As I’ve mentioned before, I drove buses in a past life (read: two months ago). That meant that in Massachusetts, I had a Commercial Driver’s License. The bus company that I had worked for over the course of the past four years graciously trained their drivers and paid them, but in the Real World™, obtaining a CDL can be super expensive. Most driving school websites don’t list their prices, but this one has a quote of $225 for a 2-hour private lesson. Considering you need ~50 hours of instruction and driving experience to take the test (which is another $300 on that site), that puts the cost of a CDL at over $5,000. But why am I talking about the price of a CDL? Well initially, I was worried that I’d need one to drive my box truck legally, then after a bit of research in the California CDL Handbook, I found that:

You may drive a 2-axle vehicle with a GVWR of 26,000 lbs. or less with a basic class C license.

-California CDL Handbook, 2014-2015

I’m not that great at estimation, but I’m willing to bet the box truck weighs less than 13 tons, and I think it’s a 2-axle vehicle. And this all makes sense, because it’s just a decommissioned Budget truck (you can still see the faded lettering on the front). But anyway, after I realized that I didn’t need to keep my CDL, I found out that the conversion process was as simple as taking a few written knowledge tests about large vehicles, air brakes, and how to drive with tons of passengers. This was pretty cool, because like I said before, CDLs are expensive, and it can’t hurt to have one. That way, if software engineering doesn’t pan out for me, I can still be a truck/bus driver. How glamorous.

So I glazed over the CDL Handbook for a few days and went and took the test. It’s a bunch of common sense questions, and it can’t possibly be that hard. Right? Nah, not right. I hadn’t taken the test in nearly four years, and I didn’t take the preparation seriously. So in my infinite wisdom, I managed to fail not one, not two, but all three tests. So here I am, sitting in a cafe, reading the CDL Handbook cover to cover. Okay, maybe not cover to cover, but definitely at least all of the relevant chapters.

Aside from the aforementioned cost, having a CDL also makes owning a huge box truck less suspicious. To people who aren’t quite so knowledgeable about what you can and can’t drive with a regular license, it doesn’t seem so outlandish to say that I do some freelance furniture moving, and I need the Commercial Driver’s License to operate my freelance side business legitimately. Because otherwise, why wouldn’t I just buy a Prius like a normal Californian (or a Tesla, like a normal Californian software engineer).

That’s still a pretty poor reason to go through all this trouble. I don’t actually have a legitimate reason, I just enjoy reserving the right to drive large, hulking vehicles. And come tomorrow morning at 8:15 AM, we’ll find out if that’s a right that I deserve to reserve.