How to get a P endorsement?

I believe that's a class b with p and air brakes endorsement. there is also a school bus endorsement.

http://www.dmv.org/cdl-endorsements.php

 

Hmmmm, the P endorsement. Would this involve taking your piss jug into the DMV for the endorsement ?

I kid skateboard I kid!

 

I drove a school bus in Texas only had a a and p. ..the school bus endorsement is recent. I guess I could drive a greyhound.

 

I have my P endorsement, but not S. When I took my cdl test, I asked for every endorsement test and passed. As you've discovered, the kicker is that you have to road test in the same type of vehicle.

There was no easy way to get flashing lights and pop-out stop signs so the dmv threw out the school bus endorsement, but I kept the passenger endorsement since you are allowed to transport passengers in a 5th wheel trailer provided it has at least 2 means of entry/egress on different sides (an emergency pop-out counts) and a way to communicate with passengers (at least in California).



The truck school had an old bread delivery trailer with a roll-up rear door as well as a curbside swing door. Inside, the instructor nailed down a couple bench seats & handrails and tossed a walkie-talkie into the trailer and put the other walkie-talkie inside the truck. Voila -- a legal passenger vehicle.

Its been 5 years so my memory is a little hazy on the road test specifics, but I think the only real difference was you had to announce arrival/departure times & locations.

 

Here in Cali., you have to take the skills test in a vehicle representative to what you will be driving. If you use a passenger van, you can only transport people in a van. If you're going drive a Greyhound bus, you have to take the test in a pass. vehicle similar (weight, size, air brakes) to a Greyhound bus.

 

Skateboard, you could go the NH DMV, get your permit for the P endorsement and use the football bus to take the skills test, that way you are qualified to drive for them. It is a simple test, I have had my P and S endorsement longer than I had my class A, started working on school buses back in 92, then got my class A in 93 when the bus garage bought a tow truck.

If NH works like PA, once you take the test in a passenger bus you will be qualified to operate any class of passenger bus except school bus, as they require a separate training course and endorsement along with a background clearance. Although PA does not recognize class A buses since they are not legal here (we consider articulated buses as class B since they do not separate like a tractor/trailer).

Being limited to a smaller shuttle bus vs. a large coach like a Greyhound is determined by the class of your cdl, A, B, or C (some states used to have a class D cdl but I think they all have been done away with now). I have not worked as a CDL third party examiner since 1996, but the rules haven't changed that much since then, just some states have been forced to alter their program to meet the Federal guidelines (such as NY doing away with the CDL D for trucks under 18,000 pounds).

 

If you have a class A CDL and take the skills test for a passenger vehicle, you'll have a restriction on your license that the passenger endorsement is only good through whatever class passenger vehicle you took the skills test in. I've got a restriction stating I'm only good through class B in a passenger vehicle because I tested in a 26K+ gvwr bus. If you test in a <26K bus, you'll be restricted to class C passenger vehicles...and if your state is like Illinois with a class D license (<16K) you could even be restricted to that if you tested in a 16 passenger van. You'll still have a class A CDL valid for anything other than a passenger vehicle, and a restriction limiting the size passenger vehicle to whatever size you tested in.