CDL Air Brake Question

so I was wondering does the back of your card state you have an airbrake restriction. I will say a guy I use to work with just had to do the airbrake and drive around. He didnt have to do any of the parking stuff however.

 

Yes. Air brake requires both a written and skills test.

 

Primary focus will be on the air brake portion of the pre-trip inspection, since that is what you are trying to add....however you must still pass the entire pre-trip inspection before they will take you out for a drive. The DMV can probably answer the questions about what all "driving" you will be required to do....

 

There will be a written endorsement test.

You will also need to take the air brake skill test in a truck, but you should not have to repeat the pretrip inspection, backing skills or driving test to get the endorsement. I would confirm with your local DMV. That is actually the easiest part once you know what they are looking for during the test.

At Least in CA, the written, airbrake, pretrip, skills, and driving were all separate tests and you had to pass one to move on to the next, but if you failed one section, you started at the last test you passed, not from the beginning so I would be willing to bet you won't have to repeat the other tests you already passes. Worth doing if you wanna get full use from your CDL.

 

In IL, you have to take all elements again. The pre-trip basically gets limited to differences focused on the airbrake system but they do recheck lights, etc.
All brake tests during pretrip are done(not just explained).

Skills and Road tests are required as well. Measured right turn, pull-forward(measured stop), 150ft straight backing, and alley dock. However, they seemed to have changed the 'GOAL' and the 20ft pullup... Now you can stop anywhere while backing for the alleydock and GOAL... as long as you haven't already crossed 'hit the building' line. The change I noticed was that now you can get within mere feet of the box and get out and look. Previously, you could only do that before entering the initial 'dock area'; once you were inside that area you were committed.

LOL, to me it looks like they made the measured stop boxes a bit smaller over the years

But hey... it Hell-inois, expect anything.