Quote Originally Posted by JohnTRourke View Post
Wrong
there is no separate endorsement for air brakes on a CDL
there is a removal of a restriction. You are either restricted from not driving air brake vehicles or you are not. (check your license, if you have air brakes it says "air brakes, restricted, no").
Yeah, it's semantics, but so is most of the CDL tests

BTW, when you take the written tests (for the permit), take all the other endorsements with it. (tankers, doubles/triples, etc), it's just a written test, and then you are golden and you won't have to wait in the endless line again.
Yep, that is where I messed up in 2005. I should have took the wiggle wagon(doubles/triples endorsement) and tanker when I did the tests. As I remember, there was the general vehicle test(class B basically), air brake, combination vehicle(class A), and hazmat tests. Got my permit, went thru SNI and did all the training hoopla. Showed up and did my driving test, which constitutes performing a pretrip the way the state wants to see you do it(Oklahoma was a joke), your air brake pump down check, then drive thru town and highway do demonstrate skills. At least for the class A, there is a backing up skill test as well. When I did it all, I found out how different each state is, and I don't know where kolorado ranks in difficulty. Oklahoma you did a 90* back into a dock. Texas did that, a blindside 90*, parallel parking, and doing a wiggle worm backup around cones. Cajun land's test was a 200+ point pretrip inspection, then a pretty absurd driving test as well. Difference between class A and B on tests won't be a lot really. You'll need to know the same stuff for airbrakes, so you're looking at one extra written test, and the driving test. No sense in shooting yourself in the foot with only a B.

Now hazmat, since 9/11, has gotten stupid. Fingerprint and background check to get it, and maintain it. When I renewed my cdl in Oklahoma, I wasn't driving anymore, so I let the hazmat go. It was $90 or so for the paperwork to be done, every so many years. If I need it down the road, I'll just go take the silly test and do it again. The rest of my endorsements I keep current. Also found out, some states at least are putting restrictions on CDLs if you take the driving test in an automatic, meaning you aren't allowed to drive a manual tranny big truck.