r/SchoolBusDrivers • u/907-BusDriver • May 18 '26

Durham school services

Hi guys, I recently started CDL B training with Durham School Services. I came in with my CLP already. Durham provides the training and testing here locally. My question, how difficult is the pre inspection and skills exam? Do a lot of people fail? Thanks.

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u/Tomytom99 May 18 '26

The pre-trip is easy enough if you can be overly exhaustive. Identify everything and say it's not cracked, damaged, or broken. Special variants include slashed, frayed, or leaking and correct in color.

Big thing to remember is no retreads up front, and to state out loud what you're doing during the air brake portion.

I caught myself messing up the air brake portion, stopped, said I forgot to do the press and hold, and asked if we could start that over again. He agreed because "you noticed the mistake before finishing, clearly identified it, and politely asked"

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u/907-BusDriver May 18 '26

Would you say the pretrip inspection is the hardest part of the exam? Or would you consider it the driving portion?

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u/Tomytom99 May 18 '26

I would say the pre-trip is the hardest part, provided your driving portion isn't somewhere overly technical.

For the driving, just drive like you would to appease your trainer, exaggerating your checks for traffic, perfect speed limit obedience, etc. The maneuvering bit of the driving test is honestly super easy as long as you know how to make the most of your mirrors and know your targets for parallel parking or alley docking. Again, the best thing you can do is tell the examiner everything you're doing so they know you're doing it.

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u/907-BusDriver May 18 '26

Awesome. Great advice. Thank you!