prepped to back in the spot, so you have to jack it too much, and then there is no room to go far enough to straighten it out, so you are screwed. You have to show up to the driving test with a certified Class A driver driving your rig, or they will fail you before you even take the test, because you are driving like you have a permit before you get your real license. Anyway, after i failed 4 times trying to back my rig in this tight spot, the instructor walked away, and my Class A truck driver, said give me your keys, and i will do it. He tried 2 times and failed, and on the third attempt, they came screaming out of the office like we were committing a felony or something like that, and told us we had to leave. So the test was designed many years ago, when people had smaller trailers. Plus for truckers, their back wheels are at the very back of their trailers, so it is much easier to get it into position. Some people say you should borrow someone else's shorter trailer to take the test, but then if they are smart, they know your combined GVWR is not over the 26k pounds, and will know something is up, since you are supposed to test in the RV you are going to use. Good luck, I choose to drive like a criminal, because most people don't even know they have to have this license, including the highway patrol officers!
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